Marijuana.com

EeJay

I've just gotten back from a 2 week trip we call "Schoolies". It's just about a month period at the end of every year where the Year 12's of eastern Australia travel to the mid-eastern coast of Australia and basically just party. I think it's like Spring Break for the yanks, cept it's meant to be for the kids who've just finished school.

Anyway, for a week, me and my stoner mates spent a week a camp site in a town called Byron Bay. It's pretty much the laid back and chill alternative to Surfers Paradise, an hours drive north of Byron.

Now to the point (finally, I know). During our stay we made 3 trips out to a tiny, one street town, about 1.5 hours drive from Byron Bay. The town is called Nimbin and has a huge and long reputation of being home to a population of weed smoking hippies. Before we went there, we'd all heard that it's pretty much turned into a harry injecting, drug ****ed place. Having been there and pretty much talking to half the town, i'm very happy to say it's all total bull**** and was probably made up by our government to deter people away from it.

The place is awesome. Just driving there, you can see why the stoners of old chose that place to live, the land is so beautiful and almost surreal. I was pleasantly surprised when we did reach the town to find all the shops along the single street were all painted either psychadelic or just plain cool, it wasn't what I expected (I don't know what I expected).

Outsiders (not said in a bad way) are easily recognised in Nimbin, so as expected (more or less) we were approached within literally minutes of getting out of the car with offers of buying weed. They just carry it on them, and whip it out with little to no worry. A huge percentage of their weed is just grown out in the fields, letting the natural sunlight feed it, so is poorer quality than most other weed we get here in Sydney. It doesn't matter to them though, infact I believe a lot actually prefer it as there's no added chemicals that way.

Every shop, save 2 or 3 is Marijuana related. One called "The Hemp Bar" was a small bar that didn't seem to have many drinks available, but the people there were sitting at the counter either rolling joints or smoking them. We scored a super cheap half oz there, through a friend we met one night in Byron who had handy local knowledge.

Another shop sold everything weed related. It had lots of photos pinned to the wall of an event called the Marijuana Mardi Gras, or something to that nature, that takes place yearly in Nimbin. At the back, there's a desk with legalisation petitions to sign and posted all around the room are sheets of marijuana information from dispelling myths to giving advice such as taking a break from smoking if it starts getting out of hand. From what I saw, all information was true and concise, so there was no pro-pot propaganda.

This shop is the biggest and main (I guess) one. I'm pretty sure the money made goes to some legalisation organisation or similar because we had a long talk to one of the men working there and he told us that he doesn't get paid. He told us there are about 10 communities living around the Nimbin area, and the people in those communities take turns in running the shop. When one of my friends tried to pay with EFTPOS, they didn't know how to work the transaction machine. The ones working there never had before, and told us there was "a machine across the road where you can use your card to get money". Ahhh, funny hippies. He could damn well talk too if you let him know you were interested. All up in a visit 2 hours long, he was talking to at least one of my friends for about 1.5 hours. When people walk around the town, say to help you find someone to score off, they don't hurry at all, infact they walk really slowly. It's like time doesn't exist for them, they just live and be happy. It kinda makes me think city and suburban life is all about rushing around and being stressed and angry for nothing.

The town survives on its tourism. During our visits there, we didn't see many customers or sight see'ers that looked Australian, most looked European. We were glad to help by buying stuff, heh.

We spent about 10 hours in that town in total, and I could go on typing for ages yet, but it's lengthy already and i'm not too sure how interested a read it is. I just found the whole experience very special and wanted to share it with fellow stoners. I also want to know if anyone out of Australia has ever heard of Nimbin or have a similar "notorious" towns in your country or area.

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Experience is an honest teacher.

 

JiNseKi

wow EJ that sounds like hella fun. also, 100% natural weed isnt always that bad this spring break i'm goin to amsterdam with some of my peoplez, but gonna make a sidetrip to this place i heard about from my friend in Copenhagen called Christiania(sp?).

yet another hippy town, apparently there is a "weed market" where they sell it in bulk at dirt cheap prices. i cant wait till i get there

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wutz my anti-drug??? WEED is my anti-drug

jaman

Ya,a good friend of mine moved to Australia several years ago,and him and his wife never came back they liked it so much.I believe they live in Perth

dangerous dave

yeah you pretty much summed up how mad that little town is!!!, me and mum went there, she was against mj b4 she went there, but the ppl there somhow changed her mind!!!, now she doesnt think its bad no more...and it sofend the blow wen she found out i do it..lol....theres so many stoned ppl just chillin, and dealin there...plus they have this musium there thats really cool,....the police cant bann it or come and bust the ppl for growing it because the town depends on it...cant wait to go back.