Hello, I am Hamilton
and I'm currently standing on the outskirts of a weed field in Swaziland.
And, I am holding in my hand a plastic bag full of Swaziland gold nugs
and I am grateful to be here
very grateful to be here
yeah
with a temperate climate majestic waterfalls and an abundance of playful
monkeys the kingdom of swaziland would appear to be heaven on earth
get this swaziland has the highest prevalence of HIV in the world and
for every 6,000 people ruled by King Swantee the third sub-saharan Africa's
last absolute monarchy the citizens of swaziland are taunted by the Kings 200
million dollar bank account and numerous palaces occupied by his 15 lives
although over two-thirds of the population lives under the poverty line
king with swatilands taxes the meager income swazi farmers earned from their crops
but one crop remains exempt because it was never approved
and
bringing it up
swansea gold is a pure sativa strain that is said to take six months to
mature and can grow over 10 feet in height
additionally the plants are rumored to be completely devoid of the cannabinoid
CB d
but i wanted to test this for myself so i began collecting samples for analysis
contrary to the popular image of cannabis growers as stoners and hippies
the growers of swaziland are predominantly drug naive grandmother's
who grow the plant out of pure economic necessity i had read in books that
cannabis has a distinctive odor and appearance but nothing could have
prepared me for my first time seeing the plant the drug users refer to as pot is
it that another would have been fine it's called me back
Oh like I like being born about Michael I nearby durable permitting
man singing that we don't have the same black enamel on planting corn and
singing and what the hell is he leads the whereabouts of them so popular list
the web of civil war that sunday in this is penny less
the attack and successes yet
in 62 solo solo ESO NOS llega a chi
swaziland cannabis is not measured by weight but by volume and the grandmother
brought a deck a liter sack of her most resonance
snugs looks so sad they were not it brings out a single since this is a good
inside
they can shop made a living hell ya doing the car
I guess this is enough
very good onward
so this and this area and it should be
they produce the best guy in the world the quad money from Gandhi to everything
just because the system of government is the Latino people who mostly benefits
from the government and the people from the real families or friends of the team
the system is a system of oppression right
good day event 0 UT Mandy would enable is a matter which is no kuni no papa
yeah anyhow you're kidding right
p learned what a family but we'll get them with the country and fiscal crisis
and its former wood pulp and mining industries exhausting the last of
swaziland natural resources
dr. Donna me has one of the few remaining solutions to attract foreign
investors and protect the country from economic collapse
we've been spending the last two days traveling around visiting different
farmers and talking to them about how they feel about cannabis legalization
and things like that and a lot of them are actually against it
they don't want it to be legal because they'll make less money I have
I wasn't as other and contract those problems on TV
the evil ones who are happy with that situation
those who are who wanted to profit by themselves because they are the only
ones who have the guts to go out there and break the law
yes but it all the law abiding persons they don't have the opportunity to grow
cannabis
now we want to remove the door so that everyone can have the opportunity to go
if he wants to do
we ended up getting a massage your bundle into lemon . for all of us in
your things
eating i muted failing in vernal about novel , killing i'm going to the last
why we're going to content element cheese and seeing them time and I limit
myself to move it open
Kayla telling social program level of bonding w Marcus fascinated me and hope
it was having a snob
we are you telling me something cool about it be able pan and turns it really
wasn't my choice anymore gala baliga it was what I'm telling Lucia it the
angrier than a 16-11 I saying about me and they go fully known for kind of
combat seen you standing in front on the village
have fun and one of the middle of himself in the corner office at two
limits the middle of next week when see this report two types of grows into
present some of the growers are under commissioned by some of the European
consumers of the of of cannabis when it's ready
those people who wanted to come and pick it up then they is somebody else who
sees me being prosperous because of growing cannabis and then he said he's
growing economies and just getting so much money and whatnot so let me do the
same and he does it he doesn't have the market
so once he has the connection is all she doesn't know what to do with it
those are the people who are you
in trouble because they have no matter they don't know what to do
then they bring it to a doctor ben de lami introduced me to his Rastafarian
colleague an expert on the history of swansea cold
yeah i know most of the guys who by their middle man you know to go ad very
inside in there in a min in this African market gets back in the day it was a
white guy is used to buy it and ship it the white guys now we'll still have
contact with the farmers have project could seat and the second fuse just a
tiny drop of the farmers who can grow high grade
the market is no longer dominated by the original six months swazi gold and there
is now a demand for fast-growing hybrids imported from Europe in the data and
such as all this was a cult
there are no different categories that this is blueberry this is cheese this is
what this is what - there's also available tomorrow when i came from pic
speak
that's where it originates and will interest the the best swimming area so
i'll speak speak
we went into town to see if the Swazi product was being sold locally or if it
was solely intended for export some of these guys obviously they go to the
farms the middle men that is they go to the farms and rob the poor farmers of
their produce to go sell what its money is valuable you know I'm saying
and then they take the weed and consonant are so to the middle minutes
would add value and go so wherever we've got their markets Africa produces more
cannabis than any other continent in the world and swaziland
despite its small size indicates more hectares of land to cannabis cultivation
then all of India
Master it doesn't mean that you have dreadlocks to be an ass they need to
have a heart
so you don't think I'm a roster can be at us a list i am around
there's no need to college to be a master good at like that one interesting
thing about cannabis growers in swaziland is they never get high on
their own supply me move in the monkey obviously producing and we've got a live
in door neighbor
ya thang magising them in San next to a la palma can withstand then one sulla
new be again all up with their lives and they also have matter and yeah if we
used to get us off ? like India when i'm working in swaziland I meet the
policeman day they that they tell me that you know what I'm promoting
promoting the growing of Kennedy's means that a lot of people would get mad that
a lot of people in psychiatric center they are there because of kind of these
because I told them that's rubbish is class reps
the ignorance we have is causing us to suffer and the many people are dying
because of ignorance because they have been told that cannabis is dangerous for
you never touch it
yes so they lose the opportunity of getting a better life because you're
your answer stars in the past used Kenobi's your body knows that there is
the best thing I need on earth is economies and it looks for it
hello here comes the sack and a bed like this so much control over 50,000 $15,000
seems much more expensive than other bags the big one
why why is this so much more expensive than the other
Suozzi goal that we've seen in the past and I think because the route 7
okay now you're gonna might mean it and I ok then we can see even more Fupa
cool okay in a key good job
farmers report the iron-rich soil is ideal for growing candidates without the
use of synthetic fertilizers which states that so many more such a freak I
be so yeah and um up with Ryan I be so our president of its best yeah I want to
introduce the friendly day
I could tell the farmers were giving me a good deal because they laughed
hysterically as they stayed at the price
it's ready to smoke so you throw the seeds when you're done with them down
the mountain and these just grow wildly
it's very good i think it's also you know so it is very reach you see you can
go anywhere you don't have to prepare the soil into your neck
the modern way to from marijuana is to prepare proper so you saying you have to
buy so it
yeah but in the rural areas you have 25 so you can just come and put seeds to
grow it is normal earth in this normal so you see it grows like nobody's
business
unlike the other swazi farmers this one seemed to have something he wanted to
hide quickly
my first name is Hamilton jets
and like 11 to just pick up all your top up in New York there's nothing like this
it doesn't exist in the same way that it exists here so we want to be able to
show people that there's a part of Africa where people grow giant dog
- but he did you know this is not too heavy
admission admission in Africa for doing this
yes yes not it we didn't know that yes
ok man you supposed to talk to me before man payable by bus keep on your box i
presume that that's why you must move our basketball and it's never your
friend
oh yeah haha get it
you know what I think
laughing after the argument had ended
I soon saw why the farmer was nervous about outsiders looking at his crop was
this just picked today
yes into dad had us is that we know that people use a photo
oh yes how could anybody with a double
even the small plots that Swansea farmers distribute throughout the hills
can yield several burlap sacks and nugs each season
Wow
that is by far the most weed I've ever seen in my life
by the quantity of weed we just saw was by a very large margin the most be
they've ever seen in my life
it was certainly enough to fill at least four standard sized bathtubs