"Imagine 10, 20, or 30 individuals running or riding naked in a field of wild marijuana"
In a piece about the Kyrgyz and Kazakh residents of Chu Valley, where some of the world's best hash comes from, Radio Free Europe reminds us that the war on drugs is often a war on cultural pastimes:
It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high "forest" of marijuana.
Afterwards, the human body and that of the horse are covered with a thick layer of resin mixed with sweat.
This produces a substance that is usually dark brown in color, which is then thoroughly scraped off the human and horse's bodies.
The mixture is subsequently pressed, molded into bars, and dried.
The "plastilin" that results from this process effectively comprises very concentrated marijuana bars.
A couple of small, pinhead-sized pieces from one of these bars added to a regular cigarette is enough to make the smoker happy.
This sort of marijuana is also very easy to carry or stash and is therefore very popular among drug users.
But it is a lot harder to produce this form of the drug because you need more time to make it.
Imagine 10, 20, or 30 individuals running or riding naked in a field of wild marijuana. It goes without saying that they are more exposed and it is easier to catch them. Nonetheless, people do it and they have been doing it since time immemorial.
Some Twitter users are questioning the veracity of Radio Free Europe's story. Former Reason intern Stephen Smith tweets back: Resin + pressure/heat = hash. People in the US put it in their shoe. This is what they do in Russia: