First Cannabis Festival in Greece
Greece, as many of you already know, is going through a very tough time, economically and socially speaking. The state is on the verge of collapse, and it has been for quite some time. The economy is so bad that in some areas people are forced to live without electricity. What if cannabis could help? That’s what the people who organized the First Cannabis Festival in Greece believe. As indicated by the Greek Reporter, “The poster of the festival depicts ancient goddess Athena cultivating the cannabis plant.
The two main sponsors of the festival are two Spanish websites selling cannabis seeds. The festival organizers propose that Greece adopts the Uruguay model, according to which each citizen has the right to cultivate up to six plants for personal use, the forming of non-profit cannabis social clubs, and the state selling certain quantities per year to adults at low prices. They believe that with the current government in Greece the time is ripe for such a radical move.”Besides, the organizers also believe that “such an act would benefit the Greek economy.
It would bring sizeable revenues to the state through a state-run cannabis production industry that would also create 40,000 employment positions. Such a prospect would bring 2.5 billion euros a year and help the Greek economy come out of the slump, they say.”In a sense, what the Greek people are asking is to go back to their roots. In fact, cannabis was quite famous in Ancient Greece, as demonstrated by a study carried out by Luigi Arata: “Given the connection made in medical tradition between the effects of cannabis and wine and taking into consideration that cannabis was used as a stupefacient by Scythians, as we have seen in Herodotus, we must suspect that ancient Greeks knew that cannabis could have neurological effects because they observed it.
In fact, cannabis was firstly burnt or toasted and then reduced to powder in almost all medical receipts.”Greek people should be able to go online and purchase their seeds (http://greenhouseseeds.nl/) to grow their own cannabis plants, and the Greek government should embrace its traditions, especially when those traditions would help the economy of a struggling state. It sounds pretty easy and straightforward, if only stereotypes and politics weren’t complicated enough to forget about centuries of healthy traditions. Cannabis was part of ancient recipes, rituals and medicine: how long do you have to wait before we can learn from our own (hi) stories?
