C. Roy ReynoldsSO, THERE is to be another examination of the ganja issue. Proving I suppose that "meck work" is not only confined to certain public works projects, but an equal opportunity principle. I don't know what this latest panel will examine and what conclusions it will reach. But I can predict that nothing will come of their effort, absolutely nothing!
I once did an editing job for a professional organisation and one of the papers with which I dealt concerned how some organisations are run. One assertion has stayed with me over the years. The presenter drew attention to that old perennial favourite of many organisations: Matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting. He pointed out that items appear month after month and even over years.
He concluded that this inability to dispose of the matter was an indication that the organisation was trying to tackle something beyond its competence to deal with. And rather than aiding solutions it became a time-wasting exercise which inhibited its ability to treat with more tractable situations.
We have studied ganja ad nauseam without ever taking any action commensurate with our findings. And for one simple reason: Our ganja policy is beyond our power to influence. That is decided for us in Washington. It is therefore not a matter of either science or logic but a strictly political one.
So even if we got correspondence from God Almighty in his own handwriting and postmarked "Heaven" we would still not be able to act on it. Hypocrisy rules supreme in the US drug policy, and science and logic have no place. And nowhere among those in authority, or think they are in authority here is there the faintest indication that there is anybody with guts enough to tell the Americans to go suck an egg.
Twenty-five years or so ago the US seemed to be moving towards a more sensible policy towards ganja, but all that came to a stop with the Reagan years, that charming exponent of ultra-rightwing clap-trap. And even today when it is obvious that, sans his ability as a cowboy actor, he must have been among the least enlightened men ever to occupy the post of president, Americans are still nostalgic about him.
But Reagan and his henchmen did more than reignite the hysteria about ganja. In their fanatic fight against communism, real or imagined, they actually facilitated the trade in hard drugs such as cocaine into the American market. Just last week I watched a documentary on the History Channel which showed documentation to prove contention that they actually thwarted legal action against the traffickers in order to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras and even aided delivery of drug shipments to the Panama dictator they now have in prison in Florida.
But back to the ganja issue. We are threatened with the dreaded decertification if we are perceived to be soft on ganja. But have you ever wondered why they have not been able to stamp out its growing in the contenental USA! A few years ago the television programme "20/20" carried a segment in which several communities in the south admitted openly that their economy was ganja-based. Indeed even a banker admitted openly that his bank could not continue to exist without the proceeds from ganja.
At another level it is plain that the drug trade in the western hemisphere would not exist but for American demand. But have you ever wondered why they savage other countries to stop the supply and do so little to curb their own appetite? The anomaly is so obvious that it invites conjecture: Could it be that their real concern has much less to do with the use of drugs than plain economics? That the reason for their rabid reaction to supply is the money that goes out of the country to buy the drugs.
After all they could never be naive enough to think that stopping the import flow would solve their drug problem. In all probability it would merely shift the production of mind-altering substances to the home front. Then people could still get their jollies, but the money would stay home.
Could it be that there is something systemically wrong with the system? A something which neither prosperity nor even the attempt to catch God and stamp the "Made in America" brand on his backside is capable of dealing with?
But in spite of all the incongruities they can rest assured we will never do anything to rock the boat. We have too many patois-speaking would-be Yankees, to many water-kneed officials and too many quislings here to permit of any action. Just as we forsake our production base to the greater glory of America's, so shall we continue to root out our ganja so that bankers in the southern states can continue to prosper. Unlike the US President and a host of other influencials in that country I have never tried ganja let alone inhale, but I know enough to recognise hypocrisy and nonsense when I see it!
C. Roy Reynolds is a freelance journalist.
