There's a fascinating story to be told about a Dutchman who recently passed away named Nevil Schoenmakers whose exploits I photograph in some of the most dangerous areas of the Middle East during the early 1980s. He single-handedly made high quality marijuana seeds available to more people worldwide - America in particular - more than all others put together; he was the originator of what has become a multi-million dollar Dutch marijuana seed industry. He scoured the planet in pursuit of exotic and highest quality strains of marijuana, including varieties suited for climates as varied as the tropics (Panama Red) to the North Slope (Alaskan Thunderfuck). He continued to breed and cross-breed until he developed a wide choice of varieties, one of which was ideally suited to provide excellent results under almost any conditions. His rise and fall is a fascinating tale of brilliance, ego, greed, selfishness. jail escape across international boundaries and dirty dealings by the DEA.

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I first met Nevil around 1982. I was a photographer in Hollywood for various motion picture studios, but I was bored, I missed the adrenaline rush of the two tours I spent in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine Corps Combat photographer. I was sitting around on the set of the TV show Dallas reading a copy of High Times that someone had left behind when a small three-line classified ad set light bulbs off in my brain. A guy in Holland was selling Marijuana seeds through the mail and guaranteeing delivery. I knew this guy was on to something big. For several years, a few of my Marine Corps buddies and myself realized marijuana was a Godsend in helping us with our difficulties putting the war behind us. The meds and pills the VA was giving us in copious amounts had horrible side effects and brought out the worst anger in a guy or turned him into a Zombie. I started growing pot for my buddies and myself and had become quite proficient, but I had begun to lament the lack of good seeds from suitable strains. Like most other growers, I was using whatever I could find, which in those days was mostly from the commercial pot grown in Columbia that was readily available on the street. It contained lots of seeds, which most other growers were also using for their own gardens, but which was not well suited for growing in North America latitudes. Remembering the excellent pot available in Thailand on my R&R there while serving in Vietnam, I had thought of returning on a seed-gathering mission. I wrote this guy in Holland about my plans to see if he might be interested in teaming up. I wasn't sure if I'd even get a reply but less than a week later, I got a phone call from him. He said that he really wanted to put together a marijuana seed catalog with photos but was not any good with a camera. He had quite a trip planned to Katmandu in Napal but also some very dangerous places in the tribal areas at the foot of the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. Would I be up to the challenge? If so, he had already scheduled an itinerary to coincide with the most opportune time for abundant fresh seeds. I would have to be in Holland in four days if I wanted to come along.

 

Four days later, I was at the airport in Amsterdam looking for a guy carrying a High Times magazine. I quickly spotted him: a tall, non-descript guy in his early thirties wearing old jeans, shabby shoes and a shirt which was remarkable only because it was completely lacking any sense of fashion. I was not terribly impressed at first but I soon realized that, rather than just another brain-dead stoner, he was quite an astute businessman whose interest, in addition to growing marijuana, included bird breeding. Realizing that hemp seed was food staple of birds worldwide and that only 3 of the 23 varieties of hemp seed were cannabis, he set up a marijuana seed business masquerading as a birdseed importing business. He even had the blessings of the Dutch government, which provided him with an official letter of introduction authorizing him to import hemp seeds of all varieties including cannabis.

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After two days in Amsterdam of drinking, smoking and whoring, we were on our way to Pakistan, but when he left his house with almost no money, I became a little worried. Our agreement was that he would cover all expenses. It was of little reassurance when he said that he would stop by his Post Office box and collect the money from the mail that week. When we picked up his weekly mail and started opening envelopes and counting the money, I couldn't believe my eyes. Envelope after envelope with two, three, four hundred dollars cash wrapped in carbon paper, as per his instructions to get past the X-ray. Within twenty minutes, we had collected thousands of dollars. The next day, we were in Karachi waiting for a plane to take us to Peshawar, the most northern city in Pakistan and situated less than thirty kilometers from the border with Afghanistan.

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The war by the Soviet Union against Afghanistan was in full swing and Peshawar was a hotbed of clandestine activity. Nobody came to Peshawar on holiday. Everyone eyed each other suspiciously. After considerable sleuthing, we found a "merc" (mercenary) who was willing to sneak us past the military roadblock and into the "tribal areas" as they were referred to at the foot of the Kyber Pass. Foreigners were forbidden to go there because the territories, although technically in Pakistan, were populated by tribes of hill people dating back to the days of Genghis Khan. They ruthlessly resisted any outside government control over their ancient and barbaric tribal laws. They were basically ungovernable and the source of much illegal activity including hashish production, opium and heroin smuggling, bomb and weapons making, murder and kidnapping. Foreign intruders stood a good chance of being dealt with harshly.

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Wrapped in Pakistani jackets and headgear, we slouched down in the back seat of an old Datsun and headed for a hashish factory from which we were assured we would find the best quality marijuana seeds. It was a dusty 30-minute ride that took us past open air gun shops with customers test firing weapons into the air, animal carcasses hanging from tents, knives and swards brandished about everywhere, men with missing arms and legs getting around as best they could and glassy-eyed heroin addicts peering into our car. The hash factory was little more than a mud hut located next to other huts in a complex containing a number of other factories, all producing material for the war effort: uniforms, many types of bombs, rifles, knives, swords and many other armaments as well as drugs that could be sold for hard currency. We stayed very close to our "merc" as a sea of questioning eyes soon gathered around and looked upon us with suspicion and malice. Few had ever seen Europeans in that area and for all they knew, as our "merc" was giving Nevil a tour of the surrounding factories and looking for a smuggler, I ducted into a cove that was shaded from the intense sun to put a fresh roll of film in my camera. When I emerged, they were nowhere to be found. I went around the corner and, hearing voices from a nearby doorway, entered thinking it must be them. Instead, I was confronted by a group of very angry and vicious men in tribal headdress with knives and swords dangling from their waist bands. The room was full of bombs and weapons and they began viciously roughing me up, shouting at me in a language I didn't understand and jabbing me in the chest so hard I could hardly breathe. Two of the shouting men placed their hands on their knives and looked like they were getting ready to cut me into pieces. Fortunately, about the time I had very serious fears for my life, our "merc" came running in and called them off. Badly shaken, I followed him to another room where Nevil and our "merc" resumed negotiations with a smuggler willing to go across the border into Afghanistan and bring back a special variety of marijuana seeds. After a short back and forth, a deal was made and we were only too happy to leave as soon as possible. That old beat-up Datsun never looked better. Whereas the trip up from our hotel was exciting with a hint of danger, the return was absolutely frightening. After getting a first-hand taste of what these people were capable of, every group of men along the road that eyed us suspiciously or looked threatening set my heart racing. I didn't try to sneak a few photos as I had on the way up - much to Nevil's consternation - but disguised myself as much as possible in a Pakistani jacket and dirty Afghan blanket.

 

Safely returning to our hotel that night did not provide the tranquility we so eagerly sought. As desperate as we were for a drink, alcoholic beverages were difficult to obtain and of inferior quality. Barely audible knocks at the door occurred frequently, usually someone offering us heroin or weapons for sale. Whispers continued outside the bathroom window throughout the night asking us what we were looking for and assuring us they could get it for us. On the second night, we succumbed to an offer to buy heroin. It was too tempting. For my inexpensive Radio Shack laptop computer, a man traded us 1/4 kilo. We spent the next day trying to figure out how to get to Holland where it would have been worth a small fortune. After a couple of days, about the same time we came to our senses and realized we didn't want that on our conscious and how ridiculously risky the notion was, the man we got it from came back with my laptop and wanted to trade it back; none of his contacts knew how to use a computer. Unfortunately, the night before, ignoring Nevil's strenuous insistence that not do it, I decided on a little taste test. I snorted what I thought was a small amount and immediately went into a very blissful state. Not long after, I O.D.'d. The hotel doctor was called and gave me an injection but seeing my condition was only getting worse, Nevil sent him away and took over. Fortunately, as I later learned, Nevil had briefly been a caretaker for a relative who was a heroin addict and knew exactly what to do: he started administering artificial respiration. The next thing I knew it was hours later and Nevil was holding me under a cold shower slapping and shaking me in a desperate attempt to wake me up. I finally regained consciousness and had a good night's sleep. In the morning I was surprised by how well I felt until I went to hop in the shower: there were awful looking markings all over my chest. For a moment I thought I had contracted some horrible skin disease until I realized they were bruises from the severe roughing up I had experienced the previous afternoon. Shortly after, when I went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast, the staff looked at me as if they had witnessed the second coming. They all expressed amazement that I survived and looked so fit. The good doctor came by later in the morning for his fee, which was quite high by local standards. But we latter learned he stood to gain substantially more had I died. It seems there was quite a lucrative practice for doctors willing to falsify death certificates of foreigners who had overdosed on heroin thus saving their traveling companions a great deal of problems with Pakistani authorities. Our fears were confirmed when we returned to our room and searched the trash basket to see what he had injected me with; it was muscle relaxant: the worst possible treatment for an overdose.

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Finally, in the late afternoon on our fifth day, the smuggler Nevil had hired to go into Afghanistan returned with the seeds. The were highly prized variety called Mazar-I-Sharif. With a 1/4 Kilo of seeds in hand, we were only too anxious to leave at the earliest opportunity. The faint knockings at the door and whispers at the window had become more numerous and suspicious characters seemed to appear out of nowhere every time we left our room. That night, shortly after I lit the gas heater, I noticed the flame was burning erratically. Fortunately, I went to inspect and discovered the exhaust vent had been completely detached and placed carefully on the floor. Had we gone to sleep with the heater in that condition, we surely would have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. This was not a careless accident by the maid. Someone was trying to do us in. We stood all-night vigils by the door and the bathroom window, our weapons being heavy wooden posts we disassembled from our bed frames.

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The following morning, we caught a cab to the airport. We thought our troubles would soon be over, but they came ever so close to just beginning. Everything seemed to be normal until we approached the cab drop off zone. Our cabbie suddenly became very nervous, pulled out a bottle of whisky (which is strictly illegal for Muslims in Pakistan) from the glove box and hid it in a coat on the passenger's seat. When we got out, two very helpful porters immediately took our bags and started towards the reception area. When I turned around to give our driver a top, he had already gotten in his car and sped off. I should have realized something was very wrong at that point. We followed the porters inside the terminal when, suddenly, they flashed badges and quickly hustled us down a side walkway. They were all business. They ordered us to open our suitcases and then sit against the wall. They proceeded to go through everything. I became very worried right away. I had a nice size piece of hash hidden in a dirty sock. I figured it would escape ordinary inspection, but these guys were going through everything. As the got closer to the dirty soak, I figured my fate was sealed. My mind was reeling with the most unpleasant scenarios. Should I try and pretend it must have been someone else's, or should I try to bribe them? He finally got to the sock and proceeded to squeeze it all the way down to the toe where the hash was. I could fear the cellophane it was wrapped in crackle, and I felt certain my fate was doomed. Frightening stories I had a suicide pill even crossed my mind. At the height of my despair, I realized the inspector had been momentarily distracted by who - knows - what but even as the cellophane crackled, nothing registered with him. He continued on, checking the remainder of my belongings. Nevil and I furtively glanced at each other and could hardly contain our sense of relief.

 

We flew to a couple of other cities, one of which was a desolate place far from anywhere named Quetta. The only road from Quetta was littered with Afghani refugee camp on both sides. Even with the high walls that surrounded them, they exuded a sense of hopelessness that was impossible to ignore as we drove by. Although we didn't encounter any life-threatening situations, again we were the object of an unusual amount of attention and suspicion. We had no luck locating any other varieties of seed and by now our nerves were shot. It was a great relief for us both when we arrived in Karachi in preparation for our return back to Holland. Our existing tickets were on Pakistan International Airways but, since they didn't serve alcoholic beverages, we decided to change our flight to a carrier that did. We found another flight that seemed perfect and were greatly disappointed to find that it was sold out. The following day, we learned how lucky we had been: the flight we had tried to book was hijacked in Dubai, several passengers were injured and an American serviceman was killed. We booked the next available flight with no Middle Eastern stopovers to Amsterdam, even though there was a two-day wait and it was PIA, which meant no alcohol. In the morning, I decided to go for a walk. I was no more than eight blocks from the hotel when a car with three scruffy men pulled up next to me, flashed some kind of badge and asked to see my papers. When I told the man in the front passenger seat my passport was at the hotel, he told me to step next to the car so he could check for weapons. He reached out the window and proceeded to fondle my balls and made some snarky sexual comments then sped off. By now, I'd had it. I returned to our hotel, and we both proceeded to stay roaring drunk, never even leaving our room until our flight.

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When our plane landed in Holland, we both felt like kissing the ground. It was hard to believe that only a day before, liquor was forbidden to all but a few foreigners but was now readily available. Hash, which would have meant certain jail, was now available at many coffee houses. And woman, toward whom my even aiming a camera would have been cause for my death, were now selling a lot more than their photographs. We drank, smoked and whored to excess and prided ourselves on a job well done.

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The following year, I went with Nevil on another journey. This time we went to Hungary and Romania - behind the Iron Curtain in those days - in search of a rare and unknown strain of marijuana in the west: Cannabis Ruderalis. This variety has the unusual characteristic of both flowering and growing at the same time; all other varieties grow to full height first before flowering. We decided to take Nevil's BMW since having a car was a must if we were ever to locate the elusive strain of Cannabis. This meant driving through Germany and Austria. We knew that their drug laws were very strict and those of Hungary and Romania probably worse, so we cleaned out the car like never before. Getting into Hungary was surprisingly easy: they didn't search the car and visas were quickly issued. Finding Cannabis Ruderalis took a little more doing. After spending day driving through the countryside, Nevil spotted a random plant at the edge of the road next to an enormous field of sunflowers that stretched as far as the eyes could see. There was also a big clump of Ruderalis in the corner of the field and, just as Nevil had predicted, the plants were full of seeds. After about an hour of collecting seeds, two men appeared to be farmers confronted us and began to interrogate us in a language neither of us understood. Although our efforts to communicate with them were going nowhere, there didn't seem to be any cause for alarm until they pulled back their jackets and flashed badges. They made it clear that we were to come with them. We both had large bags of seeds, which we took with back to our car, but which caused the "farmers" no concern. They were in separate vehicles, one of which led the way and the other following us ever so close.

 

Just as we feared, we soon found ourselves being escorted into the local police station. While we sat in a small room for well over two hours, we could see plenty of discussion going on in the other rooms among the various authorities. We didn't know how much trouble we were in so we were very careful as to what we said between ourselves in case someone who spoke English was eavesdropping. We put on an air of indignant self-righteousness although underneath it all, the prospect of spending time in their jail loomed ever so large in our minds. Finally, a well-dressed officer who spoke perfect English came in and questioned us. He didn't buy Nevil's birdseed business story and kept probing us in search for more sinister motives. After lengthy interrogation, he decided we posed no threat but warned us that we would be fined heavily. The fine turned out to be twenty-eight dollars for trespassing and another twenty dollars for the damage to the farmer's field. Expecting a much larger sum, we could hardly contain our glee. We were just as happy to pay the fine as they were to receive it. As we left the police station, the officers were as friendly to us as the doorman at our hotel. Even so, our nerves were badly shaken, and we drove straight to our hotel anxious to smoke some of the Ruderalis we had carried back with us. It soon became apparent why there were no laws against possessing Ruderalis: we smoked joint after joint and never did get high. We concluded that one would probably get lung cancer from that stuff before they ever got high. Nevertheless, Nevil was quite pleased with our haul since he felt certain that Ruderalis would be a valuable tool in his efforts to develop new strains of marijuana.

 

The ease with which we entered Hungary was not our experience when we attempted to enter Romania. Authorities there were convinced we were attempting to smuggle something - which of course we were - but they paid no attention to the bags of Ruderalis seeds. Our car was completely stripped: the door panels, seats, dashboard, even the steering column. We spent the entire day at the boarder station; half the day as they stripped the car and interrogated us and the other half repairing the damage from their poor job of replacing the stripped components. We were finally allowed in but our efforts to locate a better strain of Ruderalis proved futile and, be it real or imagined, we felt as if our every move was being monitored. After a few of the most repressive days of my life, we left Romania and headed back to Holland. Although we experienced no difficulties on our return trip, we still breathed a tremendous sigh of relief when we finally crossed the Dutch border - the only country where we felt entirely safe. We indulged in another two-day round of festivities as we congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

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 This was the last photo assignment I did for Nevil. Our next destination was to have been Cape Town, South Africa and search out a particularly fine local strain of marijuana known as Durban Poison, but we had a falling out. What I originally perceived as a modestly profitable and equally noble and humanitarian effort to get good quality marijuana seeds to growers throughout the world was becoming a hugely profitable multifaceted operation. I visualized countless people benefiting from being able to substitute marijuana for their addictive and dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and all their debilitating side effects. I'd experienced it myself and witnessed it in my friends. I thought people being able to grow their own meds could spark a revolution. Nevil saw it more for the profit potential and began running full page color ads in High Times magazine not only promoting his seed business but another operation he called the "Cannabis Castle," a mansion he bought in Holland where Americans could come to learn the latest in marijuana growing techniques. He had large greenhouses full of many of his top varieties and had become one of the key marijuana suppliers to the Dutch coffee houses. Not having the protection of Dutch citizenship, even my small participation as a photographer left me feeling vulnerable to vindictive U.S. legal repercussions. Nevil was also becoming increasingly cheap and self-centered. In spite of the vast sums of money, he was bringing in - by some estimates, well over a million dollars annually - he backed out of our deal in which I was to get a percentage of the catalog sales profits leaving me with hundreds of unsold catalogs. I was told he was also backing out of business deals with other key people who were instrumental in helping him get his business off the ground. Although most of what I learned about him from this point on was from former disgruntled employees, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information, but it doesn't sound out of character. I was told he was being difficult with his overseas mailing staff (seeds were mailed domestically from a few indoor grow shops in the mid-west). Nowhere did his ego lead to his downfall as much as when he started allowing himself to be interviewed by a number of international newsmagazines - U.S. News and World Report among them - where he was quoted as saying marijuana seeds were worth more by weight than gold (which was true) and how he was untouchable by the incompetent fools in the D.E.A. Although it was true that he was safe in Holland, his troubles with U.S. authorities began when they discovered that he bought a large ranch in Australia where he was developing a breed of sheep ideally suited to the harsh conditions there. He scarcely got his operation going when Australian authorities arrested him on American charges of selling contraband through the U.S. mail. Almost certainly it was the D.E.A. that had placed a seed order to be sent to a small southern county with the most draconian drug laws in the country. My information about Nevil from this point on is sketchy. I know that he languished for about nine months in Australian jails waiting for extradition to the U.S. until one day, he was on a working party and escaped. He had friends and relatives in Australia and had set up a number of safe houses where he spent another year in hiding. When he felt his trail had grown cold, he arranged for a Dutch citizen fitting his description to fly to Australia, ostensibly on vacation and turn over his passport to Nevil. With this new passport in hand, Nevil safely returned to Holland and the Dutch "vacationer" in Australia reported his passport stolen.

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Upon his return to Holland, Nevil's troubles were far from over. Dutch tax authorities had learned that he grossly underreported his income, and most of his remaining assets were seized. From what I was told by a former disgruntled employee, he was on the Interpol wanted list for many years and dared not set foot anywhere outside of Holland. Some many years ago on a trip to Amsterdam, I inquired about his whereabouts from a number of coffee house and seed shop owners. Most had never heard of him. The few that did seemed very dismissive or either didn't care or were not aware of the enormous contribution he made to the marijuana movement. Just as with others he did business with, he always made sure he got the best of the deal and backed out of money he owed me but that few thousand dollars pales in comparison to the debt I owe him: he saved my life and that is no exaggeration. Unlike many others he knew, I felt indebted to him and even after we parted company, we remained on friendly terms until I lost touch with him when he went to jail.

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The whole story can never be told without discovering what lengths the DEA went to in bringing Nevil down. They must have been following his every move for a number of years. It didn't take them long to discover his taking up residence in Australia. They undoubtedly sent undercover agents to Holland to investigate his "Cannabis Castle" and it was surely one of their agents that placed a seed order in the most heavy-handed southern county in the U.S; the same charge in Berkley, California would probably have been thrown out of court.

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Nevil could be difficult to be sure, but I'm saddened by his passing. He was a very intelligent and amazing man and it's hard to over emphasize his contribution to the marijuana industry. He was a visionary and was among the first to see the potential for medical use. There will never be another Nevil Schoenmakers and all those who have benefited by his labors should join me and wish him God speed, buddy and friend.

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