The Kush

Hello and Welcome to the 27^th edition of The Kush. If you’re reading this for the first time, then welcome. It’s the second day of another new week and we couldn’t have been more trippier than we already are. Revolt, revolt against the thoughts that border on mediocrity, the mundane and the monotonous. Revolt against the negativity, hate and the violence. Revolt against the distractions that plague at us from each and every direction. Sit up, stand straight and revolt against the minds that seek to trample upon us; they just want to control us, our minds, so to speak.

Let’s start blazing. 

What Really Matters

As more and more people around the world, irrespective of their government regimes, irrespective of their socio-economic class, irrespective of their ideologies, continue to be distracted in the form of subjective misinformation, blatant emotional, nonsensical dumbness, superficial teachings bordering religion and racism, hate and violence, we think it is prudent to reason that a majority of it is being deliberately orchestrated, rather than an unfortunate coincidence. This statement can be proven by simply listening to the political discourse at play around the world of ours today. Such discourse isn’t a coincidence, they’re a deliberate way to pit groups of humans against each other while a narrow section of people prosper at the benefit of everyone else. 

It’s quite sad really. But not all hope is lost. 

Because one of the laws of the universe is the law of impermanence. The fact that nothing is permanent and everything is in constant flux. This point is difficult to grasp because at the end of the day, human beings tend to look out for themselves and their families and close ones first, and the needs and wants of other communities unrelated to their own does not seem relevant.

However, some needs and wants are universal. 

Clean air. Clean water. Clean food. The Independence to do what they want when they want. To name a few. And as simple as they may sound, the fact of the matter is that as times go by, we think society will get increasingly segregated and unequal, with human beings having the necessary resources and the connections, looking out for their own instead of everyone. The elites will increasingly get tempted to build their own walled compound and control access to the best things while leaving so few for the rest. A brutal survival of the fittest so to speak, rekindling our inherent animalistic genes. We’re animals after all. But there’s a catch. 

There’s still time. 

Let’s keep blazing and watch out for the blatant fakery, the distractions, the meek and the dumb. 

Open Consultation Period Ends 

India’s Home Ministry had constituted a Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws, and tasked it with the responsibility of speaking to relevant stakeholders with regards to reforming the National Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, the law that deals with the regulation of cannabis for recreational, medical and industrial use. The committee was supposed to end its open consultation period yesterday, the 16th of November. We hope they heard constructive things from India’s cannabis companies. 

As far as we’re concerned, the reforms needed are quite straight-forward. 

We need Indian companies to start studying the cannabis plant for medical and industrial purposes. And the way they can do this is by getting access to the entire cannabis plant. Indian companies need access to as many Indian states as possible which possibly grow some of the best cannabis strains in the entire world. Many Indian states already supply India’s black markets with cannabis, the result being an underground market of gigantic proportions. We’re not sure how big India’s recreational cannabis market is, but we’re betting it’s at least 3000 crore rupees (almost 400 million dollars). We’ve simply multiplied 1000 rupees with 3 crore people. 

3 crore people because the Indian Government and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences say so, and 1000 rupees because, we’re assuming every individual to spend 1000 rupees a year on ganja, charas and bhang. Of course, some crazy users probably spend more than 1000 rupees a year (sometimes for a single week), but then some people use cannabis for nearly free since it’s so abundant in India. Therefore an average of 1000 rupees per year for every individual user makes sense to us.    

What the reforms need to incorporate is mainly four things: 

• Decriminalize cannabis use and tell the Narcotics Control Bureau to calm down and go after heroin and cocaine, among other things  
• Tell the Excise Departments of every state to lay down a clear procedure to help companies get access to the cannabis they need at a certain price
• Lay down a clear procedure for individual state governments to regulate recreational use as per their wish
• Make no distinction between individual cannabinoids. CBD and THC should not be treated separately in the form of different rules. Both of them are important. If legal pharma opioids can be abused and actually kill, we can definitely tolerate THC. We’ll get to see the influence of Big Pharma here. How well can they or won’t they influence rules for cannabis use? It definitely threatens them since cannabis goes against their business model

We predict that incorporating these reforms into law will take at least 2 years. We hope we’re proved wrong though. Once this is done, we hope the textile ministry, the agricultural ministry, the food standards and safety authority of India take up the mantle further and do something. 

Let’s keep blazing till then.

Hoist the Green     

As the world grapples with problems of grave magnitudes, some of which include, trampling and persecuting dissenters instead of engaging in dialogue (which is weird because the persecutors like to control others and tell them what to do, rather than let them free to make their own socio-economic decisions), poverty, hunger and malnutrition of the worst kinds (which is weird since the world is already several times self-sufficient in food), violent crimes of a brutal nature (since humans being descended from animals, most of us still use our reptilian brain instead of the rational, educated brain to get by our lives) among many things. 

So what do we do? Just keep blazing and pretend everything is ok? 

Or start being outspoken? 

Ideally both. Let’s keep blazing and be as outspoken as ever. Call out the wrongs. Do your own research and get to the bottom of everything instead of listening to someone else, even if that someone is your own parent or loved one. Always do your own research when it comes to the matters of the world and humanity. 

Have a great day 🙂