I’ve always read, and been told, that Lamb’s Breath and Lamb’s Bread are synonyms, different names for the same strain of cannabis, a landrace sativa strain of ganja, long grown in Jamaica.
I recently read a book, The Smuggler’s Ghost by Steve Lamb, which has changed my way of thinking. The book’s subtitle, “when marijuana turned a Florida teen into a millionaire fugitive,” sums up the subject of the book.
Steve Lamb was indeed a teenage weed smuggler and dealer from St. Pete’s Beach, Florida, who became a millionaire, and a fugitive. According to his book, he was the first smuggler to bring boatloads of ganja from Jamaica. The weed he first brought to the U.S. was what he found growing in Jamaica, which was Lamb’s Breath sativa.
The farmers who grew the ganja did not remove male plants until after the crop had flowered. Therefore, the first loads of ganja that Steve Lamb imported were full of seeds. Lamb went to Jamaica and met with farmers, teaching them to identify and remove male plants before the plants fully flowered and seeds were formed in the female flowers.
According to his book, Lamb also brought indica seeds to Jamaica, and taught the farmers to cross pollinate their Lamb’s Breath sativa plants with indica plants, from the seeds that Lamb provided.
According to Lamb, “The farmers I worked with began calling our new strain Lamb’s Bread, because some of the buds were as large as loaves of bread.”
As I have grown plants from the original Lamb’s Breath seeds that I purchased from Jamaican growers, I have noticed that most of the plants display strong sativa traits, including narrow leaves, red stems, long spacing between nodes, high vigor, disease resistance, sweet, sticky floral scents, and high levels of cannabinoids and terpenes. When ingested, classic energizing effects with feelings of creativity and euphoria, are typically experienced.
Some plants, however, display some indica traits, including shorter stature, wider leaves, frosty buds, and dank, skunky scents. The effects are still energizing and euphoric, with no “couch lock” or sedative effects. These plants also test high in cannabinoids and terpenes.
In my breeding program, as I select seed lines to move forward, I choose plants that are vigorous and productive, with high levels of cannabinoids and terpenes, and which display the sativa traits discussed above.
When Bob Marley said that Lamb’s Breath was his favorite ganja strain, was he talking about Lamb’s Breath, or Lamb’s Bread? Was he talking about the original Lamb’s Breath sativa, or the Lamb’s Bread hybrid? Does it really matter? Those are questions for another day…