Arjan Roskam
Arjan Roskam is a cannabis entrepreneur, the founder of Green House coffeeshops and co-founder of Green House Seed Company. Roskam is known being part of the team that bred the Super Lemon Haze cannabis strain by crossing Lemon Skunk with Super Silver Haze. Roskam is also known as the "King of Cannabis". Others refer to him as the P.T. Barnum of Cannabis.From the perspective of growers, breeders, and the people who actually shaped modern cannabis genetics Arjan was never truly a breeder, he was a businessman who learned to market himself as one. The foundational genetics behind Green House Seeds were not collected or stabilized by Arjan, but by people like Nevil Schoenmakers and Shantibaba, who spent years traveling, hunting landraces, maintaining mother plants, and doing the slow, unglamorous work of crossing and selecting generations of plants. When Green House rose to prominence in the 1990s, it did so on the back of their breeding expertise, not Arjan’s. Yet as the company grew, Arjan became the public face, framing himself as the mastermind behind strains that he never bred, while the actual breeders were increasingly pushed to the background.
A central point of contention is the long list of strains Arjan has claimed credit for like White Widow, Super Silver Haze, Hawaiian Snow, Arjan’s Haze, and others despite the fact that breeders like Shantibaba have directly stated they created those lines long before Arjan tried to attach his name to them. After the split between Green House and Mr. Nice, both sides sold “the same” strains, but only one side still had the original parent plants and breeding rights. Growers noticed the difference immediately: the Mr. Nice versions remained consistent, while the Green House versions became increasingly phenotype-unstable, suggesting Arjan was selling derivative or reversed genetics but still promoting them as his own originals. This pattern made many in the community feel that Arjan was more interested in owning strain names than honoring their true origins or maintaining their quality.
Another major criticism revolves around the “Strain Hunters” image Arjan popularized, dramatic expeditions to far-flung villages, framed as heroic missions to “preserve cannabis genetics.” Many experienced growers and ethnobotanists saw these trips less as preservation and more as spectacle: high-budget marketing dressed up as activism. In some cases, local farmers claimed the crews offered seeds or money in exchange for access, then took cuts they presented as rare “discoveries” to build their brand. Critics argue that instead of truly protecting landrace genetics, Arjan commodified them, oversimplifying complex cultural relationships to cannabis in order to tell a good marketing story.
Collectively, these controversies point to a deeper frustration among breeders: Arjan became the “King of Cannabis” not through cultivating, breeding, or maintaining genetic libraries, but through branding, media, and the ability to take public credit for work done behind the scenes by others. While he undeniably helped commercialize cannabis culture globally, many growers feel his fame came at the expense of the people who actually built the genetic foundations of the modern cannabis world. In their view, Arjan’s greatest skill was not breeding, it was turning other people’s genetics, labor, and authenticity into a mask to parade as someone who actually did something.
Green House Seed Company
Together with Scott Blakey, Arjan Roskam co-founded the Green House Seed Company in Amsterdam in 1994 based on the seed collection Sam Skunkman brought with him upon his arrival in the Netherlands in 1984 including Skunk #1, Original Haze, Hindu Kush, Cali-O, Durban Poison, etc. In 1998, Blakey also known as "Shantibaba" sold his share of the company to Roskam, thus making him the sole owner of the firm.Arjan's Haze #1 won the Cannabis Cup in 2006. Super Lemon Haze from the firm won the Cannabis Cup in 2008 and 2009.Arjan has been accused of paying off judges in prior cannabis cups.
In media
''Strain Hunters''
In 2008, Roskam started a series of documentaries called Strain Hunters, in which he portrays to seek out rare or vulnerable landraces from around the world.Roskam fell under public scrutiny since his claims of being involved in working and selecting world-famous Cannabis varieties known as "White Widow" and "Super Silver Haze", as well as his attempts to register trademark patents for popular Cannabis seed varieties. Roskam's claims largely contradict Scott Blakey's life story and work, who is widely believed to be the originator of world renowned varieties such as "White Widow", "Super Silver Haze" and many others.