The Low Cost of Getting High

By DAVID ELLIS

Upset about skyrocketing marijuana prices in the U.S., which range to $800 per oz.? Then book a flight to Czechoslovakia. A garden-supply chain in Prague is selling 1-lb. packages of pot imported from neighboring Romania for the equivalent of just 85 cents. According to the manager of the state-owned company, the weed is an effective "fertilizer." Thanks to the country's confused postcommunist legal system, it is not against the law just to purchase the "fertilizer." When the product's availability was disclosed in the Czechoslovak weekly Mlady Svet, dozens of Prague teenagers developed a sudden interest in gardening.

With reporting by Wendy Cole