The truth about Clone Queen Genetics

 By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe. 

I am writing this not out of anger, bitterness or a need for revenge. I am writing this in an attempt to tip the scales and bring some light onto the history of Clone Queen Genetics (thcplant.com) based on my experiences within the company and my own personal experience with the owner/founder Brendon Kennedy whom I dated and lived with for a few months.
I am aware that the method of operation for Brendon when receiving honest criticism is to turn and slander the person who has chosen to step forward. I have seen it happen with my friends, with his friends. At this point I don't really care. Anyone reading this should know that I am not angry or bitter and I take responsibility for the part I played. Brendon, you can say what you want about me, be it true or fabricated. I can't sit by any longer while you lie your way through life - hurting everyone in the process.

I was involved with Clone Queen Genetics from practically the beginning. I moved in with Brendon in Nov. of 2010 (Clone Queen did NOT exist before 2010) and at that time he generated a small income from selling clones to local dispensaries in the San Bernardino County area. Brendon wanted to figure out a way to make a better business from selling clones, but with out having to go through dispensaries to do so. After a lot of thought and planning he decided to expand his own garden and deal exclusively with patients. I do not claim any credit for Clone Queen Genetics. The idea is and was solely Brendon's. And believe me he put a lot of thought in to it. But yes, I was there, I had a part in it. I heard all his ideas. I lived with him and I think I know more about the company's beginnings than anyone, besides Brendon. We talked about all his plans. And I threw in a few of my own. I wanted Clone Queen to succeed. I didn't want to have to worry about money. So for a time I ignored my conscience and did what I was told. But I have no reason to remain silent any more. People have a right to know what they are getting in to. I know first hand how much time, money and effort goes in to a garden and when you invest so much you have a RIGHT to the TRUTH.

Clone Queen Genetics has only been successful because everything about it is a lie. Brendon wanted a hook - something that would set his dispensary apart from all the others. So he settles on something no one else offered - VERIFIED GENETICS. Claiming that all his clones were verified gave Brendon the ability to charge excessive prices and claim it was because patients were paying for the guarantee of 100% certainty with their cuts. You can go on any Clone Queen listing and you will see VERIFIED GENETICS advertised. It was what originally drew such much business and attention. Sadly, there are NO verified genetics, let alone an independent lab in Europe. The clones sold under the name "Clone Queen" originally came from Brendon's garden and he eventually out sourced to other vendors to meet the higher demand. Not only were the clones from his garden not verified, he was using clones from anyone - anyone who could supply the number of clones he needed. He needed a lot of clones. I cannot speak for Clone Queen now as I am not affiliated with it in any way and have not been for some time but at the time I knew Brendon the strains he sold under the guise of being verified were rarely what he told patients they were. We advertised having 20+ strains when in reality we had about 6-10 depending on what strains we cut. If a patient wanted a strain we didn't have we simply took whatever we had and labeled it accordingly. We did that for months. We lied to every patient we sold clones to. Even if a patient ordered a strain we had, because our own mothers were unverified there was really no way to be sure what the strain was. WE LIED TO EVERYONE.

Clone Queen took off. We received so much business it was ridiculous. There were periods when the phone would literally ring all day from patients calling. Our Weedmaps listings received hundreds of hits every day. I have to say this - Brendon is very smart. Probably the smartest person I've ever known. You have to be smart to do what he did. To start a business out of nothing and turn it into something huge in just a few months. HE IS SMART BUT HE ISN'T HONEST.
For awhile it was just the two of us. Taking care of the garden, verifying patients, taking orders and delivering. Yep that's right. If you ordered from Clone Queen in late 2010 to mid 2011 you mostly likely got your clones delivered by Brendon, and me. Clone Queen was his life, and mine too. It was all we did for months. Figuring out ways to get more mothers, more vendors and eventually more employees. We were never short on patients. We were turning down orders because we didn't have the clones to fill them. We'd have 200 hundred clones ready and could sell that in a day - two tops, easy. We started making hundreds of dollars on a daily basis, then thousands. I would like to say that I enjoyed it but that wouldn't be true. But I will get to that later.

Now we did produce some bad ass clones. Big, leafy, hardy clones with massive trails of white roots. But it was hit and miss. It was never consistent. And almost every time we used an outside vendor we got screwed. But even if every single clone we sold was beautiful and strong and produced a great yield it didn't matter.
EVERY PATIENT WAS STILL PAYING UPWARDS OF $7 (and as much as $15) FOR VERIFIED GENETICS WHICH NEVER EXISTED.
You were lucky if you even got the strain you ordered.

Almost as soon as Clone Queen took off the complaints came rolling in. Plants were dying, plants were males, plants weren't growing fast enough, plants didn't look like the strains we had said they were. Brendon had figured out a formula for making a lot of money and he got careless. He took short cuts. And the poor quality of the clones showed it. Eventually all the complaints got to be too much for the two of us to handle combined with all the work we were already doing. So we brought in a friend of mine Ryan, to help handle the online traffic and calls. And a friend of Brendon's named Joyce helped with the orders too. We gave them scripts to follow so when patients asked questions they would have the answers. Part of the job as well was creating fake accounts on weedmaps and other sites and posting positive reviews to counter the negative ones. If you spend any time online looking up Clone Queen online you will see patients saying that Clone Queen posts fake positive reviews. This is true. THE MAJORITY OF THE POSITIVE REVIEWS ARE FAKE. And while yes, some of the negative reviews are posted by competing vendors, or former employees - most of them are legitimate. Read them and believe them.

From the beginning Brendon always wanted a warranty. He wanted patients to be able to swap out plants that died or weren't growing and give them another shot. It was also another hook because no other dispensary or private vendor offered a 30 day guarantee. And we did exchange plants. Whether the plants died because they were unhealthy to begin with or were healthy and got killed by an inexperienced grower we swapped them out. People might say Clone Queen doesn't do that but for the 10 months I dated Brendon and the few months after that I helped out with patients we honored warranties. But still, we were swapping out plants that were not verified. And a lot of the time the plants we swapped were not the same strain as the original order.

I am not going to lie. The time I spent involved with Clone Queen was the MOST STRESSFUL time of my life. I hated it. I hated lying to patients. I met so many of them. Awesome, kind, funny, irie people who just wanted to grow their own medicine. And I smiled at them, smoked with them, took their money and KNEW I was ripping them off. And I hated it every single day. But I kept doing it. Eventually I broke up with Brendon and the stress I felt from Clone Queen was a big part of it. It changed me, I became someone I hated and I couldn't do it anymore. But eventually I started helping Brendon with Clone Queen again. He wanted me to take orders, schedule deliveries and deal with patients who had warranty issues. A big part of what I did also was writing fake positive reviews on Weedmaps, Budtrader, Cannabis Search, Leafly and other sites. Anytime a patient wrote a negative review either me, Brendon or another employee would immediately post 2-4 positive reviews. I spent a lot of time making fake Weedmaps accounts. I didn't want to be involved, I didn't want to have to deal with the stress but I couldn't say no to my friend. The amount of patients who complained about the quality if their clones is staggering. I would say more than half of all the patients I dealt with complained either about the service, or the plants they received. I think this was the part of the job I hated the most. Dealing with the angry patients who had been ripped off. It fucking sucked. It made me feel like shit - being a part of something that said they were honest, and there for the patients when really we just wanted their money. I'm so sorry. If I lied to you, if I ignored your emails or your calls because I knew you were upset or angry and I didn't want to deal with it, I'm sorry.

For a long time after I stopped working with Clone Queen and even after Brendon and I stopped talking I defended him. I told myself and others that he didn't mean to lie, he just did what he had to at the time. I wanted to believe the best in him but I can't anymore. I saw first hand as he failed to pay his employees, most of them were his friends, or mine. Or me. I was never paid for the work I did after we broke up. I lost my best friend after he and Brendon fought over money and work. I tried to justify everything Brendon did, even after he screwed me over too by running up a $2000 electric bill in my name after I moved out of the house we shared. Even after all the lies I still kept my mouth shut, only telling the truth about Clone Queen to my close friends.

Brendon, I know you are angry. You hate me right now. I don't care. I'm not doing this out of spite. This isn't petty revenge. If I wanted to I could have told this story to every prominent reviewer I know on Weedmaps, I could have called every patient and told them the truth. I could have bombarded you with bad reviews. For over a year I have continued to lie for you - telling people that Clone Queen Genetics is a good, honest dispensary run by a good man. I'm tired of lying. I'm tired of defending someone who doesn't care about anyone but himself. But most of all I am tired of seeing other people being lied to every day. People have a right to the truth.

I hope that this helps people who are on the fence about Clone Queen. I wrote this on blogger because I know if I were to post this on another site (especially weedmaps) it would either be removed immediately or covered up by positive reviews.

If you want to share your experience with Clone Queen (thcplant.com) with others without it being covered up please email me @ underahoneymoon@hotmail.com and I will add it to this blog.

Also if you have any questions I didn't address please email me and I will do my best to answer them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please know I am sorry for the part I played....



~Random Facts About CQ~

~There is no physical location for Clone Queen. Every address listed is a lie.
~The first "verified" clones came from vendors on Craigslist.
~Thcplant.com is run by Brendon Kennedy
~Despite his lucrative business, Brendon rarely pays for his weedmaps listings on time.
~Weedmaps listings would have you believe that Clone Queen has locations in San Diego, LA, Orange County, Victorville, Rancho Cucamonga etc. but the majority of clones are grown in one area. Patients then drive to a nearby location that is convenient to the delivery drivers.
~One trick employees are taught is to place the cuts with the best roots towards the outside of their trays and then encourage patients to examine those. Later the patient calls to complain about the cuts with little to no roots. Then they can wait two weeks for their warranty. Which is usually a different strain.
~Brendon Kennedy also goes by the names Evan, Jesse and I'm sure he's acquired more by now.
~All CQ employees use fake names. Mine was Lisa.
~Clone Queen employees spend hours driving around to local wi-fi spots to post fake ads that appear to be posted from different locations, by different people. I spent a lot of time at Starbucks and McDonalds.
~Almost all of the pictures associated with Clone Queen are just pictures found online. They are not of actually CQ plants, or finished product.
~Clone Queen is not a huge operation. They may move a lot of plants but there has always only been a handful of employees (most of them are constantly lied to).
~Clone Queen and disorganization go hand in hand. If you take the time to read the reviews online you will notice patients stating that they tried many times to contact CQ and could not. At times this may be because of the volume of calls and emails coming in but it's also because CQ employees are really bad at communicating and handling patients.