High Times In The Himalayas.

I feel like everyone is missing the point here. The drug is ruining the lives of these people because use of it is consuming their culture. The women and children do all of the work while the men get high. It is great that they are selling to tourists and I am not saying the industry is wrong, it is just that perhaps switching crops would inspire better ways of life and more productivity. However, realistically simply planting beans is not going to change anything significantly but it is an honest effort.

marijuana is just another type of tobacco grown in the ground on every single continent,I am not sorry to say this but the tobacco company could label marijuana as a ground grown tobacco plant.Any time they want.Any plant that can be heated to a certain temperature and be smoked, would be classified ground grown tobacco.Two smoke-able plants where found growing right next to each other.each had a name called tobacco each with a different potentse and color.

It's funny to see people so shocked.. 8O... Because that's a false feeling of morality built by ridiculous brainwashed minds of America!

Booking flight to Malan, now.

$1000 PER YEAR?? And they want to "help" them make $65 less than that!!?? WTF!! Dude you can get beans any-friggin-where. All they need is the right person and they could be making that in a week or two...3'000 acres!! O-M-G

The Life. sounds peaceful

now that is a down ass picture

so what leave em alone

Thats one beautiful picture,Its nice to see people treating it as the beautiful plant that it is and not what the government has labeled it to be.

Hopefully this great crop can come to other countries including America. We can get far more use from it than many of the other crops we grow.

They seriously need to leave these people alone. In fact we need to start paying them for imports of it.

"Sharma figures a husband and wife farming team in Malana can make about $935 per year growing beans and sweet peas, versus what he estimates as a $1,000-per-year return on cannabis cultivation. He hopes the fact that his alternative crops are legal will persuade villagers to turn to them."

Brilliant idea! Let's make them even more impoverished than they already are!

@GodsnLiberals - You are a fucking idiot. Would you wan't some guy coming up to you telling you how to live your life? No...So don't fucking do it yourself. Growing Cannabis is not going to hurt anyone, Anti-Drug activists are doing it as a publicity stunt to once again brain wash the majority that a Weed is some sort of evil drug. When really it is one of the greatest natural resources. And won't harm a soul if it was legalized and regulated properly. It only causes violence because it is illegal and worth more ounce for ounce than gold is! Now if the farmers were to change from growing Marijuana to growing beans they are most definitely going to loose money... So tell me what the reason would be to change their culture? Just to make people like your self feel better? Ha. Fuck off!

Peace Out.

omg this is how there little world works. no reason to roll in and mess it all up. if they change to beans, 6months later they will have a mcdonalds and just get raped by the world. let the people be!

interesting the isreali mafia has their fingers in this pie too. No wonder they are still poor. hopefully the road will bring more tourists, increasing the profit they can make. The isreali mafia are responsible for most of the worlds ecstacy production and distribution..

How is "drug-tourism" such a bad thing??

I went to Amsterdam and spent a shit-load of money there.

We buy some nugs from these Malana folks and they can feed their family for a week. Everyone goes home happy!!!

I was a little concerned that the women and children seemed to be doing all the hard graft whilst the guys have all the fun

BECAUSE BEANS MAKE AS MUCH MONEY.
(/sarcasm)
Anti-drug people are just trying to make the country poorer.

Simply put... drug activists and all other activists who don't like something should simply avoid it and stop thinking they have all the answers.

This is kind of like when Jehova's witnesses come to my house. They dropped a magazine on my front porch that reads "Do you fear hell?". Apparently this was supposed to convert me into a good fearing witness.... I can only imagine how they would feel if I dropped a High Times magazine on their doorstep.

"Anti-drug activists have begun to campaign to get the farmers to swap pot plants for beans." GTFO! That's the worst bargain ever.

its so bizarre to see little kids interacting with such a plant in this way. it's just everyday life to them. crazy.

It don't look that good to me,yard weed

Get it strait ppl, weed aint a drug, these ppl could benefit a lot more from tourism than they could from beans. And the disease and lack of infrastructure sounds like its the fault of local government, dont be so harsh!

Crazy photography, it is interesting to see a culture so centered around drugs. That would be one devastating area for a forest fire. Also interesting to learn that they are descendants from the armies of Alexander the great.