On the night of Maha Shivaratri, cannabis smoke rises over Pashupatinath as it has for centuries. Nepal sold hashish under government license until 1973, when Washington leaned on Kathmandu and the shops closed. Activist Hemant Shahi and Ed Rosenthal on the fight to give the plant back to the god it belongs to.
On the steps of Pashupatinath, the air isn’t just something you breathe: it’s something you feel. A dense mix of sandalwood, burnt flesh from funeral pyres, and the resinous sweetness of Shiva Buti hangs in the air. In the heart of Kathmandu, during the night of Maha Shivaratri, the great mystical wedding between consciousness and creation, cannabis doesn’t appear as a “trip,” but rather expands like a sacramental bridge. And while devotees seek Aananda (supreme bliss), modern laws, inherited from foreign pressures that have nothing to do with gods, faith, or anything at all related to this land, attempt to blow up a bridge that encapsulates thousands of years of history.
Hemant Shahi wasn’t always here. Like many others, he pursued the entrepreneurial dream in the concrete jungle of New York. There, he witnessed firsthand how the cannabis industry emerged from the shadows to become a legal, meticulously packaged behemoth. But upon returning to his roots in Nepal, the puzzle finally fell into place.
“In New York the cannabis industry emerged from the shadows and became legal. But reconnecting with my Nepalese heritage of Pashupatinath Temple and witnessing traditions around Maha Shivaratri reframed my understanding,” Hemant recounts with the conviction of someone who has seen the light at the end of the tunnel. For him, cannabis in the West is often about escape. And, in Nepal (his Nepal), it is about encounter. “The plant wasn’t something to escape from, it was something to …
Read More
Author: Hernán Panessi / High Times
