The Ganja Complex: Rastafari and Marijuana (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780739103609)

In The Ganja Complex Ansley Hamid skillfully welds together two decades of ethnographic research on marijuana in the Caribbean and the United States. Hamid juxtaposes an in-depth study of the spread of Rastafari in the 1970s with an examination of the rise of an international marijuana economy. This revisionist work departs radically from previous scholarship by identifying Rastafari, not as a messianic or millenarian cult, but as a participant in the essential functions of a community's overall economic life. It demonstrates how Rastafari has revitalized third-world economies using indigenous resources, capital, and talent, and documents the internationalization of the 5000-year-old Asian pattern of marijuana use-centered about worship of the Hindu god Shiva-that is the "ganja complex."

Author: Ansley Hamid
ISBN-10: 0739103601
ISBN-13: 9780739103609
Publisher: Lexington Books
Language: English
Published: 04/01/2002
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.11h x 6.00w x 0.93d