Cambodia and Cannabis

Since I just did a blog story on Vietnam, I felt that Cambodia should be my next investigation. Well the one thing that is really unique to Cambodia, is the "Happy Pizza" a cannabis connoisseurs gourmet edible treat.



Marijuana and Travel

Cambodia

At a guest house called Victory. As it turns out the staff were very friendly and wanted to take care of all our needs. If you want beer, food, motor-bikes, visas, girls, drugs, boat tours or any thing you can think of, they can get it for you. The place is owned by a cop an he is concerned about your pleasure. Nobody comes back to a place where they did not have fun! I bought half a kilo of sixty bucks of some slightly seeded wild cannabis.

LINK

Phnom Penh
Updated: 29/06/2008

Where to buy Marijuana in Phnom Penh, Cambodia : You can almost always buy weed in the backpacker's district, or by the lake side. as you make your way towards the restraunts on the water's edge, you will most likely be confronted by 2 or 3 men asking you "you want joint?" by joint they just mean weed. prices go about 2$ for a decent bag. if you pay them more they will remember your kindness and deliver to parties or to city addresses for you

and another reporter added: "While living there I found the best place to buy from are the happy pizza shops along the lakeside. You can straight out ask or if your'e a little sketched out try asking them for rolling papers and usually they will offer. The stuff sold here is slightly better than any of the stuff you will buy off a street dealer or tuk-tuk/moto driver, but there is always them.

LINK

Cannabis Cambodia: smoker's paradise

By Amit Gilboa - Sunday, November 1 1998


Seeing that you are a foreigner, the proprietress, a bent old woman with a bright face and a wide, half-toothless smile, hands you a plastic bag full of what she calls "gaan-chah" and offers it to you for $2us.
While you are sniffing this 100-gram packet to assess the quality, she pulls down a large parcel from the shelf above her. This packet contains 1 kilo of marijuana, and it can be yours ? no bargaining necessary ? for $20. Welcome to Cambodia

Extra happy pizza

LINK Happy Hippy
Added for Old Hippy ;-)

Phnom Penh has developed a few institutions more or less devoted to the enjoyment of grass. Merry Jane's Pizza* is a Phnom Penh landmark which has spawned a number of imitators. On the surface, it is like thousands of other unpretentious pizza joints around the world. The menu offers a wide selection of pizzas with various toppings.

However, one topping that is not on the menu but easily available is marijuana. You simply smile to the waiter and ask that your pizza be made "mildly happy" or "extra happy." Mick, a resident English teacher, warns me against ordering the extra happy. Paul, another English teacher, reports that even the mildly happy pizza "hit me like a ton of bricks

Edit: 6/30/11 I just found this video and had to add it to this blog article

The (US) War on Drugs
Predictably, this atmosphere of tolerance and freedom is decried by certain officials as evidence of Cambodia's "drug problem." In fact, this problem exists mainly in Washington, DC. Marijuana use among Khmers is not a major concern.
Mr Rith, a Khmer journalist, explains that "marijuana grows very easily on the fields by the river. The farmers can just scatter the seeds and let it grow; they don't need to take care of it. Old men smoke it, and young people see it as an 'old man's habit.' Also, some people have the custom of eating it in chicken soup in the morning. But this is a very small amount, and the Ministry of Health does not see any problem with this."

Cambodia's pot-corruption

Admittedly, the US pushed through the criminalization of marijuana not just to ruin the vacations of pot-smoking backpackers, frighten journalists from speaking on the record, or create more opportunities for police corruption. Rather, the goal of US drug policy is to stop the wholesale smuggling of drugs out of Cambodia. An October 1997 anti-drug workshop in Japan named Cambodia as the second biggest source (behind Columbia) for seized marijuana in Europe.

LINK

Cambodia Weeds out Marijuana

By: Chun Sophal The Mekong Times


NACD Secretary General Lou Ramin vowed to clean up the narcotics trade at and international drug control convention yesterday in Phnom Penh.
"We have gained victory in rooting out marijuana, but what we are worrying about is the trafficking of synthesized drugs secretly produced in the country," Lou Ramin said. "This is the first successful step in reducing drug trafficking in Cambodia, but [we] are not satisfied with the results as drug trafficking persists."

In 2000, Asean nations made a joint pledge with China to eliminate or drastically reduce narcotics production by 2015, he noted. Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Yim Sovann disagreed with Lou Ramin's comments. "This is just a report and some reports do not contain facts.
The government has to work harder if it really wants to get rid of illicit drug production by 2015," he said. "Cambodia has now succeeded in eliminating marijuana, but we still face [problems with] methamphetamine, ecstasy and 'ice'."

LINK




Here we have a society that has used cannabis through untold generations of its ancestors and there was nothing wrong with cannabis use, until the United States threw money at the Cambodian Government. Why at this time, has China began financially backing the prohibition of cannabis in Cambodia?

Edit: In Cambodia when law enforcement cracked down on weed, hard drug use and sales went up. I remembered I had read of a similar problem occurring in Hawaii, after lots of searching I found the link, that is a NIDA study, a very interesting read.

LINK


Here are a two comments from Reddit r/trees

1) They asked me and my buddy how happy we wanted our pizzas to be we told them to make them very happy. After 4 hours i was as high as i've ever been and getting higher. It felt like i had taken mushrooms, we passed out for probably 15 hours. Definitely the highest i've ever been. Yay cambodia

2) I came across two types in Cambodia - 'hay' - what the expats call the street/backpacker weed (seedy and not great), and then after meeting some local stoners, 'Cambodia black'. The latter came in vacuum packed bricks (half a normal brick size for $10 US), was jet black, sticky and strong as the super skunk over here.
Apparently quite hard to find if your not local as designated for Export? Would love to know where they send it!

Free Cannabis,

End Prohibition Now!