My first trip to Jamaica and its marijuana bonanza.

I had just turned 16 and my parents took us on a trip to Ocho Rios Jamaica. It was a fifteen story hotel in one of the bigger tourist cities on the island. We took a bus from the airport to our hotel which included a stop at a small jerk chicken stand along the ocean. All the white, or "fresh" american tourists piled out of the bus with their fanny packs and water bottles to start ordering whatever was offered on the hand painted plywood menu. The cleaver wielding Rasta behind the table violently chopping up chicken parts and serving up some of the dishes had singled me out and started asking me questions in his best English but I couldn't understand a word he was saying through his thick accent. I kept asking him, over and over "What, Im sorry, what do you want?" "Hey Mon, we git da erbs, wacha wan Mon, its all Irie?" After about five exchanges of me asking him what the hell he was saying I finally understood, he was offering to put some herbs on my jerk chicken plate. Ohhh! Yeah, put some herbs on my chicken I said, what the hell, I love some Jamaican herbs on my jerk chicken. Rasta curled his long bony finger to point me around the corner to a more secluded part of his ramshackle operation and then pulled out from under the counter about two ounces of fairly nice green Jamaican herb and asked for four American dollars, thats $4 for about two ounces of decent Jamaican. I was no stoner at that time but I knew that that amount would bring hundreds back in the states My parents were standing ten feet from me so I was amazed by his brazen offer and soon realized that marijuana was a part of the culture here and not a dangerous drug that Nancy Regan was trying to tell kids back in the states to "just say no" to but I politely declined his offer. It was at that moment though that I realized that a cheap, naturally grown product could be bought in a third world country and possibly resold in America at a huge profit. About four years later I would return to Jamaica on my own with business in mind.