Everything you need to know to outsell big biz and outgrow big bro

By David Malmo-Levine

    This article is my attempt at a step by step method of bringing drugpeace to your town, with three easy steps. This is the formula that I have followed in Vancouver, and I openly sold pot for four months in Vancouver, despite arrest, robberies and many other hassles.
    There's no guarantee that what has worked for me will work for you, but at the very least it's something fun to do, instead of just cowering under your sheets waiting for the cops to break your door down.

Step 1: Hempology
Started up in Vansterdam by superhempster Danna Rozek in '94, Hempology's motto is "Legalization through Education." Fundamental to this idea is to get people meeting on a regular weekly basis. You can talk about prohibition history, hempseed nutrition or how to grow pot, it doesn't really matter. As long as it's fun and people are learning things about cannabis, it's hempology.
 

Materials   A safe place to gather and smoke pot.  Advertising (posters and word of mouth).  Access to a photocopier.  Felt markers for coloring posters.  A TV and a VCR.  Occasional guest speakers.  Some nice buds.

Tips

 
• For a location, pick a place that potheads already gather (Gazebo Park in Edmonton, The Mountain in Montreal etc).
• Let each person in the group pick a different topic that they are responsible for kickstarting a discussion on.
• Make a calendar of topics. Plan lots of parties and special guest speakers. Photocopy this "calendar of events" and hand it out.
• Find a cool cafe that will let you wheel a TV, VCR and a bunch of chairs out into the sidewalk, set up cool videos like Hemp Revolution, Cannabis Rising, or even the Step by Step grow video, and watch how many people stop and check it out.
• Smoke lots of pot out in the open, shamelessly.
• For those cold winter months, smoke lots of pot indoors, shamelessly.
• If you already deal pot and some of your hempology regulars want to buy, it's a good idea to get parental permission for teens first. Don't deal at this point unless you've already shot a wad to your lawyer.
• In a few short months you should have a hardcore cadre of drugpeace activists who know all about the bast and the buds. It's now time to hold a rally.

 

Special tips on "unarresting" people       I've been "unarrested" before, and it's got to be the greatest high there is. The way it works is that everyone simply hugs the person getting arrested.     The point is that you could never unarrest someone suspected of murder or rape, as everyone wants these people under tight control. But unarresting someone for a pot offence is something that almost everyone agrees with, sometimes even the police doing the arresting!     The whole trick is done with cameras. Video cameras especially, but you can do it with a still camera too. Just remember, cops have "Rodney-King-o-phobia". They don't like being caught on film using force unjustifiably. They know a picture is worth a million votes, and so do we.     Hug the person about to be arrested as if your life depended on it (it does, trust me) and make the cops work really hard to get you into the paddy wagon, but never touch a cop.     Touching a cop without their permission is assault, in some small towns it's legal grounds for them to kill you on the spot. To tell the truth, hugging the person getting arrested is technically "assaulting an officer," but I think this kind of assault would be laughed at in the papers and I doubt they'd try to argue it. Always remember to be as polite as you can be.     Five hard-core huggers and a loose camera can take on three cops and win, I know from personal experience. The cops know this too, so have more than one camera with you and hide about half of them. One last tip, don't always assume that the person getting arrested at your rally is a victimless criminal. We almost hugged an armed robber at the tail-end of Grasstown 25.

 Step two: Smoke-In.
The main point of a smoke-in is to have some fun. The other point is to remove the shame and fear associated with pot smoking by replacing it with the image of having fun, while being responsible and peaceful of course.

Materials

• A beautiful poster done by the best artist in your neighbourhood that is unmistakably ganjacentric in nature, with the time, place, date and "raindate" spelled out in big letters. The poster should be coloured by stoned people in such a way as to resemble a beautiful stained-glass window.
• Buckets, brushes, rubber gloves, woodglue and water (for putting up your stained glass windows all over town).
• A fax machine to fax the local media.
• A sound system and a power system.
• Some good bands that are ready to kick out the jams under combat conditions.
• Munchies.
• A whole bag full of joints to hand out to the rally volunteers, musicians, and hopefully, the crowd too.
• Another big bag of pot to be raffled off to raise money, and a roll of raffle tickets.
• Many signs, banners, tee-shirts and buttons.
• Videographers and photojournalists.

Tips

 
• When doing a rally or smoke-in, just remember the old Yippie philosophy: "a smoke-in is a blank canvas, just make sure your fundamental message manages to appear in the final painting." The smoke-in should have a major theme (like Bill C-8 is evil and unpopular) that everyone has agreed to focus on and "drive home".
• The activists who are designated to take on a spokesperson role with the media should have lots of "soundbites" at the ready (lots of little facts and phrases that can be said in five seconds or less - that's the length of the longest quotes).
• The main season for smoke-ins in the Great White North is in summer, for obvious reasons. July 1 (Cannabis Day) is a national day of protest and so a good day to have a local rally.

August 7 is Vancouver's Grasstown tough puffer convention. Perhaps if we assert ourselves every year, people won't forget that particular lesson in people power.
• Permits are nice but unnecessary (I've organized over a dozen of these things and never had a permit). It's usually a good idea to apply for a permit, but don't let them compromise the nature or purpose of your rally, and don't let their agonizingly slow bureaucratic process slow down your rally organization.

Use your attempt to get a permit as another way of getting media attention, and never let a lack of a permit stop you from holding an event.
Two final thoughts on permits: 1) in the Charter of Rights under the "freedom of peaceful assembly" it doesn't say anything like "get permission first," and 2) it's often easier to get forgiven than to get permission.
• Media press releases are essential. Just keep to the main points in the poster: the time, place, occasion, a few short quotes and a "for more information" number. Keep it to a single page or less.
• Have lots of signs and banners ready weeks before the actual rally. Keep slogans short and witty, and make them legible from a distance. "Drugwar or Drugpeace?," "Harm Reduction Works" and "I am Not a Criminal" are just a few angles.
• Beware of cops dressed as freaks who try to incite a riot. Get everyone to swear an oath of non-violence and non-destructiveness at the beginning of the rally.
• Stick to victimless crimes. Causing a disturbance is arguable in some circumstances, but the cops have been known to use it as an excuse to move in.
• It's best to have your own generator, especially in a permitless situation. You can also play games with a long extension cord and some sympathetic retailers or residents or even some streetlights. Have one or two back-up power sources if possible.
• When handing out pot to a large crowd, get everyone sitting down and tell them to put their hands up if they haven't had a toke. As the joints are passed around, the hands will go down. Hopefully.
• Groups like Food not Bombs or the Salvation Army could be asked to rustle up some grub. Call in all favours and get the munchies happening. Rally goers love food.
• Don't let the very stoned people lead the parade.

Step three: The Dutch Embassy
Setting up an above-ground "coffeeshop" or "herbal tearoom" or "flower shop" or "electric breakfast" or whatever you're gonna call it is by no means an easy task. You should have done at least a year's worth of rally/ad/postering education preparation before hand. It's OK to be a victimless criminal, as long as everyone understands exactly why you are breaking the law.

Materials

 
• A pager or cellphone
• A scale (invest in a Tanida digital scale first Ð later buy a triple beam for weighing larger quantities)
• Baggies
• Safer, Smarter Smoking Guides
• Membership Cards
• A kick-off rally, complete with ads, posters, hug-power video resistance, music and munchies. You will be openly selling membership cards as well as joints and baggies of pot at this rally.
• A secret location to open to members the day after the rally.
• A big bag of pot, preferably over a quarter pound (700-800 bucks for BC primo in Vancouver, expect to pay more elsewhere).
• An articulate idealist lawyer with experience who will give you a discount in exchange for notoriety and some good smoke.

Tips on naming your operation

 
• Your name is your real power. Each time your name is mentioned it must be an educational experience. Some examples are the "Acceptable Risk Club," the "No More Hangover Club," the "Not as Harmful as Caffeine Club" - you get the idea.
• Name your location something different than the club that runs it. It's a chance to get a different idea across, and it can be a funny way to blend in with your surroundings. For example, imagine "The Christiania Tearoom," "The Mellow Coffeehouse," or even "The Friendly Florists."

Tips on picking a location

 
• Pick something near a subway station or main bus route Ñ help your supporters help you by being convenient to reach. This will also discourage impaired driving.
• It's best to find a hard-core puffin' landlord, but one who can be bought-off to look the other way might have to do. Subletting and lying are also options, but try to set-up a long-term location early on.
• Many non-European cultures are not cannaphobic, so check out the "multi-cultural" neighbourhoods. You may ultimately have to lie to your landlord to save them from being implicated in your activities.

  

A typical membership pitch       "Hello folks and welcome to the Dutch Embassy. Let me lock the door behind you, please just step over here to the membership book.     This is our membership card. It's printed on hemp paper, has evidence that harm reduction works on the back and it has a pledge that you will not operate heavy machinery while impaired on marijuana. Our definition of impaired is "failing an RCMP impairment test."     Just pick a fake name like "Buds Bunny" or "Donkey Ho-Tee" and sign it on your card and in our book. If you sign it on line 1735, that's your number, write in on your card. Have your card with you for all transactions.      Here's your Safer Smarter Smoking Guide. This will inform you of the ways in which you can avoid some of the negative aspects of smoking pot and all of the negative aspects of suffering under prohibition.     Membership also allows you certain legal services. We are paying for a lawyer to make sure that if you are arrested here, you will be represented. He won't try to get you off on a technicality, but he will try to destroy the laws you are being pushed around with. Membership lasts a lifetime and is only ten bucks. Replacement cards cost five bucks. You must be over eighteen to join, or be over thirteen and have both written and face to face parental permission.      Our hours are one pm to nine pm every day. Here's your card, here's your guide, here's your bud.     Take care and don't drive impaired."

 Tips on cards and guides

Membership cards and the Safer Smarter Smoking Guide are the "responsibility agreement and educational component" aspects that make up your harm reduction strategy. They are essential.

• The membership card (printed on hemp paper, of course) should have your phone numbers on the front, along with a pledge not to operate heavy machinery while impaired on marijuana. Ours also has a quote from the Dutch Government's October '95 report on harm reduction called "Continuity and Change."
• The Harm Reduction Club's Safer Smarter Smoking Guide is mostly copied materials, such as Chapter 3 of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine, by Grinspoon and Bakalar, Dutch Government evidence, articles from the media, and other stuff like that.
• I got the idea from a Dutch pamphlet called "Advice on Hash and Weed" (found on page 20 of the guide) that itself was handed out in coffeeshops. You can make and print up your own guides, or you can order them en masse from Hemp BC.

Tips on tearoom furnishings

 
• Start modest and simple. You just need a few couches and chairs, a TV/VCR and stereo, and a table for free info, Safer Smarter Smoking Guides, petitions and a sign-up book for members.
• Provide free rollies and screens, as well as drawing paper and oil pastels. (membership has its privileges).

Buy a "budbuster" (coffee grinder) for faster joint prep.
• Get a vaporizer for those who don't like smoking but want to get high anyway. (You might want to put off purchases like this until you're confident they're not going to get stolen by police.)
• If it's a "tearoom," buy some tea and a kettle, and serve the tea in paper cups to get the health board off your back.
• Buy a garbage can and a recycling bin.
• Jazz up your place with original art from the drawing paper and the pastels, with bud posters, rally posters and other such cafe trappings.
• Get really stoned and get really creative and put everything into decorating it and knock everybody out! Make it so beautiful the cops wouldn't dare bust it! Go all the way, it's your cafe!

Tips on picking a mode of organization

 
• Like the Yippies and Christiania, the Harm Reduction Club is another attempt at a collectively run organization. Decisions are made at Monday-night staff meetings (try picking a yummy food spot to ensure attendance), or in emergency situations by a majority of those who are present at the time the vote needs to be cast.
• Why have a democratic workplace? As my favorite anarchist officer George Orwell pointed out, it takes just about as long to explain yourself as it takes to turn someone into your robot slave. Friends will work harder with you than slaves will work for you.

Of course, because I'm the sole investor, people listen to my opinion carefullyÉbut I can still be, and often am, outvoted.
• My co-workers and I have agreed to work for less than minimum wage, to remove the "profit motive over health concerns" argument from the equation, which is the real problem with the alcohol and tobacco industries. Attempting to get official non-profit status will compromise the anonymity of your membership.

Tips on the media

• When the media are around, cops and politicians jump to their best behavior. You may wish to do this as well.
• Let the media direct the action and frame the issue the way they want, unless they are completely confusing the issue. In this case politely provide them with sourced evidence to contradict their angle.

Tips on police

• Establish congenial relations with the police early on. Once you've had your out-of-nowhere massive blow-out "opening day half price sticky stinky joints sale," be as up front and unsurprising as you can be.
• Popping by police HQ with a press release that you want "some help with the wording," or to ask some non-violent security questions may give them an incentive to cooperate with you further.
• If you see cops hanging around your location or harassing your customers, photograph or film them.

Tips on other security problems

• Get some safe spots, some secret stashes, some tricky holes, some drop-offs, some runners and some hidden panels. Never have more pot unhidden than you can afford to lose (from both cops and robbers).
• Lock most of your stash in a room or trunk a block or so from the operation. Don't be obvious about where it is.
• Separate your grams and eighths weigh room from your ounces and pounds weigh room. Separate both weigh rooms from the club members smoking salon, with good metal doors if possible.
• Video and audio surveillance with a remote recording system will deter both cops and robbers from messing with you, without the need to resort to violent means. The ideal would be to have hidden cameras with offsite recording, in three or four different places inside and outside the tearoom.

Tips on buying and selling pot

 
• Don't buy anything with a chemical taste. It's poison.
• Whenever possible, buy certified organic, which means no chemical pesticides or fertilizers, preferably grown in real soil. Find out what the grower eats, as those who are into unpoisoned pot often have unpoisoned food.
• Avoid wet pot totally. In the "semi-above ground" pot business, you're going to be selling it the same day (often the same hour) you buy it. Growers must learn to wait until it's almost but not quite bone dry. Never buy water for dollars per gram.
• Watch for mold in the flowers and inside the stem. Don't ever buy or sell even "slightly" moldy pot. If you one day find yourself with some and you don't want to throw it out, make damn sure it's totally bone dry and dead before you dare to smoke it. Lung infections may occur with mold. It's best to just chuck it out.
• Don't buy a lot of wood. Bug your suppliers to trim them woody pieces off.
• Weigh out each gram to 1.1. This covers your own dryage and wood, and it's good advertising.
• Buy a pocket 30X microscope from Radio Shack. If you can't see lots of crystals on the leaves with this thing then don't buy the pot, because no-one else will either.
• Never sell shake. Sell loose buds or brown pot in pre-rolled joints. Selling loose buds, no matter how potent, is bad advertising. Strangely, nobody likes brown pot. Purple is good, but brown is bad. Go figure.
• Roll up most of those brown nugs (or some "deceptively potent" outdoor strains) and sell them in gram joints. Have a few choice outdoor strains in baggies for medical users and other health-minded folks (most outdoor is organic).
• Your reputation is all you have, so be scrupulously honest and generous in all of your business dealings.

Tips on hash

• Take a small nerd off and stick it between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Wait a full minute. If it goes blond real quick, the word on the street says it's cut. If it tastes like sugar or salt or Vaseline or anything chemical, it's cut. Never buy or sell cut hash.

Tips on making money

• Let me quote Marc Emery for this one: "get people to spend money with you."
• Have your two most intelligent and principled co-workers keep track of these three very important numbers: 1) pot and cash at opening 2) pot and cash at closing and 3) daily expenses.
• If you, like me, are buying for two hundred an ounce and are selling for two-eighty (ten bucks a gram), you can make more than a few bucks a day.
• In the beginning, the amount you can make is ridiculous. No (formal) competition, millions in free publicity and a limitless market. It's really like walking up to a mountain of money with a bucket. Spend that money wisely.
• Know the amount of cash that you have on you at all times. If the police catch you with lots of money and you don't know how much it is they have an excuse to call it "drug money." Tell them you won it at poker.

Tips on spending money

• You'll be running out of hemp membership cards and Safer Smarter Smoking Guides sooner than you think, so buy lots.
• Pay everyone sub-minimum wage, including yourself. When the war is over, pay yourselves the wage you deserve-with back pay.
• Shoot early profits quickly into your lawyer's hands, to be kept safe from the police. Keep your lawyer happy.
• At the beginning, don't bother buying anything nicer than a regular glass bong for the club, the cops and/or the robbers will just steal it. Instead, plow those excess bucks into a "joint" account (a drugwar chest) that you and your lawyer can dip into.
• Later you can think about opening another shop or publishing a newsletter. Imagine taking out an anti-crimestopper ad!
• Use your money to teach people what the term "harm reduction" means. When prohibition is over, stay non-profit and keep spending money on reducing other harms in your community.

Tips on getting busted

 
• Just think of it as your union dues. Stay non-violent, and ride it out as best as you can.
• If possible, have some hidden recording devices ready to capture the moment.
• If they let you out without making you promise not to deal, I would advise dealing again, as soon as possible. How much more trouble could you get into?
• You shouldn't let them make you promise not to deal. If you do promise, then you can break the law again and be a bad-ass, or you can go underground (where there'll be lots of heat and no light) or you can do something else that's educational but less illegal, at least until you win your case.

Tips on your upcoming trial

 
• I don't know about your trial, but for my trial I'm arguing that smoking, dealing and growing marijuana are protected activities under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The freedom to think, believe, express, assemble, associate, communicate and to be secure and protected from unwarranted search and seizure are all guaranteed under the charter, and are all denied by marijuana prohibition. It doesn't say anything about "except the relaxed and hungry folks" in there either.
The government's usual answer to that is that "we've signed all these international anti-drug treaties." My answer to the government is that we've also signed international human rights treaties, and anti-genocide treaties.
• Within this framework, the two most powerful arguments I've come across are the caffeine argument and the "it's working in Holland" argument.

The caffeine argument goes like this: Find a medical expert or references to honestly assess the potential risk of both properly smoked (organic bong-filtered) marijuana and caffeine. Compare overdose potential, withdrawal symptoms and long term overuse hazards and risks. Pot comes out safer in each category.
The "it's working in Holland" argument is self-explanatory. I highly recommend reading "Drugs Policy In the Netherlands Ñ Continuity and Change." You'll soon find out why I called North America's first out-of-the-closet pot store "the Dutch Embassy."
Good luck!

• David Malmo-Levine can be reached at the Harm Reduction Club: tel (604) 253-6357; email growpotkin@hempbc.com; regular mail can be sent care of Cannabis Canada.
• The Dutch Drugs Policy Report "Continuity and Change" is available through: Hageman bv, Postbus 281, 2700 AG Zoetermeer, Amsterdam; tel (31) 079-361-11-88;

fax (31) 079-361-39-27.