Can I Convince Myself Not to Smoke This Joint?

If you enjoy smoking a little weed, you should watch our TV show WEEDIQUETTE. It premieres Tuesday November 15th on our new channel, SBS VICELAND.

It was a thing of beauty. Long and conical, with graceful lines and smooth curves. Looking upon it evoked a strong tempest of emotions: It was a monument to the human ability to craft order and meaning from the simplest of raw materials.

I am of course, referring to the joint I rolled the other night. Consisting of roughly 1.5 grams of bud, a sprinkling of magic mol mix, and a small hint of tobacco at the tip to help it light. All well chopped, all well rolled. Even the roach was perfect, made from an old cardboard NSW train ticket, which is widely acknowledged as the superior roaching ticket.

Unfortunately, my plans for this bona fide piece of 21st century art were interrupted by my editor at VICE. They contacted me, asking if I could try working out exactly where my weed came from. Would I still feel comfortable smoking the thing if I knew what was involved in making it?

It wasn't something I'd ever considered before. I think I'd been happy being ignorant, to be honest. It wasn't really about there being some bad dude, somewhere along the supply chain, making some money. The thing I was worried about was that I'd discover someone had been hurt getting this beautiful joint to me. I guess I'd find out.

The first point of call was obvious enough: the people who I'd bought from. While they were happy enough to talk, they ultimately knew about as much as I did. Their particular contact had come from the dark web, and meetings were arranged through encrypted messaging apps. This arrangement is obviously beneficial in that it helps avoiding detection and arrest, but it leaves the buyer in the dark.

Somewhat disappointed that my dealer hadn't been able to produce documents certifying that their weed was completely organic and fair trade, I set about contacting other sellers. A pattern quickly emerged: They'd buy in pounds—either from dark web or real life sources—and then break it down to ounces, halves, quarts, and fifties. Most were unsure as to where exactly the pounds themselves came from, apart from vague descriptions like "bush" or "hydro."

Only two people had a more informed idea of where the product was coming from. One dealer spoke enthusiastically of a mate who had a constant crop of small plants on the go, enough to keep a steady income stream, without straying into the territory of a major dealer.

Another, an ex-dealer, spoke glowingly of their suppliers. They were a group of men who could be readily described as "bikies." The dealer was keen to make clear they were "non-threatening, non-violent."

WATCH: VICE Asks: What Are the Ethics of Getting High?

"I'd even call them paternalistic in a good sort of way," they told me. "Even though I haven't dealt with them for years, they're always stayed in touch with friendly messages. They even introduced me to the people who gave me an apprenticeship and the eventual pathway to a straight job".

It's not exactly surprising that the information I was getting was vague and varied. Apart from journalistic curiosity, there's very little reason for anyone involved on the smaller end of the supply chain to have any real information about the back-end of the operation. After all, if it was easy to track where your weed came from, there wouldn't be very many weed dealers left.

This led me to my next port of call, the police. With a strong sense that I was about to be added to another 20 government watch lists, I contacted Victoria Police's media unit, asking if they could explain to me the likely source of my weed.

I was bounced around a lot. It seemed like there were many police taskforces related to marijuana, and the drug trade more generally, but no watchdog dedicated to determining what's ethically sourced and what's not. Finally, I got an official statement.

"We need to change the attitude where some people believe taking drugs 'recreationally' is okay," it read. "The only people who benefit from illicit drug use are drug traffickers and organised crime syndicates for financial gain."

It was strange reading that. Obviously, neither of us want criminal gangs raking it massive profits. Yet I'd never think for a second targeting recreational users was the way to fix that. How had we started wanting the same things and ended up at such very different conclusions?

I decided a less stern authority figure might be more able to speak a little more honestly about the subject. So I emailed a drugs and addiction specialist who works in one of Australia's cannabis growing hotspots, Port Macquarie. Tony*, as he asked to be called out of fear of getting fired from his job, was a lot more forthcoming with information.

Tony said a lot of the weed grown in the area came from, "harmless hippies, who are just happy to see the stuff hitting the market." According to him, the worst thing you could really say about them is that, "they're not really paying any tax on their profits."

Fantastic, I decided, reaching for my lighter in celebration. I couldn't really justify not smoking this joint over tax avoidance, given I have an iPhone, wear Nike shoes, and pour my money into lots of other companies that pay as little tax as they can.

Unfortunately, Tony just kept on talking. "The rest [of the weed in Australia] generally comes from larger criminal consortiums, who'll gladly employ kidnap and torture in the course of their business," he said. "I've also dealt with groups in my area who'll commit sexual violence against woman and children in order to intimidate or coerce when required." And suddenly the aesthetic qualities of my joint seemed less enticing.

Where is our weed coming from? Mates helping mates, shady but civically-inclined biker groups, dark web sources, and the odd terrifying, deeply immoral criminal organisation. If you're in the habit of meeting mysterious men carrying fragrant ziplock baggies, the chances are you've financed some or all of the groups above. But like the coffee you drink, the chocolate you eat, or the clothes you wear, there's a chance that the choices you make as a consumer could be hurting others. How you feel about that is up to you.

As for my joint? Well, obviously it was just a fictionalised rhetorical device created to help guide this conversation. And by that I mean I smoked it right after I got off the phone with my editor. Now if you excuse me, I'm off to see what happens if you make homemade pizza dough, but use vanilla cake-mix instead of plain flour.