Jamaica has always had ganja. Now it has the mushrooms too — and a growing number of retreats are finally putting them together.
I’m taking a massive bong rip in the middle of a group sesh when a cop suddenly shows up unannounced right behind me. Alarm bells go off – the last time something like this happened, I ended up in the back of a police cruiser staring down any number of potential unsavory outcomes.
Except that we’re in Jamaica, and the cop is coming to drop in on his friend Wabba, owner of the joint and master traditional steam chalice packer.
This time it’s different. Instead of bringing the weight of the drug war down upon me, the cop is offering a fist bump while making the rounds to converse with the various locals sitting in on our sesh. I exhale a plume of vapor and relax my shoulders before passing the chalice to the left – never, ever pass it to the right in accordance with local custom.
Welcome to Wabba’s Weed Adventure, a generations-old cannabis farm and tourist experience just outside of Negril, Jamaica. In late October 2025, Jamaica was struck by Hurricane Melissa — a Category 5 storm and the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the country’s recorded history — causing extensive damage to island infrastructure and crops. Coconut trees were ripped from their foundations, and whole ganja farms were uprooted and blown into oblivion. But like the resilient character of the Jamaican people, the cannabis operation at Wabba’s has rebounded and is thriving again.
Today, we’re touring a field of ‘Wabba’s Purple’ plants in full bloom. Our group has traveled from different corners of the United States to experience this farm tour as an added feature of a psilocybin mushroom retreat, and for several present, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a cannabis grow operation. Cannabis tourism is a major draw in Jamaica, as it is increasingly so elsewhere around the world. Globally, the cannabis tourism market was estimated to generate more than $17 billion annually in 2022 and could surpass $23 billion by 2030 as legalization expands.
Jamaica is particularly well-positioned to fuse this growing market niche with a related but typically entirely separate space that’s also on the rise: psychedelic tourism.
Where Ganja Meets the God Molecule
Over the last decade, Jamaica has established itself as a frontrunner in the psilocybin mushroom tourism industry, thanks to a favorable regulatory environment in which mushrooms were never added to the list of controlled substances. While the active compounds of psilocybin and psilocin were added to the island’s list of banned substances on the heels of the United States’ War on Drugs, there was no inclusion of psilocybin-containing mushrooms themselves. As such, this loophole has given rise to a robust psychedelic retreat industry in recent years to accommodate the growing interest among people willing to travel internationally to access them in a favorable jurisdiction.
For a growing number of people, the question becomes why no one has thought to combine cannabis and psychedelic tourism on the island into one offering. Andy Sudbrock of Sacred Path retreats offers an insight into how unique the experience can be.
“The beauty of holding a mushroom retreat in Jamaica is that on the integration days we have the option to experience something as unique as a guided cannabis farm tour. Diving into the local culture and forming unique and fun memories while in the neuroplastic state can help rewire the brain for adventure, fun, and all the beautiful things in life that this country has to offer.”
Ironically, the cultural stigmas afforded to both cannabis and mushrooms in different cultures both play into the limitations surrounding a combined cannabis and psychedelic tourism sector in Jamaica. Though cannabis is largely viewed as a medicine by locals within Jamaica, it has largely been excluded from emergent psychedelic therapy protocols, champions of which are still aiming to overcome the cultural stigmas associated with the hippy era of the 1960s to be embraced by mainstream medicine as a legitimate practice.
As someone who has been part of the psychedelic industry rollout for some years now, there is a growing sense among practitioners and advocates that the psychedelic industry should not repeat the mistakes made in the rollout of the cannabis industry. From this vantage point, cannabis tourism in Jamaica is still largely viewed as a party favor disconnected from the more serious emergence of a regulated psychedelic medicine framework.
Conversely, while psilocybin mushrooms have long been available in the country, there is very little homegrown psychedelic culture or tradition as it relates to their use by locals. Some locals speculate that one of the reasons for this may be the colonization and Christianization of the Jamaican people, such that mushrooms are viewed with suspicion as being demonic or associated with ghosts. An example of this is in the use of the phrase ‘Duppy Umbrella‘ to describe mushrooms, or ‘ghost umbrellas’. Yet despite locals’ aversion to mushrooms, the growth of the psilocybin mushroom tourism industry continues to attract economic opportunity to the island and, in so doing, create a level of social acceptance of the custom among a growing number of Jamaicans.
For years, the landmark institution of Tedd’s in the resort town of Negril stood as the singular public-facing beacon to Jamaican mushroom tourism. Tedd was the local ‘mushroom man’ who served psilocybin mushroom tea out of a wooden shack near the center of town. Today, there are several well-known psilocybin mushroom retreat operations on the island, including Mycomeditations, which has facilitated retreats for over 2,000 guests, and Marley One Wellness Retreats, run by the Marley family.
While the mushroom tourism industry in Jamaica has so far been geared towards psychedelic therapy protocols that largely exclude cannabis, a fresh outlook on possibilities is growing alongside the wellness tourism space at large on the island. The Laughter Is Medicine retreat that launched at Coral Cove Wellness Resort signaled a departure from having to choose between cannabis and psychedelic tourism by combining both into one offering.
A Plant With Deep Roots
Weed hasn’t always been legal in Jamaica. It was first brought over from India in the 1850s by indentured servants during British colonial rule, and the ideal cultivation climate and adoption of ganja use by locals lent to a homegrown Jamaican cannabis trade in the ensuing years. Though widely used across the island, cannabis use was criminalized for much of the country’s history. In 2015, possession of small amounts was decriminalized — up to two ounces is now a ticketable offense rather than a criminal one — and though the regulated industry remains technically limited to a medical framework, tourist offerings like Wabba’s allow for personal use by people coming on tours of the farm. As both the cannabis and psychedelic tourism industries continue to grow in Jamaica, there is ample room for each of these economic pillars to reinforce each other.
Back on Wabba’s farm, spirits are high – pun intended. The damage from the hurricane is still evident in the region, yet the prize ganja crops on site are growing stronger and more abundantly than ever before. Groups of tourists are back, and the smell of sticky-sweet cannabis vapor covers the scene. The other tourists and I are still smiling from our two mushroom experiences during the retreat earlier in the week, and the steam chalice ceremony is helping us end our time together on a truly high note. Wabba packs another oversized load of purple flower into the calabash steam chalice chamber and begins to sing the chorus of Bob Marley’s iconic song “‘Don’t worry about a thing…’cuz every little thing…is gonna be alright!”
Photos courtesy of Dennis Walker.
