Marijuana

THE first time I saw a marijuana plant was when I was in high school. I was in the boarding house of a classmate who kept a plant in a pot on the roof below his room’s window. He obviously smoked the leaves of the plant later, but that was when I was no longer around. We were young and into hard rock music but the most that I did was drink liquor and smoke cigarettes a little. I was never into marijuana.

The next time marijuana came into the picture was in the ‘80s when I was in the countryside. Somebody or some group introduced the plant to the farmers and that changed the complexion in some parts of the Cebu mountains. Farmers earned more planting marijuana than planting corn and cash crops like tomatoes, baguio beans, etc. and even got more from it than tending to the mango plants there.

Interestingly, marijuana is still being grown in the Cebu mountains as proven by the raids, intermittent these may have become though, followed by the burning of uprooted plants. Of course, growing marijuana is risky and tedious and its effect on the body less fulfilling for addicts, that is why it has been supplanted by shabu, which is chemical-based and easily produced in bulk.

But marijuana has not left really and is even considered more and more as “harmless”—yes, as “harmless” as, say, cigarettes. That must be in the mind of President Duterte when he joked about smoking it to keep himself awake and alert for the lengthy Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit activities.

I have heard that said by taxi drivers a number of times. To keep themselves awake and alert the whole night in a 24-hour grind, they supposedly use marijuana. Some taxi operators are reportedly tolerant of marijuana use but others are strict. I don’t know the setup now after the Duterte administration intensified its drive against the illegal drugs trade.

In the place where I grew up in Sambag 2, some of my kababata used to smoke marijuana but we took that lightly and we even merely joked about its effect (“wa pa katugpa”). Overall, marijuana use wasn’t much of a problem compared with shabu, which became an even bigger business. Marijuana is considered less harmful than shabu but one can still get arrested for mere possession of it.

They say marijuana can have medical uses. But can it straighten the thinking of the public official who uses it? preparation where to spend this week-long vacation. Should we book a flight to Boracay, Bohol, Cebu, or to other tourist-spot destinations? It becomes more of visiting market places early in the season to avoid shopping rush. Pickpockets and robbers see Christmas as a great opportunity to increase their income. Children counts the numbers of their godparents. Parents would informed them who among their godparents they should go to. Yet it should better to let them know that all these activities are motivated by the great love of Christ. All of our actions should then be influenced and motivated by the same great love.

Advent is a long time for us to recognize the love of God. By the time the children’s caroling begins before Christmas day, we should then understand this love and ready to spread it to the whole world. I’m listening to a Christmas song while writing this down. A line says “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I think the singer wants us to understand that the family should feel this love better by being together as one. Are you ready for Christmas? The Christmas lights, Christmas trees, Christmas songs and the gigantic Christmas paroles should all remind us to live according to the rules of love.