Legalize it,
I will advertise it.
- Peter Tosh

It’s been a big year so far for the movement to de-criminalise marijuana. Uruguay, previously known chiefly for its ability to win the soccer world cup despite its tiny population, has broken the international consensus by de-criminalising marijuana on a national level and making all kinds of sensible noises about accessibility and regulation. Its first mover status is reportedly attracting foreign biotechnology companies to Uruguay in order to study the herb’s medicinal qualities without breaking the law. In the USA the medicinal marijuana laws are headed for a tipping point with 20 out of 5o states allowing citizens to buy marijuana with a doctor’s prescription, and New York soon to join that number.

Yet it’s the mountain state of Colorado that has made the biggest move by unveiling a legal pot industry infrastructure, allowing the growing, distribution and sale of marijuana as a legitimate business. Since the start of 2014, Colorado allows citizens to purchase marijuana legally, and for no particular reason other than to enjoy it. While Colorado won’t yet allow Dutch-style ‘marijuana cafes’ where cannabis can be consumed in public, there’s a real chance that this progressive legalisation is being viewed dimly in Holland, where marijuana cafe owners are already dealing with pressure from neighbouring countries to limit access to cafes to Dutch citizens.

Following the coverage of the Colorado story, I can’t help thinking that had Peter Tosh lived, he would now be earning some serious money doing ads for the Colorado pot shops, which have reportedly been earning $1 million a day since the start of the year. Tosh, to whom the word militant must be attached for propaganda purposes, was not the type of man one associates with product endorsement, and he the closest he came to that was carrying a guitar modelled on an AK47 rifle, but Tosh did after all promise to advertise marijuana once it had been legalized.

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We’ve now sold out of any remaining back issues in hard copy, but we’re now going to make some of the back issues available as digital copies only.
Issues will be delivered by email.

Kennedy, Selassie and the Vietnam question.

In the first week of October, 50 years ago, Haile Selassie made his second public visit to the United States, where he first visited Washington D.C. and then New York. Selassie had visited the United States in the mid-1950s, visiting agricultural colleges to help establish similar programmes in Ethiopia, and meeting with then President Dwight Eisenhower, who later told a press conference in somewhat mysterious terms that he had received some “elementary education” from the Ethiopian leader.

Selassie admired the technological progress of the United States, and had visions of a united Africa that could be developed along the line of the American states. European nations were being forced to relinquish their African colonies and Selassie had established the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa. It was a crucial point in the development of an independent Africa.
Selassie’s visit to the USA in 1963 was important for himself and for Kennedy, and while Selassie had something in common with the old war veteran Eisenhower, this time he was meeting a young war veteran, a President whose youthful demeanour seemed in tune with the possibilities of a new era – and was a potential ally in the Emperor’s broader mission.

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Kingston Be Wise

There’s fewer degrees of separation between Grand Theft Auto Five and the foundation Rasta village of Pinnacle in Sligoville than you might think.

One wonders what Leonard Howell, founder of the Pinnacle, would have thought of the story of his famous experiment showing up on one of the 21st century’s most famous computer games. As an historian, I never fail to be amazed by the extent to which history is arranged, re-arranged, manipulated, covered up or denied. Of course, it’s also simply forgotten or ignored, depending on who is doing the storytelling. Yet the best stories have a way of bubbling back to the surface, and Pinnacle, Jamaica, is certainly one of those.

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