It’s too bad Cambodia has been
caught up in conservative, mostly US-fueled, drug-war fervor since it’s easily
the most tolerant, laid back society in Asia. It was only 20 years ago, before
UNTAC came in to conduct Cambodia’s first post-KR elections and coincidentally
tell the country it had to crack down on drugs, that you could buy a shopping
bag of ganja at Russian Market in Phnom Penh for about a dollar. In talking to
locals about cannabis who remember the times before prohibition, I’ve heard
comments like, We used to smoke it when we couldn’t afford tobacco, or We used
it to flavor our soup.
Back then I was able to toke up
in almost all the bars I frequented in the capital. The police hardly ever came
out at night and nobody ever seemed to care, though some people were definitely
turned off by the sweet smell of pot smoke. That all changed a few years back
when the police paid a visit to all the bars and told them that the evil weed
would no longer be tolerated. Still, though you can get busted today for pot
possession, though probably not for small amounts, it’s somehow okay to spike
your pizzas with the stuff. We’ve even got our first happy pizza restaurant in
Kampot - Happy Dreamily Pizza.
Use of recreational drugs is best
left to individual choice. Everybody has a right, or should have the right, to
choose their own poison. There’s no way to stop people from doing what they
want in a free country, even just a nominally free place like Cambodia.
Moreover, education works as well or better than prohibition in curtailing drug
use. In a class I taught in a local university some nine years ago I led a
discussion of drugs. The general attitude of the students was that drug dealers
should be executed. They didn’t need threats of prosecution to keep them from
using drugs, they were already fanatically against them, their education and
upbringing was enough.
The only thing you accomplish by
prohibition is to raise prices to very high levels and thus draw in criminal involvement
and the violence that often goes with any trade in contraband.
In Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia
and Vietnam drug dealers are killed. One of Taksin Shinawatra’s claims to fame
when he first took office was his ordering Thai police to summarily execute
lots of drug dealers and 2500 people were offed in short order. I had a
conversation at that time with a Thai based expat visiting Cambodia. He was all
in favor of that murderous rampage, talking about how bad yaba was, until I
pointed out that without giving people the opportunity to defend themselves it
was likely that at least 5% to 10% of that 2500 were guilty of only minor
crimes or were innocent but had gotten their names on the hit list because
someone in the police department didn’t like them.
In Singapore possession of as
little as 15 grams of heroin or 200 grams of ganja is a mandatory death
sentence. Not long ago a Singaporean couple returning from a trip to Australia
were drug tested and wound up spending two years in the brink for smoking pot
on their vacation; who knows, it could’ve been only a puff or two. Ganja, being
oil based stays in your system for about 30 days. The hard drugs, on the other
hand, are all water based so shoot up heroin, cocaine or meth on Friday night
and you’re clean Monday morning when you get to work. Today every corporate job
in America requires drug testing and the vast majority of positives are from
pot.
The fundamental problem with state
murder of people for small amounts of drugs is that drug laws are based on
cultural bias and change with the times. It wasn’t that long ago historically speaking - 1920 till 1933 - that
marijuana was legal in America while alcohol was prohibited. There’d never be a
disagreement on the legality of murder, robbery, extortion and such, but it
takes a staggering amount of arrogance and hubris for Singapore and many other
countries to kill someone over marijuana when it’s easily available and
practically legal in other places in the world.
If you want to drink yourself to
death in Singapore, or merely imbibe till it destroys your family life, you’re
perfectly welcome to it, though it’ll cost a bit since taxes there are really
high. When backers of drug prohibition are asked why alcohol is legal and ganja
is not, though by any scientific, existential, non-emotional standard alcohol
is much worse, they often respond by saying, We already have one bad drug, we
don’t need another. They should be honest and finish their statement by saying;
besides I like a cold beer on a hot afternoon, I like a glass of wine after dinner,
I like a shot of brandy before hitting the sack. If I like it, it’s okay, if I
don’t, you go to jail or get offed.
Now that squeaky-clean Singapore
is promoting casino gambling (Have you noticed they don’t call it gambling
anymore, it’s now gaming. You know, it’s just a game, just for fun.) you can
blow your life savings and your family’s future, but that’s okay because it
brings tourism and makes lots of money for the state.
If you want to stuff your face to
the point where you can barely walk and your life has been shortened by
decades, all assisted by constant TV advertising encouraging you to do just
that, then no problem, knock yourself out, it’s your life, after all. But if
you take one puff of the evil weed, you’re a scourge to society and must pay
dearly for your dastardly, miscreant behavior.
The other point prohibitionists
like to make, which is not born out by the statistics is that a lot more people
will do drugs if they are legal or more easily obtainable. Holland provides the
best example. Fewer young people smoke pot there where it’s virtually legal,
than in America where nearly a million people are languishing in prison over non-violent
marijuana related offenses.
Portugal also provides a good
example since in 2001 all drugs, not just cannabis, were decriminalized.
Portugal now has some of the lowest percentages of drug use in Europe, when for
instance it once had the highest percentage of heroin users. Today, a smaller
percentage of people in the country have an experience with ganja than those
who’ve used cocaine in America. Ten percent have tried cannabis there compared
to nearly 40% in America.
Around 40 years ago Tricky Dick
Nixon was shown a government report that suggested ganja should be
decriminalized since its effects were essentially benign. Instead he did the
opposite and began America’s War on Drugs. He could clearly see that the
majority of people opposed to the Vietnam war were tokers so he rightly figured
he could use drug laws to suppress the anti-war movement.
His ‘War’ has done nothing to suppress
drug use, but has served to disrupt and/or destroy millions of people’s lives
and helped to create a massive industrial prison system. Now that many of
America’s prisons are corporate owned, there’s profit to be made from incarcerating
lots of non conformists as well as common criminals.
Changes, though are afoot.
Bolivians have elected a former coca farmer as president, and Latin American
countries as a whole are rethinking the ‘Drug War’ military response to what is
essentially a public health problem. They suffer far more from drug war mania
than the US, the world’s biggest user country. The drug cartels have millions,
even hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal to bribe and/or threaten
police and public officials. It is an especially difficult situation for
smaller countries but even Mexico, a large middle income country has seen
50,000 drug war related deaths since the current president started his
‘crackdown’ on the drug trade six years ago. The cartels have a gruesome cant;
in the latest example nearly fifty headless, handless, footless bodies - hard
to identify that way - were dumped in a prominent urban place. As a result the Latin’s
feel they have to find a different path.
Changes are also afoot in the US.
Polls in some states are showing majorities in favor of legalizing and
regulating cannabis. When you subtract the cost of apprehending, adjudicating
and incarcerating large numbers of pot users from public budgets and then add
the tax take from legalizing it, it should be a no brainer; still, regressive,
narrow-minded, idiocy dies hard. The movement to decriminalize pot began in
1973 in Oregon, when possession of less than an ounce - 28 grams - was turned
into a violation similar to a traffic ticket with a $50 fine. About 16 states
have since followed suit.
About the same number now permit
medical marijuana. In Oregon, one of the first states to allow it, the change
was propelled by the experience of a conservative constituent of a conservative
Republican rural state legislator. This woman had suffered for a long time from
glaucoma. She was scheduled for an operation on a Monday, but having heard of
pot’s healing qualities thought it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. She started
smoking on Friday evening, kept it up all weekend and went into the hospital
for a pre-op checkup on Monday. The doctor looked at her eyes and proclaimed
that they were fine and she needed no operation. After she related her
experience to her state legislator, he became an advocate and the die was cast.
It isn’t a miracle cure for all types of glaucoma, but a couple of joints in
place of an eye operation… also a no brainer.
Just recently - mid-May 2012 - a
New York judge wrote an op-ed in the New York Times urging the state
legislature to legalize medical marijuana. He’d been undergoing chemotherapy
for cancer and try as he might to find a legal drug to combat the nausea and
lack of appetite that goes with chemo treatment, nothing but smoking pot worked.
He broke the law in order to receive proper treatment, this doubtless after
putting lots of people away for marijuana related offenses. Meanwhile the
federal government has classified pot as a class A drug with no medical uses
and Obama’s justice department has been going after medical marijuana
dispensaries, which are legal under state law, with a vengeance. This from a
president who admitted smoking, and inhaling, as a youth… effing hypocrite.
The one good aspect of
prohibiting pot is the healthy distrust of government it engenders. With all the
dire warnings you’ve been taught about the descent into perdition that comes
with the first puff, you’re expecting far more impact than pot delivers. Even
if you don’t like the feeling and have no intention of smoking again, the one
thing you come away from the experience with it is that it’s essentially harmless
and all that you’ve been told about it by the establishment is bullshit and
hype.
A major lie foisted on the public
by the anti-drug establishment is that smoking pot is dangerous to your health,
equal to tobacco. While smoking anything can cause irritation, coughing and
other respiratory problems, there’s nothing in ganja smoke that can develop
into cancer or other diseases. Back in the 80’s I knew a guy who was doing
marijuana research. They had gathered together a group of guys, gave them as
much pot as they wanted and told them to smoke themselves out. After a couple
of months they became afraid and called off the study because the subjects’
respiratory systems were becoming congested with cannabis tars. Two months
later they were completely clean with no permanent damage. That’s in contrast
to tobacco which permanently scars the small passages, the cilia, in the lungs.
Also, it’s not possible to OD on
pot. According to America’s Drug Enforcement Administration you would have to
smoke about 700 kilos in 15 minutes to OD… even my son who’s a legendary wake
and baker can’t do that.
What about the hard drugs:
heroin, cocaine, meth? For sure you can OD on them, but that’s partly a result
of prohibition, since you never know the potency of what you’re getting on the
street. All three will make you look wrinkled, washed out and old before your
time if you let them control your life. At the same time you could use all
three and continue to carry on a reasonably normal life if prohibition didn’t
make them so expensive you were required you to steal and rob to get your fix. If
you have a life, feel good about yourself, you can experiment without ever
becoming addicted.
A relative who’s never been part
of the hip scene asked me why people do heroin. The answer is simple: No matter
how stressed, depressed, unhappy or sick you are in mind and/or body; no matter
that you consider yourself a worthless turd and have no hope for a better
future, when you shoot up you’re on top of the world. Nothing can hurt you or
phase you. Morphine which has one tenth the potency of heroin, is one of the
best medicinal painkillers because no matter how banged up or diseased you are,
with sufficient morphine in your system you can handle any contingency.
A guy I met traveling related an
experience he’d had with opium, which is one tenth the potency of morphine.
Before he and a friend settled in to smoke in comfortable chairs he’d put an
Eagles tape on his cassette player. Unfortunately, it was on continuous loop so
they wound up having to listen to the whole album 7 or 8 times before either
one could bring himself to rise up and change the tape. The Eagles!! You just
feel sooo mellow and relaxed, nothing can bother you. With all the crazy shit
happening in the world and the grave hardship so many people face in their
daily lives, why not let them enjoy a little escape sometimes? Could it be
worse than alcohol? At least guys wouldn’t be beating their wives around when
on opium.
Cocaine, meth, whatever, nothing
works better or causes less harm to society than education about drugs and
dealing with each of them truthfully and intelligently. Cambodia, however,
pushed by the international community is going at the problem in a harsh and
unforgiving manner. Recently three teenage girls caught with 6 yaba pills
between them were each given two years behind bars. Is that fair, does it make
sense?
Cambodia is a relaxed and
easygoing place, that’s one of the things we expats like most about the place.
Entertainment is one of the country’s best bets for economic growth. Why not
take a ‘happy-pizza’ attitude towards life and let people be themselves, make
their own decisions and choose their own poison. It’s the adult way to do
things.
I’m 70 years old. Is somebody
going to tell me what’s good for me and what’s bad for me, what I’m supposed to
like and what I’m not supposed to like?
Stan Kahn
