The Howard Marks Book of Dope Stories

by Howard Marks

  In response I told the court how smoking cannabis had given my son, who suffered from leukaemia, extraordinarily effective relief from the pernicious nausea and vomiting caused by some cancer chemotherapies. As someone from the American Embassy later said, ‘You could hear a pin drop in that courtroom.’ As I spoke, the prosecutor began to shuffle and rustle papers intrusively. The judge, who was obviously deeply interested in my story, raised his voice and said, ‘Mr. Alim, are you listening to Dr. Grinspoon? Are you getting this? Do you want him to start from the beginning?’ Alim stopped shuffling papers. When I finished he pursued a few more questions, and abruptly stopped, although he had only asked about two-thirds of the questions on his list. He then conferred with some other government people, one of whom was in uniform. It seemed clear that they were deciding whether to arrest me. Finally he told the judge that he had concluded his cross-examination, and the court was dismissed.

  We were fairly sure that, given his comments during the crosse-examination, the judge would not sentence Kerry to death. We also believed that Alim had decided not to arrest me because the publicity might damage his case even further. However, as we were preparing to leave the courtroom, Allen Kong, legal counsel to the American Embassy, told Shafee and me that I was not out of danger yet, that Alim (the government) might arrest me at Subang airport that night as I left Kuala Lumpur. He gave me a telephone number where he could be reached at the time of my departure. That evening Shafee accompanied me to the airport, where he obtained an airport security badge and walked me through customs and immigration, never leaving my side until the door to the airplane was closed.

  The judge issued his ruling on January 17,1991. He said that ‘on the balance of probabilities there was enough evidence adduced from the accused to show that the cannabis was for his own consumption’ – specifically, ‘to relieve pain from injuries he suffered in a fall off a mountain.’ He was sentenced to five years in jail, of which twenty-six months remained to be served, and, as a mandatory part of the sentence, ten strokes of the rattan. The cane used in Malaysia is particularly cruel and burdens the recipient with some motion limitation and pain for the rest of his life. The sentence will be appealed, and if it fails, Ramsey Clark and I will explore the possibility of a pardon.

  ‘A brief account of my participation as a witness in the trial of Kerry Wiley’, 1991

  Every nation has the government it deserves

  Joseph de Maistre

  United States Supreme Court

  Terrell Don Hutto, Director, Virginia State Department of Corrections, et al., Petitioners, v Roger Trenton Davis

  454 US 370, 70 L Ed 2d 556,102 S Ct 703 [No. 81–23]

  Decided January 11, 1982.

  Decision: Sentence of two consecutive 20-year prison terms and two fines of $10,000 for convictions of possession and distribution of 9 ounces of marijuana, held not to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under Eighth Amendment.

  Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield):

  Column 547

  ‘We have recently heard much about the crime-fighting concept of zero tolerance. Zero tolerance cannot be applied selectively. All minor offences must be punished. Being found in possession of a quantity of drugs should be treated as a serious offence, irrespective of whether it is a small quantity or a first-time offence. If individuals fear being caught with drugs, they are less likely to purchase them, thus hitting the dealers. However, the system currently in operation does not punish possession – that is wrong. I propose a system of zero tolerance for drug abusers, which would mean that those found in possession of an illegal substance would be given an automatic gaol sentence. If I thought that it was remotely possible, I would advocate the death penalty for those in possession of drugs. That works in Singapore and Malaysia, so why not here?’

  House of Commons Hansard Debates for January 17th, 1997

  We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Garnet Brennan

  Marijuana Witchhunt

  MY FRIEND MELKON Melkonian was arrested and held in San Francisco County Jail, charged with sale and possession of marijuana, a year ago last January. He was having trouble raising the high bail set by the judge and had to stay in jail from January until April before friends put up the bond. I was asked to co-sign for his bond since I was a property owner in Marin County.

  Several of us heard we might help his case by signing affidavits attesting to the harmless effects of marijuana and were told to meet in his lawyer’s office. There were about twenty-five others waiting there when I arrived. Mrs. Molly Minudri, the lawyer, told us we could not be arrested for supplying the affidavits but that we might have to be ‘cooler’ about using marijuana.

  Because there were so many of us, we had to take the affidavit blanks home and fill them in ourselves. I got high, wrote out the affidavit, and delivered it to Mrs. Minudri on September 27. In the affidavit I wrote:

  Marijuana is not harmful to my knowledge, because I have been using it since 1949, almost daily, with only beneficial results. It has a relaxing effect when tenseness is present. My depth of perception has been increased; this carries over into times when I am not under the influence of marijuana. Teaching children is my profession. I have been a teacher for thirty years and at present am the teaching-principal of a public school. During school hours I never feel the need of using cannabis sativa; however, each recess is eagerly awaited for smoking tobacco cigarettes. I do not consider marijuana a habit-forming drug, but to me nicotine is.

  I have been smoking one or two marijuana cigarettes every evening; sometimes more if school is not in session. Then I stay up later at night.

  I have known some people who have become momentarily nauseated, but neither I nor anyone I have ever known has had a ‘hangover’ from its use.

  This is a true statement.

  Another of the teachers at my school, Jeff, also wrote an affidavit stating that to his knowledge marijuana is harmless, but he didn’t ‘cop out’ – say that he had used it.

  I continued teaching school and thought no more of it. I was the teaching-principal of a three-teacher public school in Marin County, in the small unincorporated village of Nicasio. In our school we have a total of forty-seven children in grades one through eight, though it is really an upgraded school – we teach the children according to what and when they can learn.

  Melkon’s case came up in court on October 6. Surprisingly, the attorney handed the judge forty-six affidavits from all kinds of lay and professional people. At the time it never occurred to me that my signed affidavit was anything more than a helpful gesture for Melkon.

  On the afternoon of the trial a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle called me at school to tell me that the trial and my affidavit were front-page news. He wanted to get all the details straight. I was rather flabbergasted. It was ten minutes before dismissal time, so I said I would go home and call back immediately. I told Jeff this and he said, ‘Go home at once, this may be something big. I’ll lock up for you.’

  Court had dismissed after 2.00 p.m.; I was phoned before 3.00 p.m. When I called back the Chronicle, Mr. Raudebaugh, who covered the case at court, told me: ‘This is big. Don’t you know the sheriff’s office has been notified, your school board has been notified. Let me come out and take pictures.’ I pleaded with him to keep my school out of the papers. I didn’t want the children to be disturbed by this. He asked for my address and said he’d see me in a few minutes. In near panic, I ran out of my house, got in the car, and drove off, but after a couple of miles I turned back. This was it, I decided. I had no one to hurt, nothing to lose; come what may, I was ready.

  Returning home, I got a paper bag, cleaned out drawers, ashtrays, and disposed of all the evidence.

  Soon an unfamiliar car
appeared. It was the local deputy sheriff, whose sister I had had in school for three years and whose nephew was in my class now. Along with him was an under-sheriff.

  ‘I guess you know why we’re here,’ the deputy sheriff said.

  They came into the living-room and sat grimly on the edges of their chairs. I was relaxed and very calm. They told me they had been sent by the sheriff because I had signed an affidavit saying I had used marijuana, and began asking me questions which I refused to answer, saying I would have to consult my lawyer first. Using marijuana, they said, was illegal, and then asked if they could search my house.

  ‘I understand that a search warrant is legally necessary for this to be done, isn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Do you wish to search illegally?’

  They seemed a bit dumbfounded, hesitated, but finally left, saying, ‘Well, we’ll leave it as it is.’

  In the next two days they tried their best, but no judge in Marin County would sign a search warant and I’ve never since been annoyed by any more law enforcement officers. However, my house is ‘clean.’ I have had no marijuana in the house, nor have I smoked it. This way I am able to prove that marijuana is not addictive or habit-forming, any more than brushing one’s teeth is habit-forming or listening to music is addictive.

  Next day, Saturday, I was undecided about what to do. I didn’t know whether to call my school board or just wait and see what would happen next.

  I’d never been faced with a similar dilemma, so I didn’t know what was expected of me. I’ve always had an adage to go by: ‘When in doubt, don’t.’ So I just waited.

  Soon the phone began ringing – calls from as far away as New York and Chicago. When I saw the story on the front page of the morning Chronicle, I understood why – my name, school district, county affidavit – it was all there in print.

  The sheriff was trying to get a search warrant and my board was meeting. I just sat tight and waited. In the afternoon, a long panel truck with KPIX printed in large letters on the side came up the lane. Two men grinding cameras came across the little Japanese footbridge that leads to my house. They interviewed me on the deck of my house. It was a good interview, easy for me, because I had nothing to hide. All was truth, unadulterated and guileless. The camera continued to grind; the interviewers were kind and sympathetic, although I didn’t feel I needed their sympathy.

  That evening, watching the news on TV, I saw, for the first time, how things actually looked to the world.

  On Sunday, after many pictures, interview after interview, and interminable calls (I completely lost track of who wanted to know what), two members of my school board arrived, looking sick at heart, sad and pale, among the cameras and newspaper people. They handed me my notice of suspension so I would be sure not to appear at school the next morning.

  That evening, returning alone from an Ellington concert, I found more people waiting for me at home. Interviews by tape went on into the night; even a radio broadcast from my home by telephone for the midnight news. Things were really jumping; I still felt fine and very happy because all the country was being informed about what was happening.

  On Monday, I’ve been told, the school was abuzz; TV equipment, parents bringing children to protect them from me in case I arrived, my school board, two members of the multitudinous county-office staff, all making sure that school would go on as usual.

  Can my children understand how on Friday evening we lovingly said good night to one another and on Monday morning they had to be protected against me – all because of my telling the truth and trying to help a friend in need? Suddenly, I had become a threat to them. The children and I have been trying to be truthful, guiltless, unharmful to others and loving. Is this the way it is done?

  Mrs. Minudri, now my lawyer, had been advised by Judge Karish that he would give us two weeks to get as many affidavits as we could, so I had many forms to give out. The same day I was to be interviewed by KPIX-TV and was due at 2.30 p.m. at Mrs. Minudri’s office. She hadn’t arrived but the cameramen and interviewers had.

  We had to appear at my school for a board meeting that night so that my fate might be determined. En route we were to stop at the home of Hugh Hinchliffe, the present chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Repeal of the Marijuana Laws. There we met more cameramen for more interviews. Melkon, Molly, and I were all interviewed and photographed until finally I had to call the school to say we’d be about twenty or thirty minutes late. We were followed by a TV wagon to show them the way.

  At the school ground we found the space completely filled with cars, trucks, and masses of parents, hippies, sympathizers I had never met before, and the simply curious.

  As we entered, giggling and hurrying into the glare of lights and more grinding cameras, a path was cleared down the center of the room and I was seated in the front row facing a long table with three grim-faced board members, their attorney and secretary. All around the edges were the cameras and the constantly moving men with the long cords and mikes.

  The board meeting was already under way when we arrived. Only a few of my parents took part in the discussion, saying what a good teacher I was, how they had liked me and what I was doing, but, since I had said what I had, I had broken the law and could no longer be allowed to teach their children. Some parents, whose children I had previously taught, expressed good opinions of my teaching and begged tolerance and understanding. Several so-called hippies spoke well, some were too highly agitated to express their actual feelings. The deputy sheriff who had come to my house said, ‘Why do we need this riff-raff from the city to tell us what to do? We already know what we’re going to do.’

  The verbal battle raged back and forth; hypocrisy was thick in the air. I sat quietly listening, tired and cool, just waiting. Mrs. Minudri talked for me superbly. We had agreed beforehand that the final decision would be made in a closed executive session.

  After some time, the board, two lawyers, the secretary, a man from the county office, and I retired to another room downstairs where they asked me if I wouldn’t just resign. I couldn’t bear to do this, so I refused, flatly. We talked for about an hour, very pleasantly and quietly, and decided how things were to be. The assistant county superintendent of schools, who had been there all day, said, ‘I never visited a better-organized school.’ The three board members moved to a corner and made their unanimous vote to dismiss me from my duties. The lawyers then discussed how to inform the full meeting upstairs of the decision, and how to cut off all further discussion by adjourning the meeting forthwith. Of course, I told them my response would be that I would appeal the case, even to the Supreme Court, if necessary. This was accepted pleasantly.

  We filed back into the room with the glaring lights and grinding machines. After a stumbling reading of the prepared statement, we adjourned. All at once, I was pounced upon (like a presidential candidate who had just lost) with seventeen microphones thrust at my face, and behind each mike, a man with a question. I merely said, ‘Of course, I shall appeal.’ Then: ‘Under the circumstances, due to the expressed feelings of the people voted for the trustees, they had no other alternative than to fire me.’

  We finally maneuvered our way to the door through the downcast looks of my children’s parents. I was stopped by one mother with whom I had been very friendly. She and I used to discuss freely with great understanding the problems of her three children who had been in my classes. Now she said, ‘Oh, Garnet, please don’t hate me!’

  It was late in 1949 when I first had marijuana. I was living in Monterey and was invited to visit friends in Big Sur. After dinner, sitting around the fireplace, the man rolled a marijuana cigarette. He always rolled his own tobacco, so I thought nothing of it until he handed it first to his wife, then to me.

  I had been curious about marijuana for a long time but had never made the effort to get hold of any. They taught me how to smoke it and it was at once a delight. I really felt like Alice in Wonderland – when I stood
up, I kept growing, my arms became long, and I felt I might be able to fly into the Pacific when I went outside. But, of course, nothing around me was abnormal and I was aware of this. The next day was fine; everything was the same. I’m not sure what I expected, but having heard some of the myths about marijuana (which I felt to be untrue), I couldn’t be sure . . .

  I never used marijuana while at school, or in the morning before going to school. There was never any need for it. I did find it helpful in dealing with student problems – checking papers, making out grade cards, reports and cumulative records. I never found it necessary to write derogatory comments on files that would follow a child through life; marijuana always helped me find something good to say about the student . . .

  For me, marijuana has been a fine relaxant, a beautiful cocktail before dinner, a great source of deepening perception, but I would never recommend its use for ‘mixed-up’ people or children. Kids are already ‘turned on’ if they are just allowed to be. I would never recommend its use in excess by anyone. In fact, it is difficult for most normal people to use it in excess because marijuana imposes its own limits when you have had enough. You don’t need or want any more. Yet, when you will it, you can use it without the fear that it will ever become the ‘Boss.’

  In the meantime, I have received more than one hundred letters of support from all over the US, as well as three from boys in Vietnam. Only three letters, from retired, misinformed, unenlightened school teachers, were critical. The Craig Biddle Interim Congressional Committee studying Criminal Procedure invited me as a witness, and I was interviewed by Hugh Downs on his Today Show in Los Angeles. I have also taken part in several college panel discussions on the subject of marijuana.

  Let us hope all this will lead to changes in our laws to bring them more in line with the ideals expressed in our constitution, and strengthen the guarantees protecting the freedom of speech – for all teachers. Perhaps it will also help to open the minds of people to confront our changing world with more tolerance and thoughtfulness. May we all come to truly enjoy ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.’