“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilisation of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.” – Carl Sagan.

Almost 80 years since its prohibition began, could the pendulum finally be swinging the other direction in the international cannabis debate? Looking at some recent developments – the success of the Portuguese harm-reduction policy; full legalisation in certain enlightened American states; calls for repeal from such respected figures as Sir Richard Branson, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and a number of former South American leaders – it would appear that some progressive movements are afoot.
It’s not just politicians who are calling for reform of the laws and an end to the costly and failed prohibition. Kevin Higgins and Paul Roban are two young Dublin activists hoping to make a serious difference. Higgins was just 17 when he co-organised the Legalise Cannabis Ireland march in Dublin two years ago. He met Roban – a 28-year-old media studies graduate – at that event, and the two stayed in touch.
Now, to coincide with Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan’s Private Member’s Bill calling for cannabis to be legalised here, Higgins is about to launch an Irish branch of NORML [the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is an American non-profit organisation with its HQ in Washington, DC – OT], and he’s also helping Roban produce a documentary on cannabis in Ireland called The 41st Shade.
Although Higgins is an unashamed marijuana smoker, Roban claims to have only ever dabbled in the drug. His interest stems mainly from a sense of injustice about the prohibition and an interest in the medical usefulness of marijuana. “I was working on a web show called TBT Dublin a while back,” he explains. “Basically I would go out on the streets of Dublin, with a set of ten questions. I did eight episodes and I did two specials – one was on abortion and one was on cannabis. I obviously did my research for the piece. The more I read up on cannabis, the more interested I became in the subject because I could see a huge gap in what I had been seeing in the media and what I was reading and finding out on the internet.
“So I was filming on the day of the Legalise Cannabis Ireland march and I met Kevin, and everything I put to him I got a great answer for. From there we stayed in contact. But I also looked at this issue and thought with the changes in legislation in relation to Sativex [a cannabis-based spray, which can ease symptoms and significantly improve the quality of life of people suffering from illnesses like multiple sclerosis – OT], and then Ming’s Bill coming up, this is the perfect time in the perfect place to do this documentary and to do it right.” 
Although Higgins had initially considered contesting the next local elections on a cannabis legalisation ticket, he ultimately decided that setting up a NORML branch in Ireland was a better move.
“A few months after the first march I decided to go into Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan,” he recalls. “We agreed on many things and stayed in touch. I came to him with the proposal to set up NORML Ireland since then: we will have our launch within the next few weeks and it will all be coinciding with the lead up to the Bill itself.
“We’ve had some accomplishments so far in that we’ve brought Hot Press’s Stuart Clark onto our board, and we’ve also got addiction specialists like Dr. Garrett McGovern and Dr. Cathal O’Sullivan. We’ll be officially launching in just a few weeks, but I also decided I would work with Paul in making this documentary because I felt there was no current media there for the situation of cannabis in Ireland in the film format. If we look not only in Ireland but across the world it really is the perfect time to cover this issue.”
While some of the documentary is already in the can, there are a number of interviews to do yet. Over the coming weeks, the pair will be travelling around Ireland and the UK speaking to politicians, addiction councilors, medical doctors, law enforcers and smugglers (there’s already an interview scheduled with Mr. Nice author Howard Marks).
“It’s called The 41st Shade,” Roban explains. “The idea is that the forty shades of green is Ireland and the forty-first shade of green is cannabis. We’re making it independently. All our own effort, all our own money, all our own equipment, whatever we have, is going into this. If we go to a production company, not only would it take a few months for us to get the go-ahead, and then the time is gone, but we’d also have a concern that the footage we take trying to be completely unbiased can be chopped and changed and made into something else.”
Not that they’re planning to make a biased documentary.
“We are being very level-headed about the situation in that we don’t want to seem one-sided on either side. We want to present as many people’s point of view as we can and to be cohesive.”
One of the interviews they’ve already filmed is with an Irish-based grower.
“We had to sign a contract with this person because they wanted their identity completely concealed; they also wanted the location of the house completely concealed,” Roban explains. “There was a process we had to go through of editing the footage in front of this person to make sure we were taking away exactly what he wanted us to take away. I’m also in contact with Minister White and Minister Reilly, Varadkar, Joan Burton. There is also the independent side of things. We’re trying to cover as many parties as we can.”
Needless to say, they’re not expecting these politicians to necessarily come out in favour of legalisation.
“There is still quite a lot of stigma as we saw earlier on in the year when Bressie made his comments about drugs in Hot Press and the tabloids went crazy. But I just feel that more and more people are coming out across the world in favour of legalisation.
“It hasn’t been as prominent in Ireland, but it is something that needs to be changed. The recent NCADA report stated that higher classes of society are genuinely more likely to use cannabis as opposed to the lower classes, and this was something we have never seen in Ireland. If you look back to the Legalise Ireland protest that I did two years ago there was no high-end managerial professions, there was no CEO’s, there was no-one like that.”
Well, surely that’s because their jobs would be at risk…
“Exactly! So the normalisation of cannabis use in Ireland is something that I feel needs to be brought about and I think this documentary can at least help fuel a bit of debate and hopefully show up many politicians’ lack of education on the actual issue itself.”
Roban concurs: “Yeah, my real plan or objective for this is to have an open debate that isn’t sort of shouted down by one side or completely cut off as we see happen so many times in Irish media. When the subject is brought up it just descends into a name-calling battle almost.”
Higgins has other reasons to want to see cannabis legalised. He’s due in court in the coming months on charges of possession of four grams of weed. It’s a minor offence but, as the law currently stands, a drugs conviction could prevent him from travelling to a number of foreign countries including the U.S. and Australia.
“The effect that a criminal record has on an Irish citizen is so detrimental,” he says. “I’ve one pending myself now and, to be honest, I’m not so much worried about it given the line of work that I’m in. However, it’s just completely unfair. I haven’t done any damage to society, and I haven’t harmed anyone. I actually made specific reservations so that I didn’t purchase off the black market and it just slows everything down. It was also a week after I got onto Ming, but I don’t want to create any conspiracies.
“The first question I was asked when I got into the squad car was, ‘Do you know Anthony Boyle?’ – that’s the person I organised the last march with – and then, of course conveniently, it happened just a week after I’d gone in to meet Ming. So there is a bit of cloudy waters there.”
Not that he has anything against the Guards.
“Just to clarify, and I’m sure I speak for Paul as well, we are otherwise law-abiding citizens. The only law that I do consistently break is the consumption of cannabis. I genuinely feel that the Gardai force can be a force that I can work with and respect and trust and everything else. However they have to enforce this legislation and I don’t blame them for that. What I have found from my dealing with the Gardai is that they feel the exact same way. When they are catching somebody for cannabis, it’s almost degrading to their job at this stage, they’re continuously bringing people in, they’re continuously seizing cannabis.”