The Real Story Behind Amsterdam’s Best-Known Cultivar: Amnesia Haze
This article was first published in the Destinations Issue of Fat Nugs Magazine, published in April 2025
When I was asked to write this article for Fat Nugs Magazine, I knew the what and who in one second: Amnesia Haze by Soma.Hazey in Amsterdam
If your last visit to Amsterdam seems a little hazy in your memory, it’s highly possible you tried some of Soma’s Amnesia Haze, the city’s best-known cultivar going back to the early 2000’s The name “Amnesia” reflects the strain’s potency, often described as causing moments of forgetfulness among users, despite its energetic buzz. Upon its release, it quickly became a favorite in Amsterdam’s coffee shops and it’s still well-known for its high THC content, long-lasting effects, and ability to spark creativity and focus. (YES, I’m smoking some right now!) If you Google “Amnesia Haze”, it might tell you it’s a sativa-dominant hybrid, with a complex lineage, bred from a mix of international landrace strains, including: Jamaican Sativa, South Asian Indica, and an Afghani Hawaiian. Well, it turns out that’s only part of the story. To get the whole story I went to the master himself, SOMA, the award-winning founder of Soma Seeds in Amsterdam. The trail that leads to the birth of Amnesia Haze is a wonderful connection of good friends and good karma.Fat Nugs Magazine Interview with the Creator of Amnesia Haze
Captain Hooter: How did you originally make it here to Amsterdam?
Soma: It was Jack.CH: Jack Herer?
Soma: Yeah, Jack was one of my best friends before I ever came here. I met him in 1990. I was living in Gainesville, Florida. I had a court case there for cannabis. One day, I got “The Emperor Wears No Clothes.” I read the whole book a couple of times. Really impressed me. So I decided, man, I got this court case happening in Gainesville. I should put on a hemp rally right in front of the courthouse.CH: There you go. Fight the Power!
Soma: I got the permit, and I called Jack Herer. Didn’t know him yet, personally. I said, “Jack, I want to do a hemp rally in front of the courthouse here. I want to just really show how beneficial cannabis is. Would you come?” He says, “Yeah, if you get my plane ticket.” I had a gold chain, a Thai gold chain, on my neck. My friend owned a pawn shop, a good friend of mine. I went to the pawn shop, took the chain off, and got enough cash to buy Jack a plane ticket. He flew down from Alaska to Gainesville, Florida and I put him up in my house. So me and Jack got really close. He blew my mind. Showing me all the hemp uses… like these pants I’m wearing right now are 100% hemp. I didn’t know any of that stuff before I met him. This shirt is hemp too. I didn’t know you could do stuff like that. He showed me 50,000 useful products could be made from this plant.
Jack showed me how to stand up for it. We put on that Hemp Rally in Gainesville, Florida, in front of the courthouse. There were like, 50 cops there at the first one. It was scary– but a big success. And then next thing I know, Jack invites me to come with him to Amsterdam.
I found out Jack was on his way to receive the “Freedom Fighter Of The Year” Award at the 7th High Times Cannabis Cup, and here I am sitting next to him on the plane. There were like 19 of us, on the plane from New York heading to the Cup. Jack is sitting next to me, Steve Hager, the editor from High Times – it was a great group.
Back in 1994, you could still smoke cigarettes on a plane, so all the seats still had ashtrays. On the way over, It’s like 3.30 in the morning, sitting next to Jack. I remember I had a big roach in my sock. and a pack of matches. I look at Jack and he nods, and I light it up. Everybody’s asleep. So, I lit it, handed it to Jack, and it hits really fast. We’re trying to make it disappear and not get caught. We smoked the whole thing. Yeah, and you see all these cannabis people slowly starting to wake up… sniffing the air. Me and Jack, we’re acting like we’re the most innocent candidates that ever were alive.
Ben Dronkers, from Sensi Seeds, was one of the first people I met here. We go to his place, the Cannabis Castle, with the whole group. It just completely blows my mind! I never saw such freedom mixed with cannabis. Not in my life yet. I walked through that whole place, my jaw dropped. I saw what was possible, right then. This was my path.
CH: How did you actually create Amnesia Haze?
Soma: I was just a beginner. In those days, I knew that you had to literally develop your knowledge from experience. Some successes and many fails. A lot came along for me in that process. Nevil Schoenmakers, he was a good friend of mine too. We used to play chess together and mess with genetics a little bit. He came to my place one time, my first place. I had a big warehouse place, 450 square meters. And I had one of those mailboxes that you could stick something pretty big in through it, you know, because it had a little box on the inside. And so he came over one day, I wasn’t there, before cell phones. He called me on my landline when I got back home and said, go look in your mailbox. So I ran down there and looked, and he stuck the whole fucking mailbox full of clones in Rockwell! A couple of them broke, but most of them were good. Neville’s Hazes. And also another one, Big Skunk.CH: What a great friend!
Soma: Yes! But I had also brought a bunch of seeds with me from America. When I came here in 1994, I was already growing a bunch of different genetics there. You know, hiding it, being very low-key. I had this Big Skunk Korean that a friend of mine had come up with and he shared it with me.
CH: So is that what they’re talking about online about Amnesia Haze? It says it was bred from a mix of international landrace strains, including a Jamaican Sativa, a South Asian Indica, and an Afghani Hawaiian.
Soma: Yes, Afghani Hawaiian was one of my strains. I brought it with me.CH: OK, So the South Asian Indica was actually the Korean. Now then that leaves the Jamaican Sativa… which we now know the Jamaican Sativa was actually Neville’s Haze… Boom, boom, boom.
Soma: I was a beginner with genetics, not totally knowing what I’m doing, but being a great smoker and really knowing what terpenes are and what a good high is, and what flavor, and good drying, you know, all that stuff is. But not really knowing about genetics much yet. I’m growing my Afghani Hawaiian. I’m growing Neville’s Hazes. I’m growing Super Silver Hazes here at the time… I’m growing Big Skunk Korean and I’m growing, what else? Skunk Number One. Along with many different things.CH: So the base was the Neville’s Haze? Did you know you were gonna start with that?
Soma: No, I’m taking this clone, that clone, this clone, taking one that I really like, turning that female into a male with silver sulfate solution. I would take a female, turn it into a male through stress of some kind, and then have that female made into a male, and hit the other females. And then I would get female seeds only. Then I would grow those seeds and see what I got, terp-wise, high-wise, growing successfully, not very hard grow, a combination that worked good and that didn’t stress you out.CH: Was there a point where you knew how big Amnesia Haze was going to be?
Soma: No. It took a good two or three years of trying this mix, that mix, this mix, Afghani-Hawaiian mixed with Super Silver Hazes phenotypes in the same grow room.CH: So there were many renditions of it?
Soma: Yes– that would finish at the same time. We’d dry them out and smoke the first one, smoke the second one, the third one, maybe go through seven of them. And we would get to this one that we named Amnesia Haze. When we got to that one, we’d smoke several of them, not just one. We’d smoke it in the same space where we’d grown it in. But with that one, we forgot what we were doing. Yeah, amnesia.CH: And that’s where Amnesia came from–
Soma: Yes, that’s where the name came from. We would literally, we would get to this one point it’d be like if someone asked you your name, you can’t remember your name right away… like I got amnesia. It was perfect. It was destiny.CH: Who came up with the name?
Soma: Me. It was called all these other Haze names. All the Hazes that went down before that. It was this Haze, Neville’s Haze, Super Silver Haze, that Haze, this Haze. Amnesia was perfect for this one. This was the first Amnesia Haze. It’s 2003. The rest, they say, is history! Amnesia Haze won its VERY FIRST competition, winning 1st Place at the High Time Cannabis Cup in 2004. And yes, I did smoke this bud with him… I think?Subscribe to Fat Nugs Magazine!
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