My vacation was relaxing -- aside from getting constantly hassled to buy herb and my run-in with a Customs drug dog.
For the most part, you can put your life on autopilot when you're in Jamaica and just enjoy yourself on the island -- which is what keeps me coming back. So here are a some tips on how to make the most of your trip to Jam-rock.
Ganja is still illegal in Jamaica, but people openly smoke everywhere. Walking down the beach, you'll run into locals finishing up joints while cleaning their boats and gutting fish, and at almost every small gift shop I went into on Seven Mile Beach, I encountered someone offering to roll me one for my walk. Cops and soldiers do patrol the beach, so it's best to keep things on the down-low and smoke on your hotel property. If you're out at a beach bar or a spot on the cliffs and want a puff, bartenders appreciate you asking if you can smoke ganja before lighting up a hooter. Otherwise, both resorts I stayed at had placards in my room that said something like "Please treat your stay here as if it were your home" -- so I burned herb all day long, just like I do in Denver.Here in Colorado, I tend to smoke out of glass pipes and bubblers more often than not -- but in Jamaica, the only thing you should be burning is joints. Some of my non-puffing friends bought a small wooden pipe and passed that around, but if you're used to high-grade ganja, that small amount won't do. I would highly suggest bringing down a clean grinder, mostly because breaking up ounces of herb can get tiring for the fingers. However, I've also found that you can get some pretty good scissor-hash to add to your joints by scraping it out after a day or two of use. If you're picky about your papers like I am, then bring down a few packs in your suitcase. The most popular papers in Jamaica are nearly as thick as notebook pages and burn about as smoothly. The RAW papers were a big hit, too. Every local I showed them to would ask me for a few for their heads.
I also brought down about a dozen Doob Toob containers that many shops sell their pre-rolled joints in. That way, I could roll three or four joints in the morning and carry them around with me during the day, so I wasn't constantly rolling up herb on the beach. In Jamaica, people don't pass joints like they do here in the states, so having a few in my pocket to hand out to wedding guests looking to Bogart my joint was a bonus. These were also a huge hit with locals, and I found myself giving away the waterproof plastic cases to folks as part of my tip. Doing so almost always went over better than if I had thrown them a few extra bucks.As I've discussed before, the herb itself isn't near what you see in shops here. People who think I travel to Jamaica just for the weed are way off. But you can still enjoy what you do get down there. It's nice to not think about strain names for a few days, and now and then you end up with some decent outdoor, like my friend Farmer Jim got us.
In the end, this was my best beach vacation in years. Not only did I marry the love of my life, but I did it on one of the coolest Caribbean islands possible.
I had grand plans of editing down a video to wrap this blog series up, but it turns out my footage sucks and I have no skills as a video editor. So instead of an epic weed video, I'll leave you with this video farewell.
Reviews by our medical marijuana dispensary critic, William Breathes, can be found in Mile Highs and Lows.
