Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories (42 page)

The rest of the story is short and sweet. Marihuana worked like a charm. I disliked the ‘side effect’ of mental blurring (the ‘main effect’ for recreational users), but the sheer bliss of not experiencing nausea – and then not having to fear it for all the days intervening between treatments – was the greatest boost I received in all my year of treatment, and surely had a most important effect upon my eventual cure. It is beyond my comprehension – and I fancy I am able to comprehend a lot, including such nonsense – that any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need simply because others use it for different purposes.

From:
Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine
by Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar, 1993

Alexander Shulgin

T
HE TWENTY
-
EIGHTH OF
September 1996 saw the sixty-eighth anniversary of the prohibition of cannabis in the UK. I celebrated the occasion by eating and giving out cannabis cakes in Hyde Park and then turning myself in at Marylebone Police Station to confess my criminal conduct. Appointments had already been made with the Old Bill in charge. I didn’t feel I was risking anything. After 3,000 days in the nick, a few more might just provide a tingle of nostalgia. True, I was breaking my United States parole conditions, but sod those bastards.

Along with about fifty supporters, and as many press, we presented ourselves, completely wrecked, to the cop at the door and explained we were distributing and consuming illegal substances. They wouldn’t let me in. I skinned up and smoked. The cops refused to bust us. They didn’t want to know.

Smoking spliffs, we walked back to Hyde Park, gave out more dope cakes, rented some deckchairs, and stoked up a few pipes and chillums.

Other police stations in other parts of the country were confronted with similar protests. Not all adopted the same attitude as Marylebone. A few guys were busted and were expecting to end up with the convictions of their courage. This is really nuts. Law-abiding citizens can’t consume dope in police stations, but dope smugglers can.

Norwich has been a peculiarly forceful centre advancing the legalisation of cannabis. The city’s 10,000 cannabis users include some long-time hardcore tokers. And they’ve really had enough of the bullshit. Jack Girling and Tina Smith, two of the main leading lights, asked if I would stand for Parliament in the forthcoming election on behalf of them and others like them. Jack and Tina have been smoking herbs for most of this century.

‘Fuck politics,’ I thought. ‘They’re all lying scumbags or deranged. They’re the lawyers that Shakespeare wanted to kill. They don’t care about anyone under thirty. They won’t even put Ecstasy-testing machines in clubs where they know hundreds of kids are chancing it. Better they die than get high. It’s not just a question of zero tolerance: it’s one of zero understanding. No fun. I’m not jumping into bed with that lot.’

‘You can make it a single issue,’ said Jack Girling. ‘Legalise cannabis. Everything else can wait.’

‘You think just one policy is enough, Jack?’

‘It’s one more than the others have got. All that party stuff is silly.’

Jack was right. Party politics had certainly stuck it up England. Politicians always seemed to duck and dive real issues and encourage the electorate to vote on party preference or not at all. And they
were
a bunch of wankers. (A pity their fathers weren’t.) A vote for a single-issue party, particularly one dedicated to getting stoned, would also be a vote against the current crap system, state and slime of party politics.

I have nothing but the most complete contempt and utter disgust for current drug policies. They make me puke. I have four children and cannot conceive of a love greater than that which I have for them. I don’t want them dying in the streets from poisoned dope or getting sick from impurities. I don’t want children handing over all their pocket money and hard-earned wages to make-believe gangsters who can’t tell cannabis from plastic and don’t care which they sell or how much they charge. I don’t want my children to suffer multiple sclerosis, AIDS or cancers and be cruelly denied the therapeutic benefits of natural herbs because a bunch of cock-sucking pharmaceutical companies want to sell their poisons. I don’t want my children to be callously stigmatised by society, fined and imprisoned for pursuing ancient and traditional harmless practices. I don’t want any of that shite.

‘All right, Jack. I’d be honoured to stand for you and that cause. What’s Norwich like?’

‘Come and find out.’

I had to go to Dublin first. I was doing an interview for Olaf Tyarensen of
Hot Press
, Dublin’s
Time Out
, and we were then both appearing on
The Late, Late Show
, sharing the bill with the Kelly family, a professor of law, a nun, a couple of Irish stand-up comics and a few demented prohibitionists. I arrived at Heathrow well before take-off and skinned up in the Gents. The Nepalese hit during take-off as I opened my copy of
Hot Press
. There was an article by Olaf about the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs, who had taken to the city centre’s streets carrying banners and placards bearing slogans like ‘HANG ALL DRUG BARONS’ and ‘PUSHERS BEWARE’. I started feeling scared. Or was it a twinge of paranoia from the spliff? No, I was scared.

‘And do you still smoke cannabis?’ asked the presenter, Gay Bryne, when we were on live TV. I was still a bit unnerved by all the hostility.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘as much as I can.’

‘And you have it in your possession?’

‘I do.’

I always carry some for luck.

A few minutes later, I walked off the set. Olaf came tearing up to me.

‘The Gardai are outside asking all kinds of questions. Hide your dope, Howard. For God’s sake, get rid of it.’

‘Where? Where?’ asked one of the comedians. ‘There’s nowhere to hide anything. Just throw it as far away from you as you possibly can.’

‘This way,’ someone shouted.

Out motley band of academics, comedians and dope dealers scrambled into the Ladies, where a TV monitor displayed an obese, non-menstruating, prohibitchionist yelling, ‘He shouldn’t be called Mr Nice; he should be called Mr Evil. He’s a murderer.’

‘Who the hell is that, Olaf?’

‘That’s none other than Mary Harney, leader of the Progressive Democrat Party. She was to the General what Elliot Ness was to Al Capone.’

‘God, where am I?’

‘How about there, Howard?’

Olaf pointed to a rubbish bin full of unsavoury garbage. I couldn’t possibly put a Nepalese temple ball into that lot. The producer ran in.

‘It’s all right, Howard. The Gardai are not wanting to talk to you. But they do want to know at which hotel you’ll be staying. You can tell me, and I’ll tell them.’

I told him.

And stayed somewhere else.

The next day, I vented my anger against prohibition in a crowded room at the University of East Anglia. Almost everyone seemed to feel the same way. Why are we putting up with all this? If we want to take dope to get stoned (or healthy) and don’t want adulterated poison peddled on the streets, who exactly is saying no?

‘Respect, brother. You’ve got our vote. We’ll sort out some others too.’

‘How do we register? Is it too late? I never thought there’d ever be anything worth voting for.’

Jack Girling, others and I went to the Brickmakers’ Arms. I had to know something about my non-dope-smoking potential constituents. I drank a few pints at the bar. Someone would recognise me soon. If not, I’d skin up.

‘You’re that drug pusher. Am I right? So you’re trying to be a politician now, yeah?’

‘Well, you’re almost there,’ I replied. ‘But I’ve never had to push anything, and I’ve got no political aspirations what-soever. I’m just trying to increase freedom and fun. If they made booze illegal, I’d be just as pissed off.’

‘I’d be with you there. I might be with you anyway. You got any stuff with you?’

Jack came alongside.

‘You all right, Howard?’

‘Yeah. But I need to get off my face, Jack. I’ve had a hard day. Some thumping techno with the usual accompaniments would go down well. Is there life after midnight in Norwich?’

‘You better talk to Luis here. His lot of DJs is actually called ‘Off Yer Face’.

One look at Luis’ eyes, and it was obvious he had this time of night sorted. We went to a club called Kitchen. It was so dark, I could skin up without checking if it was cool. Confetti cannons, French maids, feather dusters and rubber-clad slaves allowed ambient drum’n’bass to welcome raging hardcore, and the conflicting rhythms peacefully coexisted. Eyes were ecstatic. Nostrils were smoking.

Back in London, I called an old Oxford lawyer friend.

‘Can anyone stand for Parliament, even convicted dope dealers like me?’

‘Absolutely. All that’s needed, Howard, is for you to be alive, not to actually be in prison, and to pay a five-hundred-pound deposit.’

‘You mean ten hardcore stoners with fifty quid each to spare could get a guy into Parliament?’

‘That’s right. Even the potential of a few hundred votes would worry the main parties in any of the critical marginals. A few thousand could really shake them up. Single issues have been known to work. Look at the suffragette movement.’

‘Can the same candidate stand for more than one constituency?’

‘Of course, as precedented by Gladstone himself. If you were elected in more than one, you would have to resign in all but one of your choice. And if a person, party, or whatever, stands in more than fifty constituencies, then the government is obliged to permit a five-minute political broadcast to be screened on all channels at peak viewing time.’

Maybe I’ll be part of a party. Let’s hope it’s non-stop. I like the connotations of the word ‘party’, so I formed the Legalise Cannabis Party and stood simultaneously for the four separate constituencies of Norwich North, Norwich South, Neath and Southampton West.

I can get to places that other candidates can’t: squats, techno clubs, shabeens, brothels, illegal raves, prisons, recording studios, Ecstasy-safe environments, opium dens and other havens for those who wish to alter their states of minds. My election addresses have been used for everything from toilet paper to roaches. There aren’t too many registered votes in these places, but they’re a lot of fun. Another smoker who can get to even more places is Tricky, whose music fascinates me. His trip-hop is scary. Tricky is scary. Tricky taps that energy that the straights call gangster or superpredator, wears a dress, and tells the snitching Yankee gangsta to take it somewhere else. He was giving a concert at Norwich’s University of East Anglia in a few days. I was going to be there, campaigning. We agreed to celebrate our joint presence.

At the Norwich election hustings, Labour Party candidate for Norwich South, Charles Clarke, admitted to having smoked cannabis while a young man. I asked Charles Clarke why he didn’t confess to his crimes. There are no statutes of limitation in British law. He should do his bird like the rest of us. He didn’t answer.

I met one of the senior administrators of the university students’ union.

‘Mr Marks, you can’t come to the Tricky concert tonight and make political statements. It wouldn’t be fair to the other candidates. There will be thousands of students there. Far more than at the hustings we hold at the Union for all political candidates. As you won’t be able to campaign, it seems futile to even come here this evening.’

‘That’s no problem. I’m with the band.’

I met Tricky backstage.

‘Tricky, can I come on stage and smoke a bong and a few joints?’

‘Treat my stage as your living-room, Howard. I like this. It scares me.’

‘Your fear is your strength, Tricky. Let’s do it.’

The bouncers took the bong. Tricky said he couldn’t go perform without his props. The bouncers said they’d bust us if we smoked from it and ringed the stage. Tricky and I got on to the music- and searchlight-swamped platform and lit joints. We rapped for a few minutes during which I made an impassioned plea for the provision of Ecstasy-testing machines. I offered to be one. I exhaled into the bong. The bouncers got ready to pounce while Tricky begged everyone to ‘Vote for Howard; don’t be a coward’. I threw some joints into the audience and secured a few easy votes.

J.S. Mill

‘
HEY – YOU! THAT’S RIGHT – YOU! THE STUPID CUNT WITH THE DARK GLASSES! I WANNA WORD WITH YOU, YOU FUCKER!
’

From a distance the man looked short, squat and dumpy but, as he charged up the road towards me like some kind of crazed and bloodthirsty animal (which, in retrospect, was exactly what he was), he gradually got taller, broader and more menacing. Shit! I took a deep breath, puffed my chest out and braced myself for whatever was coming. He stopped just inches short of my nose, his ugly fifty-something face a contorted mess of undisguised redneck rage. His breath stank of something unpleasant and I nearly recoiled and stepped back, but didn’t. To do so would imply weakness and that was exactly what he was looking for.