Visakhapatnam's (Vizag's) cannabis connection

Hi,
Click the link or read the document below. Please leave a comment when you have finished. Brickbats and bouquets are both welcome.

Visakhapatnam's cannabis connection

The newspapers are full of it. Several times a month there is a story of excise officials seizing Ganja while being transported. The funny thing is that there are always a couple of tribals getting caught and two or three others including the driver conveniently getting away. We city folk know a part of the Ganja story from the media and social context. It is a drug that gives its users a “high”. It is grown in cooler areas in the hills and is smuggled into the cities and sold there for hefty profits.

What is Ganja?

The Indian word Ganja is known as Cannabis or Marijuana. It is also referred casually as “grass”, “weed”, “hemp” and so on. It includes three species, sativa, indica and ruderalis. Now days several hybrids are also cultivated. It is a green leafy plant which grows to a height of 2.5 meters. The business end of the plant is the flowering tops (of the female plant) and its slim elegant leaves. The substance that causes the “high” is THC the abbreviation for “tetrahydrocannabinol”. When the leaves and flowers are dried and smoked it imparts a mellow high. The higher the THC content the more potent is the cannabis.

Ancient drug

Cannabis has been eaten, drunk and mostly smoked for thousands of years. There is enough reference to Ganja since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BC. In India, holy men enjoying an evening of bhajans or in search of spiritual enlightenment passed around a smoking chillum. Remember the quintessential image of ash smeared sadhus puffing “chillums” on the banks of the Ganga? Even today Ganja and Bhang (made from Ganja plant) is sold openly in Varanasi.

Still in use

It is the most ubiquitous soft drug, used by paupers and presidents, bankers and businessmen, musicians and magistrates, talk-show hostesses and tailors. Most unlikely people including security man at your apartment gate may be having a puff of the stuff for recreation or to simply avoid boredom. At yuppie parties, in cities, on the designated smoker’s balcony, young executives pass around a rolled joint taking drags and enjoying Chamak Chalo from their Bose Docks. The modern mystic also continues the ancient tradition and during the festive season, especially Holi, millions of Indians consume the stuff in bhang sherbets, julabis and pakoras. 

What is the “high” like?

Cannabis causes a mild high in comparison to alcohol.  In fact many of the first time users expecting gee-whizz, wham-bam special effects are sorely disappointed. People react differently to Cannabis. Some become quiet and introspective while others become talkative and laugh a lot. Several cannabis users report that it heightens their enjoyment of music making it sound more lucid. Cannabis users may experience a dry mouth, bloodshot eyes and increased appetite. Users will often experience problems with concentration, perception and coordinated movement. Generally the effect of the drug wears off in a couple of hours. Some may want to take a short nap afterwards and wake up none the worse for it. Most importantly, unlike alcohol consumers, cannabis users do not display any aggressive behaviour and are generally quite amiable. While Marijuana is not considered to be addictive some doctors are of the opinion that heavy users of the drug could be tempted to try out harder drugs and get into real trouble later. Having said that most of the young people who smoked grass in the wild 60s, 70s grew up to be responsible adults and upright citizens.

How legal is Marijuana?

There is a change in how Cannabis is being perceived. Many countries have decriminalized the possession of small quantities of cannabis. On 10 December 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize the sale, cultivation, and distribution of cannabis. Possession is legal in the Netherlands. Visitors to Amsterdam will notice the “Coffee Shops” selling cannabis out of neatly stacked plastic cases with exotic names such as “Buddha 1” and “Hollywood Haze”. Cannabis is weighed on electronic scales and packed in small plastic sachets. Several patrons sit out on the coffee shop deck and smoke the stuff then and there. Recently two states in the U.S. Colorado and Washington have legalized the cultivation and trade of Cannabis. Several countries including Canada, Czech Republic and Israel allow use of Cannabis for medical purposes. While there is a trend to decriminalize the possession of Cannabis in many parts of the world some countries still take a serious view of the product and hand out severe sentences for possession.

What is the status near Vizag?

Ganja grows wild and is cultivated widely on the slopes in our ghats and is cultivated by tribals all over the hills. Most of the cultivation is “committed” to buyers in advance. The Adivasis do not consider it a serious drug but just another crop which yields a good income in a short time. They sow about 400 plants per acre and if the quality is good the cultivator can earn up to Rs. 50,000 per acre within a year. Typically an Adivasi will plant half to two acres at a time. However considering how difficult it is to get quality planting material and grow good quality Cannabis, the cultivators usually end up getting only around Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 per acre. The cultivator is not involved in the transportation. They harvest and pack the plants into bags and keep it ready for carriers.  Groups of carriers, sometimes 10 to 15 strong, carry the material manually over foot paths, overnight from the ghat top to the road at the foothills, beyond forest check posts. Here the bags are put into vehicles and carried off to their destination.

Tough to control

The authorities generally don’t bother about cultivators of Ganja. It’s too much trouble to locate the cultivation and the cultivators. In addition to supervised cultivation there is plenty of wild growth of low quality Ganja as well. Destroying cultivated crops is not only difficult but would piss off the Adivasis and result in confrontation.  Apprehending carriers is also a tough job because of the difficult terrain through which they travel. Officials consider it risky to confront carriers as some of them could be armed. The authorities concentrate on transporters because that’s the chain’s weakest link. Only a tiny fraction of material moved is actually seized and the rest of it passes through, greasing their way through check posts all the way to the wholesalers and retailers in AP and neighbouring states. The pressure of law exerted on the supply chain pushes up prices and makes it from “small harmless business” to “big bad dangerous business”.

The dangers of criminalizing Cannabis

When the stakes go up it spawns violence, intimidation and organised crime. It creates an underworld industry of enforcers, gangs and illegal cash in high places. Maoists always looking for funding find this a golden opportunity. The poor Adivasi gets squeezed in the machinery and pays a price for his involvement. This converts him from someone eking out a living for himself and his family to a “partner in big crime”. The state Government must consider a way of decriminalizing this activity and make it from big bad business to smaller manageable and harmless business. It is important that the big money bags that finance and drive the industry from far away are neutralized quickly.  Waiting long will make it impossible to control. It must be done now. Once our legal community and the government apply their minds to it they will work something out.