Greece - the land of warriors, gods and philosophy, a Mediterranean country blessed with beautiful geography and a wonderful climate. Greece - the land of Dionysius, Socrates, Ulysses and Achilles. Greece - also the land of the Titans, Plato and opium. The event of the dismembering of Dionysius by the Titans is mirrored in Egypt as the killing of Osiris, and in India by the dismemberment of Siva by the Pandavas. While this may or may not have been a historical event, the significance of it is that it possibly marks a point in human history where class - and caste-based societies established themselves over the egalitarian societies of the past. Plato taught the segregation of humans into classes - workers, warriors and judges. The Vedas, Shastras and Vaishnavism taught the caste system of king-priest-businessman-worker. Through the spread of these class and caste based social systems, the individual was no longer a complete person, but a fragment that was slotted into a certain category in the social system. The decline of Greece, Egypt and India from the pinnacle of civilization to the current depths that they occupy today is a result of this fragmentation of societies in these ancient cultures. The class- and caste-based systems were carried forward with devastating effect by the Romans and the Aryans as they conquered vast territories, subjugating the people of these lands as slaves and workers, while they themselves formed the upper classes and castes - the king-priest-businessman. The rules laid down by the priests of the religious orthodoxy stated that it was 'divine will' that all the lowest castes and classes must submit to the upper classes and castes. Religions morphed to suit the needs of the ruling dispensation. Pleasure and intoxication were regarded as animal instincts that needed to be curbed, especially if one belonged to the lower classes and castes, in line with the sanctions of the gods created by the class- and caste-based religions. So, where there was Dionysius and Siva, there was now the scriptures that were being continuously updated by the priests from the religious orthodoxy.
The class and caste systems that were established sought to concentrate power among a few who formed the elite classes and castes of society. The Dionysian way of life connected with nature was replaced by morals, ideals and virtues as defined by the ruling elites. Those who were found to be immoral according to the class and caste standards were subjugated and made into workers and outcasts. The Greek decline led to the establishment of the Romans with their patricians and plebians, while in parallel, in India, Shaivism was subjugated to the Vedas, Shastras and Vaishnavism that created the caste system. The common thread across all these cultures was the superiority of the priestly class who laid down rules against intoxication, sexual freedom, women's freedom, and so on. The concept of the divinity of nature, including every human, which was the essence of Dionysian and Shaivite philosophy, was reduced to god as an unreachable goal who could be accessed only through the priests who acted as mediators. In his undelivered speech, the Annihilation of Caste, B. R. Ambedkar wrote in 1936 comparing the Greek and Indian social systems that destroyed numerous existing societies that practiced tolerance, egalitarianism, nature worship, and freedom to follow one's way of life. Ambedkar wrote, '16.3. There is a second difficulty which the protagonists of chaturvarnya must grapple with, if they wish to make the establishment of chaturvarnya a success. Chaturvarnya presupposes that you can classify people into four definite classes. Is this possible? In this respect, the ideal of chaturvarnya has, as you will see, a close affinity to the Platonic ideal. To Plato, men fell by nature into three classes. In some individuals, he believed, mere appetites dominated. He assigned them to the labouring and trading classes. Others revealed to him that over and above appetites, they had a courageous disposition. He classed them as defenders in war and guardians of internal peace. Others showed a capacity to grasp the universal - the reason underlying things. He made them the law-givers of the people.' He said, '16.4 The criticism to which Plato's 'Republic' is subject is also the criticism which must apply to the system of chaturvarnya, in so far as it proceeds upon the possibility of an accurate classification of men into four distinct classes. The chief criticism against Plato is that his idea of lumping individuals into a few sharply marked-off classes is a very superficial view of man and his powers. Plato had no perception of the uniqueness of every individual, of his incommensurability with others, of each individual as forming a class of his own. He had no recognition of the infinite diversity of active tendencies, and the combination of tendencies of which an individual is capable. To him, these were types of faculties or powers in the individual constitution. 16.5 All this is demonstrably wrong. Modern science has shown that the lumping together of individuals into a few sharply marked-off classes is a superficial view of man, not worthy of serious consideration. Consequently, the utilisation of the qualities of individuals is incompatible with their stratification by classes, since the qualities of the individual are so variable. Chaturvarnya must fail for the very reason for which Plato's Republic must fail - namely, that it is not possible to pigeon men into holes according to class. That it is impossible to accurately classify people into four definite classes is proved by the fact that the original four classes have now become four thousand castes.'
The world of the ancient Greeks, Indians and Egyptians is now almost completely erased from public memory. Ancient Greece was the foundation of western society, just like ancient India, Egypt and China form the foundations of eastern society. It is not that western and eastern cultures are two different ways of life, as it is often made out to be. At the zenith of the Greek, Indian, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations, all these cultures had much in common as did the gods of these cultures - Dionysius, Siva, Osiris, Jehovah and Taoism. These were cultures where humans had evolved to the highest levels of mental maturity. The recognition of the oneness of humans, nature and the eternal spirit were deeply embedded in these cultures. Through this mental maturity, the concepts of equality, liberty, fraternity - which much of the world keeps harping about but scarcely practices - was widely present. Intoxication, sexuality, tolerance of different ways of life, and a deep connection with nature where characteristics of these civilizations at their zenith. Friedrich Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power, 'Dionysian intoxication contains sexuality and voluptuousness; it is usually lacking in the Apollonian state. There must also be a difference of tempo between the states...The extreme calm of certain feelings of intoxication (or, more strictly, the diminution of the sense of time and space) is reflected in the vision of the calmest gestures and acts of the soul. The classical style essentially represents calm, simplification, abbreviation and concentration. The intoxication of nature: the supreme sense of power is concentrated in the classical type. Slow to respond; enlarged consciousness; no sense of struggle.' Yes, there were surely some people who had more of some things than others but that is a result of differing human capacities to perform different functions. The one who had more of one kind of thing often had less of another, as is the case even today where we see even in the most isolated indigenous communities of the world. But the fact that somebody had more of something - such as say tools - did not foster a sense of superiority over the other who had more of something else - say food. Exchange and barter formed the basis of ensuring that within the community nobody lacked anything.
From a common set of principles that was practiced during the peak of ancient Greek, Indian, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations, which made the dichotomy of east and west non-existent, we see a decline with the establishment of class and caste based hierarchical societies, where one set of people were designated as superior to another. This shift was essentially brought about by fear, insecurity, declining intelligence and maturity. From persons who had not reached the mental maturity of these civilizations there emerged the concepts of superiority, greed, possessiveness and disconnection with nature. Through teachings like that of Plato and the Vedas, slowly certain classes started taking forceful control over others and exploiting them. This continued over time, with the ancient ways being discarded for newer systems that gave power for the few over the many. Once the few had tasted this great power over others, they never let go of it. Today, we see that the world is largely a hierarchical class- and caste-based society where the few control the fates of the many and oppress and subjugate them. In this, there is no difference between east and west, as the same systems operate all over the world. So, essentially there was no dichotomy between societies in the east and west in the past, or in the present. Where the dichotomy exists is along timelines between the ancient ways of thinking and the current ways of thinking. We see today that the strongest, most mature, intelligent persons in human society have been systematically subjugated and isolated, chained and bound, without voice, so that they cannot disturb the class and caste orders of the current world. Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power, 'The ruin and the degeneration of the solitary species is much greater and more terrible; they have the instinct of the herd and the traditional values against them; their defences, their protective instincts, are insufficiently strong or reliable from the outset - they require more favorable accidents if they are to thrive (they thrive among the lowest elements, the elements most forsaken by society; if you are seeking persons, it is there that you will find them, certainly much more so than in the middle classes!). When the struggle between the estates, the class struggle which aims at 'equality of rights', is almost settled, the struggle begins against the solitary person. In a certain sense the latter can maintain and develop himself most readily in a democratic society, where crude means of defence are no longer necessary, and certain habits of order, honesty, justice, trust, are part of ordinary conditions. The strongest must be firmly bound, supervised, chained and guarded: so says the gregarious instinct. For them, a regime of self-subjugation, of ascetic detachment or of the 'duty' to engage in exhausting labour which prevents them from recovering their self-possession.'
The long-term result of the sacrifice of Dionysian philosophy to Apollonian and Platonic philosophy can be seen in the current state of Greece. The country has been systematically broken down politically and economically and reduced to grappling with economic crises for the last few decades. In recent times, Greece has been in the news for its economic and financial crises. The country which, in its heyday became the essence of Western culture, has been forced to rely on bailouts by the European Union to tide over the current economic crisis leading to widespread hardship for its people. The ruling class elites have looted the country, working hand-in-hand with unsustainable businesses and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB). Yanis Varoufakis, the former Finance Minister of Greece, gives a good account of the inner political workings of Greece and the EU of which it is a part, in his book Adults in the Room. He spoke about the manipulations of the 'troika' as he called it, comprising of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Besides the economic and political crises, there is also the environmental crisis brought about by unsustainable development, disconnected from nature, that only benefits the ruling classes.
Mental maturity in a human is reflected not just in one's behavior towards one's fellow humans in treating them as equals, it is also reflected in one's relationship with nature and one's relationship with spirituality. Most humans today are at the level of infantile maturity, where they cannot think beyond themselves and their own wants. Some are a little more mature, like young adolescents, and can view their fellow humans as equals. A few are at the level of youthful maturity, where they regard not just humans, but some other living beings, such as their pet domesticated animals, as equals. It is a very few who reach adulthood in terms of mental maturity, being able to regard the entire world of nature, including the insects, plants and mineral world, as equals. This scale of mental maturity with regard to the physical world can also be seen in the spiritual maturity of people. The infantile cannot think beyond the god that they believe in. The slightly more mature grudgingly accept the gods of other societies. It is only the fully mature who can see the world as the manifestation of the eternal spirit, and the relationship between the world and the void, god and the devil. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'And how many new gods are still possible!...I myself, in whom the religious, that is, the god-seeking instinct occasionally becomes animated at the most inopportune times: how differently, how variously, the divine reveals itself to me each time!...So many strange things have passed before me in those timeless moments, which fell as if from the moon into my life, moments in which I no longer knew how old I already was or how young I might yet become!...I would not doubt that there are many kinds of gods...There is no lack of gods who possess a certain undeniable Halcyonism and blitheness...Perhaps even light feet belong to the notion of a god. Is it necessary to explain that a god prefers to remain beyond everything respectable and reasonable? Even, between ourselves, beyond good and evil? 'His outlook is free' - as Goethe would say. And to invoke the inestimable authority of Zarathustra: Zarathustra goes as far as to confess, 'I would only believe in a god who knew how to dance...' To say it again: how many new gods are still possible! Admittedly, Zarathustra is himself merely an old atheist. Understand him well! He believes in neither the old gods or the new. Zarathustra says that he would - Zarathustra will not...' These levels of human maturity apply not just to the physical world and the spiritual world, but also to one's relationship with cannabis. The infantile view cannabis as harmful or the devil, the adolescent minds view cannabis as a forbidden pleasure, the youthful mind views it as medicine and intoxicant, and the mature mind views it as the entheogen it is, enabling one to see form and void as the same eternal spirit, and to see oneself as the same eternal spirit. Unfortunately, with the decline of human civilizations from the heights of Dionysius (or Siva or Osiris or Jehovah, or whatever you may prefer to call the entity) to the world of classes and castes, and the disconnection with nature, regarding it first as one's slave and then, finally, as completely useless, we see today that much of the world lives in an infantile state, mindlessly and unquestioningly following the bidding of the priests, kings and businessmen. For an individual (and by extension society) to attain mental maturity, the numerous fragments that we have been reduced to by the divisions created by the ruling entities need to be coalesced into a complete whole once again. All the aspects of nature that have been condemned and pushed away from one's view of reality have to be reinstated and seen as the parts that constitute the complete view of reality. As B. R. Ambedkar said, the religious scriptures and rules laid down by the religious authorities that are at the source of this fragmentation need to be annihilated and only those scriptures, philosophies and laws that bring about wholesomeness in human thinking have to be retained. Only then can humanity aspire to once again attempt to reach its zenith. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'The synthesis of oppositions and opposing impulses in a people is a sign of their total strength: how much of this can they subdue? But now we see a new conception of holiness (which was ultimately attributable to Plato's naivete); the opposition of heretical impulses to each other is no longer in the foreground. This demonstrates the extent to which the Greek religion was superior to the Judeo-Christian. The latter triumphed because the Greek religion had itself degenerated (had regressed). The aim should be the sanctification of the most powerful, most terrible, most disreputable forces; to use an old figure of speech, the deification of the Devil.' The deification of the Devil, in the world of cannabis, is the restoration of cannabis to its rightful position as the holy communion that enables one to recognize oneself and all that is as the eternal spirit. Nietzsche says, 'The most intellectual men feel the charm and magic of sensual things in a way in which other men, whose hearts are set on 'things of the flesh', neither can nor should imagine - the former are sensualists in the best sense of the word, because they allow a more fundamental value to the senses than those fine sieves, those apparatuses of rarefaction and reduction, or however else one might characterize what is popularly called the 'intellect'. The strength and power of the senses - this is the most essential thing in a well-constituted and whole man: the splendid beast must be there first - otherwise to what purpose is all 'humanization'!'
The changes brought about to social systems have essentially been through reformers. It is possible that the ancient ways were created by men of wisdom who, through the vast knowledge that they amassed, changed society by presenting their knowledge to it and assisting it in evolving. It is most likely that the newer ways of class- and caste-based societies were created by men who insisted that they knew best, and rather than assisting society in evolving, ordered it to follow them or else face the consequences. They exerted their power over society by claiming divine sanction or wisdom as being solely their prerogative. In this way, this latter set of reformers already sowed the seeds of inequality within society, leading to their escalation to the highest levels in a hierarchical society where they assumed the roles of kings, priests and judges. Once they attained these positions, they consolidated it by using the power in their hands to concentrate it and increase it even further. They deployed those who obeyed them to subjugate and enslave those who disobeyed them. Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power, 'I finally found that there are two kinds [of philosophers]: (1) those who seek to establish a large body of evidence, (2) those who are legislators of value judgements. The former seek to appropriate the world, past or present, by summarizing events in symbols: they want to make everything clear, distinct, intelligible and manageable - they assist man in using all things for his benefit. However, the second kind issue commands and say: 'Thus shall it be!' They alone determine the benefit, what is of benefit, to man; they have at their disposal the preliminary work of scientists and scholarly men, but to them, knowledge is only a means to creation. The second kind of philosopher seldom prospers; as a matter of fact, their situation is dreadful and fraught with danger. How often have they deliberately blindfolded themselves so that they might no longer behold the thin edge that lies between them and a plunge into the abyss: for example Plato, when he persuaded himself that the good as he would have it was not Plato's good, but rather the good in itself, an external treasure which some man by the name of Plato happened to stumble upon! Cruder forms of this same wilful blindness prevail among founders of religions: their 'thou shalt' must on no account sound to them like 'I want' - they are emboldened to accomplish their mission only if they regard it as divinely commanded; their conscience is able to bear the otherwise overwhelming burden of legislating values only if they regard themselves as 'inspired'. As soon as we abandon these two sources of consolation, whether that of Plato or that of Mohammed, and thinkers are no longer able to ease their consciousness with the hypothesis of a 'god' or of 'eternal values', the demand made on legislators of new values becomes formidable to a new and unprecedented degree.' We could say that the battle between the liberals and the conservatives is not a new phenomenon. The priests, judges and kings quickly laid down rules that ensured their positions were safe and threat-free by laying down laws and rules which took the power away from the majority of the people. Strict rules ensured that hierarchical classes and castes became permanent compartments, with any violations being strictly dealt with and penalized, especially if it threatened the existing hierarchical social system. Speaking about the difference between these systems, Nietzsche says 'The illusion of Apollo: the eternity of the beautiful form; the aristocratic legislation 'thus shall it ever be!' Dionysus: sensuality and cruelty. Transcience could be interpreted as the enjoyment of procreative and destructive energies, as continual creation.' He further says, 'Sexuality, ambition, the pleasure derived from illusion and deception, great, joyous gratitude towards life and its typical conditions - that is what is essential to pagan cults and has a good conscience on its side. That which is unnatural (already apparent in Greek antiquity) combats paganism, as morality, dialectics and asceticism.'
It is the reformer who first attains the level of mental maturity that forms the seed catalyzing social reform to the new way. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'It is only fair that the highest and most illustrious human joys, those in which existence celebrates its own transfiguration, should come only to the incomparable and the best constituted, although only after they and their ancestors have, unbeknownst to themselves, spent their lives in preparation for them. It is then that a superabundance of the most diverse forces and at the same time a swift power of 'free' decision and magisterial decree can amicably coexist in the same man, for then the intellect is just as much at home in the senses as the senses are at home in the intellect; and all that takes place in the one also awakens a refined and exceptionally felicitous play in the other. And conversely! Take a moment to consider this converse process in Hafez; even Goethe gives us an inkling of this process, albeit in an attenuated form. It is probable that in such perfectly well-constituted men, enjoyments of a wholly sensual nature are ultimately transformed into allegorical reveries of the highest intellectuality; they experience in themselves a kind of deification of the body and are at the greatest remove from that ascetic philosophy which is expressed in the proposition 'God is a spirit': which only goes to show that the ascetic is the 'ill-constituted man', the man who merely takes something intrinsic to him and especially that in him which judges and condemns and calls it good - calls it 'God'. By contrast, the Greeks knew of a whole vast spectrum of happiness, from that height of joy where man thoroughly feels himself to be a deified form and self-justification of nature, all the way down to the joy of robust peasants and robust half-human animals. In the face of this, they quivered with the gratitude of the initiate and gave it, with much circumspection and pious reticence, the divine name of Dionysus. What then do the modern men, the children of a frail, often ailing and unlikely mother, know of the extent of the Greeks' happiness? What could they know about it! What could possibly entitle the slaves of 'modern ideas' to participate in Dionysian revels!'
Cannabis use spread thousands of years ago, along with the Asiatic migrations, to many places in the world. The earliest evidence of cannabis usage culturally is said to be found in Taiwan, dating back about 10,000 years ago. The British tested cannabis prohibition in Greece in the 19th century, using the cannabis causes insanity myth, with the aim of promoting the opium plant and its usage. In its report, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 states that 'Greece. 560. In Greece there is no law regulating or specially alluding to the production, manufacture, or export of hashish. The sale of it as merchandise is allowed, but a Police order of 1891 prohibits its sale and consumption in the small cafés of Athens and the Pirœus, in some of which, during the previous ten or fifteen years apparently, the habit of using this drug had been gradually introduced. The order was based upon a report of the Sanitary Board at Athens, in which prominent mention is made of the observations made in India by English doctors, and the statistics of insanity in Bengal lunatic asylums ascribed to the use of the hemp drugs are put forward as justifying repressive measures. The effect of the order passed is not mentioned, sufficient time not having elapsed.' This indicates that cannabis also existed as a part of Greek society during this time. Cannabis may have reached Greece through the ancient trade relations with India. Opium is said to have been discovered in Greece. I believe that it traveled to the east along with European and Middle Eastern travelers and invaders. The opium angle to the prohibition of ganja and charas started in Turkey, the first country to prohibit cannabis in the 12th century, then spread to Egypt and Greece. One witness to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95, Ganesh Krishna Garde, Brahmin, Medical Practitioner, Poona City, states, 'If we throw a glance at the history of the introduction of opium into India and China, the same conclusion will be forced upon our mind. We know from the history of cultured plants that the poppy plant is not a native of India and that its intoxicant juice was not known here or in China before the 10th century A. C. It further tells us that the Arabians first brought it from Greece, its native place, and cultivated it in Turkey in Asia, and that from thence the followers of Islam introduced it into the eastern countries. It spread along with their religion and soon became acclimatised in India. The Muhammadans cherished it exceedingly, because in it they found a good substitute for alcohol, the use of which was forbidden to them by their religion. It [opium] found favour with the Chinese for a similar reason, for their new religion Budhism more than even Muhammadanism condemned the use of alcohol. It was under these circumstances that the Chinese came to be possessed of that unsurpassed love for opium for which they are well known.' Opium gained significant foothold in Afghanistan and China, thanks to the efforts of the British. The Chinese developed a special liking for opium and cultivated it for their own purposes, and the purposes of the British. Together, they cleared the route for opium between China and Britain, making Burma (now Myanmar) a stepping stone, and Afghanistan, I believe, a midpoint refuel station. With this, the supply lines of opium to Europe were secured, and have, since the last 400 years, provided a steady and secure supply of opium to Europe and Oceania.
Today, opium forms the backbone of the legal and illegal pharmaceutical industry. Besides opioids, Greece's proximity to the Middle East mean that amphetamine type substances (ATS) find their way easily into the country. Not only that, methamphetamine from East Asia, Iran and Afghanistan also now appears as a part of the potent mix of choices for the Greek people in the absence of cannabis. To top it all, tramadol, an opioid from India, has been seized in significant quantities in Greece in the recent past. During the economic crisis, Greece went through a methamphetamine epidemic that ravaged many lives. Along with the abuse of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, this has taken a toll on the health of people. Greece, being one of the poorest European nations, finds itself today as a dumping ground and transit point for cheap opioids manufactured in countries like India and China. The high-end opioids - heroin, morphine, etc. - find their way to the wealthy nations in Europe like France, Germany, Belgium, etc., while the cheap opioids are supplied to hook the populations of the poorer nations in Europe and Africa, including the poorest sections of society, the elderly and the youth. The United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC), in its World Drug Report 2020, stated that 'The bulk of tramadol seized in the period 2014– 2018 was seized in West and Central Africa (notably in Nigeria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and the Niger), followed by North Africa (notably Egypt, Morocco and the Sudan) and the Near and Middle East (notably Jordan and the United Arab Emirates). In some instances, countries in Western and Central Europe (notably Malta and Greece) have been used as transit countries for tramadol destined for North Africa (Egypt and Libya), although some of the tramadol seized in Europe (in particular Sweden) was also intended for the local market. For the first time ever, significant seizures of tramadol were reported in South Asia (India) in 2018, accounting for 21 per cent of the global total that year, which reflects the fact tramadol was put under the control of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of India in April 2018.'
Growing scientific information is debunking all the myths that kept cannabis prohibited globally for nearly a century now. While Europe, North America and Oceania have embraced the latest scientific evidence regarding the benefits of cannabis, much of Asia and Africa still remains rooted in the myths and propaganda used by the colonizers to prohibit cannabis in the first place. Some of these myths are: cannabis causes insanity; cannabis is addictive and harmful; cannabis is more harmful than alcohol, opium and tobacco; cannabis is used by criminals and causes crime; cannabis is used by the lowest classes and castes of society; women who use cannabis are prostitutes; cannabis legalization will destroy the youth; and so on. Most of these myths were debunked more than 150 years ago itself, by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 set up by the British colonial rulers of India in order to prohibit cannabis and promote their alcohol, opium, tobacco and western medicine. The myth that had the greatest impact on Greece, bringing about prohibition as early as 1891, as reported by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission was the cannabis causes insanity myth. This myth was created by the British based on erroneous data collected from the lunatic asylums of India. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission itself proved that this myth was false but that did not stop Britain, and subsequently other countries, from imposing cannabis prohibition using this as the main justification. The Commission stated in its report that 'Over and over again the statistics of Indian asylums have been referred to in official documents or scientific treatises not only in this country, but also in other countries where the use of these drugs has demanded attention. Other alleged effects of the drugs have attracted but little attention compared with their alleged connection with insanity.'
Around 2021, Greece announced that it would be cultivating cannabis for export to places like Canada and Israel as it has started seeing the economic benefits of doing so. With a mediterranean climate in which wonderful varieties of sun grown cannabis could thrive, this is definitely a positive step. Mirroring the shift in perception among the elites of other nations of Europe - from the view that cannabis is an evil, harmful drug with no medicinal value (the argument that was used to include it in the most restrictive category of banned drugs under the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs) to the view that cannabis has significant medical properties - Greece started looking at medical cannabis during the fake pandemic Covid. It is ironic that the very conspiracy created to boost the petrochemical and synthetic pharmaceutical industry ended up pushing some of the most serious opponents of cannabis to start embracing it as medicine. While Germany had already been Europe's biggest importer of cannabis for medical purposes for some years before the fake pandemic, the global health crisis created by Covid with its pumping of the world with synthetic pharmaceutical medications that mostly only the elites could afford, and as a result of which they died, forced many nations into relooking at the medical benefits of cannabis. The elites of Greece also sought to access cannabis, for its medical use they said, while continuing to imprison the majority of its people - the working classes and the poor - when they used cannabis with the logic that only the upper classes used cannabis as medicine, whereas the lower classes used it 'to get high'. Like as if 'getting high' was not medicinal, especially when the high of cannabis is much safer than the high of alcohol, tobacco, synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, opium, cocaine, methamphetamine or even accumulating wealth and possessions through the oppression of the people and nature. Greek City Times reported in May 2021 that ''Parties voted for a draft law allowing the cultivation and sale of pharmaceutical cannabis in Parliament’s plenary session on Friday night. A roll-call vote, requested by the main opposition party SYRIZA, registered 158 votes for and 33 against.' I am not sure how far Greece has traveled since then down the road of cannabis legalization. It is most likely that, like much of Europe, the elites in Greece now access and consume cannabis giving it the label 'medical cannabis' while the working classes and the poor are caught and imprisoned if they are found with cannabis. Germany had the courage to try and correct the terrible crime of cannabis prohibition in April 2024, going against the established global order, when it legalized cannabis for adult recreational purposes. It followed the steps of two other European nations - Malta and Luxembourg - when it did so. All other European nations, like Greece, continue their hypocrisy and oppression of the masses through cannabis prohibition.
With its Mediterranean climate, Greece has the climatic conditions to cultivate good quality cannabis that can be used by its people and, if there is surplus, export to other European, Middle Eastern and North American countries that cannot cultivate high-quality cannabis in outdoor conditions due to inclement weather. Through this cannabis cultivation for local use, Greece can greatly boost: sustainable economics through the industrial applications of cannabis; public health through cannabis as medicine; harm reduction from the use of synthetic drugs, opioids, alcohol and tobacco; shrink the black market for illegal drugs; reduce crime; boost tourism; promote wellness; revitalize food and beverages; provide nutritious and medicinal animal feed, create jobs; generate revenue; etc. Instead of focusing on the internal use of cannabis to pull itself out of the economic mire that it has been floundering in for decades, Greece's elite politicians are instead trying to get richer by cultivating and exporting cannabis to wealthy nations while Greece's own people suffer oppression. Greek New Agenda reported around 2021 that 'Pitsiorlas said the first medicinal cannabis products were expected to hit the market within a year or more, while he stated that the industry is mainly export-oriented, adding that “there is huge interest, mainly from Canada and Israel”.' Such a move will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor and push Greece further into economic slavery. Instead of looking at keeping cannabis away from the local people and peddling it to the elites of other nations, Greece's politicians need to see why these elites of other wealthy nations are seeking to import cannabis from countries like Greece. But then, in the class system, the elites only work for their own benefit, enslaving the rest of the population and ensuring that it does not find the means of liberating itself from the class order and achieving economic sustainability. Around the same time Reuters reported that 'Greece on Monday issued the first licences to private companies for growing medicinal cannabis in the country, part of an attempt to tap a burgeoning market worth billions. Greece legalised cannabis for medical use last year and in March lifted a ban on growing and producing it. Two licences were granted on Monday, and another 12 will be issued by the end of this year, the Economy and Development Ministry said. “There is huge interest, mainly from Canada and Israel ... some of them (potential investors) are huge,” Stergios Pitsiorlas, the deputy economy minister, told a news conference.' I have not heard much since then of Greece as a player in the medical cannabis industry. The major players remain Denmark, the Netherlands, Uruguay and the two countries that Greek politicians were trying to export cannabis to - Canada and Israel.
Yet the initial step taken is in the right direction and should be encouraged especially by any country that wishes to see Greece reach sustainability once again. I am sure that nobody would want it more than Greece itself. Greek cannabis laws must be changed to legalize cannabis for adult recreational use, industrial and medical use. Farmers all across Greece should be encouraged to cultivate cannabis. If indigenous varieties of cannabis exist they must be protected, nurtured and revived. If not, Greece should evaluate the best varieties suited for its climate and geography and promote its cultivation among its farmers. Opening up cannabis will see a ripple effect through the Greek economy with more jobs and industries being generated using the plant for recreation, medicine and business. The sustainable nature of cannabis should prove beneficial for a country experiencing climate change. The benefits of introduction of cannabis into Greek tourism, cultural events, wellness, food and beverages industries should not be underestimated. Redirection of law enforcement resources from targeting cannabis to focusing on violent crime, theft and financial fraud will go a long way in balancing society.
Greece is one of the world's top tourism destinations and a large part of its economy relies on tourism to sustain itself. But this may not be enough as more needs to be done to revive the economy and counter the threats that it faces. In recent times, Greece has been ravaged by fires caused due to climate change, global warming and scorching summers. Introduction of cannabis in the mix of available recreational drugs provides a safe, healthy and proven way for people to recreate with less harmful drugs resulting in improved health and much better social and economic indicators. Cannabis for industrial purposes can set a nation on the path to sustainable development and economics. It can negate, counter and offers a way out of the global crisis caused by the over-dependence on the fossil fuel industry and its allied industries: petrochemical-based synthetic pharmaceuticals, petrochemical-based chemical fertilizers and pesticides, petrochemical-based non-biodegradable plastics, fossil-fuel-based construction, petrochemical-based fabrics and textiles, petrochemical-based automobile parts, and so on. It is not just the harms of the fossil fuel industry that industrial cannabis will counter, it will also make various other industries environmentally sustainable such as: agriculture to grow hemp in place of cotton, rice and wheat; animal feed; wellness; tourism; food; beverages; cosmetics; paper; etc. Countries like France, the US and China have been cultivating industrial hemp on a war-footing in the last decade. It is surprising, considering that cannabis for industrial purposes was never prohibited in the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs that all nations of the UN are signatory to. This shows the level of anti-cannabis propaganda and the power of those opposed to cannabis who form the wealthiest industries and people in the world today. The fact that no nation takes the trouble to see how much delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol(THC) a particular cannabis plant contains, and whether this is within the completely arbitrary and unscientific 0.3% THC levels set by policymakers, but, instead, destroys the cannabis plant on sight is one of the primary factors why industrial cannabis has almost vanished in the last century. This disappearance of industrial cannabis has coincided with the rise of the industries opposed to cannabis. It is these industries and the power structure that supports them - politicians, the medical industry, religious orthodoxy, cannabis prohibition groups, the media, law enforcement, drug enforcement, etc. - that have amplified the anti-cannabis rhetoric to such extents that even its use by industry is shunned due to the fear of exceeding the prescribed THC limits. Investing fully in industrial cannabis will replace unsustainable cotton, rice, wheat and tobacco crops. It will revolutionize the medical, agriculture, intoxicant, food, beverages, wellness, animal feed, tourism and other sectors besides directly addressing the problems of climate change and environmental destruction that have been caused by the industries opposed to cannabis. Greece must completely legalize cannabis in all its forms with no restrictions on amount of THC and quantities of cannabis cultivated. This will translate into jobs for the people, revenue for the state, environmental protection and economic sustainability. With just 24 out of 50 US states having legalized cannabis so far, the US already has a legal cannabis market with a projected $100 billion economic impact in 2025. There is no reason why, Greece with cannabis legalized in all its forms - recreational, medical and industrial - cannot have a cannabis market of about $100 billion within the next few years, enabling it to become one of Europe's wealthiest nations once again and achieving economic and environmental sustainability.
In December 2020, the UN voted to remove cannabis from its most restricted Schedule IV category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It does however still remain in Schedule I, which is the least restrictive. This one move by the UN itself should be sufficient to bring about the recreational legalization of cannabis in every nation and an overhaul of national drug laws. But four years on, only Germany and South Africa appear to have made the right decision. The majority of the nations of the world still exist in the world of anti-cannabis propaganda, firmly enslaved to the industries and power structure that continue cannabis prohibition globally. It must be noted that in most places where cannabis legalization has happened, including the 24 US states (at the time of writing), it took the efforts of the people who mobilized themselves through grassroots level movements to bring about this change. Left to lawmakers, legalization would have been impossible, as the main interests of lawmakers concern the protection of the big industries opposed to cannabis. For something that truly benefits the people, the people themselves have had to make the change.
Chaos to order, order to chaos - these are the continuous movements of nature eternally, the cycles of the yin and yang. It is inevitable that at its zenith, one will start changing into the other. Dionysian thought was replaced by Apollonian thought when the time was ripe. Similarly, Apollonian thought, with its hierarchical class and caste orders, is now ripe for replacement by Dionysian thought. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'These two artistic forces of nature are opposed to each other as the Dionysian and the Apollonian...The word 'Dionysian' expresses: an urge towards unity as the abyss of oblivion, a longing to reach beyond personality, the ordinary, society, reality; a passionately painful overflow into darker, fuller, more open states; an ecstatic affirmation of the general character of life, as that which remains the same amid all the change, the same in power, the same in beatitude; the same pantheistic sharing of gladness and sorrow which endorses and sanctifies even the most terrible and questionable qualities of existence out of an eternal will to procreation, to fertility, to eternity; as a sense of unity born of the necessity of creation and destruction...The word 'Apollonian' expresses: the impulse towards perfect self-sufficiency, towards the typical 'individual', towards everything that simplifies and emphasizes, everything which makes a thing strong, clear, unambiguous and typical: freedom under law...The further development of art is just as dependent upon their antagonism as the further development of mankind is dependent upon the antagonism of the sexes. The wealth of power and restraint, the highest form of self-affirmation in a cool, noble, austere beauty; the Apollonian of the Hellenic will. The origin of tragedy and comedy may be regarded as a palpable vision of a divine type in a state to total ecstasy, as a witnessing of the legendary scene, of the visitation, miracle, act of foundation, of 'drama'. The dichotomy of the Dionysian and the Apollonian in the Greek soul is one of the great enigmas by which [I am] drawn in considering the essence of the Hellenic. At bottom, [I] endeavour to ascertain precisely why Greek Apollonianism had to spring from Dionysian soil; the Dionysian Greek had to become Apollonian, that is, he had to break himself of the will to the monstrous, the multifarious, the indeterminate and the horrible and replace it with a will to moderation, simplicity and subordination to rules and concepts. The immoderate, the chaotic, the Asiatic, lie at the basis of the Greek character. The bravery of the Greek consists in his struggle with his Asiaticism; his beauty was not a gift, any more than the logic or the naturalness of his customs were - it was won by conquest, determination and struggle - it is his victory...' The philosopher or reformer who forms the catalyst for these changes will always appear when the time has come for the new movement to begin. He or she may not know it, or may even try to avoid it, but if it is their destiny to catalyze the change, then that is what will happen. Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power, 'Now those elect ones upon whom the faintest suspicion of such a duty is beginning to dawn and who regard it as their greatest danger, prefer trying to evade it by some dodge: for example, by convincing themselves that this is not 'the proper time', that the mission is already accomplished, or that it is impossible, or that they would not be able to shoulder the responsibilities, or that they are already overburdened with other, more immediate tasks, or that this new and less immediate duty is nothing but a moral disease, a temptation by which they are seduced and led astray from the path of duty altogether, that it is even a kind of madness. Many of them may very well succeed in shirking it; traces of these shirkers and their bad consciences can be found throughout the whole of history. But in most cases there came to such men of fate that time of redemption, that harvest time of ripening when they had to do what they did not even 'want' to do - and then the act which they had most dreaded fell from the tree, without effort or intention and without any alternative, almost as a gift.'
Today we live in a world where the established order has become ripe for disintegration and decay so that what is new can emerge and rejuvenate the world. The world is in a state where the ancient ways have been all but forgotten and the disconnect with nature is almost complete. The new reformer must remind the world about what once was before the change can be brought about. The memory will bring with it great fear and resistance to change. But the time has come for breaking the hierarchical order of society based on negating nature and all that is complete and wholesome because the existence of this world itself is now facing a threat of alarming proportions wrought about by this control and oppression practiced by the ruling elites. It has come about by the most intelligent and courageous humans having been pushed to the depths of oppression and suffering, through the deep exploration of all that is regarded as evil and forbidden in today's social systems forcing their minds to reach the level of the gods. Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power, 'Philosophy, as I thus far understood it and lived it, is the voluntary exploration of the accursed and odious aspect of existence. From my long experience of wandering through ice and desert, I learned to view previous philosophizing quite differently - the hidden history of the philosophers, the psychology of its great names, was revealed to me. 'How much truth can an intellect stand; how much truth does an intellect dare?' - this for me became the actual measure of value. Error is cowardice...and every attainment of knowledge is the result of intellectual courage, rigour and scrupulousness...Such a discipline knows in advance, on a trial basis, the possibilities of even the most thoroughgoing nihilism, without implying that it would stop at a 'no', at the will to 'no'. On the contrary, it wants the very opposite, a Dionysian affirmation of the world as it is, without deduction, exception or selection; it wants the eternal cycle: the same things, the same logical or illogical connections. The supreme condition a philosopher can attain is a Dionysian attitude towards life; my formula for this is amor fati...This discipline includes understanding that the previously negated aspects of existence are not only necessary, but desirable; and not only desirable in terms of the previously affirmed aspects (perhaps as their concomitants or preconditions), but for their own sake, as the more powerful, more fruitful, truer aspects of existence in which it will express itself more clearly. It likewise includes deprecating the aspects of existence which were previously affirmed to the exclusion of all others. It includes understanding from where this previous assessment originates and how little a Dionysian evaluation of life is bound by it; I identified and understood what it was that was actually saying 'yes' here (in the first instance, the instinct of the suffering; in the second, the instinct of the gregarious and in the third, the instinct of the majority in their conflict with the exceptions). Thus I surmised that another, stronger kind of man would inevitably approach the elevation and improvement of man from another perspective; he would regard these superior creatures as being beyond good and evil, as beyond those values whose origin lies within the sphere of [the] suffering, the gregarious and the majority - I have sought the beginnings of this contrary ideal's formation in history (in the newly discovered and expounded notions 'pagan', 'classical' and 'noble').'
The change that leads back to nature and the balance that humanity needs to attain can seem terrifying to those accustomed to the present way of life, especially the ruling elite upper classes and castes. But what they need to remember is that it is the much-needed step towards maturity for these classes that will bring about the balance of nature. We can make this earth the paradise that everybody dreams of. Humanity has inflicted so much damage on itself and nature based on the belief that paradise is someplace that one goes to after death provided that one follows all the rules strictly as laid down by the upper classes and castes. This falsehood is driven into the minds of the lower classes and castes to instill fear in them and make them servile even as the ruling classes and castes flout all rules with impunity that they themselves have laid down. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'I have presented such terrifying images of knowledge that any 'Epicurean delight' is thereby rendered impossible. Only Dionysian rapture suffices - I was the first to discover the tragic. The Greeks misunderstood it, thanks to their sententiousness and superficiality. Also, resignation is not the lesson tragedy teaches - but rather a misunderstanding of it! The longing for nothingness is the denial of tragic wisdom, its opposite!'
For Greece, having plunged to the depths of human society in economic, social and spiritual terms after scaling the zenith, it is time to rise up once again. The connection with its heritage was lost but is now once again apparent. As Nietzsche says, 'It should come as no surprise that a couple of millennia were needed to re-establish a connection with the past - what are a couple of millennia!' He further says, 'When the Greek body and soul were 'flourishing', rather than languishing in mania and madness, there arose that mysterious symbol of the highest affirmation of the world and transfiguration of life ever attained on earth. This provides a standard according to which everything that has grown up since must be deemed too stunted, too impoverished, too inhibited - we only need to utter the word 'Dionysus' before the best modernity has to offer, before such names as Goethe, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare, or Raphael, and suddenly we feel that our best things and moments have been judged and found wanting. Dionysus is a judge! Do you understand me? There can be no doubt that the Greeks drew upon their Dionysus experiences to interpret the ultimate mysteries 'concerning the fate of the soul' and everything they knew about education and refinement and, above all, about the immutable hierarchy and inequality of men; and yet without access to these experiences everything Greek is buried in a great and profound silence - we do not know the Greeks as long as this secret subterranean passage into their world is still obstructed. The prying eyes of scholars will never bring to light some of these things, however much scholarship remains to be done in the service of that excavation - even the noble enthusiasm of such lovers of antiquity as Goethe and Winckelmann has something improper and almost presumptuous about it. But he who waits and prepares himself; who awaits the welling-up of new springs; who prepares himself in solitude for strange visions and voices; who purifies his soul more and more of the fairground dust and noise of this age; who not only dismisses everything Christian, but who overcomes it by something heretical and supra-Christian - for it was the Christian doctrine that was the heresy set in opposition to the Dionysian; who discovers the South in himself and spreads above himself the canopy of a clear, brilliant and mysterious Southern sky; who recaptures his soul's Southern vigour and latent power; who becomes, step by step, more comprehensive, more supra-national, more European, more Oriental and ultimately more Greek - for the Greeks were the first to consolidate and synthesize everything Oriental and, in so doing, inaugurated the European soul and discovered our 'new world' - he who lives in obedience to such imperative demands, who knows what he might encounter one day? Perhaps even - a new day!' Cannabis is the way to Dionysius for the Greeks, just as it is the way to Siva for Indians, the Tao for the Chinese, the way to Allah for Muhammedans and the way to Jehovah for the Jews. All that was considered pagan, evil and against the Apollonian and Platonic hierarchical social orders are all essential elements to seeing life as complete and wholesome in the here and now, the paradise that is on earth which we have become blind to and live under the influence of opium and the synthetic poisons created by humanity in its delusion of its superiority over nature, shunning the cannabis that enables us to liberate ourselves and, instead, sinking further into oppression by the ruling elite upper classes and castes, having been fooled into thinking that paradise is someplace we will find after we are dead, provided that we obediently follow the strictures and injunctions of the ruling elites. There is only one thing that awaits us when we are dead and that is the void. If one is to find paradise on earth, if the kingdom of god has to be established on earth, the Dionysian way of cannabis is the way, not the Apollonian way of opium that has rendered humans oblivious to nature and the world we live in, working for the elites to reduce the beautiful earth and nature to waste with our synthetics and greed for material power, and suppression and dominion over all things natural. Nietzsche says in The Will to Power, 'Note the typically religious man - a form of decadence? The great innovators are, one and all, morbid and epileptic; but are we not leaving out the religious man who is pagan? Is the pagan cult not a form of thanksgiving and affirmation of life? Must not its supreme representative itself be a defence of and deification of life? The type of spirit which is fully formed and rapturously overflowing...the type of action which incorporates and redeems everything in existence which is contradictory and questionable? It is here that I situate the Dionysus of the Greeks: the religious affirmation of life, life in all its fullness, not life divided and disowned; it is typical that the sexual act awakens profound emotion, mystery and awe. Dionysus versus the 'Crucified'; there you have the contrast. It is not that their respective martyrdoms differ - but that each one has a different meaning. Life itself, life's eternal fruitfulness and recurrence requires agony, destruction and the will to annihilation...In the other case, the suffering of the 'innocent man crucified' constitutes an objection to this life, a formula for its condemnation. As one might have gathered, the problem is the meaning of suffering; whether it is to be given a Christian meaning or a tragic meaning...In the first case it is the way to a blessed existence; in the latter, existence is sufficiently blessed already to justify an immense amount of suffering; he is strong enough, rich enough, deifier enough, to do so; the Christian denies even the happiest lot on earth; he is weak enough, poor enough, disinherited enough to suffer life in any form. 'God on the cross' is a curse upon life, an indication that one should be delivered from it; Dionysus cut into pieces is a promise to life: that it will be eternally born anew, that it will return from its destruction.'
The blue and white in the Greek flag denote the sea and sky, clouds and waves. All these are essential. But they are not sufficient by themselves. The green of cannabis also needs to be present to complete the picture of nature and reality, otherwise like the world without Dionysian thought, Greece will resemble a hospital more than the beautiful natural world that it is...
Related articles
Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.
'Parties voted for a draft law allowing the cultivation and sale of pharmaceutical cannabis in Parliament’s plenary session on Friday night.
A roll-call vote, requested by the main opposition party SYRIZA, registered 158 votes for and 33 against.'
'The bulk of tramadol seized in the period 2014– 2018 was seized in West and Central Africa (notably in Nigeria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and the Niger), followed by North Africa (notably Egypt, Morocco and the Sudan) and the Near and Middle East (notably Jordan and the United Arab Emirates). In some instances, countries in Western and Central Europe (notably Malta and Greece) have been used as transit countries for tramadol destined for North Africa (Egypt and Libya), although some of the tramadol seized in Europe (in particular Sweden) was also intended for the local market. For the first time ever, significant seizures of tramadol were reported in South Asia (India) in 2018, accounting for 21 per cent of the global total that year, which reflects the fact tramadol was put under the control of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of India in April 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Pitsiorlas said the first medicinal cannabis products were expected to hit the market within a year or more, while he stated that the industry is mainly export-oriented, adding that “there is huge interest, mainly from Canada and Israel”.'
'Greece on Monday issued the first licences to private companies for growing medicinal cannabis in the country, part of an attempt to tap a burgeoning market worth billions.
Greece legalised cannabis for medical use last year and in March lifted a ban on growing and producing it. Two licences were granted on Monday, and another 12 will be issued by the end of this year, the Economy and Development Ministry said.
“There is huge interest, mainly from Canada and Israel ... some of them (potential investors) are huge,” Stergios Pitsiorlas, the deputy economy minister, told a news conference.'
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