Bermuda: Home of the World’s Most Expensive Weed
All Photos Courtesy of Riley Taggett
Imagine this.
You're researching locales for your next vacation. An ad pops up for Bermuda, featuring a couple sipping champagne on a balcony overlooking a light pink beach, where gentle waves roll ashore from shimmering, crystal waters that stretch out into the horizon - blissful hues that make you wonder whether someone slipped a quarter tab in your morning coffee.
Goodness, you think. This is the most idyllic smoke spot I’ve ever seen.
Google shows that Bermuda is not in the Caribbean. It’s about 600 miles east of South Carolina, the middle of nowhere. But, it’s an island.
Islands mean reggae. Reggae means pot growing between every crack and crevice, and Rasta stoners toking around every turn. Jackpot!
Naturally, you book a trip.
Your flight lands. You grab your bags and hail a cab. You make the usual inquiry, half-expecting a $50 ounce to plop in your lap in response. Instead, he digs around his glove box and passes you a tiny baggie of condensed bud that looks suspiciously shy of an eighth.
You slip him a twenty. He glances at the bill and says, “You’re 130 short, mate.” You laugh awkwardly, hoping this lunatic is making some sick Bermudian inside joke that you don’t understand.
He’s not joking. You have to stop by an ATM to afford the $200 all-inclusive 20-minute round trip.
An Eighth of Good Weed in Bermuda Costs $150… Ain’t That a Trip?
The upside is that, upon closer inspection (and a brief test joint), it’s pretty good weed. Pretty much American weed, you think, well-versed in the geographical variances of your beloved tree. American weed that’s been jam-packed and vacuum-sealed for months. The downside is that you just spent $150 on something that costs $30 anywhere else.
This is the realization that hit me when I made my first purchase in the states. Except worse, because it wasn’t a one-off vacation purchase; it was a weekly expense.
I felt like a clown for the amount of cash I’d wasted. Yet, I still pay the exorbitant sum every time I return home to Bermuda. What choice do I have?
Prices in Bermuda vs. The UAE
Until recently, possession of any amount in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carried a minimum sentence of two years. One would think the risk would juice prices up far higher than those in Bermuda, where possession under seven grams is decriminalized. Yet, research says Bermuda still reigns supreme. Perhaps this is due to the UAE's proximity to other countries, which makes smuggling easie. It could also be a result of its lower demand.
A few sources list the UAE’s price at $110 per gram, but it seems they misconstrued the standard amount. An article on Business Insider claiming that UAE weed costs $110 per gram also claims a gram costs $124 in Bermuda - a statistic I know as false. The uninitiated writers probably meant to refer to prices on a per-eighth basis.
I found a better, stoner-operated site, priceofweed.com, that uses self-reporting to aggregate prices in various countries. It lists the UAE’s average price per eighth as $106, and Bermuda’s as $158, which is pretty close to spot on.
The discrepancy shows that, despite worldwide progress, information on cannabis remains globally sparse. Misleading information continues to be distributed by people who can’t distinguish a weed leaf from a four-leaf clover.
Holy Spicoli! Why is Weed So Expensive?
Bermuda has one of the highest costs of living and GDP per capita in the world. We produce ~0 percent exports, importing most goods from abroad. This results in high taxes and overpriced products. But, larger disposable incomes make high prices more affordable.
It works similarly with weed, except with an absurd tax. The risk of getting busted and the cost of importation are blamed for the dizzying prices. Historically, good bud has been imported, either via air with bribes made to airport staff, or via sea on fishing boats and in shipping containers. Reggie comes from Mexico and only costs $50 per eighth, but it's riddled with seeds and barely gets you high.
Since there are only a few Kingpin-like players leading the game, price-fixing defines the market. When COVID halted travel and opened up the market for local growers, prices didn’t budge. A local eighth still carries that $150 price tag, even though around 20 percent of good weed is now homegrown.
Maybe it was fitting compensation 10 to 15 years ago when most states still considered weed illegal and Bermuda had yet to amend its cannabis policy. Nowadays, however, weed is readily available in every state regardless of legal status, making it far less costly and complicated to purchase and import. Charging 500 percent more than our neighbors in 2022 is villainous.
Riley Taggett
How Bermudians Handle the Price
Buying in bulk and portioning are some prevalent money-saving tactics. But, according to a 2020 marijuana survey conducted by the Bermudian Department for National Drug Control, most Bermudians favor joints and spliffs - a method often called wasteful by stingey stoners.
There’s another trend that’s picked up speed in the past few years. While in the stoner section of a party on a recent trip home, a friend-of-a-friend took out papers, some nug, a metal knife, and about seven grams of dabs ($700 worth). He placed a glob on the knife, and used a lighter to heat it up. When gooey, he lathered it onto the paper, sprinkled on some reggie, and rolled up a long, perfect, skinny doobie.
Joints rule supreme, and the introduction of dabs is helping Bermudian tokers save money.
The Art of the Bermudian Joint
Nothing represents the island stoner like a spliff. You’ll never catch a Reggae God rhyming about his love for the bong.
Bermudian joints are of a different style than those you are accustomed to, and they are at the center of Bermuda’s stoner culture. Many of us pride ourselves on our joint-rolling skills, producing doobies in outstretched palms to gather nods of admiration from an eager smoker circle.
Unless it’s a special occasion, we use as little weed as possible to roll thin joints packed to the brim to make the experience last. Sometimes we clip portions from the paper’s non-glue end for a slower smoke.
When we aren’t rolling pure weed joints, Bermudians roll American-sized spliffs that contain a ton of tobacco. Tobacco’s inclusion varies by personal preference, and some use it in their toothpick-sized joints to maximize pot preservation.
The Fight for Legalization
We almost passed The Cannabis Licensing Bill, which would have issued licenses for “cultivation, retail, research, import, export, transportation, and manufacturing,” and allowed adults to purchase and possess.
Since Bermuda is a UK territory, our laws are subject to Royal blessing via the governor. If passed without British blessing, UK vs. Bermuda relations could deteriorate. The governor expressed worries that the bill went beyond what is permitted under UN conventions. In the end, it was defeated in the senate.
We’re still hopeful that a revised bill will make it into law. Legalization was a driving force behind current premier, David Burt’s, campaign for office. He needs to follow through and prove that legalization wasn’t merely a route to other agendas.
Legalization would lead to massive positive changes for Bermuda. It would stimulate our local economy, encouraging local entrepreneurship and creating one of the only locally-sourced and taxable markets on the island. It would also drive tourism, our main industry, on- and off-season. Perhaps most importantly, though, it would curb gang-related violence.
The Bermuda weed game is almost entirely operated by a few competing gangs. Though firearms are illegal, an increasing number of guns reached our shores in the last few years. My main dealer was gunned down earlier this year in our usual spot, less than a half-mile from my parents’ house. He was 24.
Though gangs import other drugs, weed is their main market. Stripping away their primary income stream would significantly curb their ability to take on new members, who are often high schoolers. Legalization might finally bring an end to Bermuda’s gangs, thus improving the life trajectory of the youth and lowering the prices of herb for all.