Marijuana, A Curry Flavorings

BANDA ACEH – Of all the tales of miraculous, one in particular has some people of Indonesia’ Aceh province reaching for their cooking pots. At least one crop, thanks to the fact that it grown in the remote hills, mixed to be curry flavorings.

There’s no need time to take care and maintain it. It’s also no need  providing fertilizer to fertile it. The crop grows on it owns after seed sowing. Thanks once again for the arable hilly land in Aceh. Someone just waiting for several months to harvest. Sometimes, they plant a piece in a secret hiding place to monitor the growing.

Yes, it called ‘ganja’ or marijuana, a famous tasteful crop grown in some hilly areas in the northern tip of Sumatra island’s province. Even police intensively hunt and siezed dozens hectares of marijuana’s fields in the last few years, it remains fertile in various regions.

Usually the police directly burnt marijuana trees that been ready to harvest at the sites and just hauled part of it for the evidence. In fact some have claimed that when the burning, which  marijuana seeds flown, it will grow again in the next few months.

And although marijuana is illegal in Indonesia, its use is secretly widespread in some part of Aceh, where it is traditionally added to curry and even coffee as well as sometimes special lunkhead and off course being smoked.

In the region, marijuana has provided an important link to traditional ways of life for some. One doesn't need to look for long in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh to find roadside stalls selling ‘gulai kambing’, a goat meat-based curry dish, simmering on a gas stove.

Asked whether there is any marijuana in the stew and most people hold out their wrists, as if handcuffed, and swear not. But many do add the special ingredient along with other cooking materials.

A curry seller in Banda Aceh who asked anonymous is a little less timid. "I put a little bit in the gulai kambing and sometime in coffee," he revealed. "It's not difficult to get hold of and prices have stayed pretty stable," he added.

He mentioned that ‘ganja’ comes from the mountains around the city where it can escape the gaze of local police enforcement officials. People who need it for curry flavorings have their own link to get it. It’s known as an openly secret in Aceh.

Those found in possession, trafficking or using drugs can face severe penalties in Indonesia. Being caught with a kilo of marijuana can get you two and a half years in jail, he said. However in some operations launched, police only siezed the fields and rarely catch the suspects.

The source says he fries up a few cannabis seeds in his cooking but doesn't use the potent leaves. He uses the marijuana seeds just to flavorings reasons and the meat no-rigid. "The leaves get sold to the big shots outside Aceh with good price," he said.

In Aceh, even for the poor, tradition states that we should eat meat curry at least three times a year. One or two days before Ramadan, at the end of Ramadan and before the celebrations for the Haj" annual pilgrimage. But most people don’t use marijuana seeds in their curry that cooking at home.

"It all comes from the hill. I can get you some if you want," says another, a 55-year-old man working in one of the food stalls in Banda Aceh, with a laugh. He added that marijuana has suffered more harm from police intensively hunt in the latest years, but for them it’s nothing difficult to get it.

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