From the verdant paradise of my ancestors comes a story that has my head ringing with “You put your WEED in it!“– apparently, a needless slaughter of innocent, Idukki-dwelling Cannabis plants took place in Kerala…I ask you, where’s the outrage? 😉 Oh, and what next?
The Kerala government will convert part of an 8,000-acre forest that used to be dense with cannabis plants into a tourist adventure and herbal park.
“Apart from the adventure park, we propose to convert the place into a herbal park as several species of herbal plants are growing in the area,” Forest Minister T. Radhakrishnan told reporters here Tuesday.
What’s an herbal park…without HERB? Sheesh.
If I had to guess, I would speculate that the park will be full of Karriveppilei, that sacred, venerated Malayalee houseplant that my mom would save from a burning building before any thought of me, my sister or my dog.
About 114,000 cannabis plants were destroyed.
Omg, they killed cannabis. Those bastards. 😉 Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go veg to more Comedy Central, lest I run out of cute ways to blog things. 😀
Damn Mallus. Is nothing sacred anymore? Damn the damn commies also.
There’s gotta be something about marijuana and Indians – it’s in our genes or something to just love it. I use it maybe once a month, but it’s just way better than drinking, I always have a great time.
A while ago there was a thing about THC being attracted to something in the brain called “ananda” receptors, but the mystery ends there. No one knows for sure why a part of the brain is responsive only to THC.
My conclusion is that marijuana is good for you. If used infrequently, it can expand your view of the world around you, and the world inside youself. If used with a vaporizer (www.vaporbrothers.com), the ill health effects (smoke, tar, etc) are negated – and very clean, pure high that contributes to your overall well-being can be reached.
I also think our Indian ancestors used marijuana frequently, but called it “soma.”
“This Soma is a god; he cures The sharpest ills that man endures. He heals the sick, the sad he cheers, He nerves the weak, dispels their fears; The faint with martial ardour fires, With lofty thoughts the bard inspires; The soul from earth to heaven he lifts : So great and wondrous are his gifts, Men feel the god within their veins And cry loud in exulting strains : ‘We’ve quaffed the Soma bright And are immortal grown : We’ve entered into light, And all the gods have known. What mortal now can harm, Or foeman vex us more ? Through thee, beyond alarm, Immortal god, we soar. ‘”
http://peyote.com/jonstef/Hindu.htm
“The first endogenous cannabinoid to be discovered was arachidonylethanolamine, named anandamide from the Sanskrit word ananda, meaning “bliss.” Anandamide appears to have both central (in the brain) and peripheral (in the rest of the body) effects. The precise neuroanatomical localization of anandamide and its function are not yet known. ” http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct2000/971305841.Ns.r.html
Totally agree with truthmissile about marijuana being better than alcohol. I’ll take some good old indica over whiskey any day.
There’s even credibility to the soma theory:
http://psychicinvestigator.com/Drugs/Mariju.htm
I wonder how many desis indulge but do not care to revel publicly about their interests? Cannibis is great, I must say.
yes, yes, weed’s all nice and good. no argument from me, mon.
but i’m with anna’s mom on the Karriveppilei thing. those curry leaves make anything extra delicious… just chewing on them is religious for me. i’ve added it to everything from meatballs (to the pleasant shock of my german friends) to marinara (to the horror of everyone else). Its like friggin’ catnip for humans.
now the thought of growing my own in a closet with growing lamps is tempting me. oh, old habits die hard i guess.
(I’m listening to the new teenage fanclub while writing this)
The whole motivation behind anti-marijuana laws is a combination of 1930s racism and 1960s/early 70s Establishment backlash against the Peace movement. Anslinger fought to make marijuana illegal because it was mainly used by “nigras, mexicans, and Filipinos…”
Nixon couldn’t arrest Anti-War types for speaking out (we did have a First Ammendment back then), but he could put them in jail by making marijuana a Schedule 1 drug – and arresting peace activists like John Sinclair (who John Lennon wrote a song about – “10 (years) for 2 (joints)” – “it’s ain’t fair, John Sinclair…”
Today we see the Pharmaceutical and Alcohol lobbies contributing to the “War on Drugs” with the sole purpose of maintaining their own profit margins.
The Pharma industry found out that the chronically ill in a Federal Marijuana program ,who have been smoking U.S. Government grown marijuana on a daily basis for 20+ years – use LESS pharmaceuticals for to maintain the symptoms of their illness. And it’s that simple reason why marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug.
We Indians, as the wealthiest and best educated minority in America, need to fight these myths as we grow older – not contribute to their survival. Whether we work in the media, government, medicine, law – we should do our best to fight these insane marijuana laws.
Forget about speaking truth to power – they already know the truth. We must speak truth to the powerless.
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
Harry J. Anslinger, testimony to Congress, 1937 http://www.ukcia.org/potculture/20/lies.html
The Most Massive Propaganda Campaign in History: Drug Prohibition. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/3/13/114937/410
Another well known theory as to why marijuana was banned is to do with hemp, cotton and a newspaper tycoon: http://www.sumeria.net/politics/conrad.html
http://www.reefermadness.org/propaganda/essay.html
truthmissile, soma is a hallucinogenic mushroom, also an old school god in northern india.
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/Lect20a.htm
In regards to weed it is a part of indian culutre/religion. Shiva and marijuana go hand in hand (boom shanka hehehe)marijuana was one of shiva’s 5 sacred plants, Datrua was also one of them.
The whole Rasta Jamican thing with weed is thanks to us indians. Back in the day many indians were taken to The west Indies as slaves. With them they took the sacred marijuana and even there dread locks are taken from the holly Jatta (dreads) from the shadu’s.
Ganga/Ganja is actually a sanskrit word which describes the buds of marijuana. Bhang is mainly leaves uesd in the drink and the best of all is charas (hash)
Anyway, thats the end to my rant, now its time to go smoke another kone
(ps heres a link of all my fun with w33d in punjab (http://sund00bie.port5.com/India%20Charas%20etc/))
I guess y’all dont know , but bhang that almost everyone drinks during Holi festival is good old cannabis. Long story short – The great secret about India is that everyone is a dope head atleast once a year 🙂
Next time some sanctimonious uncle/aunty tries to give u a lecture on the ill effects of smoking marijuana ask him about bhang and holi. So much for marjuana being a gateway drug.
And dont forget all the holy sadhus getting all spiritual on weed and other stuff.
Also, weed is much more common in India than you would think, esp among college students.(ofcourse not as much as here) I have heard so many interesting stories of weed in the 60’s and 70’s.Students growing weed on campuses behind hostels, in their rooms etc etc There is even a place on our campus named Stairway to Heaven. Its quite likely ur now respectable parents had their share of fun 🙂
Couple of years back a guy in my hostel used to grow some in a pot outside his room which also had a Tulsi plant – talk of holy 🙂
Thanks so much for all those interesting links – I haven’t heard the paper theory since high school, thanks for refreshing my memory. goes something like this:
“The actual story behind the legislature passed against marijuana is quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes and an expert on the “hemp conspiracy,” the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and many other influential industrial leaders such as William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon. Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decoricator machine was invented. With this invention, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries almost instantaneously. According to Popular Mechanics, “10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land.” William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage, land best suited for conventional pulp, so his interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained. Competition from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests popularizing the term “marijuana” was a strategy Hearst used in order to create fear in the American public. “The first step in creating hysteria was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before… ‘marijuana'”
Going to India, many Holis ago, I was just old enough to comprehend what Bhang really was made out of. My father kicked up a fuss and started grumbling about how HE doesn’t do drugs, marijuana is a drug (gasp) and how we shouldn’t have any bhang and god knows what will happen to us…
Mummy says: Suniye, we should NEVER refuse prasad…it’s blessing of BhagwanJi…
all right, Moms! Puff puff give!
DesiDancer,
I now have another theory on why your parents forced you to play outside even when it was cold.
because Moms was hollowing out cigars and Dad was singing songs?
The traditional harvest of cannabis and preparation of bhang coincides with celebrations of Holi in March and Baisakhi in April. It is believed that the traditional term bhangra derives its name from bhang.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhang)
Bhangra = a Punjabi Rave 😉
Also see this Holi post.
Soma could have been ganja, could have been shrooms… but there’s also a theory it was the blessed lotus flower. No link, but there was a good article in the journal Economic Botany, Vol. 58 supplement, 2004, pgs S147-S173. A Botanical Perspective on the Identity of Soma Based on Scriptural and Iconographic Records by Andrew McDonald… Check it out at your nearest college library if you’d like to get all scholarly up in this shit.
I’ve had some bad times with the ganja (but then I’m a whiteboy without good sense), still love it though… A once a month or so regimen is pretty key. Wake ‘n baking every day, not so much.
This reminds me of my dad’s “don’t do drugs speech.” My brother Vin and I were in the kitchen. All of us were reading the newspaper, Dad had the front page, he said:
If you ever do drugs {flip}, I’ll kill you {flip} .
That’s better than the birds and the bees speech:
(crickets)
Oh, but I think I got one of those too. Right before I left for college, my mom expressed concern about my ability to handle myself. She said that she was, and I quote,
“worried about you being up there, what with boysdrugsalcohol and everything.”
If I had sneezed, I would have missed it.
And Manish, you know the “speech” I received AFTER my first year. 😉
ok let me tell you this. Ganja is the Healing of the Nation. if you go back into the past you would know that ganja is smoked all over the world as ancient practice. it is a spritual ceremony for your body/temple. it’s like burning agarbhati except for your body. Ganja is good for you if you know how to put it to proper use, it awakens and brings out your conciousness. Did you know that opium cultivation was introduced by the white people (damn you British and their satan queen), they FORCED Our farmers to grow and use that drug . this acted like a substitute for Ganja , which is good for you. I’ve came to the realization that the White supremists are bringing in more corruption into our spiritual world.I am not racist (I have white freinds). I am against their system, so I am with Ganja. the reason why they GLOBALY illegalised ganja is so that people won’t reach that conciousness and be stuck in their world of CORRUPTION- alcohol, cancer sticks (cigarettes), drugs(ecstacy,cocaine, crack……). Ganja doesnt cause cancer – they are studies made to blind people from the truth Ganja , as long as its not chemically processed like hydropaunics, will help you realise that White supremists have always tried to supress the colored man and always disrespected OUR CULTURE which lives in harmony with the world . Take some time and think about everything they introduced into the world….how harmful are they??? Colored people didnt introduce cigarettes , we never brought in alcohol…..how come They are legal ?!!! Alcohol makes people do messed up things but on the other hand a person who smoked ganja would never do thise kinda things – trust I when I say this (talking from personal experience). All I’m saying is that – don’t believe everything around you, dig into the past, Because ppl these days forget their roots and get led into their world of corruption. IN ORDER to get closer to God either Meditate or smoke the HERB (not the cancer sticks!!!)
ok let me tell you this. Ganja is the Healing of the Nation. if you go back into the past you would know that ganja is smoked all over the world as ancient practice. it is a spritual ceremony for your body/temple. it’s like burning agarbhati except for your body. Ganja is good for you if you know how to put it to proper use, it awakens and brings out your conciousness. Did you know that opium cultivation was introduced by the white people (damn you British and their satan queen), they FORCED Our farmers to grow and use that drug . this acted like a substitute for Ganja , which is good for you. I’ve came to the realization that the White supremists are bringing in more corruption into our spiritual world.I am not racist (I have white freinds). I am against their system, so I am with Ganja. the reason why they GLOBALY illegalised ganja is so that people won’t reach that conciousness and be stuck in their world of CORRUPTION- alcohol, cancer sticks (cigarettes), drugs(ecstacy,cocaine, crack……). Ganja doesnt cause cancer – they are studies made to blind people from the truth Ganja , as long as its not chemically processed like hydropaunics, will help you realise that White supremists have always tried to supress the colored man and always disrespected OUR CULTURE which lives in harmony with the world . Take some time and think about everything they introduced into the world….how harmful are they??? Colored people didnt introduce cigarettes , we never brought in alcohol…..how come They are legal ?!!! Alcohol makes people do messed up things but on the other hand a person who smoked ganja would never do thise kinda things – trust I when I say this (talking from personal experience). All I’m saying is that – don’t believe everything around you, dig into the past, Because ppl these days forget their roots and get led into their world of corruption. IN ORDER to get closer to God either Meditate or smoke the HERB (not the cancer sticks!!!)
ok let me tell you this. Ganja is the Healing of the Nation. if you go back into the past you would know that ganja is smoked all over the world as ancient practice. it is a spritual ceremony for your body/temple. it’s like burning agarbhati except for your body. Ganja is good for you if you know how to put it to proper use, it awakens and brings out your conciousness. Did you know that opium cultivation was introduced by the white people (damn you British and their satan queen), they FORCED our farmers to grow and use that drug . this acted like a substitute for Ganja , which is good for you. I’ve came to the realization that the White supremists are bringing in more corruption into our spiritual world.I am not racist (I have white freinds). I am against their system, so I am with Ganja. the reason why they GLOBALY illegalised ganja is so that people won’t reach that conciousness and be stuck in their world of CORRUPTION- alcohol, cancer sticks (cigarettes), drugs(ecstacy,cocaine, crack……). Ganja doesnt cause cancer – they are studies made to bkind people from the truth Ganja , as long as its not chemically processed like hydropaunics, will help you realise that White supremists have always tried to supress the colored man and always disrespected our culture which lives in harmony with the world . Take some time and think about everything they introduced into the world….how harmful are they??? Colored people didnt introduce cigarettes , we never brought in alcohol…..how come They are legal!!! Alcohol makes people do messed up things but on the other hand a person who smoked ganja would never do thise kinda things – trust I when I say this (talking from personal experience). All I’m saying is that – don’t believe everything around you, dig into the past, Because ppl these days forget their roots and get led into their world of corruption. IN ORDER to get closer to God either Meditate or smoke the HERB (not the cancer sticks!!!)
ganja, opium, X, LSD ( not to mention the senseless shit in school like sniffing gas). Ganja is good, medicinally. It allows the user a spiritual, creative wave in a sense of well being. Its like a soul in perfect harmony. Opium, is perhaps the greatest smoke I’ve ever had, addicting due to the same reason, very slow burning and smells like incense and tastes like honey. Comparing, for regular day life, marijuana/ganja is the drug of choice if you choose to call it a a drug that is. hunboldt in arcata california has perhaps the best weed in the USA and thats how one should be allowed to be smoking great strains not the dirt shit that would deposit a ton of tar and make you crap at the same time kinda shit. The government wants none of this and thus there’s noone really to regulate it. People are divided over the issue so the govt goes ok for medicinal marijuana in some states… places like denver vote marijuana possession to be legal yet the jurisdiction can be overturned by the state cops. If the people really can show themselves responsible with this stuff I think the government would work with maybe? who knows? there’s too many assholes in the govt.
well, thats all i have to say now that karma had made me reach here this stoned journey tonight and i’m done typing. Smoke good ganja people! And you desis… get the numero uno seeds to india.. comprehende?! right now i got some gingerbread, afghan kush, purple kush saved… bring it! bring it!
Freedom of liberal expression \m/ -AJ.
Marijuana is awesome.
That is all.
I completely agree with all u people 🙂 As i read somewhere –
With dope, there’s hope With booze, you lose