Marijuana Australiana
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Marijuana Australiana Marijuana Australiana: Cannabis Use, Popular Culture, and the Americanisation of Drugs Policy in Australia, 1938 - 1988 John Lawrence Jiggens, BA Centre for Social Change Research Carseldine Campus QUT Submitted in requirement for the degree, Doctor of Philosophy, April 2004 1 Marijuana Australiana KEY WORDS: Narcotics, Control of—Australia, Narcotics and crime—Australia, Cannabis use— Australia, Popular Culture—Australia, Drugs policy—Australia, Organised crime— Queensland, New South Wales, Cannabis prohibition—Australia, Police corruption—Queensland, New South Wales, the counter-culture—Australia, Reefer Madness—Australia, the War on Drugs—Australia, Woodward Royal Commission (the Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking), the Williams Royal Commission (Australian Royal Commission into Drugs), the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the Stewart Royal Commission (Royal Commission into Nugan Hand), Chlorodyne, Cannabis— medical use, cannabis indica, cannabis sativa, Gough Whitlam, Richard Nixon, Donald Mackay, Johannes Bjelke- Petersen, Terry Lewis, Ray Whitrod, Fast Buck$, Chris Masters, John Wesley Egan, the Corset Gang, Murray Stewart Riley, Bela Csidei, Maurice Bernard 'Bernie' Houghton, Frank Nugan, Michael Jon Hand, Sir Peter Abeles, Merv Wood, Sir Robert Askin, Theodore (Ted) Shackley, Fred Krahe, James (Jimmy) Bazley, Gianfranco Tizzoni, Ken Nugan, Brian Alexander. 2 Marijuana Australiana ABSTRACT The word ‘marijuana’ was introduced to Australia by the US Bureau of Narcotics via the Diggers newspaper, Smith’s Weekly, in 1938. Marijuana was said to be ‘a new drug that maddens victims’ and it was sensationally described as an ‘evil sex drug’. The resulting tabloid furore saw the plant cannabis sativa banned in Australia, even though cannabis had been a well-known and widely used drug in Australia for many decades. In 1964, a massive infestation of wild cannabis was found growing along a stretch of the Hunter River between Singleton and Maitland in New South Wales. The explosion in Australian marijuana use began there. It was fuelled after 1967 by US soldiers on rest and recreation leave from Vietnam. It was the Baby-Boomer young who were turning on. Pot smoking was overwhelmingly associated with the generation born in the decade after the Second World War. As the conflict over the Vietnam War raged in Australia, it provoked intense generational conflict between the Baby-Boomers and older generations. Just as in the US, pot was adopted by Australian Baby-Boomers as their symbol; and, as in the US, the attack on pot users served as code for an attack on the young, the Left, and the alternative. In 1976, the ‘War on Drugs’ began in earnest in Australia with paramilitary attacks on the hippie colonies at Cedar Bay in Queensland and Tuntable Falls in New South Wales. It was a time of increasing US style prohibition characterised by ‘tough-on-drugs’ right-wing rhetoric, police crackdowns, numerous murders, and a marijuana drought followed quickly by a heroin plague; in short by a massive worsening of ‘the drug problem’. During this decade, organised crime moved into the pot scene and the price of pot skyrocketed, reaching $450 an ounce in 1988. Thanks to the Americanisation of drugs policy, the black market made ‘a killing’. In Marijuana Australiana I argue that the ‘War on Drugs’ developed — not for health reasons — but for reasons of social control; as a domestic counter-revolution against the Whitlamite, Baby-Boomer generation by older Nixonite Drug War warriors like Queensland Premier, Bjelke-Petersen. It was a misuse of drugs policy which greatly worsened drug problems, bringing with it American-style organised crime. As the subtitle suggests, Marijuana Australiana relies significantly on ‘alternative’ sources, and I trawl the waters of popular culture, looking for songs, posters, comics and underground magazines to produce an ‘underground’ history of cannabis in Australia. This ‘pop’ approach is balanced with a hard-edged, quantitative analysis of the size of the marijuana market, the movement of price, and 3 Marijuana Australiana the seizure figures in the section called 'History By Numbers'. As Alfred McCoy notes, we need to understand drugs as commodities. It is only through a detailed understanding of the drug trade that the deeper secrets of this underground world can be revealed. In this section, I present an economic history of the cannabis market and formulate three laws of the market. 4 Marijuana Australiana Marijuana Australiana Introduction: The History of an Underground World 11 PART ONE: The End of Legal Cannabis in Australia Chapter 1: The Reefer Madness Campaign of 1938 23 Chapter 2: ‘Marijuana’ or Indian Hemp? 26 Chapter 3: The Second Smith’s Weekly Article 31 PART TWO: The Rediscovery of Cannabis in Australia Chapter 4: The Hunter Valley Crop 34 Chapter 5: I’d Love to Turn You On! 38 Chapter 6: Teenage Heaven: Sex, Dope and Gough Whitlam 47 PART THREE: The War on Drugs in Australia Chapter 7: Richard Nixon and the War on Drugs in Australia 54 Chapter 8: The Murder of Donald Mackay 61 Chapter 9 The Woodward Royal Commission 64 Chapter 10: An Australian Richard Nixon 70 Chapter 11: The Cedar Bay Alliance 74 Chapter 12: Regime of Corruption 89 Chapter 13: Justice Williams and the Americanisation of 107 Drugs Policy in Australia PART FOUR: History by Numbers Chapter 14: History by Numbers 113 PART FIVE: The Sydney Connection: Nugan Hand and the murder of Donald Mackay Chapter 15: The Massive Pot Seizures of 1975 - 1978 150 and the Sydney Connection Chapter 16: John Wesley Egan and the CIA's Secret War 158 Chapter 17: Bernie Houghton and the R and R Years 161 Chapter 18: The Second Sydney Connection 166 Chapter 19: Michael Hand 168 Chapter 20: Murray Riley 170 Chapter 21: Bela Csidei and Harry Wainwright 180 Chapter 22: The Trojan Horse Bank 184 Chapter 23: The Small Army: The Nugan Hand Team 188 Chapter 24: The CIA Bank? 190 Chapter 25: Frank Nugan and the Murder of Donald Mackay 197 Chapter 26: The Secret Accounts 207 Chapter 27: The Stewart Royal Commission into Nugan Hand 211 Chapter 28: Framing Jimmy Bazley 217 Chapter 29: On Seeing the Sydney Connection 223 Chapter 30: Mignight’s Child 231 Chapter 31: The Drug Joke: Drugs and Police Corruption 234 Chapter 32: 25 Years of the War on Drugs in Australia 241 5 Marijuana Australiana Conclusion and Appendixes: 247 Appendix 1: The White Knight – Sir PeterAbeles and his circle 252 Appendix 2: Gough Whitlam on CIA Activity in Australia 258 6 Marijuana Australiana List of Illustrations Illustration 1: Smith’s Weekly, April 23, 1938 Illustration 2: Cannabis Medicines Illustration 3: Smith’s Weekly, June 11, 1938 Illustration 4: ‘How the Press Extend Police Powers’, Patrick Cook, New Journalist, 1978 Illustration 5: ‘The Addict’ by Martin Sharp, OZ magazine 1966 Illustration 6: ‘Showday’ by Ian McCausland, Wild & Woolley Comix Book Illustration 7: ‘The Times they are Remaining’ by Terry Murphy, The Cane Toad Times, October 1978 Illustration 8: The Bush Bust Ballard by Neil Pike Illustration 9: ‘Speak, Earthperson’ by Damien Ledwich, The Cane Toad Times #4 December 1978 Illustration 10: ‘Criminal’ from Fast Buck$ newsletter #7 Illustration 11: Pig City by the Parameters Illustration 12: ‘Pig City’, poster Illustration 13: ‘What is a Criminal?’, poster Illustration 14: One J (The One Gram Reefer) Illustration 15: The Sydney Connection & the Massive Seizures of 1975 -1978 Illustration 16: Nugan Hand International Illustration 17: ‘Mr Dick’ by Moll, Australasian Seed, July 1977 List of Tables Table 1: Detection of Cannabis by Police in New South Wales: Table 2: Seizure of Cannabis by Police and Customs 1972 and 1973 Table 3: The Australian Marijuana Industry Chart, 1973-1998 Table 4: Drug Law Enforcement costs 1987-88 Table 5: Cost of Drug Law Enforcement (Cost.DLE) by year Table 6: Drug Law Enforcement costs (Marks V NDS) Table 7: No. of Prisoners in Australia on Drug Offences V Total Prison Population in Australia by Year Table 8: Government Expenditure on Justice (in 1998/99 dollars) Table 9: Police Numbers in Australia Table 10: Combined Australian Marijuana Industry, 1973-1998 Table 11: Cannabis and Drug Offences 1973 - 1984 Table 12: Regime of Prohibition as Drug Offences per Thousand Users Table 13: Regime of Prohibition as Cost of Drug Law Enforcement per user Table 14: Price of pot v Regime of Prohibition Table 15: Drug Offences Rate by State by Year (ending 30 June) Table 16: The Size of the Australian Pot Market Estimated by the Seizure Method v the Estimate from the Green Mean model Table 17: Adjusted Seizure Figures List of Graphs Graph 1: Opoid Overdose Mortality Rate among People aged 15-44 Years in Australia, 1965 -1997 Graph 2: Drug Offences in Qld, 1968 -1988 Graph 3: The Green Mean Model of the Australian Marijuana Industry Graph 4: Imprisonment Rates in Australia, 1900 -2000 7 Marijuana Australiana Graph 5: Regime of Prohibition in Whitlams (drug offences/thousand smokers 1973-1998) Graph 6: Regime of Prohibition (in Whitlams) V Price of Pot (in $Whitlams) Graph 7: Cost of the War on Drugs in Australia Statement of original authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signed: Date: ì Acknowledgments I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to my supervisor, Drew Hutton, and my assistant supervisor, Carl Trocki, for their guidance, encouragement and critical input. I also thank those who granted me interviews, namely: Keith Moor (author of Crims in Grass Castles); Fats Parementer (writer of Pig City); Chris Masters (Four Corners reporter on The Moonlight State); Neil Pike (writer of Bush Bust Ballard); as well as Greg George, Mitch Thompson and Ian Kerr—for all their information and insight.