I have often remarked about the feedback that people have given me about this small blog – how it seems ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’ that someone is talking about using cannabis medicinally, spiritually and practically. In return I have been more than happy about telling them why I am so open about it. Its not because I want to be ‘cool’ by professing to be someone who likes to get high and write. Its not because I wish to act rebellious and piss off people who are against the use of cannabis. Rather the real reason is something more mundane and real – the reason I am so open about using cannabis is because its use has been going on for more than 10,000 years and it is the one commodity that modern capitalism hasn’t yet fully come to terms with. This is the reality.
It is the prefect commodity (nutritious, powerfully medicinal, can be used to make cloth, building material etc.) yet so undervalued in the mainstream society of today. I imagine a future where entrepreneurs of all hue and colour establish companies of all sizes and reach out to as many people as possible with good quality cannabis products. I am not sure how exactly this would pan out, but there are many encouraging signs. Innovative ideas are few and far in between; while on the regulation side – I am sure that Indian state governments will never relax controls over the commercial cultivation of cannabis for the next 5 years at least. Therefore people dreaming about getting access to consistent quality flowers-buds of the cannabis plant need to wait indefinitely. The bulk of the commercial action will be in medicines followed by using the seeds to make oil or protein sources; and then of course clothes and paper products processed from the fibre and stem of the plant. More importantly, I hope Indian people stop being afraid of THC as if they have no idea about altered consciousness states.
A multitude of topics interest me (I am an upper caste, decently fair male in India, I can do what I want. Only regular readers will get the tone here:)); however at the fundamental level, I tend to think from the perspective of an individual person – one individual man or one individual woman. Because for the longest time of my life, I have been alone with my thoughts and therefore this has given me plenty of time to see reality as it is, not what I would like it to be; but what is – a very subtle difference if one can see through it. Therefore the reality of the cannabis market in India, like many things is this: a lot of potential; a lot of misinformation; a lack of awareness or interest in thinking about new things and last; a complete lack of clear regulation. My biggest fear is this: that the Indian government would just blindly copy the 0.3% THC clause from the west and incorporate the same law here. This will be an absolute disaster and will kill our Indian plants which have more THC in them naturally. My biggest fear is also this: that we would not research about our cannabis plant genetics and import seeds from the west just because it is harder to do original research and easy to import.
I have started accepting the fact that the Indian government will do what it wants, when it wants, and therefore there is no need for me to take any stress or worry because there will be no point in doing so and it will be bad for my own health and well-being. Reality is wrapped in many layers and one needs to pay a lot of attention and focus in order to understand what is the reality and how different it is from our fantasies, thoughts and actions – most of them a victim of distorted reality rather than the actual reality. I blame the troves of misinformation and half-truths masquerading online as the truth. I want to tell my readers to not loose their calm and state of neutral Zen ever because our time has not yet come. We can keep blazing till then, plot our moves, improve our skills, read more and in the process accumulate a lot of capital. And yes, our health. Most important. We are young now (I am 26 years old) and need to be so in body and mind for as long as possible. This game is for the long haul.
Marijuana Maharaj 