‘The best skunk on the planet, in my humble opinion.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘It has no name yet, just a number, G13, with a very interesting history – one that will greatly amuse you, I am sure. Several years ago the DEA started growing cannabis themselves to know what they were fighting against. Obviously, as the American government, they had all the technology, botanical expertise and money they needed, and they succeeded in growing fantastic marijuana. One strain was so strong that even the DEA could not keep it a secret. A woman friend of mine was dating a DEA agent at the time. She managed to get a cutting and smuggle it back to me here, where through careful breeding I have kept its magic alive. I’m going to put the seed on the market this year.’
‘That is amusing, Ben. Hilarious, in fact. By the way, this is Justin Rees.’
‘Ah yes. We have talked on the phone. You are going to film us at my grow rooms, no? We might as well leave right now, as I have to go there to get more seed stock. It sells like hot cakes at these events. Let us go. I’ll show you the G13 plants.’
Ben drove us to the grow rooms, about fifty kilometres from Amsterdam. We smoked weed all the way. Ben had come a long way since we were minor dealers and smugglers in the early 1970s, selling a few kilos of hashish a week. We were doing all right; we knew we were in the right business and would soon be rich. As some of us graduated to selling tens of kilos a week, we laughed at Ben as he went in the other direction and starting selling grams over the counter at Holland’s first coffee shop in Rotterdam. Now Ben legally owned and profited from a cannabis seed bank, a hemp factory, his Cannabis Museum and Cannabis Castle, which Easyjet advertises in its inflight magazine. The rest of us have records as long as our arms, and Easynet blocks our websites.
The grow rooms were huge steel vaults. Inside, undulating Rousseau green plants glistened in the disco sunlight. Engulfed in marijuana, I interviewed Ben. My lack of expertise would not show; I just had to ask questions. It worked. Justin was very pleased.
On the way out Ben pulled me aside. ‘Would you mind if I called the G13 strain Mr Nice?’
‘Of course not; I’d be flattered.’
Ben drove us back to the Pax Party House where the results of the 1998 Cup were about to be announced. Sensi did not do well; almost every prize went to the Greenhouse Seed Company. Ben politely introduced me to the two guys who ran the winning outfit, an Australian named Scott Blakey and a Dutchman called Arjan. I immediately liked Scott and settled down to a long chat with him.
Back at the Okura, in the lobby bar, Justin revealed his next idea: ‘Are you OK to do a similar interview in Switzerland tomorrow? You mentioned that at some point you had a problem with the Swiss authorities. Have you been arrested there as well?’
‘No, but I did have a Swiss bank account in which I deposited my ill-gotten gains.’
‘Do you still have it?’
‘I wish. No, the DEA grabbed it once I was convicted of racketeering.’
‘I didn’t think they could do that. You mean the Swiss authorities handed over funds in your private numbered bank account to the DEA?’
‘Justin, the DEA can do whatever the fuck they want whenever and wherever. They have no problem ordering the fucking gnomes of Zurich to do exactly what they wish with any money in their banks. That has been the case since 1972, when Nixon formed the DEA. Only a Nazi with a stash of stolen Jewish loot is safe to bank in Switzerland.’
‘You don’t like the Swiss, I can tell.’
‘I have some good Swiss friends, but most of the population are hypocrites hell-bent on sucking American arse and profiting from the rest of the world’s misery. The only good thing about Switzerland is what the Swiss had nothing to do with – the scenery.’
‘But are there any outstanding charges against you in Switzerland?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘So you have no objection if I book flights to Zurich tomorrow.’
‘No, that’s fine.’
‘The dope plants, apparently completely legal, are near Zurich. After we do that, I thought we could go down to the Italian border and film you trying to dig up your Mr Nice passport. You buried it there, right? Campione d’Italia wasn’t it?’
‘You can’t believe how much I would love to go back there.’
For most of the 1970s I was a fugitive living under different names all over the world carrying on my dope-smuggling career. At various stages I rented accommodation in the United Kingdom, Eire, Pakistan, Thailand, Hong Kong, New York and Italy. My favourite place was Campione d’Italia, a tiny exquisite village ten kilometres from Lugano. The Romans founded the settlement and named it Campilyeus (Field of Bacchus) because of the profusion of naturally flourishing vines. Although its institutions and the forces of law and order come under Italian authority, Campione d’Italia is surrounded by Swiss territory. Its only access to the rest of Italy is via a boat ride across Lake Lugano to the truly Italian Ponte Teresa. Telephone, electricity and water services are Swiss. The policemen wear Italian uniforms but drive cars with Swiss number plates. The lavish restaurants and bars happily accept Swiss francs, euros or indeed any other currency. Campione d’Italia’s visible economic hub is a casino. Originally built by Mussolini, it once was a haven for spies. Now, enticing personalities from the high echelons of Italian state bureaucracy into rooms sparkling with bright lights and beautiful women, it hosts cultural events, fashion parades and jazz and rock concerts. With a secret tunnel, known to everyone, connecting the casino to the priest’s house, it also continues to function as a gambling den. There are just 2,000 residents of Campione d’Italia, most of whom seem wealthy, but tens of thousands of offshore companies are registered within its confines. Both Swiss and Italian tax can be easily evaded. People ask no questions and mind their own lucrative businesses. I loved living there, and did so under the name Mr Nice.
One day during the first few months of 1980 I received information that both the DEA and HM Customs & Excise suspected me of importing marijuana and had a rough idea where I might be living. I ate one more delicious drunken meal at the village’s best restaurant, the Taverna, put the Mr Nice passport in my safe, took out another one I had recently acquired, had one last look at the reflection of my apartment in Lake Lugano, and flew unmolested into London’s Heathrow Airport. A few days later I sent one of my dealing partners, Jarvis, to empty the apartment of its contents. He buried the Mr Nice passport in Campione d’Italia’s public gardens. Although I made a couple of nostalgic visits back in the early 1980s, I kept away from the burial place. During 1983, a fleet of Italian police boats crossed Lake Lugano and invaded Campione d’Italia, arresting several people. There was a blaze of publicity about eradicating the Mafia. The casino closed down. I had not been back there since.
We rented a car at Zurich airport. Half an hour later, Justin, the cameraman and I were walking up a minor Alp through a large field full of tall marijuana plants. Guiding us was Rolf Schroder, with whom Justin had arranged our visit. Extensive greenhouses crammed with short bushy dope plants bordered the field. Next to the greenhouses was a large outhouse in which several dozen women of apparently Bosnian origin were trimming recently cut buds of high-quality marijuana, laughing and joking as they did so. There were neither security fences nor armed guards. Nearby we could see a motorway. Slightly further away were the spires of the city of Zurich. I had expected some government-sanctioned research centre growing a plant or two, not a full-on plantation. The cameraman pulled out his video, and I began interviewing Rolf.
Swiss law explicitly states that marijuana is prohibited from being cultivated, imported or sold if grown for the production of narcotics. Marijuana not intended for this purpose, however, may be bought, sold and possessed. The plant is not illegal in itself. Even cannabis extract, cannabis tincture, as well as cannabis oil – which often has a THC content close to 90 per cent – are neither illegal nor regulated if not intended for use as narcotics. So, if you cultivate hemp for its seed
, its pulp or its essential oil, you do not break Swiss law. I was beginning to warm to the Swiss.
In the early 1990s a farmer friend of Rolf planted one hectare of marijuana. He destroyed all the males, preventing the plants from pollinating themselves, a technique used in the production of marijuana for smoking rather than for industrial purposes, claiming, however, that pulling the males increased the ornamental value as well as the aroma of the flowers. Unsurprisingly, local law enforcement officers were cynical about his motives and ploughed up the whole field, accusing the farmer of narcotics production. He predictably lost his case in the local court and took it to the supreme court, arguing that the police had acted in an arbitrary fashion by assuming his marijuana was intended for illegal purposes while failing to present any proof.
It can take several years to get heard in the Swiss supreme court, so the farmer had to decide whether to continue growing marijuana, risking further harassment and a harsher sentence, or wait until the court ruled. He decided to take the risk and planted another hectare. The police ploughed again, but this time without a valid warrant from a judge.
Meanwhile, the case surrounding the farmer’s first crop had reached the supreme court, which to everyone’s astonishment found in his favour and ordered the government to compensate him to the tune of almost two million Swiss francs. In another case in Switzerland a marijuana grower was repaid for his confiscated marijuana after proving his crop had been sold to a beer brewing company, thus excluding any possibility of unlawful use.
If cultivating marijuana is legal, it follows that its sale must be equally legal. The problem was finding a marijuana product which could be marketed for legal use but which contained the most psychoactive parts of the plant – the seedless flowers. Another of Rolf’s friends, who lived in Zurich, dreamed up the brilliant idea of the aromatherapy pillow, a bag of high-grade marijuana in a pillowcase carrying a stern warning that the buyer must handle the product in strict accordance with national law and not use it as a narcotic nor export it. If the dope was for sniffing rather than smoking it was OK to sell it and buy it.
The first pillows consisted of hemp-fibre bags containing low-to-medium-potency marijuana flowers and sold at rather modest prices. Customers had to show proof of age and agree to use the product legally. As the market evolved, quality and choice increased until eventually one could buy everything from cheap low-potency outdoor weed to high-grade indoor primo bud from a local retailer. Hundreds of kilograms of marijuana and millions of Swiss francs changed hands every day, and nobody seemed bothered. In 1997 Switzerland produced enough high-potency marijuana to supply the entire European market. Each large town in the country had its own marijuana grow shop, while nearby cities in Germany, France and Italy had five or six. Retailers advertised their aroma-bags in clubs and discos.
But the party didn’t last forever.
James Blunt of Zurich was the marijuana shop to get serious attention from the media when it was busted. It was selling a wide variety of different-sized aroma-bags and had a reputation for good quality and creative marketing ideas. While others sold their products in hand-labelled Ziplocs from nondescript outlets, James Blunt offered elaborate packaging and a store with an atmosphere comparable to Holland’s best coffee shops. James himself provided information about potency and taste on his merchandise, making it obvious that he was not selling marijuana solely for aromatherapy. The prosecutor in Zurich used him as a test case. As expected, he was quickly found guilty, sentenced to several months on probation and ordered to pay a hefty fine. This constituted a major victory for the anti-marijuana establishment, which thereupon declared all grow shops in the canton of Zurich illegal and open to prosecution. The case also provided many other Swiss judges with a precedent to justify prosecutions in their cantons.
Switzerland consists of twenty-five semi-autonomous cantons with powers similar to those of American states. Narcotics law is national, but the various cantons treat the same crime in different ways. While cultivating marijuana has been decreed legal by the highest court in Switzerland, there has been no such ruling on its sale, which leads to contrasting cantonal positions. Geneva and the rest of the French cantons reacted to the Blunt case by closing all the newly opened grow shops immediately. In Zurich and other German cantons reactions were mixed but generally tolerant. The Italian area, including Lugano, where Justin and I were bound later, had hardly reacted at all.
Justin was delighted with the footage. I nicked a few marijuana buds, and we drove over the snow-clad Alps, through the San Gotthard Pass, out of the German part of Switzerland and into Ticino, the only Italian canton of Switzerland. The difference was marked not only by the warmer Mediterranean climate but also by the mainly Latin architecture, language and cuisine.
At Campione d’Italia there is no obvious border; there is not even a shed, just a concrete arch crowned with the Italian flag and a normally vacant lay-by where police and border guards may park if they wish. The three of us checked into the Hotel Campione, which despite its name is not in Campione d’Italia but just the other side of the arch in Switzerland. Freshly showered and clothed, we walked across the border and made our way down to the lake. Nothing much had changed other than the Taverna had halved in size, while the casino had long reopened and was being rebuilt to twenty times its original capacity. We ate at the Taverna, of course. Two of the waiters recognised me from twenty years before. We guardedly caught up on each other’s news.
The next morning, under the eye of the video camera and armed with a small trowel, I poked around in Campione d’Italia’s public gardens, looking for the Mr Nice passport. I tried to recall every word of Jarvis’s instructions, but they did not make sense. I even telephoned Jarvis and asked him to repeat them, but got no further. The gardens must have been relandscaped. The passport was probably buried under what was clearly a recently erected children’s playground. What the hell! It had expired fifteen years ago, and was not even mine to begin with.
Several months later, Howard Marks – A Video Diary hit the shelves of the audio and video stores. The reviews were favourable, loads of copies sold, and it served to increase the sales of Mr Nice, which by now had been translated into Hebrew and German. And then Frank Stefan, a friend of my German publisher, Marcus van der Kolk, telephoned me at my bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush.
‘Howard, we met briefly in Amsterdam last year. You probably do not remember. Anyway, I bought the rights from Justin Rees to make a German version of your video diary, which I released some time ago. What I would like is to film some extra footage of you which would have special interest for the German market.’
‘I’m up for that, Frank.’
‘Good. Could you come next weekend to Castrop-Rauxel and be our guest of honour?’
‘Where the fuck is Castrop-Rauxel and what’s happening there?’
‘The CannaBusiness Exhibition. We have a hundred and fifty exhibitors from fourteen nations and expect more then ten thousand people to attend. It would be interesting for you. There will be all the usual paraphernalia on sale, all the growing equipment and new bongs, and I think Marcus will have a stand selling the German Mr Nice book. We will pay for your accommodation, and there will be plenty of traditional cannabis use. We just need an excuse.’
I flew to Frankfurt. Marcus, who lived in nearby Darmstadt, met me at the airport. A couple of hours at breakneck speed on the Autobahn, and we neared Castrop-Rauxel, which seemed an extremely boring place. The exhibition hall was its sole landmark. Clouds of dope smoke filled the interior. Hundreds of people smoking cannabis converged on me.
‘Howard, you must try this. It is a hybrid of Northern Lights and White Rhino, which we have cultivated in Rotterdam. Please to smoke it in our giant bong.’
I sucked in loads of sweet cloudy fumes and began an upward ascent.
‘This hashish we have made in Germany. Please!’
‘Finally, Howard, we have perfected the vaporiser. Made in Berlin. Try.’
Through the crowd I spotted Scott Blakey, who fought his way towards me and rescued me from the onslaught.
‘Did Ben ever give you a bag of Mr Nice to smoke?’
‘Actually, Scott, he didn’t. I just had a drag. What’s it like?’
‘I’ve got some here; find out for yourself. It’s not too bad.’
I rolled a joint and smoked some. It seemed fine.
‘Yeah, it’s good.’
‘Look, mate, why don’t we bring out a whole range of Mr Nice seeds? I’ve got loads of mind-blowing unreleased strains of dope to run by you. You could sample them slowly and relaxed. We could grade them and name them, then unleash them on the planet.’
‘But where can we do it, Scott? It’s going to be illegal to grow strong weed in Holland soon, isn’t it?’
‘Damn right, mate. What about Wales? You must have some pull there. Green green grass of home and all that.’
‘Easier said than done, Scott, I’m afraid. What about Jamaica or even Switzerland? I saw a very impressive plantation there earlier this year.’
‘The Swiss have clamped down a bit. Certainly in Zurich. No one seems to know what the law actually is there. Apparently, Ticino is OK though. I intend to check it out.’
Frank Stefan suddenly appeared.
‘Sit down, Howard, please. I will just switch my camera on. Howard, I have an enormous surprise for you. This is Mefa.’
A man in lederhosen approached me. ‘Hello, Mr Nice. I am Mefa from Munich. You have been resurrected. I have found your Mr Nice passport after it lay buried in Campione d’Italia for twenty years. It is in this box.’
Sure enough, there was the Mr Nice passport, battered and expired, but still the real thing. Crowds gathered, video cameras whirred and reporters took out their notebooks and pens. Frank Stefan had done well with his publicity.
‘How did you find it, Mefa?’
‘I saw this programme about you on German television. When I looked at the garden where you were digging, something told me where the passport was, so I caught a train from Munich to Lugano, a boat from Lugano to Campione d’Italia, went to the public gardens, and immediately knew where to start digging.’