Mardi Grass Mind Candy 2012

Saturday & Sunday 5-6 May

NIMBIN TOWN HALL

MCs: Neil Pike [Pagan Love Cult] and Miss Guidance [Entheogenesis Australis]

Join Pragmatic Visionaries & Solipsistic Psychonauts

for an afternoon of

Debate, Discussion & the Occasional Stoned Rave

Outrageous Truths & Believable Lies !

Can you imagine a Mardi Grass beyond prohibition? In 2012, the Nimbin Mardi Grass is hosting MARDI GRASS MIND CANDY - an array of national and international thinkers and speakers to discuss the past, present and future of cannabis law reform from many different angles. On Saturday afternoon of the festival, we’ll be exploring issues from cannabis and spirituality through to cannabis and sex; the tough love of prohibition; imagining and creating a legal cannabis market; advances in cannabis as medicine. We will hold a special 2-hour forum on Sunday to give voice to various drug law reform groups and individuals to share visions and ideas for future change. Leading campaigners will be joined by a variety of local activists, media provocateurs and other movers and shakers, who all have a vision beyond prohibition.

Mind candy? Afternoon distraction or hours of brain bending banter? Contribute, experience and decide!

Saturday 5 May

12 noon - 12.30pm - ENTHEOGENIC PERSPECTIVES

For some, the kind herb provides what theologians of old called a “sanctifying grace”, a state of mind in which the divine presence resides in our hearts, infusing the fleeting days with a sense of holiness. Psychoactive plants and substances that promote this sense of the spiritual element of human life are known as entheogens. Is Cannabis an entheogen? Are we just getting stoned, or do some stoners get more out of their weed than others? While there are many ways to use Cannabis, this session explores the spiritual context, including:

- Getting “out of it” by “putting into it”: the merits of intention and ritual in optimising the stone-zone

- Marijuana and institutionalised religions: Sadhus, Rastafarian, and more recent Cannabis Churches

- What are the myths surrounding sex & cannabis? Cannabis has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years for both men and women.

FACILITATOR: Dr Des Tramacchi [Entheogenesis Australis]

PANELISTS: Stephanie Barlow [Happy Herb Company], Margaret Cross & Shane Huebner [Circle Spaces and Beyond], Mamakind [Cannabis Campaigner, Journalist and Author], Michka [Founder of the Smoke Museum (Musee du Fumeur), author, and ardent anti-prohibitionist], Moose [Medical Cannabis Educator]

12.30 - 1pm: QUALITY, CONTROL AND MEDICINAL USE OF CANNABIS IN AUSTRALIA, EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
SPEAKER: Ivan Casselman [Researcher]

As one of the first cultivated crops, cannabis has had a very long-term relationship with humans. This plant is now used for food, fibre, medicine and consciousness expansion. After millennia of human use and centuries of prohibition, how does the cultural use of this plant manifest itself today? To date the majority of the ethnographical studies have failed to explore the prevalent cannabis culture in “western” or “industrialized” countries focusing instead on countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic data from Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Australia, this presentation will explore three aspects of modern cannabis culture. How law enforcement has affected the cost and quality of cannabis, how national “epicentres” of cannabis culture and legalization are developed and maintained, and finally will compare and contrast how the use of medical cannabis in the aforementioned countries. Under UN convention the use of Cannabis is prohibited globally, however, nations differ in how these conventions are enacted. This presentation will conclude with a discussion of these differences and the growing civil disobedience in defiance of these laws.

1 - 2pm - GREEN BOUNTY: ADVANCES IN CANNABIS AS MEDICINE

This will be a free ranging discussion of the wide and wonderful medicinal bounty of cannabis:

? Medicines, including scientific developments in the use of cannabinoids in the treatment of cancer

? Political, philosophical, moral, strategic implications of medical marijuana

? Medical authority and our right to grow herbs to treat ourselves

? Challenging the medical establishment's view that we should only ever restore baseline health, and not exceed it

FACILITATOR: Erik van Keulen [Entheogenesis Australis]

PANELISTS: Tony Bower [Mullaway’s Medicinal Cannabis], Ivan Casselman [Researcher], Dr Andrew Katelaris [Cannabis Campaigner], Graham Irvine [Campaigner], John Kaye [Greens NSW MP], Mamakind [Cannabis Campaigner, Journalist and Author], Moose [Medical Cannabis Educator], Matt Riley [Independent Activist]

2 - 3pm - TOUGH LOVE: DOES PROHIBITION PROTECT US FROM HARM?

We often hear that prohibition is justified because it “saves young lives”. Illicit drug use is probably the only lifestyle and health-related issue in our society that seems to require criminal sanctions to control! In October 2007, Richard Brustrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales in the UK, called for all drugs to be legalized. Prohibition, he claimed, was harmful in itself, causing five key harms: increasing crime, causing a crisis in an already overloaded criminal justice system, economic harm, undermining public health, the destabilization of countries producing drugs, and the undermining of civil rights. Is prohibition an effective policy to “save young lives” or is the implementation of prohibition causing more harm than the drugs themselves? Where is the line between our right to privacy and the need to “police” dangerous substances?

FACILITATOR: Prof Paul Wilson, Chair of Criminology, Bond University

PANELISTS: Steve Bolt [Solicitor], Cambedelic [Social Worker], Paul Cubitt [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition], Annie Madden [Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League], James Moylan [Civil Liberties Observer Group], Ann Symonds [Founder, Australian Parliamentary Group on Drug Law Reform], Dr Alex Wodak [Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation]

3 - 4pm - IMAGINEERING THE FUTURE: REGULATING DRUG SUPPLY

Regardless of their legality, and aside from the growing problem of fake drugs, some drug deals are better than others, even under prohibition. Most dealers provide at least some information, not just the drugs. But there seems to be a 2-tiered market, where poor people buy anonymous "Bubble" of dubious quality, while the rich can afford identified white powders. Risk is shared unevenly across industry players; and some production methods are more toxic than others. So what is best practice? And how we can ensure responsible and ethical supply in a post-prohibition world? How can regulation minimize real harms and maximize the benefits we seek when we choose to use drugs?

FACILITATOR: Erik van Keulen [Entheogenesis Australis]

PANELISTS: Cambedelic [Social Worker], Nell Jones [Happy Herb Company], Mamakind [Cannabis Campaigner, Journalist and Author], James Moylan [Civil Liberties Observer Group], Ann Symonds [Founder, Australian Parliamentary Group on Drug Law Reform], Dr Alex Wodak [Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation]

Sunday 6 May

12 Noon - 2pm - OCCUPY NIMBIN! WHO’S DOING WHAT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

In 1973, almost 40 years ago, Nimbin was first “occupied” by the Aquarius Festival, and twenty years later in 1992, Bob Hopkins heralded the next “occupy” cycle with his one-man protest-surrender at Nimbin police station. Where are the politics of change in 2012 - locally, nationally and internationally? What has evolved, for the better or the worse, over the last four decades? Is 2012 the beginning of a new wave of drug law reform activism? Is there anything to learn from the successes of other political/social movements who have also struggled for fairness and justice? This special 2-hour session is for organisations and individuals to share their plans, visions and information about their activities, as well as providing an opportunity for seeding synergies and alliances. Join us and let us know how you’re planning to contribute to drug law reform in 2012 and beyond!

FACILITATOR: Rak Razam [Media Provocateur, Journalist and Author]

PANELISTS: Graham Askey [Help End Marijuana Prohibition Party], Stephanie Barlow [Happy Herb Company], Paul Cubitt [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition], Mamakind [Cannabis Campaigner, Journalist and Author], Annie Madden [Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League], Steve McDonald [Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine], Moose [Cannabis Campaigner], Jim Moylan [Civil Liberties Observer Group], Matt Riley [Independent Activist], Ann Symonds [Founder, Australian Parliamentary Group on Drug Law Reform], Dr Alex Wodak [Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation]