Free Smuggler's Blues: The Saga of a Marijuana Importer by Jay Carter Brown Page B

weed. It was the first time I ever smoked a spliff wrapped in a pure, naturally grown tobacco leaf. The oversized joint was delicious and the tobacco leaf gave a much softer burn than regular rolling papers.
    Negril is different from the rest of Jamaica both in topography and weather as well as in the attitudes of the people. Negrilis considered country to the rest of Jamaica. There is none of the pushing and pestering that goes on in Montego Bay and the other tourist resorts on the north coast. Fruit grows larger and tastes sweeter in Negril. Weed tastes better too. In keeping with the laid-back attitude of the region, Ma Brown’s famous mushroom tea shack carries on a prosperous business selling magic mushrooms. The shrooms are specially searched out in the surrounding jungle and pack a psilocybin wallop like nothing you have ever felt before.
    The hippie’s thatched house that we were in was completely made by hand, using the materials that grew on his property. He told us of his dreams to clear the surrounding jungle and make a resort consisting of thatched roof houses like his own. If you visit the hippie today, his property is on the cliffs and is one of Negril’s most popular locations for the eco resort crowd. It is called Xtabi.
    “How do you get along with the blacks?” Charlie asked the pleasantly stoned hippie.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know. The niggers. How do you get along with the niggers down here?”
    “Fine. I have a Jamaican houseboy and a maid.”
    “Don’t they steal your food?”
    “They don’t have to. Most of my food is grown in the back yard. They can have whatever they want.”
    “What about stealing your money and your cigarettes?”
    “I grow my own marijuana and tobacco on the property which the staff are welcome to partake in. There is little need for money here in Negril. Everything comes from the land.”
    “What about robberies?”
    “It’s no worse than anywhere else.”
    “As far as I am concerned, niggers are all thieves and they lie like a mattress.”
    “Why come to Jamaica if you don’t like the people?”
    “You know I have been asking myself that same question ever since I got here.”
    Charlie was candid in his dislike of blacks, unlike many of thetourists who refused to admit it, and his hippie host appeared to take no offense at that. Charlie hated blacks the way a junkyard dog dislikes trespassers. Sometime after our rendezvous in Jamaica, I saw him in a local supermarket in Montreal. “Tweet tweet,” he said out of the blue.
    “Tweet, tweet.” He sounded just like the cartoon character stenciled on his briefcase. “Tweet, tweet! His canary sounds became angrier. “Tweet, tweet!” Suddenly Charlie began to rant about how he would like to kill all blacks, especially the ones from Jamaica. It was an uncomfortable situation for me as I had no ax to grind against black people and hoped that there weren’t any in the store at the time.
    It was a little after this incident that I was pulled aside by Charlie’s partner Irving, for a walk around the car lot. He told me Charlie was out of town dealing with another Jamaican fuckup. Some video game machines that Charlie had smuggled into Jamaica were being ripped off by someone using a skeleton key to empty the coin boxes.
    Irving was Jewish which meant he was a part of Quebec society that was often the victim of harassment and prejudice. I always thought that all Jews were meek and mild, but that was before I met Irving. Irv would have made a great soldier and commander. He was blessed with a charisma and charm that concealed his ruthless nature. Irv was a born psychopath and his stubborn refusal to comply with even the simplest of society’s rules stood him at odds with all levels of authority. He once refused to pay rent and when the landlord threatened to sue him, he just laughed at him.
    “I’m unseizable,” he challenged. “I just got out of jail and I have no assets. I own nothing. You’ll get