NOMINATION FOR THE 2021 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
THE “GRAND BOUQUET CANNABIQUE” OF HUMAN AND CITIZENS RIGHTS DEFENDERS
#AuChanvreCitoyens!
Adriaan Bronkhorst (1945) Netherlands, lawyer, co-founder Drugs Peace Institute (DPI), ex-POWD
Laying the foundation stone of a church (The Hague, 1950) and in 2020 at the end of my entheogenic career
Start. I grew up in a family where religion was passed on to us through breast milk. My father, a pastor in The Hague, then a university professor of Protestant theology in Brussels, wanted 12 children, like the 12 apostles, but my mother decided that 7 were enough. Hadn’t God created his world in 7 days and then stopped ?!
Of course, we were trained in Christian doctrine, certainly also in order to be able to shine the example of our Father. When I was 5 years old, my twin brother and I were called to give a public performance for the laying of the « foundation stone » of a new church. To the sympathy of the believers, we first quarreled over who could hold the trowel and who the stone, but after a nice correction from the papa-pastor, à la Calvinaise, it was carefully laid. Thus ended my prestigious collaboration with the Church.
Experiences. After studying law and an internship at the European Commission, I started in Congo-Brazzaville in a UN project tasked with reorienting the administration, from the French colonial type, towards a development administration. In charge of statistics in the public service, I visited for 4 years the most remote corners of the country. On several trips I have been invited to participate in traditional sessions of communication between my hosts and the ancestors. Great parties. The most remarkable was the first one in 1972, when I received, for Mr. Kurt Waldheim, invisible great chief of all peoples, a drugs peace offer from the Batékés of Nsa .
My initiation to cannabis took also place on another front, more surprising. In Brazza, the former capital of Free France during World War II, the Case de Gaulle, built to house the general during his visits, had been the residence of the French ambassador since the country’s independence in 1960. Shortly after my arrival in 1971, Ambassador Marc Bonnefous organized the Back-to-Congo Festival there in November, when the expats were back from their leave in Europe. This feast is engraved in my memory as Ecstasy in the Embassy, the gift of the great general to the little « cacabas de service » I was at that time
In the years that followed, I discovered the downsides of prohibiting cannabis and other substances, when the ‘war on drugs’ raged, and opiate overdoses, lies of sneaky politicians and the integration of all kinds of mafias in the trade have completely obscured the picture. With my immunity gone, prosecution and jail also kicked in and I was able to begin to see the full picture. In 1993, the Drug Peace Institute (DPI), of which I am a co-founder, organized the first campaign for the nomination of drug pacifists for the Nobel Peace Prize. Of the three candidates, the two North Americans did not obtain a quorum of 100 supporters for fear of their compatriots, qualified to nominate, to anger Uncle Sam.
The Bolivian candidate, Mauricio Mamani Pocoaca, on the other hand, received massive support from a people extremely angry with the new methods of American colonization. Two consecutive appointments of his compatriot Evo Morales Ayma, cocalero, largely contributed to his election as president of his country. Unfortunately, power got the better of Evo who, in order to take revenge on the old masters, the ‘colonizadores’, happily introduced a more punitive prohibition policy for the consumption of cannabis and coca.
For a year and a half, at the end of 1994 / mid-1996, the DPI opened, with strong financial assistance from Editions du Lézard and moral support from CIRC and other European associations, the Drugs Peace House in Amsterdam. A great place for international meetings, the project exceeded the organizational capacities of a movement still in its’ infancy. I compared it to a summer camp made for and by teenagers who, at the end of the summer, leave the camp and go home. The memory remains and, fortunately, the experiences.
Dernière réunion à la Drugs Peace House à Amsterdam, Juillet 1996 Invitation pour l’inauguration d’Evo Morales.
Death to Chirac
Jacques Chirac / You’re an asshole
With your recreational weed hunt / You exceed your goal
Don’t think we can’t see it clear
When you summon them / your coke and Wim Kok.
With your criticism of our drug policy
You got lost in time / we see it immediately
You are an arch-conservative / and above all a great liar
Stay in your Elysée / Here we are happy with our weed
In 1995, Jacques Chirac became President of France and soon after, tensions with the Netherlands increased due to their tolerant policy on soft drugs. Chirac didn’t even want to distinguish between soft and hard drugs and comes to the Netherlands to lecture Prime Minister Wim Kok. The latter remains firm, publicly affirms that Chirac does not understand the drug problem, but must comply with the new political reality
The Dutch discussion on the legalization of soft drugs is at once over. The anger in the country is great and Chirac is publicly ridiculed. Because I am well informed about the supply of drugs to the highest French political figures from the Netherlands and thus also on the use of cocaine by the Chiracs, the president’s statements are also a personal affront. When I am arrested for importing drugs at the French border near Valenciennes in 1997, I decide to take the test with the French courts. With a disappointing result : the refusal of justice. The French state protects its elite against the prosecution of fake-crimes which it ruthlessly pursues against the population. The ideals of the republic are no more, the day of glory is gone. Poor France. Eldest daughter of the church and a rotten republic.
The world is opening up in 2021 to adopt a new drug policy based no longer on lies of religious and ideological moralism but on facts. In addition, the fact-finding investigation is not only limited to policy but also extends to the consequences for victims – including compensation –- and their torturers.
History is indicted. While claiming it wants to be part of this movement, the Macron government simultaneously introduced a new law that aims to punish every cannabis user who dares to go out in public, in fact creating an underground resistance to harbor 5 million compatriots. The French State, through the mouth of its Minister of the Interior, who still had to learn how to do his first poo when François was already consuming his shit at the Elysee Palace, saw fit to qualify as poo the product used by hundreds of millions of people for their daily well-being, and to add that it is not going to be legalized in France. He says so at a time when humanity can no longer escape the conclusion that the prohibition of cannabis was a mistake to be erased. It is high time to react, so that minister Darmanin learns not to shit on people anymore but in his own pants and that the Macrons take care of it.
Motivation. The moroccan colonel, my prefered assassin.
But, forget your gun : #AuBouquetdeChanvreCitoyens!
