CANNABIS OR BUST?

NOTHING beats a smoke of cannabis for generating confusion, madness, paranoia and nonsense. And that's before anyone has inhaled.

The confusion stems from a statement made by the Narcotic Bureau's Senior Inspector Richard Skinner and a profusion of drug arrests, searches and nightclub raids. The statement was: 'We are cracking down on Western drug abusers and anyone found possessing any amount of illegal drugs, even cannabis, will be charged.' The problem is that many expatriates living in Hong Kong have forgotten cannabis is illegal.

Almost every Westerner in Hong Kong I know (including me) has taken an illegal drug or three in their time. Many of their various mother countries - Britain, Australia, America, Holland and Spain - have decriminalised cannabis possession either officially or effectively, and the expatriates have brought their hankering for an occasional smoke with them. I still go to parties, barbecues and on junks where architects and art directors build clever things with three Rizla papers and doctors and dentists prescribe themselves an illegal puff. I know solicitors who say things like 'gosh, I had some super stuff on Friday night' to businessmen who say things like 'you'll have to get me some'.

And it never occurs to them that they are breaking the law. Cannabis is as readily available to Hong Kong's high-lifers through a friend of a friend as if it could be bought at the supermarket. I've seen people turn down a smoke because they don't like getting high, don't smoke tobacco or have work to do, but never because it is against the law or because they are afraid of getting caught. Likewise, there are few Hong Kong Westerners who believe that cannabis necessarily leads to more dangerous drugs, brain damage and long hair. Why should they? Many have been getting stoned every other weekend since university, and now they own the company. For most Western users in Hong Kong, cannabis is mindless, mostly harmless, non-revolutionary, purely recreational and fun. As American journalist P.J. O'Rourke put it, today's yuppie drug takers 'tune in, turn on and turn up to work late on Mondays'.

Unless, of course, they get caught in Lan Kwai Fong with a forgotten crumb in their pocket. Then they may not be able to turn up for work at all.

Ten years before American President Bill Clinton famously admitted to smoking cannabis (but not inhaling), former president Jimmy Carter suggested that any penalty for illegal drug use should reflect the danger of the drugs. Hence, heroin traffickers (who are de facto mass murderers) get life in prison and cocaine users (de facto self-mutilators) get big fines and therapy. Hong Kong courts have accepted this policy as sensible and, according to Senior Inspector Skinner, our architect or creative director would receive a fine of '$300 or $400' for his illegal crumb.