album cover of 'Kaya'
Kaya, the name of one of Bob Marley's reggae albums is a Jamaican
word for cannabis, hemp, marijuana. The backcover of this album
shows a picture of a burning joint (by Neville Garrick). The
Japanese edition of Kaya was released with a different backcover,
so rabid was the anti-marijuana paranoia there.
Bob Marley has always defended this often maligned herb. He equated
condemnation of this natural herb with blasphemy. How could a plant
created by God be made illegal by humans? "You mean they can tell
God that it's not legal?" he once asked a Canadian journalist. If
growing cannabis is to be a crime then by man's laws God who made
all plants was a criminal too. Bob was not surprized that people
who smoke the weed were persecuted by "Babylon", the ruling system,
reminding people: "Them crucify Christ, remember?"
One of Marley's greatest hits, "I Shot the Sheriff" (which was made
popular by Eric Clapton), describes the fate of a marijuana grower
hunted by a fanatical law enforcement officer:
Sheriff John Brown always hate I,
for what, I never know.
Everytime I plant a seed,
he said, kill it before it grow.
He said, kill them before they grow.
Bob Marley was familiar with the issues. This first musical
superstar from the Third World went to jail for marijuana, as did
all three founding members of the Wailers. He smoked a lot of
grass. Some people who know only about his untimely death and that
he smoked marijuana would think that this might be evidence for the
harmfulness of this plant.
Few people know that the cancer that lead to Marley's death was a
brain tumor that started out on his foot. It was first noticed when
a football (soccer) injury refused to heal. Bob was playing
football for hours a day. Maybe we should ban soccer? ;-) For
religious reasons Bob refused to have his toe amputated and the
cancer spread to other parts of his body. It is amazing that at his
young age he survived more than two years with his cancer. It might
have been because of his strict diet, the unorthodox medical
treatment he received by Dr. Issel in Bavaria, or it might have
been the cancer reducing effects of THC, the main active substance
in marijuana (see a US government study that showed fewer cancers
in THC-treated animals).
Let me assure you that I don't think smoking 10 fat joints a day is
particularly good for you, plus it's illegal. But whether someone
uses marijuana moderatly (as most of its users do) or whether they
use it more intensively, by far the greatest risk associated with
it today is to do with the fact that it's illegal and not with any
immediate harm from the drug itself.
When people are caught they go to jail, get kicked out school, lose
their jobs, etc. not because the drug makes them do bad things to
others (it doesn't) but because drugs laws that were drawn up many
years ago by ill-informed and prejudiced politicians brand them as
evil criminals, as bad as people who hurt or rob someone. An
otherwise law-abiding person who hurts no one is considered as bad
as a rapist in the eyes of the police and the courts only because
he might grow or possess a natural plant that was grown legally for
thousands of years. This doesn't make sense.
One in four Americans, one in five Germans and one in fifty
Japanese is a criminal by virtue of having smoked cannabis. The law
is not working and it is doing more damage than it can ever
prevent. It should be changed.
When you ever find yourself in a position where the forces of
reason and the forces of habit and convention collide you will find
that reason usually loses out. Most people will hold arguments for
maintaining the status quo up to a much lower standard of proof
than they require of anyone challenging the status quo. A long time
ago marijuana could be banned because most people thought the law
would not hurt any of their friends. But now that the law has been
around for many years and large numbers of people get hurt by its
enforcement, it is still difficult to convince enough people that
it was a mistake.
All the original reasons given for the ban have been exposed as
lies. Nobody any longer belives that marijuana turns ordinary
people into bloodthirsty lunatics. We know that most of its users
do not move on to harder drugs. It is safer than many freely sold
medicines and even some foods, let alone the legal drugs alcohol
and tobacco that kill more people every week than all dangerous
illegal drugs do in a whole year. We need a drug policy that's more
than a list of banned substances and penalties. The only drugs
policy that will work relies on information and compassion for our
fellow human beings.
By popularizing reggae music and its marijuana-celebrating lyrics,
Bob Marley has prompted many people to question what they have been
told, to take a fresh look at the evidence. Bob used music to reach
and teach, to spread the message of liberty. Whether you may come
to the same conclusions as Bob did or not, have the courage to take
a fresh look at beliefs that people take for granted. Read the
information that's out there. Study the arguments. Be bold enough
to judge for yourself.