Senor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America

by Howard Marks

  A few days later I offered my passport to an Italian immigration officer at Rome airport. He snatched it from my hand, stuck it under a light and signalled to two armed policemen standing nearby. They frogmarched me into a holding room and motioned me to sit down. Familiar feelings flooded in. I had been in this situation countless times, but I usually knew why. This time I had no idea. The immigration officer’s behaviour suggested my name was on a hot list. How could I possibly be wanted by the Italian authorities? I hadn’t set foot in the country since the 1980s, and apart from the consumption of drugs had not broken any country’s laws since my arrest by Spanish and American authorities in 1988. There was only one explanation: I was going to be arrested for my activities during the 1970s. Perhaps Italian law also had no statute of limitations.

  However, the unwritten policy adopted by most countries lacking statute of limitations legislation is not to prosecute if the offender of long ago seems rehabilitated, reformed and unlikely to reoffend. As I had spent nine years in prison since breaking Italian law and was making my income through writing and performing, I should clearly fall into this category. But one never knows. Italy, with its passion for dictators, had recently moved to the right by electing the country’s richest man, Silvio Berlusconi, as its prime minister. He was fiercely anti-drugs, a strong ally of President Bush and a personal friend of Tony Blair – who took summer holidays at his home. Berlusconi liked to make a big deal of being tough on criminals, past and present. Although Mr Nice does not set out to glamorise crime, Berlusconi’s cronies might not agree. I was a perfect target.

  On the other hand, perhaps the Italian authorities simply wanted to treat me as persona non grata and send me back to the UK – as had happened to me when I tried to enter Hong Kong three years earlier. I could handle that; Italy’s attractions were beginning to wear thin.

  The immigration officer who had taken my passport marched noisily into the room. ‘You English?’ he barked.

  ‘No, I’m Welsh. I’m British.’

  ‘You speak English?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘What is this?’ he asked, brandishing my passport.

  ‘It’s my passport.’

  ‘I don’t mean the passport,’ he bellowed. ‘I mean this other document.’

  My passport was in a holder which also contained a few credit cards, my driving licence and a laminated colour photocopy of my Spanish Residencia, a document showing I had the right to live in Spain. I had been advised to carry a copy with me while travelling but to leave the original in Spain as it would be costly and time-consuming to replace.

  ‘It shows I am allowed to live in Spain.’

  ‘It’s false.’

  ‘It’s not false; it’s a copy of the real one.’

  ‘It’s false. You should not carry false documents into our country. It is illegal.’

  ‘I also have a photocopy of my passport in my briefcase. Is that illegal, too?’

  He began to look sheepish and a bit flustered. Now was the time to strike. ‘Excuse me, officer, but I am not required by law to have my original Spanish Residencia on me to enter Italy. I am not even legally bound to carry a valid passport. I merely have to provide you with proof of my identity. I have presented you with my valid British passport, a valid driving licence and some credit cards. It doesn’t matter what photocopies I am also carrying. That is not your concern. If you are not satisfied I am who I say I am, then please contact your superior, the British embassy, or the Spanish embassy. And please do it quickly. I have a busy day ahead. Also, there are several people from the Italian media waiting for me at the airport here, and I am sure they will soon want to know why I’m being detained.’

  ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘Me too. Now can we please get on with it?’

  He threw my documents on the floor and stormed out, followed by the two policemen. One of them winked at me as he left. I picked up my documents and began the long walk to the baggage carousels. I rammed a cigarette into my mouth – the experience had been nerve-racking. Two other armed officers wearing different uniforms ran up to me. ‘No smoking,’ one of them said aggressively. ‘Put it out now. Next time we arrest you.’ Italy had changed.

  My suitcase was the only one left on the carousel. I picked it up and headed for the green channel, fully expecting to be stopped and searched by more armed officials wearing yet another style of uniform, but they ignored me. They’d had plenty of time to search my case. It did contain a little piece of hashish, but I had hidden it well in a partially used toothpaste tube. Fuck them.

  My poor opinion of today’s Italy improved markedly as soon as I met my publishers, most of whom were young and beautiful. They were furious at the treatment dished out to me by the immigration officer and treated me royally. Time was scarce, and I was whisked away to the Spanish Steps for an alfresco interview. The questions were stricter than usual.

  ‘Mr Marks, can you honestly say that cannabis is completely harmless?’

  ‘It might well adversely affect a small minority, and I am sure it is a totally inappropriate drug for many others. I would advise such people not to take it.’

  ‘So you admit it’s harmful?’

  ‘Yes, but a lot less harmful than other recreational drugs, including tobacco and coffee.’

  ‘But why, Mr Marks, do you want to legalise something you admit might be harmful to those who take it?’

  ‘Many harmful things are legal, such as cars and kitchen knives. Some people have died from eating carrots or peanuts. My point is that cannabis would be less harmful to society if legalised and controlled rather than left to gangsters like me to hawk outside schools.’

  ‘But, Mr Marks, the same argument could be used to legalise cocaine, ecstasy even heroin.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So you think all drugs should be legalised?’

  ‘All the ones that I’ve taken, for sure. And that includes cocaine, ecstasy and heroin, and God knows what else. Each one of them would be safer if not prohibited. I suppose one has to allow for the possibility of one day someone discovering or synthesising a drug that when taken produces the wilful desire to murder, maim and rape. In which case, it should be illegal. But I have never come across such a drug. The only one that gets close is this one, alcohol.’

  I raised my glass in a toast to Rome. So did everyone else.

  The interview was followed by a long lunch, which in turn was followed, almost immediately, by an even longer dinner. My good memories of life in Italy returned

  The next day the publishers and I scoured the newspapers over our coffee and sweet pastries. The headlines were predictable: ‘Oxford Professor Says “Legalise heroin”’ and ‘British Secret Service Agent Sells Drugs to Schoolchildren’, or words to that effect. We weren’t bothered; we knew as far as publicity was concerned the criterion of success was the space devoted to the topic, not what was written.

  I flew to Palermo, stronghold of the world’s greatest criminal organisation, and checked into the Villa Igiea, a castle-shaped art nouveau villa originally belonging to the Florio family, the first people ever to put tuna in cans. With a sweeping view of the Bay of Palermo and jasmine-laden terraced gardens, it was the favourite Palermo hotel of Mafia boss Lucky Luciano. I had stayed there during my first brief visit to Sicily in 1982. The enormous American bar was empty but open. I drank as much grappa, my favourite Italian spirit, as I could.

  At the buffet breakfast the next morning the formally dressed waiters discomfited me by staring at my unmanicured nails, dishevelled hair and clothes adorned with unknown labels. After a swim in the hotel pool – situated next to an ancient temple – I wandered into town, ogled unashamedly the beauties sporting the latest Milanese and Florentine fashions, dodged the Vespas and the baby buggies, and bought some cigarettes at an exquisite tabaccherìa. I walked inside il cattedrale – which displays St Agatha’s arm and Mary Magdalene’s foot – and offered prayers from my imprisoned Italian fri
ends. I had to eat lunch at the Grande Albergo e delle Palme, where Mafia leaders met in October 1957 to organise the world’s drug trade; my fellow inmate Antonio Aiello, sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the Pizza Connection, had pleaded with me to do so. He used to eat there every day. After a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, I began to think of my days with the Mob.

  Although there is at least one alternative theory – that mafia derives from the Arabic mu’afah meaning refuge or protection – it is widely thought that mafia is an acronym of Morte ai Francesi Italiani allarme (Death to all French threatened by the Italians), the rallying cry of the Sicilian Vespers, a thirteenth-century insurrection again French rule. The French gave way to Spanish and then Austrian despots and even Garibaldi’s nineteenth-century unification fell far short of Sicilian expectations: the island was still ruled by remote and uncaring bureaucrats, only now from Rome. By this time the Mafia was a significant presence in Sicilian society and political life.

  Organised crime can be spawned by irrational and unjust laws. During the early years of the twentieth century the United States government told hundreds of thousands of its new Italian citizens they could no longer continue their traditional customs of drinking a glass of wine and buying a lottery ticket. Prohibition and eliminating numbers rackets were the orders of the day. The Mafia saw its opportunity. Legal and illegal economies intertwined, as did criminal organisations, social institutions and political bodies. This mixture of illegal and legal, criminal and institutional is at the heart of the Mafia, which traditionally regards violence and illegality as acceptable ways to survive and gain a social role when the legal economy is too weak to offer opportunities. Government and institutions are distant, foreign and approachable only through mediating Mafiosi. For the Mafia, rights do not exist; there are only favours bestowed within a sinister network of common interests.

  While Prohibition was eventually repealed in the USA, life had got rougher back in Sicily and Mussolini had driven the Mafia deeper underground. Popular discontent continued to be displayed through banditry and its accompanying omertà – law of silence – an attitude deeply rooted in romantic law-breaking and criminal nepotism. The United States seemed a far more sympathetic home than Italy, so much so that the Mafia, through Lucky Luciano, facilitated the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily and Italy in 1943. Sicilians obviously expected some proper reward for their unconventional wartime services, such as annexation to the United States or membership of the British empire or full independence. Instead, anarchy, hunger and a problematic regional assembly followed the Second World War. Corruption was rife, and the island became littered with half-finished building projects – evidence of Mafia involvement.

  I took a taxi for the thirty-minute drive to Corleone, the celluloid home of the Mafia. I saw nothing to suggest the presence of a criminal organisation or reminiscent of a Hollywood movie. The same taxi took me back. Some believe the drug-dealing Mafia is the creation of pulp-thriller writers, a legend fostered by a sensationalist press and fuelled by Italian and United States governments eager for scapegoats. Mario Puzo claimed that his choice for the birthplace and nursery of the mythical Corleone crime family was random; Corleone could, he said, just as well have been any of a thousand other tiny Sicilian villages. However, when il capo dei tutti capi, the boss of all bosses, Salvatore Riina was arrested in 1993 it was revealed that he had lived there undisturbed for over twenty years with his children registered at the local school and hospital. Perhaps Riina had moved there after seeing The Godfather. Perhaps all the Mafiosi were in Palermo’s Ucciardone prison, collaborating with the warders to secure good food in return for no escapes. Or is the Mafia still as invisible as it is ineradicable? I spent the evening sending postcards to United States penitentiaries.

  The next morning, a Saturday, I flew to Milan to be met by the same glamorous team of publishers and publicity agents, now accompanied by a group of men wearing a mixture of punk and biker clothes and holding tightly on to the leads of large ferocious dogs. One of the men approached me and held out his hand.

  ‘Buongiorno. Signore Nice. Benvenuto a Milano. Sono Alberto de Ya Basta. Andiamo per favore.’

  Alberto drove; I sat next to him, and an Alsatian covered the back seat. After about forty minutes we arrived outside a huge fortress-like building covered in murals and surrounded by parked cars. A sign showed we were at the Centro Sociale Leoncavallo, the venue for my evening talk.

  Italian social centres are based in abandoned buildings – warehouses, factories, military forts, schools – occupied by squatters and transformed into cultural and political hubs explicitly free from state control. This revolutionary culture has developed out of need. Politicians of all persuasions are continually caught up in corruption scandals, and large numbers of Italians have understandably inferred that it is power itself that corrupts. Spearheaded by the well-disciplined Ya Basta (Enough is Enough) of Milan, the social centre network is a parallel political framework serving the needs of the community around each centre and providing alternative services, such as child-care and advocacy for refugees. It also confronts the state through direct action. In the centres culture and politics mix; a meeting about unionising fast-food workers could easily finish as a rave. Italy has three or four hundred autonomous social centres and the Leoncavallo in Milan is the oldest and biggest. Keeping the same name and upholding its role as an anarchist urban guerilla anti-fascist collective, it has changed its location several times. The last was in 1994, when Ya Basta mobilised 20,000 people to reclaim the current site from the authorities.

  Alberto, I and his dog walked into the Leoncavallo complex, which comprises a concert hall, conference room, skateboard ramp, cinema, several indoor and outdoor bars and restaurants, a children’s area, art exhibition halls, bookshops and masses of workshop space. Several posters advertised that evening’s line-up of speakers. One was talking about the Arab–Israeli conflict, another about raising ecological awareness. There was a debate about Iraq and a forum on how to curb the state’s unconstitutional excesses in countering terrorism. I was speaking about the need to legalise cannabis.

  My speech emphasised the dismal failure of prohibition – people were taking more drugs than ever. I outlined the new dangers provided by such policies: honest people were being made into criminals (bringing the rule of law into disrepute), unchecked poisons were flooding the streets, and various criminal and terrorist organisations were being provided with a ready means of funding their operations. Then I pointed out the irrationality and futility of trying to legislate against those wishing to change their states of mind by ingesting natural substances and ended with my well-rehearsed conclusion: ‘Prohibition is not control and should not be equated with control. It is the abrogation of control leading to unregulated peddling of adulterated substances outside the reach of the law. It would be difficult to frame, even if one deliberately contrived so to do, a policy more physically dangerous, more individually criminalising, or more socially destructive. Prohibition is an extremely dangerous social experiment and should be dismantled as soon as possible.’

  The audience applauded. The marijuana smoke enveloping the auditorium suggested I was preaching to the converted. I invited questions.

  ‘Which political party do you think should and will dismantle prohibition?’

  ‘Either the extreme right based on individual privacy or the extreme left based on harm reduction. It doesn’t matter. I think everyone has the right to get stoned. I don’t think politics need to come into it.’

  ‘But you formed a political party and stood at the 1997 British general election. How can you say that politics is unimportant?’

  ‘I did that merely to draw attention to the legalisation issue. I would hate to be a politician. Most of the ones I have met have been lying, insincere wankers. As far as I’m concerned, I would always vote for the party with the most liberal drug policy, even if it was the Nazis.’

  Uncomfortable shuffles and murmurs
of disapproval convinced me I was being far too flippant with my answers to this politically hypersensitive audience. I tried to rescue myself.

  ‘Let me make myself clear. I spent the first nineteen years of my life in a socially and economically depressed mining community in South Wales. If a pig had stood for election against a member of the Tory or any other right-wing party, we would, without exception, have voted for the pig.’

  A few cackles of laughter replaced the mutterings of discontent.

  ‘How can you justify, Mr Marks, supporting the legalisation of cannabis and socialist policies when you made millions out of its illegality?’

  ‘In the same way that doctors welcome the discovery of effective cures despite making their living from disease. Would a wealthy funeral director have to be a hit man to be consistent?’

  A few dissenting voices came from various sections of the audience, but now they were arguing with one another, not me. I could handle that.

  ‘I hear you have a seed bank in Switzerland selling cannabis seeds around the world. Does this not make you a capitalist?’

  ‘It’s not my seed company; I don’t own any part of it; and it pays me no money.’

  ‘But it is called Mr Nice Seedbank, is it not? I have here an Italian magazine with an article about it.’

  ‘Mr Nice is not my name.’

  ‘But a photograph of your face is on the front of every packet. Why have you allowed this if you have no interest in the company?’

  ‘It’s a photograph of the front cover of my book. I don’t own the copyright of the photograph and have no control over its use. I said I did not own any part of Mr Nice Seedbank; I did not say I had no interest. I am interested. A close friend of mine owns the company; I approve of people being able to grow their own marijuana; and the use of the name and cover of my book might increase its sales.’