Michael Balderstone, The Nimbin GoodTimes
Meetings to organise the 33rd annual Nimbin MardiGrass cannabis law reform gathering will begin in late January as usual, in the HEMP Bar on Fridays from 4.20pm, also as usual.
The website is freshly sorted, and anyone who wants to be involved should register their interest there.
As a musician, performer, market stallholder or volunteer, or anything else you want to include in the protest weekend, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of May this year.
Thirty-three years is a long time saying the same message over and over again. Even if some things have changed in that time, some things have very much stayed the same for us cannabis users.
Stigma is one of them. It may have lessened a little, but in reality it’s thriving like racism. Illicit drug use is not good. Pharma drugs and alcohol are of course OK, but if it’s illegal you are understandably judged by the rest of the population. And wanted by the police.
The first change we got was cannabis cautioning. In NSW you can be caught with less than half an ounce and the police can choose to give you a caution instead of going to court. They can choose to if they want to, but not if you have prior convictions.
It stopped the courts being clogged with minor offences and prevented a lot of criminal records happening to innocent youth whose careers were being tipped upside down.
Finally after decades of absolutely ridiculous lying about cannabis having no medical benefits, they had to roll over after the media exposed wonderful stories of cannabis stopping epileptic seizures in children.
No-one could argue against that, and I credit Tony Bower from Mullaways for getting the ball rolling.
Years later, they finally allow limited cannabis use for medicinal purposes in a Special Access Scheme. That was 2016.
Only eight years later, the legal medical cannabis system is wild and out of control. Most doctors know little about the plant.
Every country growing legal weed is trying to get in on our market. Half is coming from Canada, but a lot from Africa and Europe as well. None from the USA because federally cannabis is still illegal there.
Prescriptions are a cinch over the phone now in Australia, and providers are fighting for your business like any other product. Except this is new and we all know it’s a river of green gold. Billions of dollars in sales are sure to follow, as is happening in America.
Virtually all our legal cannabis is grown indoors, not organic, imported and therefore irradiated. It’s infuriating we’re still not allowed to grow our own.
The doctors have been cunning designing their own system of acceptance into the legal medicine world and they weren’t going to let cannabis escape their clutches. Who would have believed when we started MardiGrass that weed would get legal but through a doctor and coming from Canada? It’s like a bad joke.
MardiGrass helps to stifle the stigma a little and it’s a great gathering for cannabis lovers and a celebration of the most useful plant on the planet. I honestly believe if we’re to save our future we need to change our attitudes to each other and the Earth, and cannabis can help that!
Please put the first weekend in May in your diaries for 2025 and book your all weekend pass and three nights camping for $150 at: nimbinmardigrass.com.
We’re still doing it real in Nimbin.
This article appeared in The Nimbin GoodTimes, January 2025.
