Kaya Dreams
Twenty-five years ago, my American college roommates were disappointed when they finally met me. When they first realised that they were living with a Jamaican they had dreams of our dorm room becoming Kaya central. They imagined me coming back from Christmas and summer vacations toting ganja inside my suitcase. That was just not going to happen. I was a drug virgin.
When I told them that I had never even tried the stuff, they couldn’t believe it. “What kind of Jamaican are you? You are a fraud! Show us your passport!” But proper middle-class, Campion A-students usually didn’t spend time with Mary Jane. We had books and extracurricular activities to keep us occupied. Only dutty, stinking, wutless people smoked spliff. At least that is what I thought then. But time and experience open all eyes.
It was almost 20 after graduating from college before I even tried marijuana for the first time. I kid you not. My parents and grandparents voice cast a long shadow on my behaviour. It didn’t matter that I knew dozens of people who smoked regularly and were not in fact “wutless.” There were indeed others who had drifted through life in a marijuana haze. What if I tried it, liked it and became one of them?
But the truth is that I also knew very productive people who drank regularly – a couple of glasses of wine at dinner every night. And then there are those who cannot hold down a job because of alcoholism. Weed, like alcohol, can be used in moderation or to excess. The individual results will bear out whether you are in control of these substances or they are in control of you.
In this context the stigma attached to marijuana makes little sense. We are all already clearly very comfortable with the benefits and risks of consuming alcohol. It’s just a matter of time before the face of marijuana will change and the stigma will disappear.
Much to the horror of middle-class Jamaica, the most famous Jamaican in the world, Bob Marley, is also the most famous ganja smoker in the world. By transitive association it is therefore assumed that all Jamaicans are pot smokers. Ask anyone outside Jamaica to name five things that come to mind when you say “Jamaica” and most assuredly in the mix of “beaches” and “reggae” is “dreadlocks” and “ganja”. This is our global identity. Our doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers and priests have had far less international impact than our small coterie of lyrical weed smokers. It is largely because of their efforts that the small island of Jamaica is famous at all.
Someone in the penny section at this juncture will be screaming out what about our Blue Mountain coffee, Appleton Rum, and world-class athletics? The truth is that except for Usain Bolt in the last couple of years, no one in Peoria has registered any of that. But from Mumbai to Marrakesh they all know the ganja- smoking reggae prophet.
Recently, a friend in California sent me an Evite to a guy’s long weekend in Amsterdam. There was an attachment with a picture of a man smoking a huge spliff, suggesting the kind of weekend that my friend had in mind. In Amsterdam anyone over 18 can legally buy up to five grams a day and smoke it in any of the over 200 “coffee shops” which exist for the sole purpose of legally selling marijuana and hash.
Many years ago I had worked on a strategic consulting project for the board of Phillips Electronics. Their headquarters is in Eindhoven, which is a short train ride from Amsterdam. For several months that year I was flying to Amsterdam every three weeks for five days and I got to know the city very well.
I fell in love with the well-preserved Dutch architecture, stone bridges and cosy canals. But best of all, I loved its easy, laid-back vibe. The Dutch are so sophisticated and mature that they don’t get scandalised by much. They are pioneers in legalised prostitution with their famous Red-Light District of hookers in shop windows. They have all kinds of fascinating saunas and sex clubs including a place where people are on house phones talking dirty to strangers on the other side of the room. And, of course, there are the ubiquitous ganja-hash “coffee shops”.
By openly acknowledging humanity’s “dark side”, they have made the pursuit of these activities (which always happen anyway) less dangerous. Tolerance, freedom and personal responsibility are the country’s leitmotifs. Their “live and let live” attitude makes the place incredibly relaxed.
I had not been back to Holland since the Phillips’ project ended so I welcomed the opportunity to revisit that city I had loved so well.
The gang met on a Thursday and piled into a huge suite at a recently opened boutique hotel in the centre of town. It all started out quite civilised. On the first evening, we bought some champagne and hired a small boat to take us around the canals to five of the city’s best restaurants. We called ahead and ordered a different course from each place, starting with fresh oysters at a seafood restaurant and ending with a chocolate soufflé at a tea shop. It was a great reintroduction to the city.
After this delicious but complicated-to-execute dinner, we headed to a party of some Dutch girls we had met on the canals earlier in the day. And that’s when all sobrieties went out the window.
There was a multi-day parade and festival on that weekend, and the entire city was wired for fun. There were different kinds of weird and wacky events most of the day and throughout the night. I cannot ever remember sleeping so little for fear that I would miss something new and exciting. In about 24 hours we were pretty much out of control. We partied and partied hard. It was Hedonism on steroids. And,` of course, at various junctures we went to explore the offerings at several of the famous coffee shops.
That was where we met Trude. Short, blond and busty Trude is the soft drug aficionado at one of the grungiest coffee shops in town. She really knows her stuff. She started off by asking how we were feeling and what kind of high we were hoping to achieve. I didn’t even know that there were different types of highs.
We told her that we had been drinking and were a little hyperactive. We needed to mellow out but not fall asleep. She launched into an expository of the difference between a hash high and a ganja high. She laid out which countries were good for what kinds of plants and what types of herbs were good for what kinds of moods. She then prepared a concoction which she thought appropriate for us and surprisingly it did exactly what we asked her to do.
She then showed us a range of bongs and pipes which she called weekenders because most people buy them when they get to Amsterdam on a Friday and then leave them in Amsterdam when they head back to their respective countries on Monday where toking up is not allowed. My head was spinning from all the facts, figures and insights that she was sharing. She is the Chris Reckord of senseimelia, even going as far as telling us what kind of smokes should follow what kind of meal. We dubbed her the “Ganja Goddess”. At one point I looked over and a buddy of mine was appropriately kneeling at her feet.
For our ongoing education she recommended a visit to the Hash, Marijuana & Hemp Museum located in the Red Light District. Good call! It’s the only museum of its kind in the world. There are exhibits showing the uses of cannabis throughout history including as rope and canvas for ships as well as for medicinal, religious and cultural purposes. Most interestingly, there is also a growth room where you can see the plant at various stages of development under different kinds of light and soil conditions.
Thanks largely to my conversations with Trude I am convinced that some time in the next hundred years marijuana will be legal in most parts of the world. There will be experts on how best to grow it and to tell us which grades do better under what conditions. There will be people opining on when best to use what herbs for what purpose. It will have a legitimate claim as a medical product, a psychiatric product and a social product. The Michelin Maitre’ds will offer wine with dinner and spliff after dinner. Someone is already investing ahead of the curve and I am really sorry that it’s not us.
It is rumoured in the annals of Canadian business history that while alcohol was still illegal in Canada the Bronfman family (of Seagram fame) was in fact building their fortune underground as bootleggers. At the same time they were aggressively pushing for the legalisation of alcohol behind the scenes. Once alcohol became legal, the Bronfmans already had an underground liquor distribution network in place. They simply invested on top of it, brought it above ground, slapped on the Seagram name and instantly gained a dominant position in the liquor industry that survives to this day.
If we accept marijuana as a legitimate product ahead of the world we have a shot at becoming a global powerhouse when the tide finally turns. We should be researching how to grow it, how to grade it and how to use it across multiple fronts. We should create social centres and healing centres that utilise the herb. We should be the go-to experts for all things sensei. You have epilepsy, depression, schizophrenia, cancer, stress, pain… come to one of the Jamaican ganja centres for a few weeks of relief. (And pay big money to stay there!)
We should be creating the definitive grading codes that tell consumers which types of spliff are good for which types of experiences. We should define what makes the high-end and expensive, and what makes the low-end and cheap. All this is still up for grabs. It is an open question who will own the language and expertise of the industry the way the French own the language and expertise of the wine business.
The Jamaican ghetto is one of the most creative places in the world. Unfortunately, the Jamaican business class’ lack of vision has failed to sufficiently monetise it. We spurned reggae and allowed the big money to accrue to outsiders. To this day we still have never invested in schools or programmes in developing and codifying the genre. The best reggae is now coming from other parts of the world. Compare what we did with home-grown Reggae with what the Americans did with their home-grown Jazz.
We denigrated the Jamaican dance art form and even now are trying to suppress Daggering, not recognising that subversive and sexual body movement has increasing global appeal. We should be an international centre of modern creative dance. The raw talent and interest is already there.
We have spurned the magnificent hairstyles as they have erupted from the ghetto. The sculptured weaving and beading that integrate African culture with European aspirations is nothing short of high art. We should have become an important centre for hair styling and counter-cultural fashion.
Sadly, Jamaica has never made any money out of this endless creative groundswell. We either kill the asset (“slackness”, “bhutu”, “wutless”) or passively cede our leadership position allowing others (who see what we cannot see) to profit. The Jamaican brand built largely out of the Jamaican ghetto remains an untapped national resource.
In 50 to100 years we will look back and wonder how we squandered Bob Marley’s national identity which made us the leading ganja brand in the world. At that time some industrial “white” country – Holland, Germany, America – will set the senseimelia standard and control the global brands despite our initial marketing lead. This will be such a tragedy.
Let Kaya be free. There is still time given our competitive branding advantage to dominate this industry. But we have to look past the church and middle-class moralising and just take it as the business that it is and will undoubtedly become. Let’s not lose out again. “Hey brudda man! Hear wut I sey! Gi dem some a dat sensei!”