Pubdate: Thu, 24 Oct 2013
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388

WESTERN POT POPULAR IN VIETNAM, BEYOND

HANOI (AP) - For the young Vietnamese dope smokers rolling up outside 
a smart Hanoi cafe, local cannabis is just not good enough. As with 
their Adidas caps, iPhones and Sanskrit tattoos, so with their choice 
of bud: Only foreign will do.

Potent marijuana grown indoors in Canada and the United States is 
easy to buy in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, say regular smokers, and 
sells for up to 10 times the price of locally grown weed. That's 
perhaps surprising, given that marijuana is easy to cultivate 
regionally, and bringing drugs across continents is expensive and risky.

Some experts say the trade can be explained by the dominant role 
Vietnamese diaspora gangs play in cultivating the drug in Western 
countries, making sourcing the product and smuggling it to Vietnam an 
easier proposition than it might be otherwise.

The characteristics of cannabis use in the country also drive the 
trade. The drug is used mostly by foreigners and well-heeled 
Vietnamese, who are prepared to pay for quality. Vietnamese have long 
shown preferences for imported goods of all kinds - and it appears 
cannabis is no exception.

Regardless of the reasons, its availability in Vietnam is a sign of 
how hydroponic growing techniques have shaken up the global marijuana 
business. In the 1960s and 70s, marijuana went from plantations in 
countries such as Thailand, India and Morocco to wealthy consumer 
markets in the West. Now, many Western countries are self-sufficient 
in the weed because of indoor cultivation, and export is on the agenda.

Western-grown cannabis is also appearing in Japan and South Korea. 
Unlike Vietnam, both are wealthy, developed nations with climates ill 
suited to cultivation. Vietnamese diaspora criminal gangs got into 
the marijuana cultivation business in North America in the 1980s. 
Having found a niche, they expanded and now account for much of the 
business across Europe also.

Vietnamese smokers said 1 gram of Canadian retails for up to $45, the 
average weekly wage in the country. Mid-quality hydroponically grown 
marijuana sells for about $10 a gram in the United States and Canada.

Smokers, quoting dealers, said some of the weed comes into the 
country via the northern port in Haiphong, a city that has a 
reputation for the import and export of illegal goods as well as the 
laundering of drug profits by diaspora growing gangs. Other channels 
included smuggling by flight crew in liquor boxes or the postal service.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom