Robert Connell Clarke was born in California. After studying biology, he became a botanist and horticulturist, specializing in cannabis, a subject on which he wrote several books from the year 1977. In the 1980s he participated in the development of a seed bank called Cultivators Choice (created by David Paul Watson ), which produced most of the cannabis strains it markets. He also founded with David Paul Watson a company in the Netherlands called Hortapharm BV which produces medicinal cannabis. Robert Connell Clarke now lives in Amsterdam, and is considered one of the world's foremost cannabis specialists.