Big sky days and the rain has disappeared again. I spent Easter deep in the forest with genuine endangered species hippies, getting the MardiGrass program ready for printing. We’ve got a terrific line up of artists…speakers, musicians, comedians, poets and performers of every sort. It’s a unique gathering of people who love cannabis and together have experience and knowledge about every aspect of the plant.
The special guest this year is Ethan Nadelmann, who is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding proponents of drug policy reform in America. He founded the Drug Policy Alliance, and fresh from New York, I look forward to hearing his ideas on how we can get to where they’re at, over there.
Women have stepped forward this year at MardiGrass and the Women in Cannabis Morning Tea in the Bush Theatre on Saturday will be a highlight with a Panel Discussion in the Town Hall later that day, “High on Hormones, Women, Sex and Cannabis”. The program is up on nimbinmardigrass.com
Nepal is legalising weed, I should say, re-legalising. When I first visited Nepal in 1973, the famous hashish temple balls were legally sold, piled high in the shop windows like Indians pile up their balls of coloured sugar. I went walking in the mountains out from Pokhara, which only had a handful of visitors in those days (it’s now covered in hundreds of hotels).
That month, walking the mountain trails, sleeping and eating with the villagers, changed my life. They were the happiest people I’d ever seen. I was only a few months out of my stockbroker suit and a world where everyone was so serious and self important. In the mountain villages they all worked together each day, smiling and laughing. I couldn’t speak Nepali and there was hardly any English but it was obvious these people were happy.
Every day they’d head off together to collect fire wood, or plant rice, all laughing happily together. It was a revelation to me. When I eventually settled in Oz a decade later, it was a share in a hippy commune, and it was never going to be anything else. I remain convinced we are much happier sharing and caring for each other in groups rather than separating off into nuclear families, which puts huge pressure on relationships.
Meanwhile the President with the nuclear bomb code, who is so busy with war he hardly sleeps it seems, has found time to urge the Interim Attorney General to finalise rescheduling ‘marijuana’ in America.
Love to everyone!
Michael Balderstone
