All about weed!

The price of weed is put at Rs. 50-100, price of hash between Rs. 300-700 and Rs. 1,500 for the best quality ‘cream’ --for 10 grams. New form of weed known as Marijuana Wax costs Rs. 3,000 per gram. One gram of cocaine in 2017, according to media reports, cost Rs. 5,000. An Ecstasy pill costs Rs. 1,500. Charas was being sold for Rs. 3.8 lakh a kg while heroin prices had gone up to Rs. 98 lakh a kg.

A UN report says that for smuggling one kilogram of narcotics into India from Afghanistan or Pakistan, a courier is paid as much as Rs. 1.5 lakh.

To the uninitiated, the difference between Charas, Ganja, Afeem and Bhang are as obscure as the difference between weeds, opium, hash and marijuana. But a quick Internet search threw some light on the popular intoxicants. Apparently, they are all made from cannabis plants of different varieties.

As with marijuana, people who use hashish may experience a pleasant euphoria and sense of relaxation. Other common effects may include heightened sensory perception (such as seeing brighter colour), laughter, altered perception of time, and increased appetite.

• Hashish or hash is made from the resin (a secreted gum) of the cannabis plant. It is dried and pressed into small blocks and smoked. It can also be added to food and eaten.

• Marijuana also comes from the cannabis plant. It is made from dried flowers and leaves of the plant.

• Marijuana generally have a potency of 10-20 percent THC while THC levels in Hashish can range from 20 percent to 60 percent.

• Since Marijuana contains plant material, it is typically less potent than the extracted resin of hashish that eliminates all of the “extras”

• Hashish is a reddish-brown to black colour resinous material of the cannabis plant. Pieces are broken off, placed in pipes and smoked.

• Charas is also a Cannabis concentrate. But while Charas is made from the resin of live plants, Hash is made of dead and dried plant material.

• The Sanskrit word for the dried buds of the cannabis plant, ganja, makes you feel relaxed, pleasant and makes music sound ‘freaking amazing’. The resin from rubbing the cannabis flowers on your hand produces charas or hashish—the handmade hashish produced in places such as India, Pakistan, Nepal and Lebanon. Charas is the dark resin collected from the cannabis plant. It is made by rubbing the flowering buds of the plant in the palm for hours on end, and the slower the rub, the better the quality.

• An edible preparation of marijuana made from the leaves and stems of the plant. It’s usually found in the form of Thandai, pakoras and halwa. It’s made by grounding the cannabis into a paste and then adding the necessary ingredients, such as ghee, sweets and spices. It’s a staple of the Holi festival and it can get you completely blitzed.

• Extracted from coca leaves, cocaine was originally developed as a painkiller. It is most often sniffed, with the powder absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. It can also be ingested or rubbed into the gums.

• MDMA is a synthetic drug that alters mood and perception (awareness of surrounding objects and conditions). It is chemically similar to both stimulants and hallucinogens, producing feelings of increased energy, pleasure, emotional warmth, and distorted sensory and time perception.