The last four years have seen a strong growth in the market for so called “shamanic” products. These products mainly include feathers and other totem-like items, incenses, lotions, various items and more recently also special “herbal mixes” that are obviously meant for smoking or spiritual use in the form of spices, potions or teas.

This market reflects the continuous trend in western societies of the so called alternative scene to create their own niche markets which as of this year already register about 3 billion US$ in gross annual sales worldwide.

With the introduction of non consumable or aromatic incense “shamanic blends” this market can be expected to show a further steep increase.

It seems that the typical customers for these blends are not a part of the actual neo-shamanic or neo-tribal movement but rather stem from the standard soft drug clientele who are a looking for a way out of the legal quagmire that was created by worldwide contradictory legislation in the face of the steadily rising demand for the liberalization of soft drugs like marihuana.

The herbal mixes for sale right now all claim - reportedly righteously - to be legal in the sense that they do not contain any banned or outlawed substances. There is an ongoing debate in the scene, however, as to how effective or useful any of these products are as a substitute or even competitor to the usual street substances.

“We will easily beat them,” declares Hong Kong based Tommy Chong III, chairman of the ZoHai Company. Chong recently introduced a full new line of so called herbal shamanic smokes to the market and just added two new products to this line. “ZoHai MX and ZoHai RX,” explains Chong, “are clearly superior to any other incense on the market. The are from controlled biological farming, they are legal, they are affordable and they provide similar effects without any of the risks.”

Unfortunately Chong could not provide any samples to support his claim. But the first reactions on various user forums on the Internet were not overly enthusiastic - unlike Tommy Chong: “ZoHai RX will help to reduce the black market trade in illegal incense,” he insists.
If this prediction - and therefore Chong’s commercial calculation - are going to work out remains to be seen.

At least as of now there are no signs of new laws or regulations that could cripple this new market of which Chong definitely wants to cut a big slice: “Each new blend will target a specific kind of herbal smoking aficionado.”

He stays elusive of questions like how many “kinds” of aficionados his company has identified, how this identification was made, or what exactly the differences are. “There are competitors, there are marketing strategies and finally different laws in different countries,” justifies Chong his vagueness. But now the zohai products go out on the market, and the near future will finally show what it is all about.