Marley backs cannabis, but skips smoke when making music

Ziggy Marley has released stellar music for three decades. He's earned a handful of Grammys. But he promotes a few other interests besides music: cannabis and ecofriendly cars.

So since he's performing Friday at Mandalay Bay Beach, I got on the phone and asked Marley - who has a comic book called "Marijuanaman" - what the downside is of society's legal denial of cannabis.

"It denies us the use of the plant and all the benefits that come from the use of the plant," Marley, 43, says. "It has medicine properties, of course."

And hemp offers economic and environmental benefits via clothes and other goods, he says.

"The demonization of it is to our own detriment," Marley says. "We are spiting ourselves by trying to always criminalize our negative connotations to this plant."

Marijuana is also less harmful than alcohol, he points out.

"Alcohol is a very violent and destructive element, but an adult can buy as much alcohol as he can drink. It's legal in this society. But what are the benefits of a can of beer?"

Marley doesn't drink.

And he doesn't have to smoke to make music.

"I don't need cannabis or alcohol to make music. My music comes from a spiritual place. It doesn't depend on marijuana. It doesn't depend on anything but God."

As for his other interest, ecofriendly cars, Marley doesn't understand how everyday people can deny the bulk of science pointing to climate change.

"What's more important? Is it more important to protect the environment and the Earth? Would you rather be the richest man in the world, or give to the Earth and not be so rich?

"We're on a self-destructive path as a species. And the criteria we're using to judge our success is the wrong measurement. We're measuring success by economic prosperity, instead of moral or environmental prosperity."

But he does understand why the powers-that-be deny climate change.

"They don't want to start a new thing. They want to stick with an old thing for as long as they can," he says. "And the more they hold on, the more destructive it is.

"They're going to hold on until they can't hold on anymore. So something has to give."

Regarding the future, he's both pessimistic and optimistic.

"The people who have the power and the money control the system - the military, the police, the media - all of these things that control society. They are not willing to move in another direction.

"I'm pessimistic about what they have planned, what they want to do to the rest of us."

But he's optimistic about efforts to change the system - efforts by people within his circles and other pro-environmental circles.

"Pessimism won't make me stop. It will make me work even harder. I'm optimistic that times will change. But it's not changing as fast as I want it to. We'll keep doing it to do our jobs."

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com.
He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.