Lähetetty 3.2.2011 21:05:
Tästä startti-infot. Dokumenttielokuva kyseessä.
The Great Happiness Space
Edit:
Ai kappas ton tekstitys ei ollutkaan englanniksi. Tässä enkuksi. Hitaahko sivu mutta ei voi mitään.
The Great Happiness Space - English Subtitles ----------
Lisätty 22 minuutin jälkeen:Hey tuli muuten mieleen tosi hyvä artikkeli pilven kasvatuksesta ja myynnistä Japanissa. Pistänpä tänne.
MARIJUANA CULTIVATOR (マリファナ栽培： mariwana saibai)
RISK: *****
SALARY:****
HARD LABOR:****
ILLEGALITY:*****
When the door opens, a fresh, green smell overflows from the room. It is unmistakably the scent of . . .marijuana. Mr. Myswamp (30, not his real name), the marijuana saibai, turns on the lights, revealing row after row of pots lining the floor. In these conditions, the stalks grow to one meter in height, and they bloom twice a year. He says that it’s been a long time since he’s let anyone besides himself inside here. I have a confession to make – back when I first started doing drugs, I used to smoke weed regularly, and that’s how I met Mr. Myswamp. There’s a lot of ‘marijuana fans’ who grow one or two plants for their personal use, but it’s difficult to find someone who grows it professionally. But since I knew Mr. Myswamp since we were young, I was able to get this interview!
I WAS LOOTED BY A ‘MARIJUANA ROBBER!’
“It’s been a year since I moved my operation to this place,” says Myswamp with a very casual, unworried tone. I knew he’d moved but didn’t know the dirty details. I asked if he could enlighten me.
“Aw, you know I used to live in Saitama city! I’m sure you heard why I had to move here!” he said. I told him that this was an interview, so he should pretend he doesn’t know me. After that he answered in a very serious manner.
“The reason I moved is that a ‘marijuana robber’ came while I was out and stole all my crops! 15 mature plants – around $10,000 worth. And of course I couldn’t call the police! I could only cry and walk home with my tail between my legs.”
Why did the robber target you?
Myswamp made a sour face: “I can’t say for sure. I used to have regular customers over to the grow-room often. I even sold weed out of that room. I thought it was safe! But in the end it was like a target for robbers.
“Even though I’m a saibai, that doesn’t mean I’m at the grow-house every day. I live elsewhere. I still do, in spite of the burglary. I mean, that’s kind of a rule. You have to keep the grow-house dark a lot, to fool the plants into thinking that winter has come and gone – that’s how you get two harvests a year.”
Looking around the room, I see around 10 pots, but no furniture other than a small refrigerator. There’s some books in a corner. The robbery was the reason for the move, but Smallswamp was such a stoner, it took him 2 years to do it! So even after being looted, he continued to grow in that room for 24 more months.
“I spent two years in the old room, wondering when it was going to get burglarized again, thinking I should move. It took me a long time to outfit this new room: I had to invest in special grow-lights and irrigation systems, partitions. It’s not all profit in this business! So now in the NEW grow-room, I never invite anyone over. Anyone bold enough to break into this new place, it’ll be a miracle if they don’t get busted! I know a fellow stoner who had gotten busted, but he never snitched on me. I’m really grateful for that. In thanks, I’ve given him loads of free sinsemella when he got out! He got a suspended sentence, so he was stoked.”
GROWERS CAN MAKE $80,000 A YEAR
“It’s not that risky, I don’t think. Besides this room, I’ve also got a small plot of land in the mountains. The quality of mountain-weed is not as good: The buds go for $10 a gram, the leaves I’ll throw in as ‘service.’ I can harvest the outdoor crops once yearly, the indoor stuff twice-yearly. I clear around $70 or $80,000 a year.
“Of course if you have three times the grow-houses, you can make three times the money, but you also got three times the risk! I don’t need it, myself. Basically the most worrisome part of my job is how to market and sell the stuff! If you just sell it on the street, you’ll get nabbed quick. And selling by internet is difficult. And as much as I can, I want to avoid dealing with organized crime groups. Once they get their hooks in you, they’ll never let go. Plus I don’t like all that tobashi keitai (飛ばし携帯： cell-phones obtained under a fake name, which can not be traced back to the real owner) and kakuu kouza (架空口座：secret bank accounts), and that whole gangster life. I sell to my friends, basically, and their friends. Strictly word-of-mouth. Some of my pals are pushers, with their own clientele. They like to take the buds and make ‘chocolate’ out of them, but I don’t know how they sell it.”
Marijuana can be made into hashish, also called ‘chocolate.’ The ‘choco’ maniacs will spend up to $60 for a single gram. The usual market price is $40, but Myswamp sells it to friends for $30.
“And of course if you grow more, your expenses go up, too. It’s especially expensive if you live in a cold climate . . . .you have to turn your room into a virtual green-house. The electric bill for the heat-lamps alone can run to $500 per month. What the hell, man? Marijuana is a plant that really loves to grow and reproduce. Robust! You can pretty much just leave it alone and it’ll do its thing. But it’s only ‘in season’ in the summer and fall. So it’s really sensitive to cold. It stops growing, the stems wither. More importantly, your customers will be able to taste the difference. So I guess you do need to tend to the plants pretty well.”
I’M PRETTY PICKY ABOUT HOW TO CULTIVATE IT.
“First, your grow-room has to meet one important condition: it has to be in the city! I’ve been using this apartment for a whole year and I still don’t know anything about my next-door neighbor but his face. If you’re in the country, everyone knows everything about everyone. There’s no way to keep a secret! So you got to set up shop in Tokyo, Osaka, somewhere like that. Then you have to somehow get ahold of some seeds. But nowadays, you can consult websites like ‘Amsterdam’s ‘Cannibus Cup’ to find the most popular varieties and buy them. About $50-$70 worth should be fine.
“It’s not illegal to have marijuana seeds or buy them. But the second they sprout, they become illegal! Most people don’t know this but, shichimitougarashi (a common spice) has a certain amount of marijuana seeds in it, as does some of the ‘bird seed’ sold in pet stores! That’s why they can’t make seeds illegal! But the police aren’t stupid – they keep track of all the pot-seed sites, and if you order online, they’ll track your IP address. So I recommend setting up a new email account for that purchase, and after you get the seeds, wait 6 months to a year before you start growing them. That’s the bare minimum of precautions. Right now, Mr. Kubou, the former assistant editor of a famous boys’ magazine, he bought a grow-light rig called a phototron off the internet, and he said that later he was investigated by the police. For some reason, people don’t take precautions – they feel like buying stuff online is a crime, even if they’d never do it face-to-face. This ‘mental paralysis’ is kind of scary!”
Mr. Myswamp then began to talk about how marijuana was different and better than other drugs, but I begged him to change the subject:
“Next, I’d like to recommend how to grow outside! In the (redacted) region of Saitama prefecture, by the riverside, during the right season, you can find it growing out there like blaaaow! Of course, that region is the Yakuza’s ‘territory’, but plenty of the locals grow a little on the side. I also have a little plot of it at a, ahem, certain location.
“It’s really easy to do – just find some plot of land where nobody goes, out back in the mountains. Then scatter some seeds like waaah – ! all over the place. And when you think ‘It’s probably about time for them to bloom, isn’t it?’ then go have a look. The only problem is that a lot of the locals have the same idea as you, and if they go to the mountains to grow their own, and they find yours, that’s it. Game over, city boy! Those hicks are so sophisticated, they can probably even tell what variety you’re growing just by looking at it! Especially in areas like Nagano and Yamanashi, yeah!
“Me getting jacked in my own room is weird, but getting looted in the mountains is normal. I’ve had my crops stolen three or four times out there! In the end, you have to go so deep in the mountains no one else will come – but that’s got its own problems. Fact is, I had to buy me a GPS unit just to find my shit! Compared to indoe, the quality is poorer but you get a larger yield. To be honest, from a ‘risk assessment standpoint’, outdoor-grow is the hands-down winner. But I’d lose all my current customers with that dirt-weed and plus I personally don’t even like smoking it! So, indoe it is!”
I asked Mr. Myswamp how he first got started cultivating:
“My friend came back from Amsterdam with some seeds, and gave them to me. I sort of unthinkingly planted them in a simple bowl and grew me some marijuana! Then I graduated college, but couldn’t really get a professional job. Wound up working at a convenience store, busting my ass! I never really thought of selling weed for money: it was just for me. But the number of friends who kept asking me to ‘grow some extra for them’ kept growing and growing, and pretty soon I had a full-time job! I never really asked for the opportunity to grow it or sell it, it sort of just turned out that way! I guess in the end, the only reason was that I was interested in it. . .seriously!”
Tokyo Damage Report
