The green weed

The definition of "problem-kid" in The Netherlands, as you might imagine, is quite different from Brazil.

For a start, problem-kid in Brazil can’t be anyone below the middle-wealth social level. If a kid that causes trouble is poor, his definition is "outlaw", "thief", "street kid" and so on ...

The problem-kid in Brazil is one of those who have everything they need / want (high and middle-high levels) or those who work and earn enough to have what they need and then after a few split payments, have what they want (the middle class ).

Calm down... most who are reading must have thought "but I'm in that level." Yes... but I said that the problem-kid is IN the group. And not that this group is composed by problem-kids. Right? Ok.

Behold Edgar, the fictitious problem-kid (any relation to reality is purely coincidental) gets to his 14-16 years of age. He lives in Sao Paulo, goes to school, from school to his gang, from the gang to bed.

Edgar has everything he needs. When he leaves school, he’ll go to college for 4-5 years and will only think about working long after that. Why? Because he can. Dad gives everything, mom spends all, but that's okay! At the end of the month more will come. Every month. And Edgar can hang out with his Golf 2.0 that he won when he completed 17 years and 6 months.

Is this a problem-kid? Not yet. It’s nobody's fault to be born rich.

But this social level has a bunch of bastards who have nothing to do, and before they learn to speak a second language, they already learned to roll joints like a pro. Edgar entered this life in high school. He had no real use for the drug. He didn’t have to use it to drown the thoughts of how he is poor and how life sucks. No. Life is fucking good, right, Edgar? So why have you decided to do this?

Well... it looks good, right? It's cool as hell if you fire one up. Know how to roll a joint. Making a nice pose before you take a drag: "I’ll get to fuck everybody now!”

And the line of thought of the average Brazilian generally stops there. But I spend so much time in The Netherlands, right? And then it starts to change the picture.

Around here the sale and consumption of the green one is legal. Amsterdam has more Coffee Shops than corners. Edgar dreams of going there. Or at least he says so.

Like almost all Brazilians, I don’t love the idea of using drugs. But why do we think like that? Is it really that bad? Wouldn’t you like it if one day you tried it as well?

You love a beer, huh? Or smoke a cigarette? Whisky, wine?

We don’t love the idea in Brazil because marijuana is a crime. We don’t even try it, not because we think it will be bad or so unhealthy, but we don’t want to be (or feel) like criminals.

You know it’s true, because everybody who goes on and smokes one loves the idea. It must be really good, it probably gives you that "high". I honestly don’t know, never tried. But I think if so many people do it, it must be that good.

"Ah, but there are people who smoked it and didn’t like it." Yeah, well, you probably love beer and know someone who hates it, right?

The fact that just by having a weed in your pocket in Brazil already sets a misdemeanor makes a lot of people move away from it and think that they’ll die if they do as much as touching it. Not quite.

Then enters the Netherlands.

Here nobody knows it's wrong to smoke. The most they know is that it’s wrong in other countries. But when you're Dutch, other countries are just a footnote in the corner of the newspaper’s page. Whatever.

But if you read my last post, you know that nobody here is really poor. There are few who will need to use some substance to drown a depression. So here marijuana is not more dangerous than a cigarette or a glass of rum. And so it should to be.

No one will ask if you smoke here. For the reason that nobody gives a damn if you smoke, if you inhale it, if you like asses or breasts or if you have no ass.

"Oh, nobody's gonna ask you that in Brazil, too." Indeed. But they will consider if you do something "wrong" even if silently. And they think "I won’t give this guy a job, he must smoke / smokes marijuana."

This link between marijuana and crime in Brazil is what fucks the picture. Smoking itself is already considered wrong and working with the crime in Brazil. OK. But then the allowance of Edgar is over and he just needs to buy more weed. And now what? Dad doesn’t want to give more money because he is already suspicious that something's wrong. Then Edgar fights everybody at home, steals and sells the DVD player to buy weed. A crime more or a crime less (even at home) won’t make a difference. If you’re going to fuck it up, do it right, right?

And Edgar begins to think that the things he uses should be stronger, to impress more, to get a nice buzz. And he will need more money to buy needles or platinum for his nose in a couple years.

If I've said before that money brings money, now it makes sense to say that crime brings more crime.

The Netherlands is living proof that what marijuana did and does in Brazil’s middle-wealth level is because of the simple fact that it is "wrong." Everything that’s wrong is nicer, right?

For every rule there are exceptions, of course, but they are young people with the best chances in life, studying in the best colleges of Brazil (that are not any worse than the ones in Europe), who throw their lives in the trashbin, go to heavy drugs, prohibited even in the Netherlands, that’s not a cute image. And the proportion of people who go to that life in the Netherlands is minimal. Simply because it doesn’t look good to play it evil.

I don’t smoke and have never smoked marijuana. Nor has anyone in my Dutch house. But they know very well that I have the option of doing so. And they will respect it if I decide that I wan to. In Brazil this is not the same within the household, but nothing will be change in the country if the mentality within doesn’t evolve a little.

Before coming here the first time I came across many people, all of the high- and middle-wealth levels, wondering what I would do in The Netherlands for so many months. And the main question was, of course, marijuana. But nothing so out there! On the contrary!

They looked at me with that mischievous face and said "Amsterdam, yeeees? I got it..."

It came across that I had to explain it.

- No, I'm not going to The Netherlands to smoke.

- What for then?

- I have friends there.

- But you will not pull a joint?

- No.

- Don’t like it?

- I don’t know. I have never smoked.

- Never smoked a joint?

- No.

- Your friends don’t smoke?

- No. Some friends of them, yes. But no one very close.

And even if someone smokes near me, it would make no difference to me. This has to be nothing more impressive than someone smoking a cigarette or drinking a lot of beer. But from that moment on I was out of that little group. I was called stupid for acting the way I do.

So if you think like them, you are just an asshole. This blog wasn’t made for you and I think you’re no more than a jerk with mental problems.

There are many people that didn’t evolve in Brazil. In The Netherlands I am no more nor less if I smoke or don’t smoke, drink or don’t drink. I am me. Some people are ancient-minded in several aspects here, but hardly about something that can change the headlines. And that affects not only the subject of drugs, but the country as a whole.

And until the mentality of people gets a little closer to evolution and further from the Middle Ages, Brazil will be indeed a country of all.