Smoking *tobacco* in a chillum, Nepal…
‘Exotic’ Asian person smoking an exotic pipe must mean it’s cannabis or opium in the bowl… is an assumption best dropped…
This lady from Jumla, Midwest Nepal was smoking coarse locally grown tobacco, and that’s invariably the case when folks in the Himalaya publicly smoke from hookahs / nargiles too…. it’s just tobacco….
Same goes for shots of wizened highland minority oldsters puffing long-stemmed pipes and bongs in places like Vietnam, Laos, upland Thailand, and southern China.
What’s in the pipes in nigh on every alleged online “weed” photo from highland SE Asia is… just tobacco…
Hmong, Yao, Akha… none of these highland groups has a culture of growing or smoking ganja, which is a traditional crop and commodity of lowland SE Asia among folks such as the Lao and to a lesser extent Khmer and Thais.
As for opium, that requires a specialized pipe designed to be held over a flame and is smoked lying down, discreetly – not out front of the house in plain view of passers-by. Unlike ganja, opium is a drug with a history among the tribes of highland SE Asia, where traditionally it’s favoured by Sinicized elites for its perceived sophistication.
The photo is from our recent collecting trip. Check out the new ‘Nepalese’ accessions.
