A Whiff of Smoke



A Whiff of Smoke
by
Austin Mitchell
    Sometimes in the 1990’s I was going to Kingston when on reaching a section of Marcus Garvey Drive we were signaled by the police to stop.  The driver obeyed the order. Now one of the cardinal rules when you are on a bus signaled to stop by the police is not to let any passenger dump any illegal stuff on you. A policeman entered the bus and sniffed.
          “I smell ganja. All of you will have to come out of the bus so that I can search it,” he told us.
          Some of the passengers told him that he was wasting their 
 time as no marijuana was on the bus. The policemen insisted that t
 they wanted to search the bus and also the passengers. All of us got
 up wearily out of our seats and began filing out of the bus. A 
young man  from the back of the bus stood on the bus seat and lit
 literally flew through a window. He was off before the police could
gather their wits, rounded a corner and was gone. The police gave
chase but soon gave it up. However we were boarding the bus again
 when we saw a patrol car coming with him aboard. It was revealed
 that he had a bag of weed on him. He was probably going to sell it
 in Kingston. He was handcuffed on the spot. I suppose that he was 
 charged with dealing in and possession of marijuana.
            When we were again on our way a dreadlocks said that the 
guy was stupid. He was the one who had been smoking the 
marijuana. He had crushed up the rest of it under his feet on the bus
floor. All the marijuana seller had to do was to leave his bag on the 
floor. The police could not charge anyone if nobody owned up to it.
Another man said that while he was running away he should have

thrown away the marijuana. I thought that maybe things had 
happened too fast for the man to think properly. Maybe it wasn’t 
even his marijuana. He was going to sell it on behalf of another
person. The End.
 ganja, weed-names used in Jamaica for marijuana

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