The Amazing Story of Neville Schoenmaker

From the slums of Australia to the cannabis palace in the Netherlands: who is Neville Schoonmaker, the boy who read about Mendel's laws of inheritance and became the world king of cannabis?

Nevil Schoenmaker was born in hot Perth in Australia to parents of Dutch origin. Neville was always a smart kid, and from an early age he was interested in Mendel's laws of genetics, which gave him a basic knowledge of hybridization.

Neville Schoonmaker and his mother

But like many smart kids, Neville went through a difficult path. He became addicted to heroin, trafficked in cannabis to finance his addiction and in 1976 when he turned 20 he decided to use his dual citizenship and leave Australia for the Netherlands.

He put the past behind him and went to Amsterdam - the city where his luck changed for the better, and his relationship with cannabis took an interesting turn. In Holland, Neville started growing his cannabis. He used Thai, African, Nepalese and Colombian genetics that were then offered on the Dutch market but did not thrive in the cool European climate and none of them produced impressive results between four walls.

The wild sativas quickly stretch to a height and produce a sparse and delicate inflorescence that can be sensitive to strong light, two characteristics that make it very difficult to grow plants in a small space with powerful bulbs. Neville then remembered Mendel's laws of heredity, and decided he was going to work on these genetics.

Neville's Cannabis Palace

In 1979, Neville moved to an impressive Victorian mansion on the Rhine River near the border with Germany, which he later called the "cannabis palace". He sets up greenhouses on the estate where he started various improvement projects on the genetics he had. After successfully detoxing from heroin, he opened the first cannabis genetics bank in the Netherlands: The Seed Bank.

But the real success will begin later, when Neville meets a man who is on the run from the DEA for a similar practice in cannabis genetics in the United States. A man who took a central part in the development of one of the most famous cannabis strains in the world then and now, and even named himself after him: Sam the Skunkman.

Sam arrived in the Netherlands on the run from the American enforcement authority with kilograms of seeds of his various genetics, the most interesting of which were Skunk #1 and Original Haze. He opened a genetics bank in the Netherlands, and immediately won the Cannabis Cup with his phenomenal #1 Skunk. Neville and Sam connected and Sam agreed to sell him some of his seeds on one condition - Neville could only use them as source strains for new crosses, and not sell the blooms they produced under his name. Neville agreed, but this condition led to a rift in their relationship at a later stage.

Sam's genetics and several other strains that Neville picked up during a visit to the US were the missing component for developing a line of cannabis strains that would work well in the European climate and home growing conditions.

Among his first development projects can be found the Northern Lights strain which was used as a parent strain for most modern indica genetics. In addition to Northern Lights, Neville's first varieties also include the all-time successful Haze cultivars.

The genetics Neville created began to win him awards, and the seed bank he operated from his Victorian mansion became a successful business that shipped cannabis seeds in envelopes around the world. Needless to say, the DEA didn't like it.

American law enforcement could not do anything to Neville in the Netherlands, but when he visited relatives in Australia he was arrested. With the help of legal assistance he received from his friends and family, he was able to be released and arrive to the Netherlands, where the charges against him were dropped.

The dismissal of the charges did not prevent the incident from being a turning point for Neville. The prodigy decided to sell the seed bank and genetics belonging to him to another cannabis pioneer - Sensi Seeds - Sensi Seeds, which has since become the largest Dutch cannabis company ever. Neville continued to advise the company, and took a significant part in the development of the strains like Jack Herer, Silver Haze and Hash Plant.

Towards the end of the nineties, Neville partnered with the Dutch cannabis company Greenhouse Seed Co. There, together with the legendary breeder Shantibaba (Scott Blakely) they developed from his strains one of the award-winning, famous, successful and best-selling cannabis genetics of all time - the Super Silver Haze. In addition to that strain, the duo developed many other classic genetics, among them Neville's Haze.

Neville has been called the king of cannabis since the beginning of his career by the various cannabis magazines. He worked with the best growers of his time and won their respect, reaped many successes and changed the face of the cannabis industry several times.

Neville continued his pursuit of cannabis until his death in 2019. He worked on Ruderalis genetics - pioneering Ruderalis to develop automatic varieties - a broad and special topic that justifies a whole series of posts by itself. He also engaged in activist activity to promote legalization in his homeland - Australia.

At the end of the day, this is a list of the successful genetics that Neville Schoonmaker played a major part in developing in the crazy, brave and passionate life he lived: Jack Herer, Critical Mass, Super Silver Haze, Big Bad Big Bud, Neville's Haze, and of course the Northern Lights family, which is an integral part of the concept of indica these days.

Neville Schoonmaker, 1956 - 2019

Neville Schoonmaker in his adulthood