M arc Furstenberg
I’m reading a very old biography of Pepys
(Lucas-Dumbreton circa 1925) that I found on the
street and there is a passing reference to someone
named Harrington, a coffee house philosopher, who had
some crackpot idea for colonizing Jews in Ireland. I
thought of all of the forgotten crackpot ideas, all of
which retained some few proponents down through the
centuries. The author of this biography thought the
idea (whatever it was) had some good points. Of
course once in a while a real crackpot idea escapes
into the real world and suddenly become flesh and
turns out either not so bad or a very good idea
indeed.
I thought I would devolve myself of my own crackpot idea for
ending the heroin scourge AND finance the Afghani
government AND make millions of Europeans deliriously
happy. As you might remember Afghanistan made some of
the finest hash in the world and I’m sure that it’s
basis must be fine marijuana. Of course there is the
money being made with opium which is just as illegal
as hash but far more profitable, transportable and
marketable. Yet I believe that given the choice the
Afghani farmer would rather honorably grow hash than
have to associate with the class of drug dealers
common in the opium business. Also there is the blow-back effect. Their children and a lot of other Afghanis too are becoming addicted to opiates. If the governments of
the European Union were to legalize hash and marijuana
and contract directly with the Afghan government to
purchase the same and the Afghan government would
likewise guarantee to purchase the annual crop at a
decent price then everybody (except the American
religious assholes who basically think that getting
high, like every other secular activity, is immoral
and therefore forbidden to the extent that they expect
the state to enforce their morality.) rather than
worrying about the effect of a flood of pot and hash
might have on Europe, think of what the absence of Afghani
heroin would have on the world as well as the removal of this
ultimately destabilizing factor in Afghani society.
Hash is now de facto decriminalized in Europe. The only time I have been stopped at a european border in the past ten years was at the Slovakian-Polish border when I was asked if I had any alcohol. The thing to do is to make hash and grass de jure legal and make it an important export crop for Afghanistan. Lets just stop the cynical hypocrisy once and for all and deal with the main problem clear minded. Then when that’s done kick back and do a nice relaxing bowl.
Well that’s my crackpot idea.
Cheers.
Marc Furstenberg
