alisonboston.com

ALA - Associacio Lliure Antiprohibicionista - runs regular events…
and this website.

The cafe operates on the ground floor of C/dels Salvador, 20 in the Raval. Enter through a small black door, the name ALA painted in large, white letters above a green canibas leaf.

Just inside the door you will find this bulletin board…

Straight ahead is the ‘bar’ where you can buy the usual assorted beverages as well as cookies and brownies.

Here in Barcelona, where it is legal to smoke in your own home, the cafe is frequented mostly by young people.

My father, the late Reverand Henry Boston, although he never smoked pot, would probably have liked the people - Jose and Carmen - who run this place. They are doing the work he devoted the last 40 years of his life to.

Why was my father - who never used drugs - so dedicated to ending the war on drugs? He started his campaign in the late 1960’s in Northern New Brunswick when the 16 year old son of a member of his United Church congregation was charged with trafficking, and sent to jail for his summer holidays. After praying about the incident, my father was led to start his campaign. Initially he lobbied for the decriminalisation of marijuana, and as the years progressed and his understanding of the issues deepened, he broadened his scope to include the legalisation of all drugs.

When he started in the 60’s he was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Today, people all over the world share his belief, not the least of which is LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.)

For years I did not support my father’s activities. I didn’t really have an opinion about it. I just wanted it to go away. Everybody in our family wanted it to go away. My mother was embarrassed because he always brought it up, it dominated every conversation he had. Without a doubt, he was obsessed.

A few years before he died, Dad wrote that he did not have much time. He was really concerned that his message would not be heard after he passed away. Fortunately, before he died, I had an epiphany - an experience shared by many LEAP members and discussed in a recent documentary film made about LEAP (read about it on their website). I came to recognise the importance of his work and the importance of his voice in the context of the debate. His colleagues from the British Columbia Anti-Prohibition League, tell me that what was so profound about my father’s message was that he was a clergyman who had never used drugs yet supported legalisation.

After Dad passed away I visited a Roman Catholic nun who had worked for many years in Victoria’s William Head Penitentary. She told me that most of the inmates were in on drug related charges and when they were released they would be ‘climbing the walls’ with anxiety and rage. She said: “They’d smoke a joint and calm right down.”

While visiting my family in Victoria, I attended some public lectures and debates where the War on Drugs was examined. Reports from the Vancouver Island Health Authority and the Victoria Police both point at alcohol and tobacco as creating more problems, either through drunk and disorderly conduct or related health problems.

Research has proven marijuana to have therapeutic benefits for chronic pain sufferers. Obviously it is beneficial for anxiety. I have a very close friend - a recovered alcoholic - who has not touched alcohol in almost 20 years and recently started using hash and grass and is having no problems. He tells me he doesn’t understand what the problem is. When he drank alcohol he couldn’t get out of bed the next day. He says he can smoke pot to relax and unwind, go to bed, and get up and work the next day - just like many people who drink-an option which is not available to him due to his problem with alcohol.

Maybe the propaganda warning against the use of marijuana needs to be redirected, and focus on warning against buying marijuana or hash from unknown suppliers. One of the things my father believed, and LEAP also lectures about, is the dangers involved in buying drugs from unknown sources. As long as drugs are illegal and sold on the black market, users can not be exactly sure of what they are buying. What the drugs are cut with can cause more harm than the drugs themselves, and if hash and grass - which are considered by many to be herbs, not drugs - are smoked cut with with tobacco, for sure the users will be addicted, because tobacco is one of the most addictive drugs available, and without a doubt, one of the hardest addictions to break.

Visit
ALA’s website.

Visit LEAP .

Read about my father.

Here’s an article in Barcelona-Metropolitan on the issue.