cannabisnews.com: Killer Weed or Holy Herb? 





Killer Weed or Holy Herb? 
Posted by FoM on September 19, 1999 at 22:10:22 PT
Feature-Cannabis, By Lyndsay Griffiths 
Source: Reuters
LONDON, Bill Clinton didn't inhale it. Calvin Klein designed with it. Cancer patients break laws for it and Congo's criminals are made to smoke it until they pass out. Cannabis -- drug of choice for millions through history -- is mythologised and demonised in equal measure, earning a reputation as both "holy herb" and "killer weed". 
A commodity like any other, albeit an illegal one in most parts of the world, the money it generates is huge and growing. "As a global business, it's now worth at least 100 billion pounds a year -- a pot of gold that attracts the most diverse people," said Patrick Matthews, a prize-winning wine writer who has now turned his nose to dope and written "Cannabis Culture". Matthews said he decided to write his book because oenophiles were having all the fun. "If you can do a world atlas of wine, surely you can do one on pot? Why should there be a whole class of wine writers indulging their connossieurship when the culture of cannabis extends right around the world," he said in an interview. "Queen Victoria was said to use it. Louis Armstrong was a very major marijuana fan. (Charles) Baudelaire used it, Paul McCartney -- the list goes on and on," Matthews told Reuters. GET STONED, GET SERIOUS In "Cannabis Culture", Matthews embarks on a "journey through disputed territory" in which he gets stoned and serious. Smoke it or eat it, worship it or revile it, cannabis is ancient and here to stay. Widely banned, it was once compulsory for U.S. farmers to grow it for sails, canvas, paper and sheets. Since the last hemp farmer went out of business, cultivation has been outlawed in the United States, whereas "fervently anti-pot" France has an established hemp industry that is used, ironically, to make cigarette papers -- perfect to roll joints. For Matthews, the culture of pot, ganga, weed, bang -- the list of names is endless -- is ubiquitous. "I could glibly say that the West has a cannabis culture because we consume such a lot of it," said Matthews. "Here in Britain 40 percent of young people have tried pot. It's a huge business, which is worth, on different estimates, $1 to $3 billion a year in this country, and is the fourth cash crop by value in the United States," he said. "The fact that it's illegal means that not just growers and merchants make a living from cannabis, but customs and police officers, gangsters, drug workers, seed merchants and grow-manual authors as well," said Matthews. FROM ILLEGAL FIRST TOKES TO LEGITIMATE SWISS PILLOWS The 46-year-old well recalls his first illicit toke -- "the hot smoke produced by loosely re-rolled cigarette tobacco smoked in and around a phone box....a rasping taste; the erratic way it burned" -- and still savours the culture surrounding it. "The different names are poetic: Thai sticks, Nepalese temple balls, Acapulco gold, Durban poison, Ketama double gold..." he said. "But really the culture I belong to is an alcohol culture rather than a spliff culture," Matthews said. "It's respectability. Just like you start wearing suits to work, you start smoking less pot as your student days fade." Yet users stretch far beyond the stoned world of students. Two of the peoples of the Congo, the Kassai and Balaba, formed a cannabis cult this century that uses the herb as a medicine and symbol of peace, but also uses it as a punishment by forcing criminals to smoke themselves unconscious. In Switzerland, they stuff it in aromatherapy pillows -- legal so long as the pillows aren't cut open and in Holland it is served in coffee shops. In the United States, the myth of "reefer madness" and "killer weed" arose out of murder trials in the 1940s in which defence lawyers used a "not guilty because of marijuana insanity" defence to save their clients from the electric chair. MEDICINE AND RELIGION FEED OFF THE WEED Nowadays it is legally prescribed to patients in some U.S. states who use it for pain relief and Britain is embarking on trials to test the medical benefits after a determined group of terminally ill patients said they would smoke it anyway. "THC, the chemical that makes you stoned, is a powerful anti-oxidant and experiments suggest it can limit and even reverse brain damage after a stroke," said Matthews. Indeed the drug's beginnings were entirely worthy. Cannabis was described in Sanskrit 3,000 years ago, when it was used in India to attain religious ecstasy, and was closely linked to Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, in mediaeval times. Matthews even found 13th-century references to the munchies -- the fiendish hunger that can follow cannabis smoking -- and reports of "stoned people (who) pounce on sweets as greedily as a lover on the mouth of his betrothed". The Romans used it for pain relief in childbirth and the Victorians used it to treat period pains. In Jamaica, the respectable middle class still use ganja tea as a medicine. For Matthews, pot doesn't just make you laugh, cure your ills or kill your pain -- it's a great global leveller. "Just as European food and wine lured my parents' generation out of a sense of insular superiority, hashish and grass have been the bait to bring Europeans and North Americans into contact with Mexicans, North and West Africans, Afghans, Thais and Indians, with a sense of exploration and equality," he said. "There's something civilised in seeing Europeans and white Americans and Australasians acknowledging a cultural debt." Monday September 20, 4:19 AMCopyright © 1999 Reuters Limited
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Comment #3 posted by robert on February 14, 2001 at 14:33:07 PT:
 the ripoff
I've been smokin it for years and I love it, I just have trouble finding it so if you can hook me up with an oz. I'd be much happier . people always rip me off ! 
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Comment #2 posted by rich on January 10, 2001 at 15:38:07 PT
Herb
I am a religious man who smokes and I have to say from my experiences, and acquired information that their is much more to Marijuana than what many of you claim it to be. I believe that it is severly abused, and the abuse of anything is deadly. The fact that many of the people who smoke aren't deeply religious, or even take alot of time out of their day to think about He(God), you would most surely see the herb in a diferent light! The this is my personal conjecture that I have formulated, but I will also say that I enjoy the effects like everyone else but I don't enjoy life like everyone else my age may. I'm happily married, 22 years old, two children, and I don't club or do all those things.I smoke after work with my wife, politic on life, enjoy a good movie and hit the sack. You have o remember, the original inhabitants of thi country were marijuana smokers, and they were very peaceful to the "white man" before they did their deeds. In the land of Ethiopia the herb is sacred in history, and used as a sacrifice if my memory serves me right, these are two very holy people! You can make your own conjecture about the herb, may He forgive me if I am wrong, but I feel their is a reason other than what the public is told as to why they don't want weed to be used. Then again this is my own conjecture. Peace to you all!
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Comment #1 posted by handy on November 30, 2000 at 13:32:16 PT:
weed
pot is the best time killer I have ever found even though it slows the time significantly. I can enjoy music on a whole differant level when I use pot. I wish that someone like Ralph Nader in the U.S. would help legalize it soon. I could go on for days about how much less self-destructive it is than alcohal.
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