World Breeders, a cannabis seed company with who is making good on its promise to export seeds worldwide, has three founders, and it’s taken them all to shape the trajectory they have now—from working in cannabis on the “underground side,” as co-director Gorka Cid Luaces says, to an enterprise with operations on three continents and the momentum to fulfill their ambitions.

Jon Urriola Rementeria—responsible for seed development, genetics and research—was growing tomatoes for Spanish supermarkets before he switched to hierba with the emergence of the first “cannabis associations” in the País Vasco, Spain’s northeast Basque Country. Leandro García Rodriguez handles client and concept development, while Cid Luaces is responsible for overall management of the company. García Rodriguez is originally from Seville, while Rementeria and Cid Luaces are native to the Basque Country.

Rementeria and Cid Luaces first came together in GreenFarm Éibar, which was among the first cannabis associations in Euskadi, as the País Vasco is known in the Basque language. They produced flower for the association in a mixed greenhouse and outdoor operation, with the local police informed.

“The experience with GreenFarm marked our entry into the cannabis industry,” Cid says. “It was a highly rewarding stage, yet also one filled with tension. Working constantly on the edge of legality takes a heavy psychological toll.”

GreenFarm was a member organization of the Federation of Cannabis User Associations of Euskadi (EUSFAC) which coordinates rules and standards for a sector operating in a kind of legal gray area. These regulations allowed private cultivation for the associations but limited members to two grams per day, to be consumed on club premises. Several associations closed during the pandemic in 2020, as these restrictions became untenable, and the sector never fully recovered. Associations continue to thrive in the regions of Catalonia and Andalusia, but regional authorities in País Vasco cracked down, with some clubs busted and herb confiscated.

The GreenFarm veterans moved into the commercial space, anticipating an expanding market for the recreational side as policy in several European countries liberalized. World Breeders was registered as a seed company in the Czech Republic in 2019, though they had already been working with third partner García Rodriguez from Medical Weed Sevilla, one of the first associations in Andalusia’s southern region, for some time with different companies.

Seeking a suitable country for production, the trio settled on the rising industry player of Colombia. Cannabis had been decriminalized there since 1994 and medical marijuana was legalized in December 2015 by decree of then-president Juan Manuel Santos—who would the following year win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating peace with the guerillas. Along with the historic peace deal in 2016, Colombia’s Congress that year approved commercial cannabis cultivation under government license.

“We knew we wanted to continue working in the cannabis industry—it’s our passion, and our professional path,” Cid says. “But we were equally clear that we wanted to do it within a fully legal framework. Colombia offered the chance to operate under official licenses, with a transparent regulatory environment and the ability to develop genetics and production at scale, without legal uncertainty. That’s why we took the leap and established our operations there.”

In 2020, World Breeders set up its mixed indoor/greenhouse production facility in Antioquia in the northwest region of the country. Their first greenhouses were in Guarne, a charming mountain town in the Andes. Production began in January 2021 and licensed export of seed to Spain began that year.

The seed stock they’d been working with initially had difficulties adjusting to higher altitude and new, more acidic soil and water conditions. Operations later moved to Ebéjico, on the outskirts of the Medellín metropolitan area, where the altitude is lower and the climate warmer.

Conditions here, as it turns out, are exceptional. The light offers perfect photoperiods: about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness per day. And the altitude of some 1,400 meters above sea level, Cid describes as “ideal for complex terpene profiles.”

“Over the years, we have dedicated ourselves to selecting and developing our own genetics with meticulous attention to details,” their website boasts.

The company, a seed bank marketing its genetic creations to specialty growers, currently offers nine strains, with names including Clementine Slush, Fizzy Gum and Pink Truffle. Cid takes pride in the descriptive accuracy of these appellations. “If we say it tastes like clementine, it really tastes like clementine,” he assures.

A recent addition is La Hokuzan, developed in cooperation with Barcelona-based Hidden Group Genetics. The Catalan group had bred its own indica-heavy hybrid Hokuzai, which World Breeders crossed with their own Fizzy Gum for a more “sparkling and fruity” feel.

Just coming online is Pilot, developed in conjunction with Spanish rapper JC Reyes, combining his favorite traits—a three-way cross of Pink Watermelon x Jokerz x WB Bubba.

World Breeders is also currently working with growers in the Rif Mountains of Morocco to develop a line of triploid seeds. Triploid strains have three sets of chromosomes, as opposed to the traditional diploid varieties with two sets—one from each parent plant. They typically don’t collect pollen and therefore don’t produce seeds. (Most of the bananas we eat are triploid, as well as seedless watermelons.) This is important for cannabis, because a female plant that doesn’t get fertilized will keep secreting resin indefinitely throughout the growing season, even if there are male plants in the vicinity. A triploid line could be a breakthrough for the centuries-old tradition of hashish production in the Rif, and a boon to growers everywhere.

“We’re confident that this new line will mark a before-and-after in the genetic development of cannabis, positioning World Breeders as a benchmark for innovation and quality in the sector,” Cid predicts.

But expanding markets in Europe represent the real opportunity on the imminent horizon, Cid says, pointing to recent moves toward permitting adult-use cultivation in Portugal and Germany. “What began as a dream of the World Breeders team is now a consolidated reality,” he says.

This story was originally published in issue 52 of the print edition of Cannabis Now.

The post From Spain, The Planet Awaits appeared first on Cannabis Now.

OPINION — “I knew the possible danger. It was a very dangerous operation. It was amazing that we had a few injured, but all are in good shape right now, but I knew there was great danger. You got off a helicopter. The helicopters were being shot out. They got on the ground amazing talent and tremendous patriotism, bravery. The bravery was incredible…They got off the helicopter and the bullets were flying all over the place. As you know, one of the helicopters got hit pretty badly, but that we got everything back. Got everything back and nobody killed,” meaning Americans.

That was President Donald Trump speaking Sunday aboard Air Force One on the way back from Florida about what he observed watching the early Saturday morning U.S. raid in Caracas that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

While events in Venezuela are still unfolding and I will discuss some below, I use that quote because it illustrates that deaths of American service members is one thing I believe is high in Trump’s mind as he has in recent months undertaken a series of worldwide military actions.

Trump almost regularly points out that no Americans have been killed in the four months the U.S. has been blowing up alleged narco-trafficking boats. No Americans were lost in the bombing of Iran nuclear facilities.

And despite Trump’s threat that he could put U.S. boots-on-the-ground if needed to “run” Venezuela, there is no immediate indication he has plans to do that.

Instead, it appears Trump’s plan is to “run” Venezuela using what remains of the corrupt Maduro military/police hierarchy as long as they do what Trump wants. To me it recalls Trump as a builder working with questionable union leaders and construction firms to get jobs done.

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Just why has President Trump spent time and money, first to negotiate with Maduro to get him to leave, and finally to dramatically oust the Venezuelan President from office?

I divert for a moment.

On Friday, the original beginning of this column was, “Most fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking into the U.S. occurs through official ports of entry along the southwest border, according to DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency).”

That was a quote from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled, “Illicit Synthetic Drugs: Trafficking Methods, Money Laundering Practices, and Coordination Efforts,” that was sent to Congress and released publicly December 18, 2025.

The GAO’s report, including the finding cited above, focuses attention on fentanyl primarily coming into the U.S. through land ports of entry while the Trump administration made its anti-fentanyl focus on attacking narco-trafficking swift-boats initially from Venezuela, claiming they were headed for the U.S.

More recently, the attacks, and killing of those aboard, have been those in the eastern Pacific.

The New York Times published a story by Carol Rosenberg that discussed what happens when U.S. Coast Guard cutters intercept narco-trafficking boats, seize drugs and capture those aboard – but not kill 115 on 35 speedboats as the U.S. military did last year.

Putting together the December GAO report and the Times story raised some serious questions about the rationality of the Trump administration’s so-called anti-drug program.

Up to that time, interception of drug-carrying boats and interrogation of the crews gave valuable information on drug routes.

However, as The Times noted, “Attorney General Pam Bondi directed [U.S.] prosecutors in February to mostly stop bringing charges against low-level offenders in favor of bigger investigations.” According to The Times, “For the most part, people captured by the Coast Guard in the same smuggling routes the U.S. military is bombing are being repatriated -- either directly, before reaching the United States, or through deportation after briefly being questioned near U.S. ports.”

The Times noted that many earlier captured crew members were “poor, undereducated farmers or fishermen [who] would reach cooperation agreements that offered details of their engagement at the bottom rung of the drug smuggling business in exchange for possible leniency.”

The Times quoted Tampa-lawyer Stephen M. Crawford, who in the past had been assigned to represent defendants captured by the Coast Guard, who said the killing of crew members without prosecution amounted to very dangerous “political theater.”

I could say the same today for what I consider today’s ill-thought-out Trump actions in Venezuela.

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As many others have pointed out, returning democracy to the Venezuelan people was not uppermost in Trump’s mind.

On Saturday, in announcing the raid, Trump told reporters he had not been in contact with Venezuelan Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado. He then went on to say, "I think it'd be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman but she doesn't have the respect."

What I believe Trump meant was that the Maduro power structure – the Venezuelan Army, Bolivarian National Police and urban paramilitary networks known as colectivos -- remain active and it is they that don’t “respect” Machado.

They are also probably the reason there are no U.S. boots-on-the-ground.

Instead, Trump seems to believe that by keeping major U.S. military forces near Venezuela, he can threaten additional military attacks to keep the ex-Maduro crowd in line.

As Trump put it Sunday on Air Force One, “Venezuela thus far has been very nice, but it helps to have a force like we have. You know, we were ready for a second wave. We were all set to go, but we don't think we're going to need it.”

Apparently it is Venezuela’s oil which is primarily on Trump’s mind.

As with other matters, Trump seems to be living in the past as illustrated when he told reporters over the weekend, “We [the U.S.] had a lot of oil there [in Venezuela]. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”

Nationalization was the culmination of a decades-long effort by Venezuelan administrations of both the right and the left to bring under government control an industry that an earlier leader had largely given away.

American oil companies, including Exxon and Mobil, which merged in 1999, and Gulf Oil, which became Chevron in 1984, were hit hardest. The Dutch giant Shell was also affected. The companies, which had accounted for more than 70 percent of crude oil production in Venezuela, lost roughly $5 billion in assets but were compensated just $1 billion each, according to news stories from that period.

On Sunday, Trump said, “The oil companies are ready to go. They're going to go in, they're going to rebuild the infrastructure. You know, we built it to start off with many years ago.

They took it away. You can't do that. They can't do that with me. They did it with other presidents.”

According to several sources, major oil companies are not eager to spend the years and money at the present time to revive the Venezuelan oil industry, but as with much about the Venezuelan situation, there’s little yet that is predictable.

One potentially dangerous outcome, looming already, is how Trump reads what he so far considers his military success.

On Sunday he made open threats to both Colombia and Cuba.

He called Colombian President Gustavo Petro “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you?”

And as for Cuba, Trump said, “Cuba always survived because of Venezuela. Now, they won't have that money coming in. They won't have the income coming in.”

He then went on to point out, “You know, a lot of Cubans were killed yesterday. You know that. A lot of Cubans were killed…There was a lot of death on the other side.”

But then Trump quickly added, as I have pointed out before, “No death on our side.”

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Bitcoin Magazine

Jeff Booth, Oliver Velez, and Bitcoin Beach Founder Mike Peterson to Speak at Bitcoin Medellín 2026

The second Edition of the Bitcoin Medellin Conference is coming. The small but high signal conference is set in the City of Eternal Spring, Medellin, a tourism hot spot for the Latin American countries, featuring rich food, landscapes, music, and culture, famous for the charisma and beauty of its people. Medelling also hosts a large international community with a strong entrepreneurship and start-up culture. 

The Bitcoin Medellin conference will take place on January 16- 17, 2026, in Plaza Mayor, a large event conference space near the heart of the city. The conference will feature international grade speakers like Jeff Booth, Venture Capitalist and author of The Price Of Tomorrow, Oliver Velez, Wall Street Veteran, author and educator, Mike Peterson, Founder and Director of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Beach, Frank Corva, Bitcoin Journalist, among many other Colombian and international Bitcoin entrepreneurs. 

The conference will feature two days of talks on various dimensions of Bitcoin, such as mining, finance, self-custody, investment strategy, and so on. It will feature talks in Spanish and English. 

There are two tiers of tickets, General and Premium, that give attendees access to speeches and the event hall or access to VIP spaces and side events. Both tiers have a massive discount for Colombian residents, encouraging evangelism and attendance from locals, a common model in Latin America.

The VIP Speakers mixer access dinner was a highlight of the conference last year, hosted at a 5-star Argentinian restaurant with an all-star attendance. 

Colombia is an under-appreciated Bitcoin and crypto hub, with a double digit percentage of its imports from China paid in stablecoins a long standing Bitcoin and crypto community that has deep peer to peer and OTC market, if you are shopping for conferences next year, this is one you’ll want to have a look at.

This post Jeff Booth, Oliver Velez, and Bitcoin Beach Founder Mike Peterson to Speak at Bitcoin Medellín 2026 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.