Niugini Gold

Niugini Gold is a name for cannabis grown in Papua New Guinea and recognised by its red stem.^: 80 The name also covers the seedless flower heads of the female plant, which Benjamin Thomas compared to sinsemilla.^: 18 Some cannabis from Papua New Guinea reached Australia, where some users called it New Guinea Gold.^: 227 In 2005 Philip Alpers of the Small Arms Survey called it "PNG's fabled cannabis of the 1970s" and wrote that it was no longer sold in the major Australian markets.^: 27

Name

The spelling varies between sources. A public-health report of 2012, Alpers and the magazine Time write Niugini Gold (Time in lower case, "Niugini gold"); the United Nations World Drug Report 2006 writes Nuigini Gold; the United Nations review of the world cannabis situation, published the same year, writes nuigini gold.^: 18: 80 In Australia the name was "New Guinea Gold".^: 227 Cannabis in general is spak brus in Tok Pisin, "tobacco that makes you drunk".

On the streets of Sydney in 2001 it cost about $250 an ounce (A$500 for 28 grams); Time wrote that this made it "worth almost as much as the precious metal it is named for". The anthropologists Jamon Halvaksz and David Lipset used the same word in the title of their introduction to a special issue of the journal Oceania on marijuana in Papua New Guinea, "Another Kind of Gold" (2006).

The plant

Thomas, of the Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre, described the strain in a review of cannabis in Papua New Guinea published in 2006. The 2012 report quotes his description:

This strain of cannabis can be identified by its red stem, compact golden-yellow inflorescences ('buds') up to 15 cm long and a characteristic pungent smell. The term 'Niugini Gold' refers exclusively to the inflorescences of female cannabis plants that are harvested before they are fertilized and produce seeds. 'Niugini Gold' is without seeds and is similar to cannabis preparations known as 'sinsemilla'.^: 18

The report calls Niugini Gold "a potent strain" that is commonly cultivated.^: 18 The United Nations review of 2006 calls it "a distinct cultivar characterized by its red stem".^: 80 Time wrote that it was sold on the promise of an exceptional high, and placed some of the most potent cannabis in the world in the ranges around Mount Wilhelm.

Cannabis in the highlands

David McDonald of the Australian National University wrote in 2004 that it is not known when cannabis was introduced to Papua New Guinea, and that by the late 1960s smoking it was common among young expatriates there. The 2012 report, citing Halvaksz, states that cannabis is not indigenous to Papua New Guinea.^: 9 The United Nations review says it was "allegedly" brought by Australians after the Second World War,^: 80 and the 2012 report, citing Thomas, says it is reported to have been first introduced after the war.^: 9 The agricultural survey edited by Bourke and Harwood places it later: "probably" in the mid to late 1960s, by young expatriates. Highlanders were using it by the late 1970s.^: 227

The plant grows from sea level to about 2,600 metres but is seldom planted in the lowlands. Most is grown between about 1,400 and 2,200 metres where rainfall is seasonal, in Eastern Highlands, Simbu, Western Highlands and Central provinces.^: 227 Time reported in 2001 that most highland villages grew it. In the Kompri Valley near Henganofi the magazine was shown a plant 2.5 metres tall standing in a kitchen garden among cassava, pumpkins and beans, its flowering tips up to 15 centimetres long. Its owner said it grew very easily. The police commander of Western Highlands said that it grew wild. The 2012 report, citing Thomas, says the plant now grows wild in many areas and is particularly suited to the fertile soil and high altitude of the highlands.^: 17

Trade to Australia

Cannabis from the highlands was carried to the coast and across the Torres Strait to Australia. The International Narcotics Control Board reported in 2001 that highland cannabis was smuggled abroad, mainly to Australia, often in exchange for small arms.^{: para. 564} Time reported that the Australian federal Director of Public Prosecutions had found in 1995 that Niugini Gold bought for $250 a pound was resold for up to $2,250 in Cairns.

How much reached Australia is disputed. Papua New Guinea was the point of embarkation for 30 kilograms of cannabis intercepted by Australian customs in 1998–1999, and for less than one kilogram in 2003–2004. In 2005–2006 Australian customs seized more than 47 kilograms of cannabis, most of it from Papua New Guinea.^{: para. 713} The Australian Federal Police disputed reports that cannabis from Papua New Guinea was exported to Australia.^: 18

Alpers wrote that in 2004 police forensic scientists and others discounted "30-year-old rumours of a significant cross-border trade in 'Niugini Gold'". He quoted Nerys Evans, intelligence coordinator of the drug squad of New South Wales: "There isn't any PNG cannabis on the streets of New South Wales, and if there was, we'd know about it." In New South Wales, as in Victoria, imported cannabis had been replaced by more potent strains, developed in the Netherlands and grown locally.^: 62 The World Drug Report 2006 says that Nuigini Gold was formerly exported to Australia but is no longer widely available there.

Alpers traced the story of guns bartered for cannabis across the strait to local newspaper reports of the early 1990s, "based almost entirely on conjecture"; rumours of a large-scale trade, he wrote, had been shown to lack basis in fact.^{: 27, 59} Bourke and Harwood judge the extent of the international trade, the exchange of guns for drugs included, "probably overstated".^: 394

See also

• Australia
• Ginji Papoua
• Papua New Guinea
• Thai stick