California has the wine country, and Scotland offers the best in whiskies. For the ganja connoisseur head to Jamaica. Not exactly legal, the pot tours, take fans on some of the hidden cannabis plantations.
The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, hometown of reggae legend, and famous cannabis-lover, Bob Marley. Dreadlocked men take curious visitors to a farm where marijuana plants are grown. Similar tours are offered just outside the resort town of Negril.
Marajuana is still illegal in Jamaica but advocates for legalization say that could help with the struggling economy. And Jamaica is still the largest supplier of the pot to the US in the Caribbean. Many tourists to Jamaica, myself included, only have to be steps away from their hotel to be enticed to buy the drug.
Despite its laid-back international image, Jamaica is both a conservative and religious country and many citizens loath the pot capital of the Caribbean reputation that the country has. “There’s already a high degree of marijuana tourism in Jamaica; they just don’t call it that,” said Chris Simunek, of High Times magazine.
An online vacation tour company = Jamaicamax organizes ganja tours in the Negril area. But first participants have to smoke a marijuana with their guide, presumably to show you are not five-o.
For now, criminal gangs dominate the island’s marijuana trade. But advocates for pot legalization say it would take the money from gangs and help the economy. What do you say? Would you ever go on a pot tour?
