An­ge­lo Mar­celle

While most peo­ple in T&T want low­er food prices, there is one seg­ment of so­ci­ety that don't seem to be both­ered by the price in­crease of an­oth­er com­mod­i­ty. While the "Ja­maicans take over Car­ni­val" (see Guardian ar­ti­cle, Mon­day Jan­u­ary 18, Page A34), It seems that they may be tak­ing over an­oth­er as­pect of T&T recre­ation. Gan­ja, Mary Jane, smoke and herb are just some of the street names for Cannabis or Mar­i­jua­na. De­spite be­ing an il­le­gal drug, mar­i­jua­na is still the vice of choice for many. Re­cent re­search re­leased by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty shows that 13.7 per cent of stu­dents tried mar­i­jua­na.

High price

Even though the price for the grass has sky rock­et­ed over the last three years, its users do not seem to have a prob­lem pay­ing the new price. Once up­on a time, any­one could have eas­i­ly gone to a near­by block and for as lit­tle as $5, get a "com­pressed" or a "lo­cal" grade of the beloved grass. While the two pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned types are still avail­able, many seem to be flock­ing the drug blocks to by "Jam" or Ja­maican weed, priced be­tween $20 and $25. De­spite the in­crease the de­mand has not de­clined. The con­sen­sus is the same around the coun­try and es­pe­cial­ly along the east west cor­ri­dor: peo­ple want the Ja­maican weed. At a pri­vate home in the na­tion's cap­i­tal, May­ers (not his re­al name) sat bare­back in the evening shad­ows, speak­ing of his knowl­edge of the trade. "The Jam weed much small­er, but it sell­ing out fast," he said. "Yuh does get a bet­ter head. Yuh will have to buy more 'lo­cal' and yuh still not get­ting the same head".

Bang for the buck

Many gan­ja smok­ers are un­able to ex­plain, when asked, why such a small quan­ti­ty of "Jam" mar­i­jua­na gives such a po­tent high. Some smok­ers as­sume that the grass is laced with "hash." Hash, or hashish is a wax-like sub­stance made from the stalked glands of the par­ent plant (mar­i­jua­na). The stalked glands con­tain more THC, which is re­spon­si­ble for the high that one feels when mar­i­jua­na is smoked or in­gest­ed. An­oth­er sup­pli­er, in the east west cor­ri­dor ad­mit­ted that they are un­able to sup­ply the num­ber of peo­ple who are com­ing to buy the Ja­maican weed.

At $25 a joint for Jam, he said, "some peo­ple buy $400 to $600 worth for their per­son­al use." Whole­sale prices for mar­i­jua­na dif­fer, de­pend­ing on where you go. A trust­ing re­la­tion­ship and the reg­u­lar­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of pur­chase are the main fac­tors reg­u­lat­ing price for ma­jor trans­ac­tions. The rules of sup­ply and de­mand are cer­tain­ly in ef­fect, just as any oth­er com­mod­i­ty for sale. It is es­ti­mat­ed, based on nu­mer­ous me­dia re­ports and word on the street, that a pound of "com­pressed" mar­i­jua­na would cost some­where in the vicin­i­ty of $3,000 and $4,000. A pound of the Ja­maican weed could cost a re­tail buy­er be­tween $8,000 and $10,000.