Homegrown, gourmet pot is gaining popularity in Mexico

MEXICO CITY -- Once upon a time, Mexican marijuana was the gold standard for U.S. pot smokers. But in the new world of legal markets and gourmet weed, aficionados here are looking to the United States and Europe for the good stuff.

Instead of Acapulco Gold, Mexican smokers want strains like Liberty Haze and Moby Dick -- either importing high-potency boutique pot from the United States, or growing it here in secret gardens that use techniques perfected abroad.

It's a small but growing market in a country where marijuana is largely illegal, unlike the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington that have legalized recreational use, and others where medicinal pot is available.

A text message will bring a Mexico City dealer to the customer's doorstep with a menu of high-end buds for sale at the swipe of a credit card through a smartphone reader. Hydroponic shops have sprung up that supply equipment to those who want to cultivate potent strains in sophisticated homegrown operations. Some even are setting up pot cooperatives to share costs like high electrical bills and swap what they grow with each other.

"I know people who are architects, executives, lawyers ... who went to the United States or Europe," said Antoine Robbe, the 35-year-old, French-born proprietor of Hydrocultivos, one of the shops. They say, "'Man, why don't we have this in my country?'"

Marijuana grows Sept. 4, 2013, in a hydroponics garden inside an apartment in Mexico City. Home growers say they are forming cooperatives to share the costs of the indoor-gardening gear and high electric bills and swap harvests with each other, many building their club model with skills first imported by foreigners. (Eduardo Verdugo ~ Associated Press)

So far, reports of U.S.-grown marijuana making its way south have been only anecdotal but enough to raise concern, according to Alejandro Mohar, a Mexican physician and member of the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board.

A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told National Public Radio in December that Mexican cartel operatives were smuggling in high-end U.S. marijuana to sell to wealthy customers, though there's no sign so far of a massive southward trade. The DEA declined to comment further in response to a request from The Associated Press.

In Mexico City, several people said they have seen freezer-size bags of marijuana labeled as being for medicinal use in Los Angeles.

Mexico allows people to carry up to 5 grams of pot for personal use but bans sale and growing. Historically, there has been little social tolerance for pot use, with "marijuanos" stigmatized as slackers or supporters of the deadly drug trade.

Mexico growers say their home-cultivation phenomenon is removed from the grisly narco-wars that have wracked the country. In fact, growing and swapping among themselves, they contend, allows them to avoid supporting the cartels.

"I'm not a narco, dude. I just like to smoke," said Daniel, a goateed 32-year-old living in the bohemian Roma neighborhood.

He spoke on condition his last name not be used because, he said, his homegrown operation is "super-illegal" despite being for personal use only.

Mexican law provides for prison sentences up to 25 years for people convicted of producing, trafficking or selling drugs.

Home growers say they are forming cooperatives to share the costs of the indoor-gardening gear and high electric bills and swap harvests with each other, many building their club model with skills first imported by foreigners.

Last year, Homero Fernandez, a 29-year-old event promoter, teamed up with about a dozen people to form a pot club, each paying about $200 to buy a hydroponic grow kit now tended to by one of the members.

Today the club has 50 to 60 plants that produce enough sativa buds to satisfy the members, some of them heavy smokers, who can buy an ounce of high-end pot for between $95 and $130, less than half they'd pay a dealer.