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The problem has its roots in a rectangular
tent made of black plastic that looks like an oversized mobile
wardrobe. It's as tall as a man, almost completely odor-tight
and provides space for four fully grown cannabis plants. The "Growshop"
in the Prague city district of Zižkov sells the tent for
the equivalent of €400 ($520), including a fan, ventilation
ducts, a 400 Watt spotlight, fertilizer and a bag of potting soil.
It's easy to set up this black contraption at home and start growing
your own weed. Any 14-year-old can do it -- and that's the problem.
The market is flooded with marijuana.
"Prices are falling," says Marek, a local dealer with
a hairdo that looks like a wire wig. He has picked out a restaurant
near the Charles Bridge, where he orders goulash with mashed potatoes
and complains about declining profits. The dope-dealing business
has seen better days, he says. He currently gets 1,500 crowns,
or roughly €60 ($78), for 10 grams of weed. Regular customers
-- who Marek prefers to calls "friends" -- buy on credit.
To avoid boring his "friends," he regularly brings them
samples of new strains. "White Widow" is currently doing
well, meaning that it gets you high as a kite. Marek stresses
that his product is far better than what the competition offers.
"My stuff is grown with love, not like the shit that the
Vietnamese produce. They grow their weed in warehouses."
The Vietnamese are the second problem. Marek says they only care
about business, not quality, like the Czech growers do. They aren't
devoted to the art of gardening, he claims.
Both Marek and his suppliers benefit from the fact that reefer
has become an integral part of Czech folklore since the early
1990s, like pilsner beer and dumplings with sauce. Half of all
Czechs between the ages of 15 and 34 have smoked pot at least
once in their lives. According to statistics by the European Monitoring
Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Czech Republic
ranks among the top cannabis-smoking nations in Europe, right
up there with Italy and Spain.
Many years ago, the police gave up issuing warnings to everyone
who took a toke on a joint. Unable to stop the practice, the government
decided it should at least regulate it. Since 2010, Czech authorities
have no longer treated possession of narcotics or psychotropic
substances in small quantities as a criminal offense, but rather
as a misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of €600. The Czech
Republic -- which borders Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria
-- now lies like a drugged-up green oasis in the midst of narcotics
laws that range from fairly strict to absolutely rigid.
An official table lists the maximum legally allowed amounts: For
personal use, each individual is allowed to carry up to 15 grams
of marijuana, four ecstasy tablets, two grams of crystal meth,
one gram of coke or one-and-a-half grams of heroin without having
to fear criminal charges. Dealing drugs is still a criminal offense,
but cannabis growers, cocaine smugglers and meth labs have been
earning good money again since 2010.
Critics see the new laws as a capitulation, and law enforcement
agencies condemn the lax legislation. The Czech interior minister
is having troubles with authorities in the neighboring German
states of Bavaria and Saxony, which are complaining about drugs
being smuggled over the border.
Marek sees liberalization as a step
in the right direction.
"I'm just a small fish," he says. Indeed, he is one
of hundreds in the city who sell ganja to "friends."
It's Thursday afternoon and the expression
on Marek's face reveals that he's looking forward to Friday night.
Nights out on the town follow the same universal scenario of anticipation,
euphoria, crash and morning-after. Revelers rarely have a dark
foreboding that excessive drug use could end in disaster.
Marek, 29, was born and raised in Prague. He has been selling
grass since he was 18, and he used to also sell harder drugs,
such as coke and ecstasy. Today, his main job is guiding tourists
through the city. He meets a lot of young people on his tours
who are thrilled about the liberal drug laws in the Czech Republic.
He would never offer it, says Marek, but if someone asks him nicely,
he knows where to get hold of some weed. He takes the tourists
to his office, where they quickly become "friends."
With this arrangement, Marek the dealer benefits from Marek the
tour guide.
He steps off a street in the historic city center and ducks into
a low entranceway, flits through a tunnel and ends up standing
in front of his desk. Marek shares the office with his brother,
Michal, who runs a hostel for backpacker tourists and is rolling
a joint. "I'm not making it too strong because it's still
early," he says.
Michal is two years older than Marek, married and the father of a one-and-a-half-year-old girl. His hostel is doing extremely well. He wears his hair in dreadlocks and is the opposite of his brother -- calmer, more reflective, an artist type. Michal has personally experienced his country's drug history. He has to think for a long time when asked if there is any drug that he hasn't yet smoked or swallowed.
Michal and Marek are two very different
brothers. Michal, the businessman, is slowly working his way up
the ladder, while Marek, the dealer, is struggling to avoid sliding
back down. They are both familiar with the two sides of drugs,
and they know how tempting it can be to live one's life on an
endless high.
Their parents were affluent, Michal says while lighting the joint.
His father worked in the administration of the state-owned construction
company and, after the fall of the Wall, he managed the Eastern
European division of a Canadian bank. His mother decided to pursue
a career as a freelance business consultant. His parents separated
when Michal was 15. "They couldn't handle my brother,"
he says. Marek got into trouble with his teachers for selling
stolen goods. After their parents separated, Marek lived with
his father, while Michal moved in with a bunch of roommates and
experimented with weed and, later, heroin.
The 1990s were the perfect high for
Michal. Along with the tourists, artists, eccentrics and adventurers
who streamed into Prague after the fall of the Iron Curtain, new
drugs came to the city. Michal took them in every imaginable form:
smoke, powder, pills, crystals and liquids. He organized techno
parties in empty bunkers and called himself "Narco Polo,"
the drug explorer.
He had his most life-changing drug experience when he hiked to
the top of a hill alone and ate psilocybin ("magic")
mushrooms. Not even 20 years old yet, he could have kept on partying
to the limit. But up there on the hill, he realized how fragile,
beautiful and precious life is. Without the mushrooms, he would
be dead now, Michal says. He stopped taking hard drugs and studied
philosophy and history.
His little brother Marek already had a knack for business as a
young boy. Before his drug phase, he sold collector cards, clothing
and, later, insurance policies. "At the age of 17, I was
the best salesman in the city," he claims. Marek didn't need
any schooling to recognize an unfilled market niche. But the stories
he tells often begin with ridiculously high profits -- and usually
end with going bust.
With all the drugs flowing into the
country, the Czechs soon discovered that they had a penchant for
growing their own. Michal recalls how friends and acquaintances
began to plant marijuana at home. At the same time, the pot-growing
business became far more professional. In early November 2012,
the third international hemp trade show, Cannafest, was held on
the city's largest exhibition grounds, featuring presentations
on "hemp in Czech culture," stands by fertilizer suppliers,
cannabis seed dealers and hydroculture companies. Many exhibitors
came from the Netherlands to ensure that they don't miss out on
this new growth market.
While the police raid new, increasingly huge cannabis plantations
-- often operated by Vietnamese -- every few weeks, the rest of
the country has private patches of weed. Even Michal and Marek's
grandparents raise plants in their greenhouse that they cut and
water for their two grandsons. "Grandma is an outstanding
gardener," says Michal. He pulls out his mobile phone, which
has photos of his last visit. The pictures show resinous buds
instead of grandma. Grandpa makes skin cream from the leaves and
stems, which Marek and Michal don't smoke.
Michal and Marek rhapsodize about the Prague of the 1990s as if
it were a paradise in which friends shared samples of their most
successful homegrown varieties. The world was wonderful -- at
least that's how it seemed.
