Far Untouched Himalayan Villages grow and produce the finest Cannabis
Even though cannabis is illegal in India, many farmers cultivate it for financial reasons. The Himalayas is one such place where villagers grow cannabis by successfully hiding their farms from the police. Usually, these villages are more than 2000 meters high and no vehicle can take a person there. You can only reach by foot. In one of the villages, the farmer says, “until now only 2 times police have visited the place to cut their crops”.
The Himalayan cannabis growers after harvesting the cannabis create charas which are pellets of resin gathered from the flowers. This charas is very costly to buy around the world. They are priced around 20 dollars per gram in U.S and other western countries. Many of the villagers grow this crop because of the financial necessity.
Though charas gives a good income to the farmers, they still choose to live a humble life on the mountains. Many of the fields are small and only produce charas of about 15 grams. The cannabis charas has a history. The sadhus meditated in the Himalayas were the first ones to consume marijuana in the form of charas. The villagers in the mountains follow the same ancient technique for making charas. In India, there are no official cannabis cultivation stats shared by the government. The whole production happens behind the scenes.
The cannabis is a native plant of India. Today thousands of families who live in the region of Himalayas survive because of the production of charas. The farmers after producing charas sell it to foreigners and major cities in India. There is very high demand for charas but villagers have limited space for cultivation. The region has less access to modern life. There only a few shops that sell rice, flour, cigarettes, soap, toothpaste and other daily life products.
Cannabis in India has a long history. According to Hindu texts, Shiva sat on one of the peaks of The Himalayas feeding Ganja. The communities who live in the Himalayan region work hard and live in extreme conditions. They are limited to religion, spirituality and a little bit of cultivation. India based on the global call for banning drugs, took a shaky step in abandoning Ganja. Many rituals and festivals in the country are based on smoking cannabis which put the government in a dilemma of fully banning the weed. In 1985, the country took a strong hold on banning cannabis in the whole country.
