by Howard Marks
I discovered the references to Chupat, Brazil I had found on the Net should have been to Chubut, Argentina. They related to Patagonia. I eventually read City of Frozen Fire, the book Gilberto had sent me in Rio de Janeiro, and it was indeed about the discovery of an ancient Welsh civilisation in the forests of Brazil; Paulo Coelho’s recollection had been correct. But it was a poorly written fictional boys’ adventure story providing nothing of interest and plenty of disappointment. I continued living in York, waking up early every morning, walking around the city walls, breakfasting at British Home Stores and returning to my flat with a firm resolve to resume writing. But the blank screen just got blanker. I stopped doing my column for Loaded; I couldn’t even write 1,000 words a month.
I could, however, still manage to do shows, and I plagued my tireless manager Giles Cooper to get me as many gigs as possible, as this was now my only source of income. I performed in Amsterdam, Oslo, Moscow, the Channel Islands and Tenerife. I did spoken-word tours of Germany, Italy, Spain, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, doing shows in several London venues, every provincial city and most towns. I never changed the script: I just changed the audience.
Although I would start each tour with the best of intentions by reading a guidebook to wherever I happened to be, taking a sightseeing tour if one was available and visiting the local museums, these plans never lasted more than a day or two. It became impossible to do more than get up, check out, travel to the next place, check in, prepare myself and the stage for the show, do the show, unwind, sometimes by DJing at a bar or club, and get to bed. I was living like a minor rock star, smoking ounces of skunk, drinking gallons of booze, snorting grams of cocaine and filling my dressing room with the rich and sexy. Every night was the same routine, but everywhere was different. If you don’t change inside, you have to keep moving. It was the exact opposite of prison, where you can only change inside and never change your surroundings.
It would have been a cliché if I had lost myself in powder, become an alcoholic, developed cannabis psychosis and checked into the Priory, but the rock-and-roll lifestyle pulled me out of my gloom. I began to travel and write again. Visiting Georgia, Estonia, Cuba and Vietnam, I wrote travel pieces for the Observer and the Daily Telegraph and reviewed books for other publications.
At some point between trips in spring 2003 Scott Blakey telephoned me. It was his daughter Sara’s second birthday. Scott said he was intending, for reasons he would explain to me when we next met, to transfer seed production from Switzerland to Spain. Seeds have always been legal in Spain. Mr Nice Seedbank had done well there with seed sales, mainly through Cañamo, who produce an excellent monthly marijuana magazine and had also published the Spanish version of Mr Nice. We agreed to meet in Barcelona.
I flew from Leeds/Bradford airport to Barcelona and took a taxi to a café just off the Ramblas. As is usual in Spanish cafés, the television was blaring. I was early, and Scott had not arrived. I ordered a beer. The waiter gathered I was British and asked if I would be watching the football on television: Barcelona were playing Manchester United, kicking off in about ten minutes. I said I would, and he provided me with some free tapas.
I hadn’t seen a football match, live or televised, since I was a football correspondent for the Evening Standard five years earlier. One day during early 1998 the sports editor Simon Greenberg had telephoned me and asked if I would be prepared to travel to France and cover the World Cup. I told Simon I was a rugby fan but did admit to getting fed up of standing in drizzles watching various Welsh teams getting comprehensively hammered. I explained I had never been to a football match and wasn’t too sure about the rules. As far as Simon was concerned, this was perfect. The Evening Standard weren’t after someone to write a blow-by-blow account of each match – there were sports writers to do that – they needed to cover other aspects such as getting tickets and overnight accommodation near the venues. In other words, they wanted me to mix with the touts and the hooligans. I agreed. In order to understand the sport’s rudiments, Simon took me to Wembley to watch a pre-World Cup warm-up match between England and Saudi Arabia. I learned that Alan Shearer was the captain of England and that Gazza and Paul Gascoigne were the same person.
Eurostar took me to Paris, and I hit the bars in the always lively rue de Lappe looking for a ticket for the Jamaica v. Argentina match and a cheap hotel. The area had changed since I was last there in the 1980s, when the doormen had been pretty girls enticing impoverished drunks to spend their last few coins on cheap drinks and other desirables. Now they were bouncers enforcing dress codes and determining the acceptable state of inebriation of high-rolling punters. I found a hotel but couldn’t get a ticket so decided to try my luck outside the Parc des Princes.
Several tens of thousands had had the same idea but had abandoned their search to enjoy the party put on by the Jamaica supporters. The Argentina fans, no strangers to carnival madness themselves, joined in with some frenzied techno tango. Opposing supporters danced with each other. Twenty minutes after the kick-off, I eventually got a ticket for 1,000 French francs. Argentina won 5–0. The Jamaica fans carried on partying. The next day I took the TGV from Paris to Toulouse, where Romania were playing England.
There was no accommodation anywhere in or near Toulouse. I went to the station café, which was full of fellow ticketless nomads, and joined a group of England supporters marching to the Stade Municipale. Touts were charging fortunes for the few tickets still left, so along with several others I chanted, ‘You can stick your tickets up your arse’ to the tune of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’. I was carried by the crowd into a bar near the ground with eight TV sets.
Within minutes England had conceded a goal and a fight broke out in the pub. It was nothing to do with football; an old personal score was about to be settled. The first blood spilled was mine – caused by flying wine bottle shrapnel. One of the combatants grabbed a steak knife; it was getting messy and vicious. The ambience changed from misery over England being 1–0 down to fear of mutilation. Peace was persuasively restored by those not fighting. The blood and glass were wiped up and vocal encouragement for Glen Hoddle’s men began, again, to build up momentum. England equalised. The bar erupted. Lager-bearing arms, red legs and tattooed bodies gesticulated madly. They’d settle for a draw. Romania scored again. Misery returned, but peacefully. That had been my last experience of watching football.
Scott did not arrive for two hours, by which time Barcelona had won.
‘Sorry, I’m late, mate. Got caught in this shit,’ said Scott, pointing at the television. ‘The city is solid with cars full of people yelling and screaming. I guess Barcelona must have won.’
‘They played brilliantly, Scott; they deserved to win. It was a good match.’
‘I thought you Welsh were like us Aussies, only interested in rugby.’
‘Don’t you mean only good at rugby?’ I asked.
‘Same, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose. But Wales are getting to be good at football these days. They’ve got some excellent players. Ryan Giggs was man of the match.’
‘Doesn’t seem like he got too many goals, looking at the score,’ taunted Scott.
I changed the subject: ‘How are things in Switzerland these days?’
‘Not good, mate, not good.’
Scott explained how, in the last couple of weeks, the Ticinese authorities had busted and closed down dozens of cannabis shops, including some of the ones I had called in to during my last visit. This change had come about because of recent communal elections, where the winning party had declared in their electoral campaign their intention of closing all cannabis shops within Ticino.
‘I thought the Swiss Supreme Court had ruled that growing cannabis was legal. How can they bust people making the equipment for that?’ I asked
‘They did rule that way, but Swiss law is weird, mate, weird. Each Supreme Court verdict is just that, a verdict on one single case. A Swiss Supreme Court verdict does
not change or create a law: it’s just an interpretation to fit the circumstances.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Fuck knows altogether, but it obviously means that grow shops can be busted.’
‘Come to think of it, Scott, it’s not that surprising if the grow shop I went to in Chiasso was anything to go by. Dope was being sold there openly. Anyway why does it matter? I didn’t think Mr Nice Seedbank or Gene Bank Technology owned any grow shops.’
‘They don’t. But it’s the thin end of the wedge. The Ticino authorities aren’t going to stop with busting grow shops. Businesses producing seeds and other cannabis products will be next, I bet. I want to get out before that happens. Every bone in my body feels it coming. Spain is the place to set it up now. It’s not illegal to have seeds or grow them here.’
‘But Spanish law is also a bit weird. I know – I was wrongly extradited to America in 1989. It’s legal to do just about anything with growing dope, but if public order is affected or threatened, the authorities can bust you for that alone.’
‘What does “public order” mean?’ asked Scott.
‘Whatever the Spanish cops want it to mean, from what I can make out. But I suppose if seed production is done without too many people knowing about it, public order can hardly be affected.’
‘That’s how I was going to do it anyway, and I’ve already found a place to rent. I just thought I would run it by you first. I’ll give the guys in Lugano a call now and arrange to get the parent plants I need brought down here. No drama.’
Scott stepped outside to make his call. He returned after about ten minutes, his face white.
‘Well, mate, the shit has hit the fanny. The Swiss have just busted Gene Bank Technology, with all its equipment and any dope there. They’ve destroyed hundreds of thousands of plants. The cops have detained hundreds of people, including carpenters, lawyers, gardeners, florists. It happened this morning. I told you I could feel it coming.’
‘Jesus Christ! What the fuck is going on? How could it have been legal yesterday and not today without any change in the law? I thought I read the other day the Swiss are debating decriminalising cannabis. What’s made them do a U-turn?’
‘Outside pressure – it’s obvious,’ answered Scott.
‘From the fucking Yanks?’
‘No, not this time, mate. Somewhere much closer to Switzerland – next door, in fact.’
‘You mean Berlusconi and his gang of fascists?’
‘For sure. You could probably have bought as much as fifty kilos in that grow shop in Chiasso. Those places weren’t just selling five to ten grams for personal use. Loads of Italians come to Lugano, Chiasso and other parts of Ticino, to work among other things. Lots of them smoke dope, which is cheaper in Switzerland than in Italy. It didn’t take them long to figure out they could make some money smuggling it back to Italy. They use every method you can think of, from sneaking over the border on foot to the old smugglers’ routes used during the Second World War. The Italian cops know all the dope they are busting in Milan and just about everywhere else has been grown in Switzerland. The grow shops were even sticking up their flyers in Italian clubs. Berlusconi has got wind of it and cracked down.’
It made sense. Switzerland isn’t independent and neutral because it scares other countries: it keeps its privileged position by caving in to them all equally.
‘What gets me is that Swiss law says cultivating marijuana is legal unless you intend to “extract narcotics” from it. I didn’t “extract narcotics” from it,’ said Scott.
‘But how can you prove you didn’t intend to?’
‘Don’t they have to prove I did?’
‘You mean you’re innocent until proven guilty? I wouldn’t rely on that one, especially not in Europe. The Napoleonic Code governs most law here, which means the defendant carries the burden of proof. Although I suppose if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt you cultivated cannabis intended for legal activities, like producing a contract for hemp beer production, you shouldn’t have any problems.’
‘I’ve got stacks of contracts like that – I really didn’t extract narcotics.’
‘I know. You did the exact opposite: you got hold of all the non-narcotic bits and sold them to the Yanks to make perfume. But maybe that did break Swiss law.’
‘How?’
‘Because the only way you could get the non-narcotic bits was to extract the narcotic bits, which, technically, is against Swiss law, as you just said.’
Scott looked at me as if I was mad. I looked back at him as if I was.
‘Anyway, Scott, taking all that THC out of six tons of dope just to satisfy the Yanks was against some higher ethic, if not the law. I knew it had to be bad karma the moment you told me you were doing it. Shiva wouldn’t have been pleased.’
‘Let’s have a smoke,’ said Scott.
Night fell as we left the café. Scott rolled a strong joint, which we smoked as we walked through the labyrinthine tributaries of the Ramblas.
‘I’ve just been thinking, mate. They’ve busted everyone connected with Mr Nice Seedbank other than me – the breeder – and you – Mr Nice himself. Why do you think that is?’
‘Probably because we weren’t in Switzerland this morning. I don’t think either of us will be going back there in a hurry.’
‘But I haven’t broken any fucking law.’
‘If they think you have or think they can get you anyway, they’ll still bust you. Trust me.’
Scott looked sadly at the ground.
We walked back to our hotel and agreed to meet next day for breakfast at 9.30. I woke up at 9.00 a.m. A note had been pushed under the door.
Dear Howard
I’m going back to Campione d’Italia. I have nothing to fear as I know I have not broken any law. And I promised Sara I would take her swimming. It’s 7.00 a.m., and I don’t want to wake you. Also, you would probably persuade me not to go back. But I know I must. I’ll be back in Barcelona within a week. Hope to see you here then.
Love,
Scott
Worried sick, I flew back to London. The next day I received an email from Martin, Scott’s dad. Scott had been busted by the Italian police. I had often teased him about his failure to serve time in prison despite having worked with cannabis all his life and had accused him of shirking his apprenticeship. Inwardly, of course, I had been happy he had reached thirty-nine without enduring such an experience and was convinced he would never have to. Anger and sorrow played havoc with my mind.
In March 2003, a few weeks before our meeting in Barcelona, the Swiss authorities, as part of Operation Indoors – seizing plants grown indoors before they could be moved outside for the warmer weather – had issued an international arrest warrant for Scott which charged him with heading an organisation that exported tons of cannabis from Switzerland and laundering the earnings. They claimed they had evidence of his transporting truck loads of drugs to destinations throughout Europe and depositing millions of euros in Swiss bank accounts. Acting on the warrant, Italian police arrested Scott at the usually unstaffed border between Campione d’Italia and Switzerland. After an exhaustive investigation, the authorities were unable to find any evidence of Scott – an Italian resident – breaking Italian law. The Swiss asked for his extradition, and Scott, as keen as ever to clear his name, agreed immediately. It took sixty days, during which time he was kept in an overcrowded high-security prison in Como in the most disgusting conditions.
In August Scott was extradited to a Swiss subterranean holding unit in Mendrisio, Ticino, still waiting to find out the specific charges against him. Confined in a windowless cell and interrogated daily for sessions lasting as long as seven hours, Scott truthfully answered all the questions put to him to encourage the Swiss authorities to charge him with a specific offence and get the matter resolved. If he had refused to answer, the Swiss could have kept him for two years while they conducted their investigations. Lawyers were not allowed to attend these deeply
unpleasant, threatening interrogations. The prosecutors in Ticino will use virtually any means to get what they want – usually an admission of guilt – but there was no criminal conduct for Scott to admit to.
Cannabis growers throughout the world were outraged. During October 2003 the following petition was posted on the Internet.
The Australian geneticist, Scott Blakey, founder of Mr Nice Seed Bank, has been in prison for the last two months in Mendrisio (Switzerland) accused by the authorities of the canton of Ticino of marijuana trafficking. Scott Blakey is not a drug trafficker; he is a dedicated cultivator and breeder and has discovered several new cannabis seed varieties. He has taught many cultivators some of his knowledge of hybridising distinct varieties of marijuana. We ask for solidarity throughout the world’s cannabis community to help petition for his immediate release.
Next to the petition was a photograph of Scott, smiling and reading a copy of the Italian translation of Mr Nice. Thousands signed the petition, which, of course, had no effect on the authorities. They never do.
I have fought and campaigned to legalise cannabis since I smoked my first joint in 1964. I wasn’t alone; I merely followed the lead given by rock singers, artists, poets, writers and politicians of the day. A few years later, in 1969, the Wootton Committee, set up by Harold Wilson’s Labour government, concluded cannabis should be decriminalised. It stopped short of legalisation, mainly because the members of the United Nations appeared obligated by international treaty to keep it illegal; the penalties for transgression, however, were left up to each nation’s discretion and varied from no punishment at all to the death penalty. The Wooton Committee suggested no penalties. At the time you couldn’t have asked for more.
However, without providing any justification, Home Secretary James Callaghan refused to carry out the committee’s recommendations. The penalties for cannabis use and dealing were not removed; they were increased. British cannabis users were furious. Some became dedicated dope dealers and spent years in prison. On my release, I took my activism to the limit: I smoked joints on stage, in pubs, restaurants and outside police stations, inviting arrest. Although I was forcibly ejected from a few bars and clubs I was never arrested by the police, who invariably had more important problems. I also took part in hundreds of debates and discussions at university unions and on television and radio, and wrote scores of articles for newspapers and magazines. I was a member of the European Commission-financed British Drug Policy Review Group, a behind-the-scenes group of police, judges, members of the House of Lords, clergymen and academics who wished to see drugs legalised.
