Drugs/the northern lights are on and burning brightly…

There is something going amazingly wrong on the streets of Johannesburg and probably South Africa. Not that this is something to fret about; we all know that the streets of South Africa generally tend to lead the pack when it comes to things going amazingly wrong. It reminds me of The Stumble Inn in Stellenbosch, a backpacker's pit on Mark Street. Chances are that you've never been there, but if you have, you were probably not planning to stay but rather observe some of the fine looking Scandinavian women who, after shafting everything they could in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Limpopo Province, decided to wind down amongst vineyards and mountains and rivers and people from Natal or The Eastern Cape who could be given money and told to piss off or get drunk (which is why you, and not them, usually came right).

Amidst the attempted seductions, there was a character, a Dutch drifter whose view on life was not worth hearing (not that it stopped him from telling you anyway) and whose experiences sounded like they came straight out of a fourteen year old gymnast's wet dream. One night, this mystic told me that all drugs were fine (once before, he also told me that he had played trumpet next to Ruben Gonzalez playing piano in Cuba. When I asked him what the capital of Cuba was, he stroked his head and said 'Argentina'). He said that drugs were completely acceptable in this day and age, as freedom of expression was a subconscious revolution fought against governments who tried to condition thoughts. What a winkie, what a complete ass (the only reason I remember it word for word because apart from my neighbor's opinions on motor racing, I've never heard anything like it…) . Apparently, according to David Icke, it's a reverse of that statement. Before I left the Stumble Inn that night, he gave me a toke on what was, I thought, perfectly acceptable Swaziland weed. 'One day all dope will be like this,' I heard, whilst slipping away into a condition I could describe as 'Never, never, never, never.'

Thank God that horrible shit is confined to the trailer bedroom of this bell-end. Or so I thought.

Weed is no longer the simple cure to boredom or loneliness. It is no longer that little stash you hollow out a bible to home and place it on your fireplace for those afternoon sessions following Sunday roasts when you and ten others have cleaned 12 bottles of Klein Constantia Marlbrooke. It is no longer something to place in the food of a boring guest. South African reefer has taken on a whole new persona. These really is Nightmare on Main Street and believe me, you'll never be able to remember what you did last summer.

Some chemical dicks are mixing the strains of two forms of weed together (not that it takes such intelligence but like the song says, whatever). You've got the Pacific strain (Cannabis Sativa) that is grown on the border of California and Mexico and the African strain (Cannabis Indica) that is grown in the fields of the Transkei, Kenya and Mozambique. Once you put the two together, you've already got the formula for a disaster. One makes you jump, the other makes you want to watch The Matrix or play Super Mario Brothers forever. Two computer obsessed designers who work below my office are morally culpable as cultivators here - Weapons of Mass Distraction. Bear in mind that the merging of these two seeds is a specialist process - conducted in a greenhouse or a lab (takes the memories of boats stranded without bait in the Langebaan lagoon to the cleaners and then only p***** on them). Once the first step of the marriage is complete, the plant is treated to artificial light and an electronic watering system. Once the plant reaches a decent age (two months), a fertilizer solution is used to speed growth and strengthen the effect. The fertilizer, in this case, is a mixture of LSD (are you trying to wreck my life or what?), along with all the other tourists, like Regro and Liverine (exactly why your usual fertilizer bags mark very clearly with a little Massive Attack - KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN). Come two months and you're away. Put this in front of anyone demotivated individual with a trust fund and an addictive personality and he or she are gone or sold. These two Neo obsessed computer blotter - jotters are making a killing from selling genetically modified marijuana completely against the grain of what Hemp farmers are trying to communicate.

If you were a misfit philosopher, you could compare the state of reefer to the state of the Polo Lounge at The Westcliff; once, and not so long ago, my friend Frank and I could mosey along on a Saturday evening, be driven in the golf cart on a Saturday evening to the top level and met by some of the finest young women you have ever seen. Foreigners with rich husbands or partners or just single perfect women but still incredible to look at. These days, all you have are these Northern Suburb 40+ tarts with tank tops and belly rings. They look like cars from Indian drag races. Where as it once had a natural feel with beauties on Saturday nights, the place has been bo-toxed in the nought and replaced by people straight out of Checkers or The Cock 'n Bull in Fourways Mall.

Cannabis now features in the Government Health Gazette as a primary cause of Mental Illness. There are consistent and accurate links between excessive use or reliance and schizophrenia, as well as the given all parents warn their children of - that, amongst other things, it is not conducive to goal attainment.

The fascination with cannabis is one of this country's biggest conversation starters. Apart from Amsterdam or San Francisco, you probably won't here the substance spoken of more. Last week, I attended a house party where I found a young girl, drunk and stoned, riding solo on a sofa in an abandoned study but for a tiny pair of briefs and a tight top. All very nice and well if your first name starts with an S and your surname with a V, but she couldn't have been older than 17. 'Max gave me some of this stuff,' she gargled through eyes that looked like a Soweto road map, 'I can't feel my arms.' Max, (the young girl's brother), later tried to convince me to toke on the perp but I found myself in time and mercifully saved my evening. It's the youth that are the guinea pigs for the elder's experiments; I found a bunch of youths, all dressed in rebel skater gear sitting outside in the freezing cold in silence but for a very odd looks and the shivering of brace clad teeth that sounded like a hail storm on an iron shack. Someone shouted, 'Children just don't climb trees anymore!' much to their already paranoid states. Bugger that for a game of soldiers or a pocket of power rangers - imagine telling your class what you did last weekend with that shit rolling around your system?

These computer blotter - jotters below me are now in a position to face complete disclosure. Come Saturday morning and these two are not working, but studying the effects of what soaking the already horrific substance (after it's been in the 'lab', after it's had a nice dose of fertilizer…) in petrol, all the while knowing that they could collapse and end up in casualty. As they did not, they know intend to complete the process by mellowing the weed in unleaded for a few hours before they get busy in their sales. Their names? Ask me and I'll tell you.

There are now all these fancy names - White Widow, California Orange, Northern Lights etc. But effectively, they all fall under the category of SKUNK, the official title given to any cannabis genetically tampered and modified. Why SKUNK? Well, for none other reason than that it bloody well stinks. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it…