High Headliners!
Nimbin’s annual MardiGrass is only two months away and starting to take my garden time, so it is good it coincides with the weeds slowing down, at least. If you’ve never been, it’s highly recommended if you like pot, and this year’s first weekend in May already looks very lively. You can support us by buying a ticket whether you come or not. Keep an eye on the Program as it grows — a different kind of garden.
Living in New South Wales, I can’t avoid hearing about the seemingly endless violence in Sydney, but we never really question the drug war, which is behind it all, do we? Violent fighting over the huge profits to be made from the illegal drug trade is caused by a war against anyone using unapproved — hence illegal — plants or medicines. We don’t look for peaceful solutions like we do endlessly for Gaza or the Ukraine war.
So is this a permanent situation, or what? An endless war in our midst, keeping an army of police busy risking their lives and keeping our privatised jails full. Creating disrespect for good laws. Drugs are obviously very popular and I can’t see that changing, so the sooner we can accept that the better. Then maybe we could sit down and talk sensibly about how to deal with it instead of this endless unwinnable war we now live with and seem to have accepted as part of life.
Thirty-five percent of Americans now use CBD, I read. Almost seventy percent of the public support legalising ‘marijuana’, as they call it over there. Half the States have adopted legalisation and no jurisdiction has ever repealed or rolled back this policy. Clearly because the Americans prefer regulation to criminal prohibition. There are different regulations across the States, but they are tweaking it as they go, to work out what works best. They’ve done the perfect trial to allay our fears and show us what to do here.
It is also becoming more and more clear in repeated research that cannabis’ popularity reduces alcohol use and long-term cannabis users have better brains than others. What? Really? That’s what I’m reading — please tell me if I’m wrong. Yet here, Down Under, we just keep on keeping on. Does the drug war even cross Albo’s mind to question it? Our NSW Premier Minns has ignored all the expert advice, even from his own inquiries. He seems to love the police and see them as the answer to everything. He should learn that force creates resistance, by its very nature.
Have faith — it’s just a matter of time, and if they need evidence, it will slowly gather. Now that brains are being studied for cannabis ‘damage’, all sorts of surprises are turning up. “I was a little surprised that every cognitive measure that demonstrated a significant effect showed better performance among cannabis users,” a study co-author said. Not the first time I’ve read a comment like that either. The decades of propaganda, and the spreading of lies and nonsense about cannabis users, gets harder and harder to maintain.
Love to everyone. Don’t worry, be happy!
Michael Balderstone
Nimbin HEMP Embassy Head
