Recreationals will always find a way, but let’s not make the sick have to find a way.

Help to the sick should be the default!

So let’s legalise marijuana.

Zoran Kesić

Before I expose myself to public prosecution of the Straight Men Society, before the Council of Proper Behaviour, Altruists’ Society and the tabloids crucify me as a ‘druggie’, before I’m loud and clear in saying – yes, of course I am in favour of legalising marijuana – let me tell you a couple of things about the misuse of this wonderful, useful, and healing plant, man’s companion for almost 5,000 years.

Jovanjica.

That’s basically it when it comes to misuse.

The story of the ‘uncovering’ of the largest illegal marijuana plantation in Europe, a plantation that would not exist without the support of state, police and military services, a plantation that was discovered ‘accidentally’, a plantation whose discovery was shockingly not accompanied by the usual: ‘a great success of Serbian police and government led by…’. On the contrary, an attempt has been made to cover it up, so this story is also the best answer to the question – why does the State not want to legalise marijuana?

They’re not crazy to leave this cash cow (which by the way, eats grass) to someone else, to laws, regulations, controls, and taxes. Ha! Taxes. Let’s take a second to roll another bit of information.

The Netherlands, for example, earns about 500 million euros a year from the taxes paid by ‘coffee shops’ alone. We can only guess how much more is earned from tourists who come to the Netherlands for the weed (ok, fine, and the other thing).

I wouldn’t keep leveraging countries that have legalised weed, pointing out their living standard, overall wellness, health and the lucky individuals living there to draw a parallel of the ‘why wouldn’t we’ sort, but let’s mention just one more.

Canada.

Even if you had to take a guess based on the following clues:  a) safety, b) calm, peaceful state, c) maybe even a little bit boring because everyone there is so cool and normal, d) Vulin’s aunt, I’m sure you’d have the right answer. Even without the clue of Vulin’s aunt.

And if we know all that, and we do, the question remains – what is up with our country, and why does it not implore logic? Isn’t it in its best interest to suppress abuse, to control growing, import and sale, to open a large number of new jobs, to attract tourists and, above all, to earn more?

It is in the interest of the State, but obviously not of the statesmen.

We can pretend to be stupid, naive, or just high, and therefore not see who doesn’t like the idea of legalisation and why.

But it is difficult to come to terms with the complete lack of empathy and the fact that, even for medical purposes, marijuana has not yet been legalized.

People for whom this plant is a medicine, people for whom it relieves pain, people who desperately need marijuana, often in the form of oil, have been turned into criminals.

Patients become dealers, and the sick are not sick but probably ‘just haughty’.

The Minister of Police,  above-mentioned Vulin, recently bravely announced in a burst of inspiration that  ‘we will arrest everyone with a gram of marijuana’.

The minister can afford it because he obviously has less than a gram. Of brain mass.

That same guy who visited Jovanjica, smiled for the cameras, hoed around the tomatoes, and praised the plantation owner, now patrols the streets of our cities, searching kids’ pockets, and arresting them for an amount of weed you couldn’t even roll a decent joint from.

It’s indisputable that both the minister and his entire crowd will soon, so to speak, be smoked out. The joint’s almost down to the carton.

But regardless of the current government, there are things worth fighting for, and one of them is the fight for the patient’s right to medicine.

Recreationals will always find a way,  but let’s not make the sick have to find a way.

Help to the sick should be the default!

So let’s legalise marijuana.

Let’s make Serbia better!

…

Bonus emotional tale: Toma’s smoke

Toma’s smoke is the last puff of the joint, the mix of the last bit of weed, mostly tobacco, and cardboard, which makes your lungs burn and provokes an inevitable cough.

Toma’s smoke comes after  ‘that’s it, this one’s done’.

Pure enthusiasm and nostalgia for something that’s already (just) gone.

The name comes from twenty odd years ago, from then TV channel Studio B’s break rooms for cameramen, editors, and journalists – there was a guy called Toma who could throw a carton (stub) from the 22nd floor of the Beogradjanka building, through the several-meter-high windows, so well that it elegantly, almost athletically, jumped over the glass barrier and fell from over a hundred meters onto one of the neighbouring streets – Narodnog Fronta, Sprskih Vladara, Resavska…

An unskilled thrower wouldn’t be able to throw the carton that high, or it would take him several tries. Toma, however, always could, so each last puff was always his. And from there we have the expression ‘he who doesn’t choke on the carton, doesn’t get high on the weed’.