cannabisnews.com: Simply Spliffing





Simply Spliffing
Posted by CN Staff on June 13, 2004 at 10:02:03 PT
Leader: Euro 2004? Everybody Must Get Stoned 
Source: Observer UK
Those seeking refuge from the fever surrounding Euro 2004 might be more likely to find it in Portugal, home of the football tournament, than here in Ing-ger-land. There, the police plan to help our infamously bellicose fans avoid the unseemly confrontations of earlier years by getting them to chill out a bit. To this end, they are reported to have asked local marijuana dealers to ensure our boys are well-supplied with 'spliffs'.
We could do with some of these back home, where we risk being whipped into health-damaging frenzies, what with Euro 2004-branded fast food and Euro 2004 beer and demands to spend small fortunes on Euro 2004 plastic novelties. Employers will need a bit of calming, too, as they count the cost of a record number of sick days, while a soothing toke might help non-combatant wives and girlfriends see the comical side of their idiot partners heading to the pub dressed in full nylon replica kit. Then there's the return home. With feelings running dangerously high, if (heaven forfend) the unthinkable happens, a mellow reception committee might prevent the England team receiving a more traditional stoning.Related Article:Up in Smoke At next weekend's Glastonbury - and indeed at every one of the other music festivals that play out through the course of the summer - the smoke of hundreds of spliffs will make its distinctive contribution to the smells of wet soil and frying falafel. But this year, I suspect, there will be something more delicate in the air. 'Black Domina', 'White Widow', 'Fuckin Incredible', 'AK47'... subtlety isn't the first requirement when it comes to naming varieties of cannabis. So I was intrigued by a dealer's recent selling line: 'This stuff isn't too strong,' he said. 'People really seem to like it - they've been asking if I've got any more.' This makes a change after the skunk years, when weed seemed to be turning into a pungent alternative to Tennants Extra. Perhaps it relates to the loosening of the law on cannabis. After all, as legalisation campaigners will tell you, bootleggers during Prohibition dealt largely in small bottles of 100 per cent proof spirit, not in beer or wine. Dope has two effects that you'd think would cancel each other out. There's the passivity that Americans call 'couch lock' - illustrated in those old Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers cartoons in which those three dull characters 'administer the anaesthetic'. Plenty of people use the stuff to, in Bob Marley's words, lively up themselves. Studies of ganja use by Jamaican farm workers in the 1970s found that quite heavy intake made no difference to their output. In Egypt, a professor of modern Arabic told me hashish has played a vital part in the country's political culture. Subversive jokes would bubble out of sessions round a water pipe, and because they had no individual author, no one would be held accountable. But after a session on some modern weed you'd have problems making a shopping list for a sweet-buying trip to the late-night filling station, let alone finding something funny to say about Geoff Hoon. Old-fashioned Jamaican or African weed comes from the species Cannabis sativa. A stubbier sub-species, C indica, has been used, at least since the 1930s, as the raw material for Afghan black hashish. Most modern weed strains derive from Skunk#1 - a crossbreed created in California in the 1970s containing 25 per cent indica. More recent creations contain even more. Clandestine growers love indica, because it's early flowering (ie there's a shorter window of risk from the law) and less conspicuous than the taller sativa. But dope snobs have fallen out of love with indica. You could draw a parallel with wine enthusiasts who are less keen than they were on the oaky, high-alcohol 'international' style that used to get their vote. Similarly, dope critics such as Jason King, author of the Cannabible books, criticise herbal indica as harsh on the throat and stupefying. Dope smokers also seem to be following wine lovers in wanting honest labelling, to stop companies passing off California plonk as 'Burgundy'. The essential work in cannabis breeding was done in the 1970s by a group of Californian pioneers called Sacred Seeds. In contrast, scores of exotically named 'new' strains offered by Dutch seed companies, and judged at Amsterdam's annual Cannabis Cup, are increasingly criticised as being little more than the same old stuff repackaged with eye-catching names and eye-popping price tags. A British company, Seedsman, is trying instead to come clean with its customers (who in this country are legally restricted to purchases made for their curiosity value rather than as growing material). What in Holland sells as 'Pot of Gold', Seedsman offers more prosaically as 'Hindu Kush Skunk' - explaining the strain's genetics and history on its website. The firm's founder has also posted a page of health information. This maintains that cannabis is a relatively benign drug, but gives the unwelcome facts about the stuff's effect on blood pressure and on the respiratory system, when smoked, as well as reporting current concerns about the effects of heavy use on mental health. In contrast, many of Seedsman's rivals remain stuck at the level of subtlety of the advertising line that Kingsley Amis suggested in 1958 in his novel I Like It Here. 'Bowen's Beer' he thought could go at the top of the beer coasters, and underneath the strap line 'Makes You Drunk'. * Wine writer Patrick Matthews is the author of Cannabis Culture (Bloomsbury, £7.99)* Tim Atkin returns next weekNote: Dope snobs, like wine lovers, are increasingly refining their taste buds, says Patrick Matthews.Related Article:Festival Special: Drugs Leaves of Grass Four of the classic strains of cannabis Skunk#1Skunk is today used to mean any strong weed. The original was bred by Sacred Seeds in order to combine the virtues of sativa (taste and cerebral high) with the convenience of indica. It's famous largely because there's some skunk genes in almost all the modern Amsterdam strains: Skunk#1 is a very truebreeding line. Powerful stuff with high THC. Durban PoisonDespite the fearsome name, this is a relatively mild, pure sativa from South Africa. It's more or less a wild strain, but it's quite a stable and predictable line. Growers like it for its early flowering, and smokers appreciate the aniseed taste and the similarity to Thai weed.HazePure sativa again. Haze is lanky and can flower outdoors as late as December. It has become a legend for its intense and ethereal high - and there are those who argue that the less plant material you have to smoke to get stoned, the better for your lungs. Northern LightsThe variety that led the trend to cultivate under grow lamps. Being 100 per cent indica, the plants are small and early flowering. It was developed in British Columbia - now Vancouver rivals Amsterdam as cannabis capital of the northern world - and the indoor cultivation was as much a response to the climate as to avoid detection.Source: Observer, The (UK)Author: Patrick Matthews Published: Sunday, June 13, 2004Copyright: 2004 The ObserverContact: letters observer.co.ukWebsite: http://www.observer.co.uk/Related Articles:It's OK To Smoke Dope, England Fans Told http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18986.shtmlBiggest Shake-Up of Britains Laws in 30 Yearshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18261.shtmlTough-on-Drugs Britain Softens Line on Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13378.shtml
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on June 13, 2004 at 11:04:20 PT
What the hell are they saying?
Ing-ger-land - Where is that? Is it a state Murika?What a stupid title- Leader: Euro 2004? Everybody Must Get Stoned. Who said such a stupid thing except the author of some collection of words that have no real point. The police in Portugal have reason to fear a bunch of drunks high on victory or low on defeat. They say they do not have a problem with cannabis and hope it reduces the problems caused by the drunks.I stomached through a little of "This Week" after a few months off from the programmers that feed the empty minds of people that do not know better. George Will said that the only conviction that Kerry has is that he would not appoint any non-choice judges without ever mentioning the Supreme Court. He then took an unbelievable leap in saying that the only conviction that Kerry has is that there are not enough abortions. To take one statement and impose another reminds me of this authors stupidity reflected in the title where he takes freedom to chose means everyone must get stoned. What was intended after that is lost on me as it all has the incoherency of a drunk smashed out of his mind.There are big developments concerning the EU. Poland and a bunch of new countries joined on May 1 to bring the total population of the EU countries to 450 million. The US is not going to be dictating policies for other countries to endure all across the globe and the EU will now have to come to collective positions on drugs and terrorism. The US interventions into Colombia and the Latin American countries can now be carried to the EU for proper grievance before an alternate power.The EU elections began on Thursday and will end on Sunday. We know that the anti- war and opposition to the anti-truth campaigns of Blair affected the elections of local councils and would have to be reflected in some way with EU representation.The EU is a world power and there will not be a call for more severe and harm-inflicting punishments on the side of a bogus War for Prohibition. They do not intend to use drug laws to rape the wealth of countries and install puppet leaders who speak of fictional democracies.The leading article up now at NarcoNews is a Colombian Senator that says- The first version of Plan Colombia – developed under President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) – was written in English. Its origin in the United States government cannot be denied. Colombia show us what the War for Prohibition is all about and that injustice and suffering and abomination on top of abomination means nothing when what is important is that wealth evaporate up. That is why failure and misery have not doomed CP in America. It is all about money evaporating up and the wealthy controlling the laws and public institutions. It is worth reading- http://www.narconews.com/Issue33/article997.htmlThe most damning of article on Colombia was up at CounterPunch a few days ago. It says the death squads are to kill people that are for unions and people that want to stop the privatization scam that wealthy the wealthy further and that those that seek justice in court end up dead or their witnesses end up dead or the judges end up dead. It shows the rule of law is a myth under powers that drive US hegemony and why the unconstitutionality of the prohibition laws can survive when they inflict such harms as to be proof of neglect for the Constitutional directive of the preamble to create a more perfect union. This is the article at CounterPunch- http://www.counterpunch.org/cryan06082004.html The article mentioned a link worthy of book marking-  http://www.colombiaweek.org/Bolivia was to have had a referendum on repealing contracts made by US puppets for their petrochemicals that all but was giving away the country. The results should get some coverage that surface in the next day or two.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on June 13, 2004 at 10:03:52 PT
Just a Note
I put three short articles in this one article. I archived it because I didn't really understand it very well. Here it is!
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