In 1981, Van Patten married Estella Cervantes in Portland, Oregon. They had no children. He established a landscape garden business in Portland and cultivated cannabis indoors. A lack of credible information about indoor cannabis cultivation led him to analyze, research, and author "Indoor Marijuana Horticulture" in 1983. The book became a best-seller, and successful indoor growers dubbed it the "Indoor Grower's Bible" which became the book's subtitle. Van Patten developed his own High Intensity Discharge Light Systems for marijuana growing and sold them via retail and mail order through his then Jorge Cervantes' Indoor Garden Store.