Sunday 20 May 2007

Catching Up on Warsaw (Things we just didn't get to write up in time; Chapter 1)


Sat, 10th May 2007: A part of the global Million Marijuana March, The Free Hemp Rally in Warsaw was attended by several thousand people. As the crowd grew, so did the sense of anticipation. Cannabis is viewed with deep suspicion by Polish society in general and in particular, by the Polish police who stood around in small groups looking serious and irritated. This was fairly new territory for the Poles, and despite being their third yearly rally, there was still a great deal of nervousness and 'newness' about the whole thing emanating from the crowd. Although the people seemed a little unsure how to react, the mood relaxed a bit when the march itself began to move, and there was that universal feeling of safety in numbers.

The rally was late to begin - in fact it may have been lucky to start in the first place. The event organiser's had informed me that the police had just backtracked on their previous agreement to close off certain roads to traffick, thus allowing the events musical floats to pass by, a central component of any moving rally. Stressed rally organisers paced up and down while Polish police stood by looking very authoritarian - standing around in tight groups, each one looking more official than the last until it looked like Warsaw's top brass had joined the throng, just to put up a show of their own. It was a little like stepping back in time a few years when police just didn't, couldn't let people smoke the evil weed. It is ILLEGAL! It's a drug for heroin addicts! They seemed totally unsure of what such a rally was trying to say in the first place but ego's dictated stern faces and a firm line.

One of the members from the organisation, when asked whether they gained much support from the enormous student bodies located in Warsaw, shook her head from side to side mouthing an elliptical NOOO NO NOOO. Looking around her as she spoke, she mentioned that she herself shouldn't actually be here, that if she gets seen by the wrong person she could lose her place in university. And once your place was lost - that was it - you wouldn't get it back. This had the ring of being almost like a conviction - and indeed, to lose your highly valued education in Poland - it may as well be. However, there were people there, young people did brave the day as did a few oldies too; there were the usual bright costumes, (and people in prison stripes) people in the rasta colours and the dope flag flying high, but there was one thing missing - something I sensed very quickly - something that said a great deal about the political and psycological take on this issue...There was no cannabis to be seen. There was not a joint to be found or a whiff to be smelt or a bag to be bought - anywhere. (Although BP sussed there was the tiniest amount for the sharing but only if you dug and dug deep the right places)...


The slight hesitancy of the crowd to start yelling slogans eased as the march began moving although the tone I thought was rather dampened by the fact that you couldn't just smoke a big spliff one day all together - in front of the cops and the world! That the freedom to raise the issue of prohibition is still severly hampered by the fact that there were clearly many years of uphill struggle remaining just to begin to change the most basic attitudes to the worlds most versatile weed.

Unsurprisingly considering the circumstances, the Free Hemp organisation was primarily pushing the issue of hemp as an agricultural commodity. Alex and Jacob, two of the people from the Free Hemp organisation, were very clear about their intentions and legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana for smoking wasn't the foremost concern. Perhaps sensibly, Free Hemp were pursuing a slightly different priority on the cannabis agenda. By educating the public (in particular the farmers and the government) as to the huge benefits of hemp as an industry, i.e its ease of growth, its large consumer potential as a superior substance for twine, material, paper, oil etc, Free Hemp are attempting to become the middle men in a new enterprise for Poland. It is only legal to grow hemp in Poland (the indica variety that has minute amounts of THC and is used for manufacture of materials etc) IF a farmer already has beaten a mountain of governmental red tape and managed to gain themselves a contract with a buyer. Free Hemp are therefore trying to set up large buyers from other european countries and link them in with Polish farmers who are willing to take a leap into the unknown and begin Hemp production on an industrial scale. Free hemp clearly believe there would be a big pay off for farmers, hemp lobbiests and society if only people would take off their blinkered views about cannabis, the plant, and that dope smoking, big spliff toking 'reputation of mary jane' that is so hard to shift, it obscures the plant as one of the world's most versatile agricultural commodities.

A huge thanks to Alex and Jacob. Keep up the good fight! Ignorance should always be challenged.

Note from Free Hemp: For further information...
All the work we do is aimed at freeing hemp, including hemp industrially produced, from the considerably restrictive laws. We facilitate an exchange of information and experience concerning policies of production, retail, as well as promoting hemp articles.




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