Hong Kong

Law Enforcement

Don’t walk down the street smoking. Even foreigners could be stopped. We saw random ID checks and searches. People had theories about officers checking cigarette boxes and rarely checking shoes, or said smoking indoors was fine. None of that was a sure thing.

“You’ll be arrested if you’re caught with marijuana here. Very efficient and highly skilled. One of the world’s best and most professional police forces.”

Where to Buy Marijuana

Kowloon was where the nightly action was. Around Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), there was Chungking Mansions, neighboring Mirador Mansions and Kowloon Park after dark. Try Jordan if you already know somebody, people said. There were also Causeway Bay, with all its crowds and police, and Yau Ma Tei, which felt sketchy. I wouldn’t smoke in a club. Quotes in TST could jump if somebody took you for an outsider.

The price of getting acquainted

“I’m local and paid HK$900 for a bullet of hash after they started at HK$2,000. Good stuff, but more than I expected. I asked a young tout selling watches and suits on Nathan Road by Chungking Mansions. Couldn’t have been easier.”

“An update to my December purchase: I found a new dealer and realized I was getting hosed at HK$900. Now it’s HK$500 for a bullet and HK$1,800 for an ounce of weed. The hash is AAA and the weed is B on my AAA-to-F scale.”

“I’d smoked daily for over six years, lived mostly in Canada with a short spell in the U.S., and been in Hong Kong about a year. I was spoiled in Canada. Here I was paying way too much for schwag, cess, whatever you call shitty seedy weed. I went for hash. Most was sold as Nepalese, though some was as bad as UK soap hash. I suspected henna and who knows what else. It still got me high.”

Prewrapped bullets might go for HK$500–700. I saw opening quotes as high as HK$2,000 for white buyers, offered HK$500 and paid HK$400 once I knew people. There were Rizlas at newspaper stands in TST. Near Sogo in Causeway Bay, possibly in a basement mall, I saw cheap plastic bongs and a few glass-on-glass gems. For hash I stuck with joints. Try not to get too pissed at hearing “copy bag, copy watch?” a million times.

From the other side of the counter: “Really hard to buy. I’m a trader as well and don’t know how to get customers here either.”

Very different bags

First night in Chungking, a bullet started at HK$500. I got most of it for HK$250. I was told locals paid about that and I wouldn’t give more than HK$300. It was potent but sticky and gummy. When I tried to dry it with a flame, it gave off black smoke. Locals guessed charcoal, beeswax and no more than 40% hash. Those were guesses. I wouldn’t eat it.

In Wan Chai, Colombian women sometimes knew where to find weed. “Some of the best pot I’ve had outside of San Francisco.” Back at Chungking, there was Chinese schwag and everything from crap hash to excellent. Softer hash generally seemed better, though Saran wrap made it hard to tell.

A bullet could go for HK$300–350, or HK$200–250 through someone you knew. I preferred flower because I worried about contaminants. A quarter of good indica hybrid cost HK$800, about US$100 then, and good indoor ounces ran HK$2,500–4,000. Unless you knew locals in Kowloon, a quarter was usually the smallest bag.

Marijuana Prices

Prices varied with the product and who you knew:

• Low-quality cannabis: HK$500 for a half-ounce (US$60 then), or around HK$1,000 for an ounce of schwag (US$120).
• Better hydro or skunk: around HK$3,000 per ounce (US$350 then).
• Another flower price: HK$1,800 per ounce.
• Good indoor cannabis: reported at HK$2,500–HK$4,000 per ounce.
• A quarter-ounce of an indica hybrid: HK$800.
• Hash “bullets”: quotations ranged from roughly HK$200–HK$350 through familiar contacts to HK$500–HK$900 in other accounts, with much higher opening offers.

“Me and my boys have NEVER, EVER, EVER paid more than HK$350 for a bullet. It was HK$300 four years earlier. I’d expect HK$250 now, though it could be more without a regular dealer.”

Through a contact, good hash was quoted at £50 an ounce. There was also a quote as low as HK$100 an ounce for poor hash. I paid HK$230 through a man I knew for two years and heard HK$250 was common. In TST, sellers wanted more for smaller amounts, and I didn’t trust their weights. I wouldn’t pay more than HK$300 just for looking like a tourist. For me, weed wasn’t worth it.

Types of Marijuana

“Mostly hashish, but motherfucking A-grade TOP NOTCH hash. Definitely the best I’ve smoked. Good ol’ Mary Jane is a lot harder to find.”

Hong Kong, China. UTC/GMT+8, calling code +852.

A sweaty stairwell adventure

I went through Chungking three or four times in daylight and nobody approached me. My wife eventually let me go alone. That evening near Nathan and Salisbury roads, several Chinese sex workers approached me before I met an Indian man, 28, who said to call him Killad. I had HK$200 to spend. We took the lift to the 12th floor, then walked down to the 10th.

“It felt like 90 degrees and 98% humidity. I waited nearly twenty minutes, sweating bullets. Then I heard four or five men coming up the stairs and started imagining that somebody had sent them for the rest of my money.”

Four or five West African men came upstairs and walked straight past. Then Killad came back with a quarter-ounce of gummy-looking weed in one hand and about half an ounce of good-smelling hash in the other. I took the hash. It was hard to find back home in Southern California.

“Despite all the adventure and stress, I got decent hash at a goooood price.”

More Information

A summer memory

Chungking had shops selling everything from fake D&G to snakes in bottles. Five minutes in, an Indian man whispered “hashish.” It was dark, gummy and oily and smelled beautiful. Two grams cost HK$100, about US$10 then. My room was nonsmoking, so I went to a secluded park with sea views and the skyline, including a tower I knew as the fourth tallest in the world.

Back at Chungking, Rock took me to his place and handed me a piece to roll. It was black and oily, like clay. Nepalese Temple Balls, he said, because you could roll it into any shape. He reckoned all Hong Kong hash came from Nepal. I got eight grams for HK$200 and later took some on the ferry to mainland China. One of the greatest summers of my life. Taking cannabis across a border carries legal risk.

Introductions and negotiations

Walk around Chungking and you might hear “sheesh?” I got the first bullet down from HK$700 to HK$650. I waited while the man fetched it, then followed him to a stairwell. The silver, football-shaped nugget smelled lemony and piney and tasted herbal. Good times.

The next one went from HK$500 down to HK$433. An open-air shop, a phone call and ten minutes later, somebody took us down a narrow alley to meet the “boss.” He said he was Nepali, his father had been a colonial police officer and the hash came from Nepal. He offered cocaine and said green weed usually meant a big order, something like half a kilo. He gave me his number. I used a payphone next time.

I took being approached as a sign that it was safe and assumed police couldn’t entrap me that way. That was only an assumption. Some hash colored my fingers brown in a minute. I found a piece the size of a couple grains of rice very strong raw.

A Christmas disappointment

“I asked a watch seller at Chungking on Christmas Day. HK$500 for a bullet of pure crap, black, gummy and smelling of menthol. At Mirador, a man whispered ‘hasheesh.’ I got him down from HK$500 to HK$280 and got a bigger piece. Same quality.”

“This time it smelled like incense. A gram in a joint gave me a slight buzz at best. I’m familiar with soap hash. This was just as bad, except I didn’t get a headache. Is it like this all over Hong Kong or just TST? Might as well stay sober.”

“Police were everywhere that Christmas Day. The dealers didn’t seem to mind. I tried to look cool and everything went fine.”