Latvia is dying. Slowly but surely the country is going under financially, economically, and spiritually. In all these ways Latvia is going bankrupt.

1. For our financial untergang (demise) we may thank our banks, with the Scandinavian banks in the lead.

2. For our economical untergang we may thank our political parties, which are in essence corporate SIAs taking advantage of a law that allows a corporation to present itself before the law as an individual with all of an individual’s rights.

3. Our spiritual untergang is the result of Latvians having been forced some centuries ago to abandon their Gods, especially Saule and Jānis, and accept as their “religion” a foreign import from a Nevernever heaven. Indeed, the native Latvian’s self-sacrificial brother (brālis) and God Jānis (John), whose Feast occurs on Midsummers Eve, has been belittled and denied, and his feast day has been turned into a day for picnics and, no less, as a day for drunks. No institution (least of all neo-Christianity) is interested in returning Johns Eve to its original meaning, that is, a religious celebration. One institutional exception is the police. However, the reasons for the interest of the latter is to try reduce the carnage on Latvia’s roads due to drunk driving.

This blogger has been arguing for some time that the Latvian Gods Saule and Jānis (the former a mother figure, the latter her son) belong to a prehistoric religion, which we may call arch-Christianity. Saule’s daughters (meitas) are of course also Saule’s priestesses. John-Jānis is of course Saule’s priest. Women’s and men’s folk dresses still illustrate how these priests and priesteses dressed. Because these Gods and their Children (ordinary Latvian men and women) celebrated Johns Eve at Midsummer’s solstice, a time when many of the grasses are in bloom, Johns Day was known also as Zāļu Vakars (Eve of the Grasses, Krautabend in then mostly German Riga).

The current Latvian government in cooperation with the authorities in Brussels and elsewhere is exterminating Latvian small farm expertise in agriculture and decimating the ranks of small farmers by denying them crops that would enable them to survive. As a result, the Latvian countryside is experiencing a demographic crash. Latvian country people cannot survive under the puritanical yoke of its oppressive post-Soviet government, which is allegedly democratic, but exercises its formal powers against the interests of the people of Latvia.

One of the ways the Latvian President, the Saeima, its ministers, and the police (their executive arm) work against their people is to ban all healing grasses—if not explicitly, then implicitly—under the label of narcotics. Only the government with its overpowering neo-Christian bias is given the right to determine which of the healing grasses are not narcotics. This is how a traditional herb, known by Latvians as kaņepe (cannabis), which was used for its strong fiber as rope and packing sacks, for healing farm animals, and drunk at home as kaņepu tēja (cannabis tea) has been banned as a narcotic with allegedly hideous side effects. Moreover, the issue is presented as if there is no way for a government to institute an intelligent program of use for this herb, which—contrary to government and media propaganda—can contribute significantly to Latvia’s economy.

For one, cannabis is smoked mostly by youths, yet its traditional use in Latvia was as tea. In a poverty-stricken nation, where most of the elderly people cannot afford expensive medicines, cannabis tea serves not only to decrease physical pains and aches, but also to lower stress and a sense of isolation. It is a help to cancer patients in preventing nausea from treatment. There ought to be no obstacles in preventing the tourist industry to advertise “Johns tea”, while educating the public that this is the desirable way of consuming this relaxant. To maximize the economically beneficial effects from kaņepe containing THC, the government may limit the amount of land (say, 0.25 hectars) used in growing the plant. This would certainly be sufficient for home use and enough to entertain tourists on the farm the year round. As for policing the restrictions, the economic benefits should more than pay for it.

The Latvian government must reverse the laws against the growing of kaņepes (cannabis) on Latvian farms. This is the only way countryside people will be able to survive the catastrophic decline in the price of agricultural products and still keep the countryside populated by people living their lives above poverty, not to mention provide farmers’ with the wherewithal to educate their children. http://tinyurl.com/bzswbx

[See http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com for complete blog.]

UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, former U.S. Justice Department official and expert on crime and drug policy: “We are not on a cultural crusade against pot-smoking.”  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8347527 If only Latvian officials were that enlightened about the uses of “kaņepīte” as medicinal grass among their forebears.

Eso~  what is the situation in Latvia concerning ganja?
Is it like the States, many years in the klink for
having a roach in the ashtray?

My father grew “kaņepes” on our farm for food and for fiber year after year, but no one thought of smoking that stuff.  Tobacco was enough for everyone!

The farm of my uncle and aunt where I stayed during the war years also had a large patch of cannabis. Afterwards we wove the cannabis fiber into thick rope that harnesed our horses to the plows. Of the seeds we made cannabis butter. I was too young to smoke anything then. But I have no idea what the grandmother of one of our neighbors smoked in her pipe, though I know it was not homegrown tobacco leaves, which was raised by another member of our household, a retired sailor. Now that I think of it, it was he who wove the rope, and it was he who raised the cannabis patch.

Later on, long after I had left the country and began to question people about what they knew about “pot” in Latvia, I heard stories of putting sick calves in a cannabis patch and letting hens eat the seeds to lay more eggs. Due to practiced self-censure (believing certain thoughts to be thought-crime) among the lutheranized and lately citified community much of this lore was lost. The repression of folk medicine by modern medicine also repressed information about the many teas that our ancestors used to keep themselves healthy and not stuck on alcohol during the long winters as many do today. One gets the impression among us “moderns” that we believe our forebears were very isolated from the world. In fact, what is currently the territory of Latvia was the crossroad for many travelers—our own people and those who just passed through. We have been dumbed down by design, first by occupiers of our land and spirit, then by succumbing to the dumbing down process by a sort of inertia among ourselves.

Today the men of the communities round about me have returned from construction work in the cities, stand about jobless, and are hanging around local shops that sell alcohol. Demoralization similar to that of Soviet times is returning. Just today, I met one on the country road walking home. When I stopped to say hello, I saw he could hardly stand straight, but he knew enough to greet me and ask for a lats. Knowing that he would pay me back in mushrooms later in the year, I gave him the money. I do not know if he planned to walk the five kilometers back to the village to spend it as I drove on. Perhaps he had some home brew at home. I have tasted some of the homebrewed stuff and it’s poweful, compared to which the bottles on the shelves of the supermarket seems like water.

In any event, if the Latvian government were run by people and not in the grip of neo-Christians, what with our successful pharmaceutical industry, we could well invent some plant varieties or formulas that we could export. It is obvious that cannabis is going to be at the basis of some of the more successful medicines in the 21st century—as a Harvard professor predicted some years ago—and no reason for us not to stay ahead of the industry. At home, we need something to continue to attract foreign tourists, an industry that has begun to experience a collapse. And we need not succumb to narcotics—if we design and impliment an enlightened education program in our schools.

spectator et al.,

“My father grew “kaņepes” on our farm for food and for fiber year after year, but no one thought of smoking that stuff.  Tobacco was enough for everyone! “

I too remember that way.  The “kaņepes” butter as food. It was said, not to be fed to small children because it will give them nightmares.

A few years back, I do not know how it is now, one could buy the butter at the Central Market, dairy section, in Riga.

My objection to smoking , no matter what, is the introduction of particulate matter (smoke) into the lungs, that deposit as tar.  Lungs are not designed for that.

Visu labu,

My dad grew kanepes on his farm as well and made the same butter.  I know I ate it but can’t recall having nightmares.

A couple of tokes is not going to clog you up
like idling your benz in 5 o clock traffic…......................................

I had also understood that smoking it was not thought of. I had also heard that there was a firm belief that you did not go into the patch when it was in full bloom, in that you came back a little crazed. Perhaps I am wrong - but I believe I was told that butter was also wrapped in the leaves - in that it gave it a better flavour.

I was arguing for
1. legalization or at the very least decriminalization, so the mind could be put to inventive use
2. that the Latvian folk tradition is to drink healing teas; smoking was not part of it

also
3. young farm boys believed smoking cigarettes (papirosi) filled with shredded tobacco was a big step toward being Big Boys from the city
4. my uncle, the retired sailor, had sailed around the world and is unlikely to have been unaware of the uses cannebis was put to in other countries
5. if anyone has forebears still alive from those days ask them. Ask especially if cannebis had any connection with healing sick farm animals
6. I had not heard about the moonlight and cannabis connection, but Latvians certainly had a lot of sleepwalkers, all connected with the full moon. If cannebis were legalized, it would be interesting to have a cannebis blossom party during the full moon. No smoking permitted.
7. Wise women (raganas), who were also healers, are unlikely not to have known about cannabis
8. Latvians were and are utilitarians and make use of all information available to them. The inhibitions came when they started to go to church (obligatory once) and were told what to think and not to think.
9. Jānis was a Latvian world traveler, this is why he was a teacher, he passed around info he had picked up traveling around the world. He no doubt was also a story teller.

I just thought of our word for drugs/medicine, which is zales (grass).

While we are on this topic, I am curious to know if kanepes are still grown, harvested and turned into the same butter today in Latvia?  Is it sold in food stores and under what label?

I just thought of our word for drugs/medicine, which is zales (grass).
Signature
Arija

Don’t anyone attempt to become sooo naive. Yes, zales (Excuse the lack of the long “a”...)
is translated to medicine, but any inferred connection with the “other” grass is only strengthen by the prevalent, common liberals’ way of re-defining/re-packaging. (Apparently “jandzs” is cognizant of their yet incomplete intentions.) The intent is of course in trying to shape “sure things”, to promote change for the sake of change. This is why “baby carrots”, “baby beef” have become very common phrases. And what is being re-defined? Why, abortion.—-One has to admit that after years of hearing “baby” associated with food, one tends to “forget” the normal emotional connection to newborns (—-I hope I do not have to provide the label “human” here). And to perhaps accommodate this un-natural shift (you know, people will just get bizarre if they are denied access to their normal feelings/emotions outlets), there is that liberal-accepted emphasis upon animal babies.

Latvians are known for their observations, and this is the very reason why I think that zales is translated to medicine. My guess is that they had observed animals “healing” themselves by eating different foods (often plants) while at times of health “distress”. (But then there is always the perchanced, yet still often expected, personally noticed change for the better!)
Now, not that I would dare to bicker with my father’s wisdom (after all, Latvians still exist today), but what I often found puzzling is that when one sees a real cat eating real grass, they (the cats) sometimes vomit a short time later. So does this actually complete their physician-heal-thyself mandate?
I know that Darwin would be of little help here (for hasn’t modern science drastically modified his theory?), but has today’s science finally resolve this “self-doctoring”?

Mikus E.

P.S. And Arija, maybe only your parents remember your nightmares?—-My father never mentioned side-effects. Hmmm, I only remember dairy cow’s butter, lard, and margarine (another plant derivative).

Just a couple of quick notes in passing through the kanepes patch.  Those from New York can maybe add something to the decades old NYPD story about the elderly Latvian lady arrested for growing her “traditional Latvian plants.”  (Maybe she lived in Boston or New Jersey.) I think she was making her traditional kanepes butter that was slathered on those priceless summer solstice maizites.  Didn’t anyone eat them at Garezers?  I was not a regular but I think the maizites and butter were until the elderly ladies got freaked out by the “weed” hysteria clampdown and then made them only for the pre-party at home to get in good voice for the Ligo songs.  Michigan could have less than 10% unemployment if it were able to grow hemp and make kanepes butter for sale at Walmart.

Sveiki!

Ārija both the variety that’s needed for kaņepju sviests

(see http://www.apollo.lv/portal/fun/1815/articles/70862  )

and the more potent one are grown in LV.

(see http://www.diena.lv/lat/politics/sabiedriba/marihuanas-audzetava-atsavinato-vielu-vertiba-parsniedz-pusmiljonu-latu?comments=1  )

(This is one of those rare occasions that I really enjoyed some of the more priceless comments in response to the 2nd article.  Subsequently, I found myself humming ‘Nevis slinkojot un pūstot…..’ : ) )

I do have a vivid memory of visiting some relatives for the first time in 1991 in LV, and when I did a double-take at their hemp crop, they laughed and explained that (at least then) no one had access to the potent THC-producing variety. 

I also distinctly remember reading in “Laiks” in the 1970’s of an elderly Latvian couple who ran into some problems for growing the non-THC variety.  Though I seem to recall that it wasn’t in the States, but in Canada.  Could there have been more than one incident?

Visu labu,

Elizabete
PS - Though I ought to respond on another thread… Mik, my unforgettably painful experience with Maine’s horse flies occurred in 1968, and I can unforunately confirm that Latvia’s are right up there in viciousness!  And, by the way, it was Ambersun who referred to mosquitos.  I personally prefer the idea of Matt Lauer being on the look out for the flying frog of Rīga. :  )

Elizabete, your article on the Adzelviesi farm who accept a few visiting tourists couldn’t have come at a better time.  I will be visiting my relatives in Valmiera this summer. They have offered to drive me around and show me Vidzeme which was off limits when I was there in ‘88.  I am forwarding your article to them to see if they can make arrangements for us to stop at Adzelviesi for a kanepes maizite. What a
treat that will!
Thanks again for that interesting article.