Punto rojo
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| Kind of name | Local name |
|---|---|
| Also called | Punto Rojo Red Point Punta Roja Colombian Red |
| Language | Spanish |
| Meaning | red point |
| Refers to | Marijuana grown in Cauca; a resinous marijuana of the Caribbean coast in the 1970s; later, seed lines sold under the name |
| Country | Colombia |
|---|---|
| Places | Cauca Department Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta |
| First recorded | 1980[1]: 97 |
- HCG-COL-QUIN-0120240001 (2024 HCG Punto Rojo 'Incense' Reproduction)
- CBG-COL-UNK-0120130001 (Colombia Punto Rojo 2013)
- ZOM-COL-QUIN-0120240001 (Punto Rojo 'Incense' Selection 2023)
- ZOM-COL-QUIN-0120240002 (Punto Rojo 'Jaime's' Selection 2023)
Punto rojo (Spanish, "red point"), also Red Point and Punta Roja, is a Colombian name for marijuana. It was used for a type grown in Cauca, in the south-west of the country, and for a resinous type exported from the Caribbean coast during the bonanza marimbera of the 1970s.[2]: 276[1]: 304 The anthropologist Anthony Henman, writing from fieldwork in Cauca in the early 1970s, said that the punto rojo of the region "es famosa por su potencia".[2]: 202 In 1982 the magazine Semana named the two varieties of Colombian marijuana as "la 'Mona' y la 'Red Point'".[3] A characterisation by Colombia's National Police counts it among the native varieties of Cauca, with seven to eight months to harvest.[4]: 86–87 Seed sellers have since sold lines under the name.
Name
Henman's account of the trade types writes la punto rojo o red and classes the types by colour, with punto rojo as red over green or brown.[2]: 276 The English form "Red Point" appears in a reprinted article by Carlos Antonio Herrera Fernández of the magazine Guajira, who wrote "La 'red point', (punto rojo)",[1]: 304 and in Semana in 1982.[3] The Green House Seed Company expedition that VICE followed in 2013 used Punta Roja.[5] A grower writing on a United States forum in 2010 glossed it as "Punto Rojo (Colombian Red)".[6]
Where the name was used
- Cauca. Henman called punto rojo "una marihuana psicodélica, orgullo de la cordillera Occidental y del departamento del Cauca, en particular".[2]: 276 Henman wrote that among the Nasa it was virtually unknown except to the youngest men.[2]: 202 Henman suggested that mango viche and punto rojo might be "la misma planta cosechada en diferentes etapas de su crecimiento".[2]: 277 The police characterisation cited by Luis Felipe Cruz Olivera and Isabel Pereira Arana groups cominera, corinto, mango biche and punto rojo as native varieties adapted to the climate and land of Cauca, against the higher-priced creepy hybrids.[4]: 86–87 A grower interviewed at Toribío told them that when creepy and feminised seed arrived, "se acabaron la 'punto rojo' y la patimorada", because the native plants grown near feminised crops spoiled them.[4]: 86
- The Caribbean coast. Herrera Fernández set "red point" beside la mona, the traditional Santa Marta gold, and called it "más potente y apetecida" for the resin in the flower heads, and tied the resin, glinting in the tropical night, to the legend of the "noche de las luciérnagas".[1]: 304 José Cervantes Angulo and Darío Betancourt and Martha Luz García describe the export crop graded A, B or C at the coastal stores, with grade A "Red Point" or Santa Marta Gold.[1]: 97[7]: 56
- The Andes. One of Lina Britto's informants, recalling the 1960s, said that "Red Point was cultivated in the Andean region [coffee axis] and Colombian Gold did not exist yet".[8]: 164
Seed sold under the name
Seed sellers sell lines as Punto Rojo. In 2013 VICE reported that Arjan Roskam of the Green House Seed Company boasted of "las semillas Punta Roja, que él y su equipo encontraron cerca de Santa Marta"; the reporter described the three varieties the expedition sought as having "permanecido genéticamente puras durante décadas".[5]
Colour names
| Name | Earliest dated source | What the name is applied to |
|---|---|---|
| mona, amarilla | 1976 | a variety called by its popular name, beside negra, in a Santa Marta agronomy thesis[9]: 47; the Santa Marta gold type (Henman; Herrera Fernández)[2]: 275[1]: 304; a paler and stronger type grown higher in the Sierra (Time, "Mona (blond)")[10]; one of "dos variedades" of Colombian marijuana (Semana)[3] |
| punto rojo, Red Point | 1978 | a Cauca type (Henman)[2]: 276; a stronger, resinous type on the Caribbean coast (Herrera Fernández)[1]: 304 |
| la roja de Santa Marta, Santa Marta red | 1978 | one of Henman's four trade types, set beside Panama red[2]: 276 |
| mango viche, mango biche | 1978 | "Llanos green y Cauca green" (Henman)[2]: 276; an export grade, glossed "green mango" (Britto)[11]: ch. 3 |
| la morada | 1973 | a female plant near Aracataca, on the herbarium sheet HUA 534[12] |
| la blanca | 1973 | another female plant gathered the same day, on the sheet HUA 537[13] |
| negra | 1976 | a variety in the 1976 thesis[9]: 47; a highland type at Silvia, Cauca, in 1974 (Henman)[2]: 280; an export grade, glossed "black" (Britto)[11]: ch. 3 |
| Mona Cielo Azul, Blue Sky Blond | 1979 | a pale plant from the Cielo Azul heights, said to be a hybrid made with seed from Thailand (Time)[10] |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cervantes Angulo, José (1980). La noche de las luciérnagas (in español). Bogotá: Plaza & Janés.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Henman, Anthony (2019) [1978]. Mama coca (in español). Translated by Gabriel Iriarte; preface by Wade Davis (8th ed.). Popayán: Editorial Universidad del Cauca. ISBN 978-958-732-345-0.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Bonanza marimbera, adios!". Semana (in español). 1 November 1982. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Cruz Olivera, Luis Felipe; Pereira Arana, Isabel (November 2021). Laberintos de prohibición y regulación: los grises de la marihuana en Colombia. Colección Dejusticia (in español). Bogotá: Editorial Dejusticia. ISBN 978-958-5597-98-3. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Andavolu, Krishna (20 September 2013). "Ser el rey es maravilloso". VICE en español (in español). Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ "Colombian Black and Gold". THCFarmer. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ Betancourt, Darío; García, Martha Luz (1994). Contrabandistas, marimberos y mafiosos: historia social de la mafia colombiana (1965–1992) (in español). Bogotá: TM Editores. ISBN 958-601-481-9.
- ↑ Britto, Lina (2010). "A Trafficker's Paradise: The "War On Drugs" and the New Cold War in Colombia". Contemporánea: Historia y problemas del siglo XX. 1 (1): 159–177. ISSN 1688-7638.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ceballos C., Aníbal S. (1976). Algunos aspectos del cultivo de la marihuana (Cannabis sativa L.) (Tesis de grado (Ingeniero Agrónomo)). Santa Marta: Universidad Tecnológica del Magdalena. hdl:20.500.14923/2103.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "The Colombian Connection". Time. 29 January 1979. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Britto, Lina (2020). Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-32547-0.
- ↑ "Occurrence 931007696: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 931007851: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 2 November 2026.