The forbidden fruit

THE OTHER day, while deep in conversation about the pros and cons of decriminalising and legalising marijuana, my friend posed a pertinent question to me – if weed was legal, and you could buy it easily and smoke it freely, would it be as fun to smoke? Well, yes, I’m sure seasoned smokers would be more than happy to be able to purchase and smoke their substance of choice in peace without worrying about getting arrested. But what the advocates of the war against marijuana fail to realise is that keeping marijuana illegal only makes the whole process of finding, buying and smoking weed almost like an adventure. It’s the whole forbidden fruit paradox – the fact that it is forbidden makes it all the more seductive, and all the more delicious to eat. See, my friend explained to me that the whole covert mission that people must undertake to obtain marijuana only contributes to the enjoyment of the cannabis culture. The search for good marijuana, my friend said, can take you to some very interesting and unusual places – up steep hills, into small shacks, outside little inconspicuous corner shops that secretly (or sometimes openly) sell Vitamin G.

You meet a lot of colourful characters along the way and you can even become partners with the friendly neighbourhood dealer, and then they give you the good stuff and never rip you off. Because marijuana is illegal and unregulated, when it comes to purchasing weed you never get the same thing twice. Sometimes you get ripped off and sometimes you score the jackpot. Sometimes your regular dealer is not there that night and you try someone else’s block and are pleasantly surprised. It’s always something different, always a little surprise, which, apparently, is also part of the thrill. Then, once you are back in the comfort of your home (or wherever the lime is that night), then comes the task at hand – the cleaning, which is yet another part of the smoking ritual. Someone gets put on cleaning duty and concentrates intensely for ten minutes, picking all the good stuff off the stems, removing the seeds so they don’t explode in your eye as you smoke, and making it a suitable consistency for rolling. 

My friend informed me that one has many choices when it comes to how to smoke freshly cleaned “mary-jane” and the use of paraphernalia is also part of the appeal. I’ve been told a good joint is something to be proud of and a poorly rolled one the subject of jokes. Those who are a bit adventurous will sometimes incorporate a coconut-flavoured paper, or perhaps strawberry, just for a little sweet taste when you lick your lips. Some prefer making a joint into a roll-on attached to a cigarette. Other options include putting it in a pipe, a hookah or a water bong, all of which, I’ve been told, work very well. See, all these little activities – the buying, the dealers with funny nicknames, the dodgy places you go to, the cleaning, the sharing of a taboo activity with others – all make smoking weed more enticing than ever to people of all ages and walks of life. And it’s not so much that it’s a “cool” thing to do the way that cigarettes are supposed to be cool. It’s more that marijuana is a soft drug which, my friend claims, is illegal for no good reason.

Strangely enough, people seem to believe that marijuana is a dangerous drug, but I know a lot of smokers, and let me tell you they are probably the most harmless people on the face of the planet. They are generally quiet and relaxed; all they want to do is lay back and get a little silly, enjoy their music and chill out. Potheads are way too mellow to get into fights or crash cars. Trust me on that one. The really dangerous people out there are the alcoholics! But smokers are the ones forced to operate in a clandestine manner, lurking around in dark places to make a purchase, keeping an eye out for any blue flashing lights in the distance. So, like all people who are forced to take their lifestyle underground, the outlawed nature of marijuana only creates an even stronger community of chronics who all share in the solidarity of having their favourite recreational substance illicit, banned, and taboo.

Weed smokers all have an understanding and solidarity because they’re all in the same boat. Like my friend said, it’s them against a world that will put them behind bars for no good reason. I for one, find it is scary to think that a perfectly innocent person like my friend could end up in jail next to murderers and rapists for possession of less than a gramme of weed. Keeping marijuana as an illegal drug will never stop people from doing it, because if you like smoking marijuana you are going to find a way to get it. Personally, I believe marijuana should be decriminalised and certain amounts allowable for personal use to ease up the legal system and prevent good citizens from going to jail. And until that day when it is no longer taboo and all the covert missions to find weed are no longer necessary, people are going to keep burning that herb, and loving it too. So in closing, I’d like to quote from local rock band Orange Sky who, in a song about having to throw weed out the window of a car when approaching a road block, laments, “In this revolution… there’s no victim… there’s no reason.”