I remember seeing Barrington Levy in the National Park in Georgetown Guyana in '94, a woman lighted a spliff in the crowd near the stage and the cops pounced on her and roughed her up, to his credit Barrington cut the music (if I remember correctly) and tried to stand up for the woman, perhaps she would have been beaten more badly if he hadn't highlighted the situation and tried to calm things down.
It used to be three years in jail for one spliff in Guyana. To this day poor people going to prison for a lil plant, while everyone knows that nuff people in high places are making money through trade in far more dangerous substances (cocaine and guns).
Personally I love marijuana (or whatever name rasdavidsimmons might prefer to call it) and I think that it has a useful purpose in my life. However I do smoke too much of it (and yeah really I should be saving my lungs and taking it in tea or scone form if I'm gonna take it). There is a fine line between the ritual and the habitual; also, a crutch could be very helpful if your leg is injured, but using the crutch too much could hinder the proper healing and muscular developement of the leg.
But to me, if you puffin a little pipe a couple times a week, that is as close to harmless as ingesting any substance with any regularity could be.
On the other hand, people have different reactions to weed. Some people do get paranoid etc. It could exacerbate certain psychoses in people already prone to that. And the best medicine could become a poison if you do too much.
For me though, the best incentive to smoke less weed, is how much more inspiration you can get when you use herb occasionally rather than all the time. Any time I go for weeks or a month and don't smoke any cannabis, the next time when I smoke, boy I could just write three four songs and a screenplay right there, I'm thinkin about all kindsa ish, mad ideas going through my head, laughing my a$$ off... at the end of the day, any substance whose main properties are; to make you wanna think, converse, create, debate, contemplate, meditate, laugh, eat and have sex... cannot be all bad. I mean compare that to alcohol which makes you less thoughtful, aggressive and defensive, plus alcholics barely eat and can't get it up. (Not saying I don't like a guinness stout or a glass of wine now and then, but drink too much alchohol and you will be quickly reminded that it is a poison, your body will reject it unless it has become addicted to it... ganja, on the other hand, stays in your system longer than any other drug (which is why "drug tests" for work etc. are really weed tests since that's the only drug that's gonna still show up a week after you use it.) It seems like the body is a lot more comfortable having ganja in it, than having all these other drugs that get flushed out of your system as soon as possible. (Someone correct me if I'm being too pseudo-scientific here.)
Not saying a permanent natural high wouldn't be best of all! With no need for any substances whatsoever (other than the psychedelic chemicals which are naturally produced by our own brains, all the time). But I gots to big up the cannabis, whether sativa indica or ruderalis [hang the pope with a hemp rope], cos that is a good friend of mine from the vegetable kingdom.
Anyway it sounds like that was a great show in Ghana, with or without the weed.
By the way Damian Marley is playing in Bristol on March 5th, if there's any UK heads in the Bristol area out there, ought to be a nice show, £14, book your ticket now.