4:20 — Maarna ya nahi Maarna? Marijuana.
With the NCB Summoning the top actor’s in Bollywood. What does it say about the future of legalization of the herb in the country?
Cannabis, Marijuana, Weed, Reefer, Ganja, and many other names of this herb is widely known to the public. But, in India, we know it as “Bhang” and its earliest mention dates back to the Vedas and was considered one of the five very sacred plants.
But in recent times, its name sprung around in the tragic and untimely death of Sushant Singh Rajput. When actress Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik Chakraborty were accused and convicted in peddling Marijuana and other hard drugs by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)
What followed next was Rhea’s name dropping famous Bollywood celebrities like Sara Ali Khan, Rakul Preet Singh. The absolute shocker was Deepika Padukone after her alleged chats with her manager Karishma Prakash dating back to the year 2017 surfaced where they are speaking about Weed and Hash.
Now she is summoned by the NCB for investigation, But what’s interesting is in a country where “Bhang” which is an edible mixture made from buds, leaves, and flowers of the female cannabis or the marijuana plant is consumed during the festival of “Holi” and “Mahashivratri” it is incorporated in the same league as that of the hard drugs like MDMA, LSD. Why?
To figure that out, we have to go back in time and understand why was it criminalized in the first place. So, the year was 1985 and the Congress-led Rajiv Gandhi government was under pressure by the American government to take action for The 1961 “single convention on narcotic drugs” which was an international treaty that clubbed cannabis with hard drugs all of the world.
India was given 25 years to take a call on recreational drugs, thus in 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government succumbing to the pressure from the Western countries introduced the NDPS Act — Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act. This Act clubbed Marijuana, Hashish, and bhang with other hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, etc and banned them with the minimum punishment for the violation being 10 years in Jail.
(Sources — TOI article in 2013 “Hope for Dope”)
We won’t follow the trend and blame Nehru and his descendants for all the wrongdoings but the truth is that the NDPS Act was poorly crafted and that led to a shift in drug consumption in India, as the Punishment was the same for both hard and the soft drugs.
Now, that recreational legalization of cannabis is being looked at by many countries, One must not forget that Baba Ramdev’s “Patanjali” CEO Acharya Balkrishna spoke about legalizing Marijuana in the year 2018 for Medicinal use, and a year before that Meneka Gandhi a member of the Lok Sabha suggested the same, followed by “The Great Legalization Movement” that fizzled out as soon as it started.
Now, that Marijuana is Legal in many states of the USA and Canada following suit and many other countries also considering legalizing medical usage like Thailand. Things can change in India, But you never know looking at the kind of attention its getting, it’s highly unlikely in the near future.
As of now if you are caught with Marijuana, the fine is Rs 10000 or 6 months of jail time or both for a small quantity, and looking at the stigma attached to it, the best thing to do is don’t do drugs or as they say in Hindi, “Idhar Marijuana Nahi Maarneka”
