In my quest to uncover the new dynamics of this new business, finding Mamacita was not difficult in the least. I only had to ask a man who asked a man who asked a man who handed me a phone number without any hesitation or reluctance. “Of course you can darling,” she said when I asked to spend a morning with her. “Especially if you’re cute. Did I tell you it’s traditional to deal drugs in the nude?””

“Is it?” I asked, rather aghast.

“Joking with you!” she said. “Or maybe not if you’re cute. Anyway, come and get it! Only no pictures.”

“No pictures?”

“Unless nude”, she said.

And so I found myself facing this formidable representative of the New Wave of legal marijuana, way out in Escondido, a far suburb of San Diego, at the end of a sweltering drive up the 15. The office and warehouse are in an industrial estate, squashed between manufacturers of fish, or perhaps fish tanks, car exhaust fitters and a brothel. There is no sign above the door and I had to call to request someone to come out and get me.

Mamacita Lupita  sits like an over inflated barrage balloon on the  small leather-stuffed chair plonked behind her smart office desk, behind a double-screened computer. She is a woman of about fifty, very blowsy, slightly moustachioed and looks every bit the CEO of a new marijuana startup in the newly liberated republic of California. Despite her appearance she is not Mexican. Apparently her ancestors were from Greece. So bad luck Trumpman, one stereotype destroyed. Everybody in this new business has a nom de guerre, an assumed name by which their business associates know them and Lupita decided what the hell, might as well confuse everybody.

“We are the wholesalers,” she explains. “We supply the retailers and the manufacturers of products from the weed. We manage large amounts. We are waiting for a delivery this morning. You will see how that works.”

While we are talking, people continually wander in and out of the office. Cellphones chirp or chortle or buzz.Everyone seems to have one plastered to their fingers. It seems they all regard it necessary to have their conversations on speaker. Which makes human-to human interaction complex and interruption-prone.

Most of the cellphone conversations seem to be this side asking why that side hasn’t arrived yet or sent pictures or left yet. “If I could give you some of the excuses we get,” Mamacita laughed, “You would wet yourself. They say broke down, was robbed, fell over in dog  shit and snapped my false teeth, anything rather than I got stoned and forgot to deliver the consignment.”

“It must be terribly confusing having to deal with stoned people all the time,” I say.

“Oh they’re not all stoned! None of us here are stoned!”

“Really?”

“Of course not. We are business people! I used to get stoned when I was young. But you know what,”she added, tapping the side of er generous nose, “Everything has changed SO MUCH since those days.”

“I did too,” I said “but not for many years.”

“It was a huge learning curve,” she said. “I had to find out everything about the product. Lucky I have these wonderful JJ’s around me to keep me on track.” She waved her arms around the office, pointing out some of the people floating in and out.

“JJs?”

“So we all have our Business Names. All my people have to have J names. Preferably foreign. That one is Jules.”

“Hi Jules”

“This Jemima.” Hello.“Joe, Johnjohn. And of course, Jesus.”

Intriguingly, all the males seemed to be designed by the same Italian. Portly, balding, moustached and tattooed. Apart from the security guy, a mountain called Wolverine, an MMA fighter with the most winning smile and arms that could strangle a rhinoceros.

There are two females apart from Mamacita. Jemima is head of sales. A chirpy blonde of around thirty, she has a sincere beauty which has never needed the application of lipstick, foundation or other chemical blemish made for the enrichment of cosmetics houses. She is spookily efficient, darting from A to B or even C, phone in hand, dealing, demanding, doing. Dolores is  the Office Girl, nose in a computer, calculating, calculating, seeking product.

During my discussion the J;’s seem to have nothing particular going on. Just chirping into phones, wandering in and out with coffee or sandwiches. I am yet to see any drug dealing. We’re still waiting for the delivery. And discussing excuses.

Pause for music.

What I learned about marijuana in these legal days:

There are various qualities and varieties of product stemming from the Marijuana plant. This includes the flower as well as something called trim, which is the by-product of pruning a marijuana plant as it grows. Because trim includes a very small amount of THC, it is the product that is used for extraction to produce crude, distillate and other products as the base ingredient for vapes, edibles, medicinal products and shatter, and crumble. Back in the Stoned Age in South Africa we called this quality, the ragged offcuts of marijuana “majut”. The most despised kind of weed. What you would smoke if there was absolutely nothing else around. Trim (and all commercial marijuana) has to be by law free of pesticides and if the State finds any pesticide in the product you are selling they will destroy it all and you could be fined. Every wholesaler has to have a license for buying, for selling and for distributing. Which means no merchant would risk losing their licence by being caught with illegal product (! Huh?) It is relatively cheap to buy, so it is my hostess’ bread and butter. She sells large quantities at small margins.

Getting a feel for trim

When you move into higher realms (sic) the most respected of course is called flower. We used to refer to it as ‘heads’ but it’s very different now because of, let’s face it, genetic modification. GM means the flowering heads of the plants are fantastically compact and dripping with resin. And the tiniest little pinch in a spliff will probably make our average old hippie utterly bonkers. This might explain why the average old hippie is not smoking the stuff.

“Shatter” is the real deal now with the youngsters. Shatter comes in a flat plate which I suppose looks like a poppadum. You crunch bits off it, put it in a pipe or Bong and apparently you direct something like the flame of a flamethrower toward it to make it burn. Supposedly this is absolutely brain splatting.

I asked Mamacita if we are getting near to having packs of 20 rolled joints like cigarettes and she showed me a pack in development which looks exactly like a cigarette pack; but she tells me that they’re quite expensive to develop and there is a new rule that they have to be childproof. How on earth do you childproof a cigarette pack and why? Children would have to know how to set fire to the cigs and somehow learn to inhale pungent smoke. I’m doubtful. Mind you, they can operate iPads at 3….

The common smoking weed is called crumble because you will crumble it into a spliff and set fire to it in the good old-fashioned way.

My education over, my attention switches to the arrival of a large truck backing into the warehouse

.

At last the J’s have something to do! And they swarm about, in and out, unloading huge bags of trim. Bags are opened, pored through and checked for quality. The smell is not one I am familiar with: it’s a herby, grassy smell yes but not really the reek of marijuana. Bags of Majut! Legal weed! Bags and bags of the stuff! When I was young I dreamed that one day I might see this. I reckon that if I added together all the dagga (what we called weed in SA – pronounce the g’s like the ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ ) – I ever smoked, all my friends ever smoked, the entire University ever smoked it would be less than I saw this morning.

bags and bags

And it wasn’t long before the customers arrived. Each bag weighs 25 – 30 lbs and customers left with one or two or three bags each. The transactions were done efficiently in the office by Dolores. All cash, of course. Piles of bills. If I were to add together all the money I have ever earned blah blah. Nonsense. But trust me it was loads. Wolverine wafted about purposefully and I have no doubt there were weapons available, should they be needed. But Mamacita assures me that is most unlikely. “We’re all legal now!”

The scale is awesome. But I am assured that there are some much larger operations. “The time will come,” she said “when the big corporations will step in. Watch Monsanto, watch the Pharma boys, as soon as the regulations ease up – and they will – the Corps will see a killing.”

“What will you do when that happens?” I ask.

“I want an efficient, ethical, profitable business which will look good for the accountants. Then I sell! It’s my retirement plan. Meanwhile I will have a good time and look after my Js. And let the Dolores take care of itself! That’s why I call our accountant Dolores. Get it?”

“It’s all about the Dolores, right?!”

“No no no. It’s all about the customer. Treat them right and the dollars follow.”

“I suppose you want me to get undressed before I leave?” I asked playfully.

“Don’t be silly darling,” she said, tweaking my nose. “Too old, too fat, too ugly!” and she roared with laughter.

(Some names fictitious. The rest isn’t.)

NEXT: I go to where the green grass smokes