Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories (43 page)

‘
DID YOU PUT THIS SHITE THROUGH MY DOOR
?’ he demanded with a roar, shaking a balled up piece of white paper in front of my face. It was one of my election leaflets – a folded A4 sheet detailing the reasons why cannabis should be legalised immediately. I’d had 10,000 of them printed the day before.

‘
YOU’RE THAT CUNT, AREN’T YOU
?’ he screamed. His nostrils flared so widely that you could have fit a fist into one of them (if it was a small fist and you wanted to put it there).

‘What cunt?’ I asked innocently.

‘
YOU THINK YOU’RE REALLY FUCKING SMART DON’T YOU, YOU FUCKING ARSEHOLE!!
’ He was screeching now, really wound up. I wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. ‘
WELL, LET ME TELL YOU
 . . .’

He was obviously a very disturbed individual. I didn’t really understand him. I mean, what kind of man gets himself so worked up about an election flyer that he feels the need to leave the safety and comfort of his own home to run down the street and pick a fight with somebody half his age? If he didn’t agree with what I was saying, all he had to do was put the offending item in the bin and not vote for me. There was no need for the dramatics, no need for all this grief. I stood still and pondered this, as he continued to scream abuse in my face. Tiny specks of his spittle hit my shades, distorting his face even further. I didn’t move to wipe them. I could tell that he was just waiting for an excuse. If I raised my hands from my sides he was almost definitely going to hit me. The man’s son – just a kid, aged around six or seven – was standing behind him, trying to stare me out of it. An elderly couple were watching from across the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see curtains twitching in the windows of the house beside me.

He slammed the leaflet into my hand with such angry force that, days later, it was still bruised. I looked at him, standing there, hands on hips like Superman, waiting for me to do something, challenging me to do something. It was surreal. He seemed to personify all of the fear and loathing I had encountered over the previous six weeks – fear of radical change, loathing of anything or anyone who threatened his cosy and closeted little world. To be honest, I sort of felt sorry for him. I felt even sorrier for his son.

Despite this, I still wanted to kick the shit out of him, wanted to beat his face to a bloody watermelon pulp. He was slightly smaller than me but better built, looked like he might have boxed in his time (though maybe his ears were that shape at birth). Even so, it would have taken me less than two seconds to trip him over and slam the heel of my boot into the bridge of his nose. He wouldn’t know what had hit him. After that he wouldn’t stand a chance. I’d give his annoying little son a kick in the arse for good measure. Ultraviolent images flashed through my brain, pure adrenaline pumped though my veins. I was fucking furious, nearly as worked up as he was!

Fortunately, common sense took over. I visualised the headline – ‘
DUN LAOGHAIRE MAN ASSAULTED BY CANNABIS CANDIDATE
’. ‘The election was two days away and that kind of publicity wasn’t really going to help my chances (not that I had a chance in the first place). Besides, it wasn’t really my style.

‘You’re a very rude little man,’ I said. Incensed at my deliberately patronising manner, he tried to push me and I quickly caught his arm. I held it tight, but not too tight. Just firmly enough to let him know that I wasn’t going to be spoken to like this. ‘Go away,’ I hissed.

‘
YOU FUCKING WANKER
,’ he screamed, going all purple in the face. ‘
ALL THE BRAINS IN THE COUNTRY AND THIS IS THE KIND OF SHITE WE GET! YOU FUCKING CUNT!
’

The Story of O
, 2000

Thomas Jefferson

T
HE FIRST PERSON
to use the phrase ‘war on drugs’ was Richard ‘Tricky Little Dick’ Nixon way back in 1971. Tricky Little Dick was a fucking sharp villain who conned his way to the top. To distract the straights, he made out that the real enemy was not a yellow person with slit eyes but a plant that made you feel good. To prove his point, Tricky Little Dick played table tennis in Peking and declared war on drugs. At first, he didn’t need much in the way of armed forces. After all, most plants don’t carry guns. But he did need a bunch of brain-dead heavy meat-heads, so he formed the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. Eventually, Tricky Little Dick got an air force and sprayed South American plants with poison.

There’s never been much of a plants’ civil rights move in America (most of them are vegetarians), so no one really gave a toss about Tricky Little Dick’s antics until he got busted for housebreaking in the Watergate Hotel and grassed up his mates.

Peanuts then became US President. He was very nice and very clever; consequently, it didn’t take long for the population to get shot of him. Americans, by now (1980), had completely lost touch with reality and only understood real slapstick, plastic popcorn and movies. The only solution was to make a cowboy actor called Ronnie into President.

No one, not even plants, wants to play war with Americans, because they cheat, lie, chew gum and talk too much. They ripped off the Red Indians and turned reggae into slavery. When Americans run out of enemies, they fight each other. There is no America without a Civil War. Now the civil war is between those who take dope and those who don’t.

When war is declared against a country, that country accepts the declaration and declares war back. So, American dopers, accept the declaration of war on drug consumers issued by your government and re-declare war back on the fuckers.

‘Get outside those kindergartens and schools, all you American dopers. They’ve made you into demons. They treat you like demons. So be fucking demons. Be drug enforcers. Force them to take drugs.

‘Get some Scary Sound Systems, spraying water pistols, counter-surveillance clubwear, stink bombs, lion shit (to frighten police horses and dogs), cheese, a few hookers, and maybe one rubber pointed stick full of drug-free piss, to keep next to your dick for the piss test.’

Guy Fawkes

CHAPTER FOUR

COMMODIFY IT

O
NE TENDS TO
be introduced to cannabis at Oxford in a casual way. Cigarettes are frequently and openly passed around at parties and small informal social gatherings. No one is urged to smoke, and it is rare to be overtly asked to join in. One takes the odd puff until finally one night one becomes properly stoned. One then tends to be “turned on” by friends and eventually introduced to the pusher of the day. Cannabis is usually smoked in a small group in congenial surroundings in rooms in college or in digs. The atmosphere is rather like that of a sherry party. A gramophone is the most essential prop. As the drug begins to take effect within a few minutes, there is usually an increase in physical activity, accompanied by great mirth. One may feel a compulsion to dance. Sensory experience of all kinds is enhanced and there is an air of conviviality. The usual ‘high’ is an innocuous evening spent listening to music, dancing, talking and eating. One may also venture out to a party, a colour film, or even to a pub, and during the day it is pleasant to punt on the river or visit the Ashmolean art gallery. Many persons find they are able to do intellectual or artistic work under the influence of cannabis; and I know of a case of one young man successfully sitting an examination for a fellowship when he was ‘high’.

The price of cannabis in Oxford tends to be about eight or nine pounds an ounce for hashish, which is more frequently used, and a pound or so less for marijuana. This works out at about the price of a pint of bitter for the evening’s entertainment. Whatever the profits may be in retailing other drugs, the margin in selling cannabis is very slim, and no one in Oxford makes a living at it. “Pushers” tend to be smokers who want to make a pound or two a week and get their smokes for free. They stay in business for a few months until they become well known and then quietly retire. The smokers take turns acting as pushers. Those who never push to make a profit are usually willing to sell small quantities of cannabis at cost to friends who have temporarily exhausted their supplies, in return for similar favours in future. One point which is clear, and indeed admitted by the authorities, is that in this country there is no organised criminal conspiracy behind the sale of cannabis. Sometimes the drug is smuggled into the country on a one shot basis by students. The major supplies are brought into the ports by merchant seamen acting for themselves and are sold to anyone who is waiting around the docks. Smaller quantities are sometimes sent through the post.

From:
The Book of Grass
, eds George Andrews & Simon Vinkenoog, 1967

Today’s cannabis consumer lies at the end of a process conveniently divided into production, transportation (which often includes the crossing of international frontiers) and domestic distribution.

Traditionally, cannabis seeds are planted in the spring and the herbaceous plant is harvested during the autumn. In ideal growing conditions, two crops a year may be harvested. Harvesting entails cutting down the plants and hanging them upside down to dry in the sun. When dry, small stems, flowers, leaves and (unfortunately) seeds are combined and retained as ordinary marijuana while the largest stalks and stems are discarded.

Sinsemilla results from a variation of this method. Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive chemical in cannabis, occurs in unpollenated floral clusters usually referred to as buds. Sophisticated and well-researched agronomic techniques have been developed to maximise the size of these potent unpollenated floral clusters. Typically, all the male plants are eliminated during the early growth of the plant. This lack of pollination causes the female plants to enlarge their buds in order to increase their chances of acquiring whatever pollen might be around. The result of this reproductively futile process is a crop of resin-rich buds.

Hashish is produced by extracting resin from buds. Shaking, rubbing and running through densely planted cannabis crops while wearing adhesive clothing are the traditional methods of extraction. The resins are then compacted into a mass.

Most ordinary marijuana found in non-importing countries is cultivated by the indigenous population. Almost all hashish is similarly produced. Sinsemilla production is done by both cultivators in traditional source countries and home-growers in the country of consumption.

All three transport modes of land, sea and air are employed. Individuals own and/or operate private land vehicles, yachts and planes, while loosely knit organisations and alliances also use existing commercial freight systems. Payments to police, customs, military, coastguards and other individuals in positions of authority are a common feature of these methods. The transportation of cannabis across national boundaries, excepting that of minute supplies for research and therapeutic purposes, is highly illegal and occasions the most punitive penalties. Those engaged in this trade often make huge amounts of money, and far too many of them spend several years behind bars.

With the well-known exception of the Netherlands, all countries enthusiastically prohibit the purchase of even immediately consumable amounts of cannabis. Save for a few off-the-wall counties such as Singapore, the penalties for transgression are relatively small (usually fines rather that prison sentences). Sales of bulk amounts of cannabis are universally proscribed and can attract penalties at least as severe as those for international cannabis transportation. The existence and enforcement of cannabis prohibition, coupled with the popularity of the herb, has spawned a myriad of illegal networks engaged in distribution. It’s very hard for a street dealer to continue his business without being busted or, at the very least, being considered and documented as some kind of sociopath. Such casualties of cannabis prohibition have been extensively dealt with elsewhere and are not the subject of this monograph. But let’s never forget them.

Today, the production, export, import, international and domestic transport and retail distribution of cannabis carry the heavy cost of surviving confiscations by the government and insuring against infiltration by law enforcement. Significant funds are used to establish information valves and blocks that afford protection to one level of distribution from the danger that might occur when an individual or organisation from another level is busted. As a result, current importation and distribution firms are inefficient both in reducing costs and preserving and transmitting useful information. Although this does have the fortunate consequence of supplying people with the opportunity of making a living, it also implies that costs and prices of currently illegal cannabis are inevitably greater than those that would prevail in an untaxed or moderately taxed legal market.

A sizeable and powerful portion of the electorate believe that the taking of all drugs (in which category they include cannabis but usually exclude alcohol, tobacco, tea and many legally prescribed pharmaceutical products) is inherently immoral and that the rest of the population should abide by this ethic even if they do not subscribe to it. Articulate and well-reasoned arguments advocating cannabis legalisation and decriminalisation have resoundingly failed to convince these anti-drug crusaders of the irrationality of their position. Unless the concerns of these moral dictators are properly addressed, one cannot expect them to do other than vigorously maintain their prohibitive stance.