MARIJUANA AND WEALTH CREATION IN NIGERIA

The business of this article is to offer a brief business case for the legalisation of Marijuana in Nigeria. As happens in America and in Nigeria, wealthy politicians, academics, scholars, the clergy, officers and celebrities do ‘Fela’s Cake’, and other funny things including not habiting in their homes. When I was the Editor-in-Chief of Ikeduru Today as well as a Proof-Reader and Columnist at a National Daily, I was overwhelmed by the fact of pursuing Igbo Politicians everywhere for interviews and for validations of reports heard or sent in about them.  To get their attention was a majestic challenge. However, I noticed that this men most times do not stay with their beautiful wives at home. They do not live in Abuja or Lagos. They, particularly Nigerian politicians, pay for their hotel bills annually. The place I always got them was at big hotels within the state, Owerri to be precise. Most of our political leaders live in hotels.  On some of the occasions, the kind of ‘Sissies’ in the hotel suites made one wonder how this kind of leaders could concentrate and reason in the clutches of these mademoiselles. Sometimes you see a girl that just left Federal Girls Secondary School in a Hotel suite, looking so unripe, so alluring, and in her hands a car key and a heavy smart phone. The girls, like Tomatoe-Jos, garden-fresh, sassy-looking young girls had very life–moving and rejuvenating appliances covered by mere flesh. They can make the rich politicians go late to appointments. The girls serve as alternative drug as the marijuana most of our leaders use.

However, as an investigative journalist, I witnessed that many of our leaders, political and corporate, many of our celebrities, religious and secular, many of our elites, academic and bucolic, do drugs in their private escapes. They do not want their children to see what they do with Marijuana and our poor little sisters.  I have keenly observed that that grass, Marijuana, has been part of their party and administrative menu. Marijuana is the opium of the wealthy. If you have not gone to any elite bash you will not understand what I am saying. I am not here to limit their freedom. I am not a prohibitionist. However, I read something recently regarding how ‘Jane’ is doing in Colorado, its acceptance in Uruguay, which did not leave me in awe as its sustainable value chain. I have studied it before, but now it’s becoming a new-world American brand. This is why I decided to explore this shortly to show how hypocritical our leaders have been once again.

I am content with the ban on gays in Nigeria by the PDP-led government. I will not write a poem or a story to exult my evenness. However, it shows that PDP is a republican government ready to take some conservative stance.  In fact, more conservative than the British conservative party. Yet, an   important issue is that we know that tobacco kills, alcohol kills, prescription drugs kill, fast-food kills, and looting kills, yet government has allowed all these vices to prevail, while banning that, that, which they all indulge in, and which is proven to be so capable of nourishing, healing, rebuilding, refreshing, exercising and re-awaking the soul of man and the god in him, as research has shown. Where is the conservativism? Why not ban Alcohol and tobacco as well? Is tobacco part of our culture?  One of the most recent research has shown that Marijuana does not kill, but rather cures diseases. Another shows that Alcohol kills. But I wonder why the Rastafarians who indulge in Marijuana-smoking more often look shabby. Could it be the reason for our stoned political landscape, given the tone of party defections, also look shabby and so disorganised? 

I do not think so. I do not. Politicians also do drugs in other developed and organised places. Alcohol is deadlier and more destructive than Marijuana.  As an eye-opener, look at the US CDC Figures directly from the CDC.gov website on numbers of deaths per year in the USA :Prescription Drugs: 237,485, Tobacco: 445,000, Alcohol: 39,199, Marijuana 0, none, not a single death in all medical history. Even in Nigeria, I have not heard of any person who died due to the overdose or in-take of Marijuana. This means that contrary to all the arguments policy makers globally have been dishing out to us, the drug is not harmful. This means that the masses have been lied to. This points to the fact that earlier studies on this drug are propagandist and doctored to suit the whims of big pharmaceuticals and Alcohol conglomerates. This means that some people are benefiting so much from this lie against Marijuana and its wealth and health value.

Why our leaders do not wish to look at the global trends and see how such a product can bring more revenue to this tropical economy beats my imagination. It has been argued in different places that over 40 percent of Nigerians do ‘Fela’s Cake’. The mechanics, politicians, musicians including Tu Face Idibia, Majek Fashek, Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti, and Students, Military, navy, Police, lecturers, and several other groups may have got involved in this thing. Will it not yield revenue for Nigeria if legalised? Why must we not take initiative? Why must we wait for other countries to start trading on this product before we begin? What is the use of these Senators?

You know Nigerian leaders prefer to hide everything including their Birth Certificates and academic credentials. They cannot say the truth like western leaders. Jose Mujica, the 78 year  president of Uruguay has just been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for his legalisation of Marijuana.  According to Reuters report of February 6 2014, in the views of his advocates, “ José “Pepe” Mujica's much talked-about marijuana legalization is in fact "a tool for peace and understanding." He is not isolated in his boldness given that America presidents all confessed to have used Marijuana:  - George Washington, U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson U.S. President,  John Adams, U.S. President,  Zachary Taylor, U.S. President, James Monroe, U.S. President, James Madison, U.S. President, Andrew Jackson, U.S. President, Barrack Obama, U.S. President etc. etc. Read their statements:

"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the
country." - Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it
everywhere." - George Washington, U.S. President

"We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own
consumption." - John Adams, U.S. President

Marijuana is big business in the black markets of Ghana, Mexico, Jamaica, United Kingdom and America. Consequently, my focus is on the wealth creation aspect of this product. As an MBA, I was trained to look critically at the business and economic sides of issues. Marijuana has been proven to be capable of creating employment, wealth, and health in the society. These three factors are my reasons for the clamour for its legalisation.  The farms will employ people, the flowers will cure people, the stem will be used for recreation, the seed for cosmetics and the sales by government will create wealth massively. It can uplift Nigeria’s biodegradable and renewable economy, reduce our use of water and air pollution, as well as reduce CO2 emission. This will seriously add so much to our national health, and our GDP, since Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Nigeria's  Minister of Finance and co. are seriously interested in our GDP growth.

Not arresting people for it will save cost. The cost of arresting users will also be channeled towards building infrastructure for Police. The Police in Nigeria has the most deplorable structures in Africa. The Marijuana biodegradable and renewable industrial revolution will not just make Nigeria a strong economy like Mexico, it will likely make Nigeria a golden age prosperous economy. We have over 170 million people in Nigeria. We have agrarian resources to power this new product. We have Railway to transport it. We have economies to export the product to. The use of Hemp has been found to reduce the use of Alcohol and Cigarette. It will reduce the deaths caused by those more harmful drugs. Another wonderful economic advantage is its capacity to fuel our cars. In my opinion, Nigeria would be crazy not to utilize the economic power of Hemp and the THC-laden Cannabis to fuel our nation’s prosperity and advancement beyond MINTS. Our over-dependence on Oil must be discouraged.

Agriculture is the way forward for Nigeria. I learnt recently that D’Banj a Nigerian artist is now investing in Agriculture. I also know that Bishop David Oyedepo’s universities internally cultivate their food. That is beautiful. That is very encouraging. Our government has been commended for exploits in agriculture. Marijuana should be seriously studied and included in our FADAMA agricultural Programme and included as our national product. Bio-diesel can be realized from Marijuana/ Hemp oil. It is a cash-cow that must be taken very seriously. The oil can power vehicles, save the planet and improve our economy. Innoson can make us cars, power-bikes, trucks that can be powered with Hemp-based biofuel so as to reduce pollution in Nigeria. The entire automobile industry can also join the value chain. This will reduce our over-reliance on petrol and diesel. It is re-inventing the wheel. Rudolf diesel invented a great engine in America for that.  Nigeria can invest in this sort of things for once. We need innovation and not inventions alone. Invention of local fighter –jets will never add a kobo to our economy now. We need innovative products such as Hemp-biofuel which is a product that has current markets around us.

Several analysts have condemned Marijuana. Users have been tagged stoners.  These critics do not condemn all the men and women that used the vegetable such as William Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, Joan of Arc, the great Egyptian Pharaohs, Elizabeth 1 of England, Christopher Columbus, Scythians, and even Shennong, the legendary Chinese Emperor who introduced Agriculture and the use of Herbal Medicine in China in 2700BC, Socrates and co, and the Sultan of Turkey. It is pure absurdity and sin not to see what these folks achieved while using Marijuana. The computer critics and prohibitionists use to condemn the value of Marijuana was also built by ardent users of Marijuana such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Is that not robbing America to pay Russia? You also know that many youths and adults of our time look up to Barrack Obama, Richard Branson, Stephen King, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, Wole Soyinka, Aoron Sorkin, Wiz kid, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, people who have one way or the other identified with marijuana.  

We are living in an age when the CEOs of the most advanced technology companies in history come from high schools with the highest ever reported levels of cannabis use. We are living in an age of capitalism, oil money, and energy cash. We are living in an age where if you do not innovate energy you die. We are living in an age where the top media including ABC, Time, Vanguard, and even CNN have all changed their views on Marijuana, its wealth and medicinal essences. Dr Sanjay Gupta, the popular CNN medical propagandist, in 2013 said that, ‘It is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana. We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that.’ In this capacity, he wrote for CNN. This was after a child that had epilepsy was cured by the ingestion of Marijuana. A very recent experiment. Marijuana is the only plant that offers a mix of energy and medicine. It is so far the most popular and powerful vegetable in the world. I learnt that a dangerous snake can merely perceive its smell and it sleeps off. It is so powerful and can enhance our health and economy. Yet, it is not meant for everybody. Just like anybody cannot fly a private jet. It should be legalized for wealth creation in the country and for those who indulge. Enough of this hypocrisy.

If Nigerians can be allowed to use Alcohol responsibly, why can’t Marijuana be allowed to be used responsibly? People say it could cause accident and impair judgment, but does Alcohol not do more? Dr. Mitch Earlywine, Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany argues that, “Prohibitionists suggest that marijuana creates meaningful social problems, including amotivational syndrome, reckless driving, and aggression. Research in each of these domains reveals that these concerns are unfounded. Evidence for a marijuana-induced amotivational syndrome is lacking. A subset of depressed users may have inspired a few case studies that report apathy, indifference, and dysphoria, but cannabis likely does not cause these symptoms. The drug does not correlate with grades in college students. High school students who use marijuana have lower grades, but their school performance occurred prior to their consumption of cannabis. Cannabis users do not show worse performance on the job, more frequent unemployment, or lower wages. In addition, long-term exposure to cannabis in the laboratory fails to show any meaningful or consistent impact on productivity.” A scholar who puts his job at stake to take such a strong academic stance should be taken seriously by Americans and Nigerians alike.  Even in West Indies, a Medical School in Jamaica has shown that Marijuana addiction is speculative fiction, and it is not as published in mainstream studies. In Jamaica there are anecdotal stories of mothers having a medicinal bottle of weed that cures diseases, and sometimes it is buried in the yard for when a family member got seriously ill. Why are Nigerians not using this medicine for waist pain and arthritis that have ravaged our hard-working mothers in the villages?

Marijuana has health value and also does not even affect pupils in school as studies have depicted. Accordingly, Erowid, a website proven to publish scientific studies, writes that, “Large-scale studies of high school students have generally found no difference in grade-point averages between marijuana users and non-users. One study found lower grades among students reported to be daily users of marijuana, but the authors failed to identify a causal relationship and concluded that both phenomena were part of a complex of inter-related social and emotional problems. In one longitudinal study of college students, after controlling for other factors, marijuana users were found to have higher grades than non-users and to be equally as likely to successfully complete their educations. Another study found that marijuana users in college scored higher than non-users on standardized “achievement values” scales.”

Also with regards to human resource and employee engagement in one study lasting 94 days, “marijuana had no significant impact on learning, performance or motivation”. In another 31-day study, “subjects given marijuana worked more hours than controls and turned in an equal number of tokens for cash at the study's completion”. However, “in a Canadian study that required subjects in the marijuana group to consume unusually high doses, some reduction in work efficiency was noted in the days following intoxication.” (See Erowid, 2013). Erowid concludes that, “Undoubtedly, when marijuana is used in a way that produces near-constant intoxication, other activities are likely to be neglected. However, the weight of scientific evidence suggests that there is nothing in the pharmacological properties of cannabis that alter people's attitudes, values, or abilities regarding work.”

 Consequently, most propaganda against the weed is hollow. The religion of prohibitionism with regards to this product must be demystified. If people are using the drug in Nigeria massively, if our leaders in all fronts know its medicinal and recreational value, use it, and approve it in their privacy, why do they not look at the wealth value of this vegetable? Why do our people still think it causes mental illness? If in doubt, go check, Nigeria is the 8^th highest consumer of marijuana and also over the years anthropological studies have shown that Nigerians did not start using the drug after the 1^st and 2^nd World Wars. Ghana is the third largest user of the drug yet there are no mad people in Ghana connected to the weed.

Frankly, a study by Drugpolicy.org will clarify this myth. The study defines Marijuana as a plant containing a psychoactive chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in its leaves, buds and flowers. The cite argues that Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with forty-two percent of American adults reporting that they have used it. Despite the fact that marijuana's effects are less harmful than those of most other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, it is the most common drug that people are arrested for possessing. The drug has no single relationship with mental illness. Some effects of marijuana ingestion may include feelings of panic, anxiety, and paranoia. Such experiences can be frightening, but the effects are temporary.

 

Unfortunately, innocent citizens are arrested on a daily basis for a harmless vegetable. Last year, NDLEA, we learnt, warned Tonto Dike, a Nollywood actor for publicly encouraging Marijuana. According to a report by TNV in 2010, NDLEA arrested 2,794,733 persons between 1990 and 2009. Of this number males make up over 88 percent. This cannabis arrest frequency was against 2,827,862 cases involving all classes of hard drugs - cocaine, heroin and other unclassified ones. How can stakeholders get informed in order to stop this ignorant and humongous sabotage on the poor masses? Why don’t they bust the rich and the politicians who indulge? Why can’t this vegetable leave the shores of plutonomy and be used for Nigeria’s economic boost?