In the fall of 1974, for my first year radio documentary in
Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now
Ryerson University), I did an interview with
Dr. Alexander Sumach, the then recent author of
Grow Your Own Stone. The book advocated that a solution to the illegal use of marijuana
at the time, was to allow law-abiding Canadian citizens the opportunity to grow it on their own, for their own personal use. This 'radical' book was later banned in Canada for a while. Now, of course, it's possible to grow
cannabis legally in Canada for certain authorized purposes. How times have changed.
But, for a moment, take yourselves back to 1974. The law on the books was still being enforced at that time, to the extent that you could go to jail for seven (yes, 7) years for simple possession of
marijuana. Imagine. You have a small bag of weed, or a few joints, in your apartment, your university residence, your home...
If you were caught, you could go to jail for the better part of a decade...
With that sobering thought, enjoy this interview, and remember the times during which it was recorded. If you're
wondering...yes, I have permission to post this interview with Dr. Sumach. The interviewer (me) was a rather too serious and overly sincere first year radio student in a
polytechnic, and of course Alexander Sumach was much younger then, too. So, forgive our
early affectations, and enjoy the interview for what it now is - an historical document.
After
the successful publication of various editions of "Grow Your Own
Stone", Dr. Sumach also published A Treasury of
Hashish. Both sets of covers from the editions are presented
here, for archival purposes.
If you have feedback about the documentary, please drop me a line: danalee@danalee.ca.
Right-click, Save on this link to
download the documentary (approximately 10 Mbytes, .mp3 format)