cannabisnews.com: Nostalgic Small Town Puts Cannabis on Its Flag Nostalgic Small Town Puts Cannabis on Its Flag Posted by CN Staff on April 03, 2003 at 17:16:39 PT By Kevin O' Flynn Source: Moscow Times All leaders wanted to do was celebrate the history of their small town by creating a flag everyone would be proud to see flying above the rooftops.Instead, they have been mocked on national television for making a local plant their emblem. The local plant in question is cannabis. Some 250 kilometers southwest of Moscow in the Bryansk region, a yellow, green and white flag now flies above the town hall. In the top left-hand corner is the plant more widely known for its hallucinogenic qualities and for being depicted on T-shirts and student posters.For Novozybkovo, a quiet provincial town of 43,000 that suffered greatly from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the plant is a symbol of a long-gone glorious age when the town was a vital cog in the country's navy.NTV television ran a gently mocking report on the new flag last week that did not go down well with the townspeople."There are those who accepted it with humor and those who were offended," said Valery Kharkevich, the editor of the local Novozybkovskiye Vesti newspaper, speaking about the program rather than the cannabis flag.Town officials are flabbergasted at the fuss."We don't have people coming up and saying, 'No, no, no,'" said town official Lyudmila Yefremenko. "We discussed it for a whole year.""The color is jolly," Kharkevich said.Cities all over the country have been abuzz over what their flags should look like after the government ordered that they should have their own flags. The city of Penza stirred up controversy several months ago by introducing a flag that bears the image of Jesus Christ.In the 18th and 19th century, Novozybkovo was a major supplier of hemp, the tough coarse fiber of the cannabis plant. A factory in the town supplied the Russian Navy with the hemp used for ropes, and the plant was honored when it was placed on the town's coat of arms in the first quarter of the 19th century. Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in 1856 had a crippling effect on the industry, and the decimated Russian Navy's need for hemp died out, said Oleg Dunayev, who works at a local museum and helped the town pick the flag's design. Hemp was cultivated until the start of the 20th century but died out completely with Stalin's campaign to set up collective farms.Kharkevich denied that Novozybkovo has any particular drug problems."Of course there are incidents," he said. "But this is a global trend."Indeed, the only protests in Novozybkovo, city officials said, have been from local Communists. They didn't like the color of the flag and wanted it to be red.Source: Moscow Times, The (Russia)Author: Kevin O' Flynn Published: Friday, April 4, 2003 - Page 3 Copyright: 2003 The Moscow TimesContact: oped imedia.ruWebsite: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/Related Article:A Group Collects Votes for Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13434.shtmlCannabisNews Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #10 posted by Duzt on April 04, 2003 at 08:11:38 PT Brazil I lived in São Paulo state for 3 years (my brother lives in São Paulo city and isn't ever coming back) and must say that Brazil is amazing. The people remind of laid back Europeans. Very educated, but also like to drink and party just about every day. They also don't fear their government. They went through a military government not too long ago and haven't had the option of voting for much time. They will press this through and pass at least something with cannabis and considering how prevelant cocaine is there I'm sure it will be legalized too. Great place to live and super cheap if you earn dollars. I'm sure Lula will travel to Amsterdam to see how it is there, he's the cigar chomping Clinton type who is very much a normal guy, he'll do the right thing. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by TroutMask on April 04, 2003 at 07:00:44 PT Coat of Arms "the plant was honored when it was placed on the town's coat of arms in the first quarter of the 19th century"That's what I'd like to see! I wonder if someone could dig up a picture of that?-TM [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by The GCW on April 04, 2003 at 07:00:36 PT Brazil is Earth is progressing. People that want to face the Truth want credible drug law reform.People that do not want to face Truth, want to continue in the darkness. Seekers of the darkness are a minority and a majority at the same time...The goal: Globally ...educated, enthusiastic... citizens are no longer going to follow the U.S. drug policy, verbatim any more as long as it harmfuly conspires with blatent lack of Truth. People yearn to progress toward the Truth. Bush's club is not wholesome Truth. Everybody Must Get Stoned. Bob DylanThe death Bush delivers is not the same death He will receive. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Ethan Russo MD on April 04, 2003 at 04:39:27 PT: Brasil/Brazil I attended a drug policy conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil in December organized by REDUC:http://www.q4q.nl/reduc/reduc.htmand it was a very eye-opening experience. Although this vast country is plagued by poverty, it also harbors a huge middle class of educated, enthusiastic and bright people who understand the the need for radical changes in drug policy. This feeling is shared by many treatment professionals, scientists and higher-echelon politicians. There is a great opportunity for change there on cannabis policy. Hopefully they will use the models of Western Europe, Canada and Jamaica as preferred to those of the USA. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Virgil on April 03, 2003 at 20:24:10 PT Brazil is getting real The Brazilian government holds onto the prohibitionist model as the Harm Reduction strategies that now have transformed substance abuse to a health care problem insist on change.The 4th article on Brazil is now up at http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article724.html Their ONDCP is SENAD and is a dinasour left over from the last regime about to be swept aside as it says drug policy is the same now as it was under the previous administration.Here are a few selected paragraphsphs:Regina Benevides Criticizes Her Own Government's Anti-Drug Office by Ariana Veloso-Part IV in a series, reported from Rio de Janeiro April 2, 2003A leading health official from the new administration of the Brazilian national government this week told a group of 35 authentic drug policy experts (see related story, "A Drug Policy from Below"), that she favors their approach: “harm reduction as a political and clinical strategy of treatment.” This statement would be like the Surgeon General of the US saying we don't need Walters&Company- Benevides' statement, told Narco News that, “the idea of a National Anti-Drug Secretary is as stupid as the war on drugs.”...Campos, the president of the Brazilian Association of Harm Reduction... agrees. He says that, "the SENAD doesn’t have the legitimacy or the competence to define national drug policy." As one of the leading voices of the harm reduction movement, Araújo said, "We don't dialogue with the SENAD. We cannot work together with an agency that has the words 'anti-drug' in its name." The new administration inside the Heath Ministry is already working toward new legislation. In fact, the Health Ministry has proposed a complement to the law passed in 2002 amending drug policies: "The Health Ministry is in charge of normalizing harm reduction programs," which it defines as, "making utensils and places for the safe use of drugs available," said Benevides. The assembled harm reduction workers received her words as a sign of hope. "This law," said Benevides, the public health official, of the 2002 drug "reform" law passed by Congress, "doesn't contemplate harm reduction and does not make field work viable or more flexible." Organizations that do this kind of work, she said, need, "the government as an ally," and that is exactly what this woman, also a member of the "Torture: Never Again" organization in Brazil, wants to install inside the new government of which she is a member. “However, there is still a prohibitionist path being followed in Brazil's drug policy,” accuses Araújo, the ABORDA president. He explains that, “the SENAD is directly involved with the Lula administration, so it is hierarchically superior than the Ministries.” But there is a sign of hope. “Now both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health have the sensibility to treat this issue in a better way than the SENAD,” he explains. Congressman Gabeira believes that, in the new administration, the Health Ministry “will influence the SENAD much more that the Justice Ministry, because it has a different way to treat the subject, since the drug consumer is no longer considered an object of police action but rather is a medical concern.” But Benevides warned that "to maintain the status quo is much easier than making change," and that's why she asked the members of the Movement of Civil Society for Harm Reduction to "pressure the government to develop a national harm reduction strategy." Thus, the struggle to redefine Brazil's drug policy is now being fought inside the highest levels of the Lula administration. Washington is betting on the SENAD. But Benevides' view carries the weight of Civil Society. President Lula: The Whole World is Watching. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by FoM on April 03, 2003 at 18:09:23 PT AlvinCool Thank You! [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by AlvinCool on April 03, 2003 at 17:49:02 PT Newspaper I sent a letter to the newspaper that ran this story and told them that people in the USA were interested in buying these flags. We will see if I obtain a good response. If I do I'll post it here on another story. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by ekim on April 03, 2003 at 17:37:32 PT Konoplya i think is the name hemp in Russian. Russia maintains the largest Hemp germplasm collection in the world. At the NI Vavilov scientific research insutute of plant vir in Saint Peterberg Russia. I have heard that they have over threehundred types of seeds there. While here the DEA has outlawed the seed and -- our seed banks have none. President Jimmy C. has set up a seed bank in Alanta GA. what do you bet no seeds there --from a peanut farmer toboot. Man I miss the ol days when EJ would jump in and mix it up with the cold war and all. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on April 03, 2003 at 17:35:03 PT i420 I would like to have one too and found links to sites in Russia. I don't know the language but maybe one of these sites has a picture of the flag.http://www.yahooka.com/pages/Regional/Russia/ [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by i420 on April 03, 2003 at 17:25:30 PT I want one!!!! Where can i get one of these flags????? [ Post Comment ] Post Comment