When only aged ‘intellectuals’ smoked weed

By Ted Malanda

I almost chocked on my food when, during lunch, a colleague who is a political writer with The Standard mentioned in passing that a senior politician smokes bhang.

That shouldn’t have been news. Those of a certain age will remember veteran politician Martin Shikuku once charging that most of the politicians we see around smoke prohibited substances.

“Don’t you hear some of the outrageous things we politicians say?” he posed.

Still, the name my colleague mentioned is so revered that I shot him a ludicrous look. “What are you talking about?” I gasped.

My colleague paused, introduced a piece of chicken into his mouth, chomped away with relish, swallowed and said, “You didn’t know? That man has been smoking that thing for years!” 

Bodyguards

He said it so casually that he could as well have been talking about the weather. Many questions went through my mind. Where does he buy the stuff? Where does he puff it? Toilet? A kiosk behind his mansion? Surely his bodyguards, who are police officers, must have at least got wind of the fumes emanating from his bedroom once.

I can picture one of them walking purposefully to the said mansion and ringing the bell furiously.

“I’m sorry, afande, but I have to put you under arrest for, uh, you know, smoking that thing,” would go the long arm of the law while nervously fingering a swagger stick.

I can picture the said sage being frog matched to a police car, flung into the boot and driven at top speed to the nearest police station.

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