8. Cannabis-Outage

Jump into your time-machine, flip the dial back fifty years, set the location to Colchester in the heart of Essex, press the ignition, and arrive at Essex-University, my alma-mater, in the mid-seventies. Things were tough; wild-winds from the west, early snow-fall, and a college-cannabis-famine that had quickly morphed into a complete outage. How would that enterprising cohort of poets, thinkers and scholars react? With stoicism in the face of adversity, or with a gritty determination to change the dynamic against impossible odds? Inspired by the wisdom and courage of our Essex forebears who decided to give the Vikings a second chance at the battle of Malden in AD 991, and which ushered-in twenty-five years of us having to pay-them-off with Danegeld, we decided to take matters into our own hands.   

The first attempt to balance supply-and-demand was undertaken by our local, semi-professional suppliers, Tim and Tom. We all contributed to a purchasing fund before they set off to the “Smoke” (London) to establish a new contact they had been made aware of. They returned triumphantly with a thin slab of Moroccan-Gold, about the size of a small baking tray. Satisfaction was short-lived as they found the small corner they had broken-off to test the quality was, in fact, the only part of the slab that was hash. The rest they discovered was a commercial laxative which had been boiled-down and coloured to precisely match the colour of the only genuine piece of hash. 

We all agreed it was a masterful fabrication, but they were Idiots nonetheless. Later in the year the same pair, once supplies had been reestablished, attempted to set-up-stall during fresher’s week up-the-road at the University-of-East-Anglia. This eventually led them to spending an extended vacation at one of HM’s open prisons. Idiots. So not a good start. 

At this stage we put our best brains to work on the problem. A second expedition to the Smoke would be organized, but this time by ourselves. Our very own Mick (the brains) and Kevin (the brawn) set-off to Brixton and returned with a large bag of weed. Unfortunately, it only had the strength of a wet-rag, and you were more likely to cough-to-death on your tenth-joint before any noticeable psychoactive effect manifested itself. Montanna-Ditch-Weed, Jungle-Juice, whatever you called it the facts remained the same; another wash-out. 

Providence and lateral thinking then kicked-in. Perhaps away from the campus we were looking too far afield. What was the dope situation in our local town of Colchester? Now Colchester may sound like a nice rural town with hundreds of hippies you could call upon, but it wasn’t. It’s a tough garrison town full of squaddies, and the locals were as mad as a sack-full-of-ferrets (an Essex expression). However, we had made certain contacts and one of them was Rolph, a member of the MMM (the militant-Maoist-movement). Although we were all Trots, we did share a belief in Marxism, which of course is how we met-up, trying to convince the incredulous-people of Colchester that revolution was coming, which of course it wasn’t. Could he help?

Before continuing this cautionary tale, I must take a very-few of paragraphs to say my political views have changed since then, but not in a traditional way. Normally as you get older and richer you bend to the right, or as the alternate-Internationale has it, “The working class, can kiss my arse, I’ve got the foreman’s job at last”. Again, I blame philosophy where I was exposed to the bleeding-obvious that Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism and most of the “ism’s” have a hidden flaw in that their “perfect-software” requires “perfect-wetware” to run-on. But the real world is actually populated by a mix of saints, sinners, crooks, nutters, thugs, geniuses, dunces, worthies, slouches etc. (have you noticed, in English at least, there are far more negative descriptors of people than positive ones – is this a fair balance of the human condition? Thoughts?”. Any scheme to run things needs to factor this reality into the equation. 

Proponents of the “ism’s” might-and-do claim that these undesirable human-traits are manifestations of big-bad-capitalism or whatever, and once the correct software has been installed, a perfect utopian world will emerge. Bollocks. The young USA thought that all crime would disappear once the tyranny of kings-and-queens had been removed, and some believe that is why the America justice system is so punitive (how can you let us down?). Similarly in the old Soviet-Union they hilariously pretended crime didn’t exist, whether organized (the bratva) or disorganized. 

Lack of enthusiasm for the project was also dismissed. When working in Hungary before the wall came-down, I was let-in-on the secret-saying “They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work”. They are a weird bunch; a favourite joke was “Question: Why do Hungarians go to sleep with a full glass-of-water and an empty glass-of-water by their bed? Answer: If they wake-up in the middle-of-the-night the full glass is there in case they feel thirsty, and the empty one is there in case they don’t”. That got them rolling-in-the-isles. I’m still very much socially liberal, but have become much more of an economic conservative (running your own business tends to do this). 

Before getting into the story let give you a government health-warning. A certain set of risktakers-and-idiots (like me) could read this and do the exact opposite. They would then confirm the warnings are true, and trigger a new set of risktakers-and-idiots to do the same thing, ad-infinitum. This is similar to Roko’s Basilisk, but is far more down-to-earth. 

So Rolph dropped into the union bar one evening, and we all started chatting. He sympathized with our plight, said he didn’t use much cannabis these days, then warned us “whatever you do, don’t try doctor Potter’s asthma powder”. That was it. The next day we set off to town, bought a tin of the said nostrum, and read the instructions. These gave information on how to burn it and inhale the smoke, followed by warnings in red not to ingest it. We were getting closer. How much should we try? No idea, let’s start with a tea-spoon each. I, being me, thought this a bit timid, so took a dessert spoon full. It tasted absolutely revolting, possibly because it had been laced with something to dissuade people from eating it. 

It took quite some time for anything to happen, but when it did, it was not good. Hallucination wise, yes, they were there, but unlike LSD these were entirely unpleasant. I felt like a marble one-or-two centimetres in diameter, suspended in the top left corner of the room by the ceiling. The rest of the room spread-out to infinity. At the same time, I had severe heart palpitations and a headache the like-of-which I had never experienced. I just hung on knowing it would end at some time, which it did after thirty-six hours. The others had far less severe effects, thank goodness. 

Which brings me to supposed hallucinogenic compounds in general, which fall into a few categories according to whether they work or not, whether they are pleasant or not, and whether they are poisonous or not. Doctor Potter’s asthma powder when eaten falls into the category of unpleasant and poisonous, and is the worst combination. LSD falls into the category that the hallucinations are mostly enjoyable, but can go horribly wrong (a bad trip), but is not poisonous. 

Cannabis is LSD’s younger sibling in this regard; it is possible to get freaked-out on it, but is pretty unusual and is very manageable (just eat something sweet). The only drug I have tried that is always enjoyable and not poisonous is ecstasy. But its bloody strong, which is why most people, including me, go through an “E” phase and just remember the good times rather than having to relive them. My advice? (if you are fool enough to take it). “Have fun, but take care of yourself and others”.