27 jul, 1999

Cannabis - are you ready to legalize it?

Cannabis, the great sacred herb or demonic introduction to harder drugs?

taken from: Dream Creation Magazine, Issue 24 june/july 1999

text: Nigel

It’s an old question which seems to represent the ‘drug’s’ stature as a pressure point against which the forces of good and evil have been pushing for the last 70 years. Whatever you call it, marijuana, ganja, the herb, the cries for legalisation or at least decriminalisation are getting louder and louder as more and more of us smoke it. (Or at least they’re resonating at a similiar frequency to the demands of the cultural ambassadors of the Sixties). Last Saturday, May 1st and the Worldwide cannabis action day saw people take to the streets all over the world and openly smoke in front of, despite the law.

When there’s that many people doing something illegal which morally can’t be faulted, i.e your actions don’t affect anyone else, then the law crumbles into dust/puff. The London march from Brixton to Clapham Common (the base speed march went from Land’s end to John O’Groats), was with three other marches on the same day, really well attended with about 6/7,000 people there.

Release, the drugs advisory organisation were heavily involved in organising the first march in 1967 and their dance out-reach co-ordinator Ciaran O’Hagan was there to explain their line. "We think all drugs included under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs act should be looked at for legalization. We think it should go to a Royal commission first and then all the options can be looked at. Let some experts say legalization isn’t the option but decriminalisation or for medical use is the answer."

"If there was full-legalization, things like top-quality skunk or temple-balls would be manufactured by Marlboro." "What we’re going to have to look at is something like the Amsterdam model where it’s decriminalised. Then the social boundaries which keep it contained will still be there." The Free Medical Marijuana Foundation as the name suggests, provides marijuana through donations for those who need it to help them with epilepsy, arthritis, glaucoma etc. What the politicians forget to tell you is that Cannabis is good for you.

Free Rob Cannabis runs the movement and encourages people to hand themselves into the law after smoking a joint to make the system unworkable. "I have told police before that I have given marijuana to people and even once stood in Hyde park giving away hash cakes." "I went to the police station with one cake left and asked them to arrest me for possession. But they told me to go away and stop causing trouble."

Transform are another group, present at the march, who are looking to encourage the legalisation of drugs. "Our whole philosophy is that it’s an individual’s choice, an individual freedom thing," says Steve, one of their spokespeople. "The whole basis of our law is enshrined around an individual’s freedom over their own body. You can kill yourself, drink yourself to death, smoke fags, do dangerous sports. You manage your own risk and drug use is an individual choice at the end of the day."

"We believe in full legalisation, but we might have to go through decrim’ation, in small steps. I am worried about big companies taking over, but cannabis lends itself to small cottage industries a bit more than tobacco." "We want a drugs policy that actually works, that reduces the harm that drugs cause to individuals in society. That means reducing the crime associated with drugs, the health problems, the prison population, wasted tax and enforcement expenditure and putting that money into treatment and education. (Fact: Amsterdam has one of the lowest percentages of tokers of any European city).

"We know they work, prison doesn’t, why are we going down that road." "It’s a pragmatic stance, people want to take drugs. We can either let them get it from an unlicensed outlet or a criminal market." "The idea that cannabis is a gateway drug is part of the propaganda myth. Most people who do heroin have done cannabis before, but they’ve also smoked and drunk before, eaten eggs before, but no one makes that link." Of course, when it comes to propaganda, the government now have in place their drugs czar, Keith Hellawell to lead the war against drugs. And what did he do before? He was the Chief constable of West Yorkshire who got into some trouble for advocating, heavens above, the legalisation of cannabis.

Rough justice in Goa

Even before I got to Goa, at a party to raise money for Gleb one of our friends who’s just been banged up for drug offences, the idea was sparked to go to Fort Aguda jail and speak to Westerners who’d been stitched up by the Indian police.

Get the world trance community to visit or write to these unfortunate souls and give them hope. Well, I ran out of time or so I thought. Until, by one of those little twists of fate, with two hours left in Bombay and India, I bumped into Kim from Malaysia who’d only been released from the jail nine days previously. This is his story.

"I bought a bullet motorcycle, Goa was supposed to be the end of our trip, to relax. We were staying in a guest house in Anjuna beach called Poonam. I don’t think the owner was very friendly with the police, so one day there was a raid and every person who had something was picked up." "We had a little piece of weed scattered on the table, a little piece of hash and rolling papers. We tried to talk about paying, but it’s not really possible when it’s a whole department. If its just a few guys, I was told later you could pay your way through, but every section in charge had to show at least 10 to 15 cases every month to the government to show they were doing something. Otherwise they got pressure from on top."

"People who are really pushing are paying them heavy, so they can’t lock them up. They put 500 grammes on each of us, because what they found in the room wasn’t enougth to make a case. I speak Hindi well now, but at the time I didn’t. In the court they asked us if we pleaded guilty and as we thought we were being charged for what was in the room, we said yes. Later, we met other people, showed them our charge sheet and we learnt we’d had 500 g’s planted on us. That was it, jail." "I’ve seen many crazy places in my life, but nothing like that. The food was so bad, for one week I didn’t touch it. The chapati was half-cooked, the only veg was pumpkin." "Each barrack was made for 30 people, but there were 70 in there. There’s 100/200 people coming through the prison every day, so if you have a long date they send you to central prisons. "I spent two years, six months waiting for trial and the case was three and a half years. We won the case, got proved innocent, but who’s going to compensate my fucking six years." "That’s what really frustrated me, because people who are really making business are roaming scot-free outside and its people like us, who happen to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, caught by the wrong arse-holes who’re punished."

"After a few months I accepted it, because I believe in karma. Probably somethng I’ve done in the past, because when I was twenty I worked for the Italian mafia. I was into big bucks, got two bullets in the back. Probably that bad karma came back to me. I felt I’d be very bitter when I came out, revengeful. But I’m not, I accept it. What I learnt in those six years about acceptance, about loyalty, about friendship. Maybe I’d never have learnt that otherwise, who knows? "

"Every day, I was making two paragraphs. One about my emotions, feelings, the other about what happened on that day. There was this one 18 year old Australian guy, Jonathon, who hanged himself. He was under me in the bunk. He was sexually abused by Indians and was totally in terror. For him I fought 2/3 battles and was sent into solitary. It was their fault, but they were mafia guys, they rule the jail."

"After the second year I was friends with the top-top guy. Barracks number 9, I was ruling it. Almost like a warder. The last three years went quick. It was only women I couldn’t get. I was snorting cocaine every day, smoking hash. You can get everything inside. The mafia guys, company people rule it from inside. When their sentence is over, they go out, kill a few people and come back inside. Outside their lives are in danger."

"Now, I’ve given my diary to Tony Wheeler, an old travelling companion. I’m not doing this for fame and fortune. I want people to know the other side of Goa and particularly Fort Aguda, which it seems no one’s aware of."

"You can go there, meet them, help them out. Only a few people came in 6 years, but it gave me such a good feeling."

Write to your fellow countrymen and women, those unfortunate members of the trance community. The address will be on ouer website(www.dcimag.demon.co.uk) shortly