Transcript for:
Exploring Indian Cannabis Culture and Charas

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah that's a blend these are the last this one is mallanna Valley [Music] [Music] it doesn't drop from your finger so sticky this it's it's incredible and so intense dorama you can smell in it that the mountains you can smell a little bit of resin from pine trees a little bit it's so complex is incredible the place in India where we are going in the mountains it's famous for its charas how is it made this is one of the reasons that we have gone to this place is this this is one of the few places in the world where they make the hash from live plants this is the best cream produced in the Malaya's and we're gonna make sure that when we come back we will bring back with us the knowledge the precious knowledge and frankerz alone and that many other people have about that area about this kind of quality this is this is cannabis cup winner quality stuff for me is very interesting and very nice but to go back in India and to work to make something for this plant because I told you for me here's my life [Music] [Music] the Indian expedition started with a really cool trip from Amsterdam after a great dinner and a good night's sleep we went to the airport board the KLM flight and in eight hours we were in India fortunately our great friend Simon was waiting for us in Chokey came all the way from Africa and it's always a surprise to people arrived on time or not we travel long distances to meet each other and communication is quite difficult sometimes it was really a cool experience and a cool thing to find him there waiting for us [Music] [Music] at the temple there was a ceremony going on so in in our honor and in honor of the shiva god of charas we witnessed this ceremony [Music] also very important these traditional cultures here in India was a suggestion from our shared by her Chapel we also decided to offer a goat to the gods for our well-being into the mountains and it was pretty amazing three unique quite intense experience you could really feel the vibration of something special in the air is church' see that this is church Wow the first ones in India because of the resin a man among these are these are the original colour scenes man look look at this green one this one yellow this one here lemon haze what do you think about all the females there's only female sir yes larkey this male are not good 100% Greeners feminized quality no doubt in the Himalayas this is gonna be a nice smoke in the Himalayas as well as in Africa this one performs well everywhere this plane it's full seizure [Applause] [Applause] [Music] we arrived in the morning in the pool and the first thing we did of course is smell and taste some culture of the area so we decided to have a little walk on the market a very colorful market little beautiful clothes and people and kind of circus young children doing things that you can question if it's good or not but this is India if you compare to Europe it's incredible so the prices and the labor and the people are working there you see the ice cream vendors with there is no patents little cars [Music] [Music] the service festival is a festival they make to remember the victory of the god Rama against the devil was living in Sri Lanka and who raped his wife Sita hundreds of thousands of people they will come because he are in any village there is a different God so in this particular day all the God will go in Kulu we got on the main square and all these gods these personifications of gods came running through the streets parading through the streets and the army was there an incredible amount of soldiers thousands of gods come together also our god shiva the ganja god the festival was really colorful was something that for me it was unique to see also because you can feel the culture how it pregnant the life of the people here it was a big riot in yet but it was beautiful to be a part of this festival [Music] my Indra in India is like a classical if you drive around you see thousands of these old minder Jeeps and for us it was really nice to be able to drive and get the feeling of the real India on the road compared to other countries where we are able to get a bit more modern and a bit more efficient for by force actually it was a little bit of a step back but we adapt and we move on and we drive on after a few hours in the car we reached the bottom of Milano Valley and that's where the walk begins and the walk is pretty steep immediately it starts with a good session all the way up to 2700 meters and that's where the the incredible character galilean our lives ha ha we walked up to Gagne know an Italian man who was living for 24 years on that mountain is one of this crazy hippie character who lives in his own world but he creates something very special and very magical around him and he knows a lot about hand rubbing and making cherish he grows on vegetables he lives in his own monoculture nearly there he's got all different kinds of things and he made also very nice woolen sweater for me for in the cold yeah perfect fit Kiki he decided to come here and to forget this [ __ ] new one Jelena was pure poetry unbelievable to find him living the inspirational at his age in so strong and healthy smile and a sucker all that counts for him is writing poetry smoking good chairs in the Chilam and having positive vibes and positive energy with the people and the animals and the plants around you [Music] [Applause] Ultra can totally change to create a glioma team so meeting with a salesman at the poco team is no patent alpha means that there are in the morning time now this is the swinging of the bed night but is not only this because I had forgotten smoking five six joint at least Audrina [Music] [Applause] [Music] we decided to camp on 2700 very close to where Franco have lived for a very long time in HK but I think I could have shot each other he told me about the cave many times but when you see it in person and it's really incredible you see this place the view alone is out of this planet and you think so peaceful so magical with plants around fields around a small community of mountain people with which are very welcoming and very friendly the locals they told me there was a house they are broken they told me you take stones and wood and you'll fit it and they a they fit it when did you came here 96 96 how many years did you live good ten years first time I was in this area it was in 91 then I was amazed from desimilus really then in 94 I had the trouble in Italy so he had my strains I decided to give them a chance in the spring of 96 I was here asking to the locals it was possible to give them some chance they told me yes you can do it then I started on living here but it I realized was not only for this all these kind of life is so interesting like see the original hand way of making cherish Rabbinate rubbing it the big difference with Morocco is where the dry the plants but here you have to do all alive we decide to build the base camp there because after that we could walk for another few hours up to 3,000 2,200 so very special fields and these fields are amazing the genetics they are actually a very very special because you can see many phenotypes of the same kind of bland rice that generates this incredible charros and incredible cream and in the same field you can see purple plants you can see sweet flower plants you can see real sativas with a minty piney woody smell and a very very nice variation so very interesting from a plant point of view also thank you a whole day to make one Tola it will be very difficult now to make one Tony on one day maybe half dollar no maybe six seven grams maximum seven grams the taller and India's 10 grams so now they make six seven grams in the afternoon one food at work imagine [Music] camping is a strain hunter is also a little bit different experience than than people imagine because of course the kind of time and time frame you have is always very short you have to set up tent at the end of the day and leave your camp very early in the morning so you don't have much time to prepare much to ether you just have time to make a nice big fire that we always take care of doing because it's safe and gets you warm it's very important [Music] traveling from Malaya to India is obviously quite a shock and massive differences obviously in terms of altitude and terrain and also in terms of half people plant in Malawi you'd find this tiny little field hidden miles and miles away really like a needle in the haystack whereas in India you really just hit that Ganges everywhere [Music] after the gay we get moving get moving until we finally reach the top fields Franco showed us how the original cream is made now and this is something the foreigners brought in like 15 years ago because it used to be on insurance and now they also make curry misses a high quality with less particulars of the planting like nowhere has and no calyxes and wood and for us it was also very big learning experience to see from which area the best cream of West Charles come what we really saw is that the higher you get the higher the quality of the cream gets and also the more indica the plant gets this is the field how many plants are here so the plants we have to shoot to choose they should be a ripened but not fully ripened they should have not one dry point of the little leaves also in crema we all sat in a circle and franca started teaching us how to make the perfect hand of Charles and the perfect and looks cream and it was just incredible we just sat there in the Sun it was such a beautiful day with this crispy mountain air and we started rubbing rubbing rubbing so the hands are totally clean nothing on the hands no cream not nothing the hands must be in his son would Franco explain to us the better the face went from the Sun cause it's a long hot day then slowly rugged plants in the manicure first one by one some people they were cleaned all before altogether but they will start to let some juice if you play not before it's better for better quality is better to clean one by one wrapping in the Himalayas King this is pretty cool the stem you should take away then bud we put in the ends and you start we start to a caress it very gently very slowly and without pressure we just must to feel it to rub in your hand in your palms with a very fingers without breaking anything look already you see they're stitching this big yes we take these two big yes is better to make two little together when you strip it you don't make like this because this now this will take away the tears from your eyes we try to take to let it the big piece on your finger so don't know bigger it is like this piece you will lose it okay you take it or leave a finger you have to you have to press you have to have bigger it is looking more text okay yes and more it takes away [Music] [Music] [Applause] so after walking down rushing down the mountain we reached the village of mallanna there is now a road going down there but before you had to walk like 2020 for cash together like two days now because of all the dams that are building in this area it's easy to access but still it's a very pretty steep climb up to the village and once you are in the village you are in a totally different world [Music] hey guys [Music] these guys are probably the direct descendants of Alexander the Great's troops lefting is in this area during the conquering of Asia you cannot touch the people you cannot touch the houses we're not allowed to eat with them this place was very hidden in the mountain and divorce is related everything they they need they get from the mountain okay so they the way they build their houses without nails the wood even the stones for the roof and vodka castle only tells us that in all the times there are only two things that people needed was salt and oil Franco can you ask the guy for bottle of water here we cannot to go inside the shop because there's an eatable of items so they will come unpure they was letting a few SEC's of wool they were going away and the locals from down looking how many and changing with salt and rice and going away and the mulana people they was going and taking wood no even look in the other in the last hundred years or in the last 150 years Cera's has replaced wool as a form of barter so these mountain people live this life totally self-sufficient and they use Cera's to buy the few things that they can't obtain from the mountain to see mulana people there was really another confirmation of the fact that cannabis is integrating part of the most special cultures on this planet Cera's is people's freedom in these areas ok tomorrow after meeting you in may after your all your problems we had decided to give you a beautiful house in your village of Milano and we're starting now and we hope it's going to be ready before the winter a very nice plaque for you because this is a holy village we cannot touch it sure we can also not touch the house so we're going to put it down here and we hope it will bring you a lot of prosperity and a lot of good luck for the rest of your life and here are the plates your house we donated this house tomorrow we lost both his parents he's an orphan when he was four and seven years old first his father and then his mother now it's 18 it has nothing description is shed it only has a few sheep one pot filled so we decided to give him a nice house to give you a little bit more luck than had in the past we did a lot of work for the green house foundation in the past most of the work is helping people with good seats and in other ways we have never give any attention to the public about our foundation because it is questionable for some people but now when the situation is changing in the world with the cannabis cannabis is getting more accepted cannabis is getting more legal around in the world people are realizing that cannabis is not that bad at all in the end and also us becoming more and more popular YouTube with like 120 million hits we decided that if we go open with the green house foundation maybe we can get more funds and do more things in the future after a good night of rest in the guest house in Milano we started a really long walk really steep walk and we reached one of the most secluded valleys in the area the locals call it Rolly touch it's the valley of the Devils we were a little bit shaky on that walk because we heard rumors the night before that over 200 police officers were on the way to our area to cut down cannabis plants and to perform their circle duties this is a whole game between the politicians the farmers and the police it's a very sad situation the war on drugs takes on and very interesting dimensions when you come to India you've got hundreds of policemen that are paid to to climb up the mountain and try and just cut and the time it takes them to cut one plant is the time it takes someone to rob a plant so this is futile expenditure of energy and it just must be really demoralizing for them it's also quite fantastic for me that in the mountains protect the people the way they do the mountains yeah just make it impossible [Music] Wow look at branch here Ohio wreath we are 3028 meters so what I'm six 700 meters up today yeah 600 meters up we started yeah this is a very touchy the value of the Devils well now today we have to see what we do in the end of the day because there's 200 police down there yeah so if we come back all luggage safe if we have to do an emergency evacuation we go down right to the pass because they're gonna search up to the glacier maybe we don't know yes we will just ask the moon amazing value yeah well basically what we what we figured out up to now is that this side is the warmest ideas and so it matures a little bit keep a lot of Sun and the advantage here much more production much more they can work twelve hours in the other side where we we made the hand we it was only seven hours in here's 12 12 hours son you're really freedom fighters yeah yeah the police comes cut the filth they go more far away have the police ever cut on this side huh have yes they cows on this idea because they know a European community is giving them ten million euros to cut down the plants so what they did basically they're separating the money behaving a little bit here a little bit there and the farmers use went up a little higher and put more fields yeah and also the funny part is that the cops they send up here to cut the plants they themselves smoke charas they rob it's in their culture their families do it in the more in the day time they come they cut the plants in the evening time they as to the local some showers to smoke yeah they know this butcher for them and then they get drunk you know and then she also here the alcohol and more they premised it to the locals to grow chick beans to have a good price instead of growing charles how much do they offer them they offer them eighty rupees per kilo in 1888 zero and emotion and how much do they get and they get six you see six also the government promised so you change it now they are coming to cut the plants more and for these people nothing what they will eat in this winter beautiful answer Franco yes very nice fall over rising you ever here to have the sunlight nearly the whole day yes and now they have an idea rising it's hot the Sun yeah one of the best best creams of the area comes yeah man it's really jungly start the channel miss master they arrived they wrap the seeds fall down with the seeds fall down with ground yeah you see the different phenotypes you don't know that's why you never never get the same cream or charge in this whole area in India in the whole nation and you can see also on the plants that they are really resistant because I mean for the kind of roughness they go through climate wise and altitude wise a pretty healthy and pretty cleaner but you see now it's now's the perfect time to for the harvester we see the plants of turning yellow and of the season of autumn the crystals are SS decisis the other side of the mountains yeah much more a little bit different again and in Malawi style the African style where to put the whole pile there Peter throw the hand you see they see them lying everywhere and an Africa to put little piles everywhere because the birds eat them what smells you get you get sweet you get the sweet you get the minty you get menu I got too many I can make a bowl now on the finish [Music] so here's the end result a very nice piece of of Johnny cream look at this [Music] Branko you as a boom on you should light it up normally Renault mom very nice they're in a very sweet man with a label so this is Rolly touch Shira really touched can he can can a friend explain a little bit the story about this level's valley this place here here was the place of devil his name was Bradley then touch means field yeah and it was eating a man taking his clothes and going in the house of this man where his brother was living with the same face of the man heated but here the Devils they can have the face the same face of the man but they have a heel heel here in the bottom of the feet okay so here versa brother will recognize it he is a devil then when he recognized this he gave to the devil a lot of food so that they will was sleeping in the nighttime he was putting this scissor they used to cut wool to the ships they are big huh in the fire there was a very hot then in the night and well the devil was sleeping he put in the eyes of the devil and the devil died so since the time here people can stay and this is the place maintains the name the name of [Music] I've been before in this area and I know there's very very nice field but we have to pass them and a lot of security things but luckily one of our guides had some connections to a high-ranking police officer there's a very big project going on building dams and the aspects of the environment are totally thrown off work even though they're doing something good to the eyes of the world because they are creating so-called green energy the way they are doing it is just nasty they are they're overruling any logic any environmental rule they are putting lives of people at risk and the condition of living of the workers there are inhuman in saying that not even animals live like that [Music] [Music] when you look at these projects you can see there are economic [Music] [Music] [Music] and that I should get money this company like my friend was peeking we are owners of our life and when they're odd and then we'll come we were left to work and to live for somebody other and that's true it's nice to meet you what's your name what I've heard and this is the good thing in the end is that European community is putting 10 million euros one way in the other by supporting the narcotic police here in India to cut down all those plants and basically what I think is happening now is that this money is divided between politicians police and farmers because what you see happening now is the farmers are pulling a little bit away from the road so it's not in your face totally anymore but they're putting it up more in the mountains and appointing three times more up until a few years ago there were actually shops where you can where you could buy this stuff legal all around India so you know it's it's very difficult to change the attitude of someone when for thousands of years has been part of your culture many plants they just put their foolish come to cut down to plants many ways if you and the funny part is when you talk to a police officer about this you also can say in Europe they will say yeah I know we know that cannabis plants are good but we are just doing our job we have to cut them down and we know that alcohol is much worse well here we have a situation where you interrogate a police officer the highest-ranking police officer of the area and he just basically says Blaine in your face no no alcohol is much better for you and we should not smoke the sheriff so that we tell our children drinking they are smoking better that's also some alcohol many people die just just ready ready said that you have everyone jumping on the alcohol thing and yet Charis is a much more gentler culture you know it makes people shanties makes people think in thousands of years in billions of markers nobody never one died and now they are going to not only the police in the books [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] wow man look at this look at the stocks here incredible Wow amazing this man really incredible Smith who are you pleased to meet you I'm Franco oops sorry Franco come here I'm coming Wow look at this a mind-blowing place look at here everywhere really beautiful stocks are impressive you have all males here full of Mauser I think they leave the male's in some area so that they can make enough seeds for the next year but for sure here they pull them because you can find them on the ground already a lot got enough yeah that's the one water lady Wow look at this a what a lady amazing I'm gonna strange really amazing hardly any strategy but yeah but it has a fruitiness that the others don't have though the others were really mint in US and this one as a fruitiness and it's beautiful you see that the better in the way don't know it already from stock instead of a single pretty flower she's shooting bad stock machines we have we have some seeds we have 15 to take this plane with us across the river with [Music] [Music] the next day we were planning to reach dodge so we got on our bikes where every person that travels through India should do or did its travel around on the big royal enfield the bullet the first time I was in India was 89 I bought the secondhand model in Bombay then I traveled with that 12,000 kilometers all around Libya the Royal Enfield is just an absolute classic and as recurrences we got to Indian we saw how many they were our tongues are just hanging out so we made a plan and arranged - Hassan and your beautiful beautiful experience [Applause] it's actually a nice morning but pretty soon we see thick nasty clouds approaching the sky and in a matter of few hours it starts raining the one where you are unfortunately or not fortunately we walked in the mountains for five six hours in very bad conditions a lot of heavy rain and we find this field Jesus Christ look here guys it's traction incredible the police leader very sheer what happens with European community money but they leave a whole whole part area yeah because you think I would deal with the farmers or something maybe what's coming too late because you see it's usually maybe start raining and they run all the way around away the surprise was not a good one because as we get there we realize that most of the field we were supposed to visit was already being chopped down by the cops and the funny thing again is here that there's so many police officers but the field was so big the only could call half of it but at least you see the destroying of the plant happening right in front of you we just arrived in that field and all the plants were cut down and so much left and then the same time you realized that this is the food for the farmer for a whole year and now he's gonna suffer I'm scared to walk on all this but somehow porter of the field was still standing and what was still standing was pretty damn amazing this pineapple mango this is the pineapple mango story food just a little bit more and we are into the snow mountains we're lucky the rain stops a little bit a little bit but the plants are so wet they cannot make it no we can't we can't drop any charge today because of the rain look at this I will cut it then bring down Wow what's that looks like maybe that is that you're paralyzed man I'm a it looks like every time yeah hi sir don't like just by its female yeah we had to make a small fire in the way on the way down to try to dry our clothes and dry ourselves and fit and that's something that that that just happens you know and when you are strain hunting you have to keep flexible no problem it's part of the game it's actually a lot of fun if you feel the right spirit for it [Music] everybody thinks only in Holland we have coffee shops but I just came back from California there are 4,000 coffee shops there are coffee shops in Spain or coffee shops all over the world but they don't have a license where they are there and the police tolerate these coffee shops and also here in in India I think there's a few hundred coffee shops Tosh is a very colorful little village all the way up into Parvati Valley and we had a contact there in a really nice guest house three male adult guest stars and the atmosphere is really like a coffee shop you sit down and they bring you a nice hot cup of tea and you can sample different varieties of Charles of cream they have children's everything is arranged you can buy your your your hash there and you can you can smoke and people from all over India come there and the police the local police come there to smoke with us so yeah I think it's pretty relaxed after all the stories that we heard so in winter city we had the chance to sample the local cuisine it was a quite hectic quite chaotic experience but the food was really tasty we had a really nice lunch in a traditional Indian restaurant with the Tondo there and some dal and some chapatis it was nice nice to see how the locals enjoyed the food [Music] [Music] after that we had a quite a long trip in car all the way climbing is nasty mountain road with a few problems two or three times with the car with to watch out because the conditions of our of our tires were pretty scary but we got to the top of this beautiful mountain where we can't again it was a very nice night we had a beautiful moonlight we made a big fire and it was really a very special experience was from juvie tillich others have over 50 55 years he he robbing and he went for his father in his best days how many grams a day could he robbed four five gram and forth a from one day what time of the year is it good to make the cherish cut him that to cut me it's like in between end of September to middle of end of September to middle of November until the first no come till the first no covering some can you show the hinge look how black incredible well can you can he explain a little bit more about the medicinal aspects of the ganja great and creepy you think it's most of using for stomach pain for stomach pain okay for sleeping so for sleeping and for stomach pain they used it here very long time it has pill to return the didn't bloated and they're using mostly that seeds for that's what he sings it's for oil yeah for oil what is what do they do with the oil or it for cooking for cooking yes huh very good it's very healthy and what is the good way to make to finish the product like this okay so he turns his finger and it must be in the south or in the shadow that guide to Dubai last equal of you guys did you take like a period find it starting from a son you have some time too much Sun here too much hot and it's more melting so yeah but now it's morning it's okay yes no okay [Music] after four or five hours of walk with the wrath of this amazingly big field with our guides and rush it was like young kids in the candy candy shop [Music] in this area actually the cultivation is a little bit more spread out and you can see that the phenotypes are adapted a bit more to the to being lower in altitude so the sativa character manifests itself a little bit more so for me as a sativa concern it was nice to see the sativas growing a little bit lower than the indica plants growing higher the plants have not this really broad leaf like like it comes out at 3,000 meters here we talk about something that stays a little bit more in the original sativa leaf shape and the smells are bit more mint a bit more fresh a bit more pining so this is the tea plant in the big field that we're gonna pick out for the sheets look at the structure and the mango flavor yeah looks a little bit like it alternates to another mango one yeah mmm Wow there were a incredible beautiful fielder how many Hector's is this how many plants you see they put a lot of mail set is his first field way into my high up in the mines where you see the pool lot of mills yeah they definitely got rid of the mess a while ago there already rotting away look at this it attracts associative RC between us yeah even though I have to say there is less difference overall compared to the thousand meters in the yeah really like candy garden this one whoa this is the real sativa rational this Oh bitterish like very green most like the crystals here completely on the leaf [ __ ] like what we do indoor quite open I see from this side on the Sun it's one big shiny thing and even the leaves you know the little bird leaves they're like totally poor covered [Applause] [Music] the idea came up three years ago in our office to do something new we were very big under pressure in Holland of the right extremist Christian parties and we decided on the office we should create more awareness and show more what's what is cannabis about what's the background of cannabis and which cottages you'd use where you come from one little journey has become a multitude of journeys where we following a pond and we're going to regions which are very very remote that have had very very few outsiders and but also the kind of approach which makes it quite different is that we're not coming here to buy anything or to buy Charis or to buy you know which is was what people ordinarily expect often when Outsiders come here and we're coming to these places to learn that's what's behind strain hunter and the green house foundation it's the feeling of of hunting for something unique and bringing it back and preserving it but also the feeling of leaving something good to the people and the cultures and the environments that that donate this beautiful plant to us and I think at one point I hope we will be a part of the legalization process that people can show this movement to other people who are against condition and give them more awareness about the plant and see how important and how valuable this plant could be to society it's just the continuing project is just an ongoing mission strain hunters are people who can't sit quiet for too long you know we get bored easily so we gotta keep moving [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] you you