Ganja

MM Online - Survey: Four in 10 Malaysians want legal medical marijuana (extracts):

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7 — Four in 10 Malaysians back the proposal to legalise marijuana for medical purposes, according to a survey by YouGov Omnibus.

The survey found that 57 per cent of the 1,012 Malaysians polled believe marijuana has medicinal value, while one in eight (12 per cent) disagreed and 32 per cent said they don’t know.

When it comes to whether they believe marijuana should be legalised for medical use, the survey found that 43 per cent agreed that it should be made legal for this purpose.

A quarter or 25 per cent of the 1,012 Malaysians in the survey disagreed that marijuana should be made legal for medical use, while 32 per cent again said they did not know.

Marijuana plants in the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s growing facility in the USA

Before I refer you to Wikipedia, let me clarify that marijuana is the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica plant so the terms marijuana and cannabis are used interchangeably.

OK then, Wikipedia tells us (extracts): Medical cannabis refers to the physician-recommended use of cannabis, which takes place in Canada, Belgium, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and 31 states in the USA.

In September 2018 cannabis was legalized in South Africa while Canada legalized recreational use of cannabis in October 2018.

As a teenager, a naughty, mischievous and adventurous one, wakakaka, I had experienced smoking of ganja, which is the Indian word for marijuana - I had to, if anything just for fun, so I thought then as a very kuai-laan (naughty) kid.

At our kampong budak's meeting place known to us as 'running water' which I mentioned in my Kongsamkok post The secret brook, my village Indian mates mixed some crushed dried ganja leaves with a normal cigarette tobacco - removed some tobacco from cigarette without breaking the paper stick, mixed removed tobacco with ganja, then refilled empty cigarette paper stick with the mixture, and Bob's your uncle.

Where my mateys obtained the ganja I had no idea and didn't bother to ask as I didn't have the money to indulge nor the motivation to find out.

I had a few powerful drags but the ganja did nothing to me, not even made me dizzy. I thought I was tough but today I suspect that so-called ganja that I had was probably not 'ganja' or very watered-down marijuana fragments, wakakaka. I was probably just puffing a cigarette.

I can't give any opinion on whether Malaysia should legalise marijuana for medicinal use. But marijuana or by its other names, namely, ganja, weeds, Indian hemp, hashish etc, is a psychoactive drug, and has been used several thousands of years ago for religious ceremonies, medication or recreation.

It's native to Central Asia (Iran, the '-stan' countries, etc) and the Indian subcontinent, but was used as far West as the ancient region of Assyria (Turkey today), Egypt (no doubt including Canaan or later to be known as Israel) and Greece.

I recall that as a kid my granny told me that in Southern Thailand the locals used marijuana as ulam (fresh salad eaten with sambal or pounded chilli-prawn condiment), wow!

ulam but alas, no ganja, wakakaka 

Thus, whenever we wonder why some hawkers in Penang served marvellously delicious food, like the famous Ayer Itam Indian mee rebus, Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Kelang's nasi kandar, that made you return for more, we would suspect that those chefs must have added ganja to the recipe, wakakaka.

mee rebus 

nasi kandar

The suspicions against Indian or Mamak dishes having the appetising marijuana might have arisen from associating ganja with Indians, wakakaka. In those early days, no Malay or Chinese (save kaytee, wakakaka) but only Indians smoked ganja.

How times have changed.

wonder whether granny had marijuana shoots in her tomyam when she grew up in Thailand?

wakakaka