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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Nepal: Sadhus selling cannabis despite ban SANGEET SANGROULA Republica Tuesday 25 Feb 2014 While he rolled each cigarette with his hands, his shoulder-long matted hair shook with the movement of his hands. The old, soft-spoken sadhu arrived here three days ago from Gorkhapur, India for the Maha Shivaratri festival. He identifies himself as Ram Purna Swami. This is the seventh time that he has come to take part in the celebration, he says. After getting out tobaccos from two packets of cigarettes, he started refilling the hollowed-out cigarette pipes with cannabises mixed with tobaccos. As he refilled the cigarettes, he was circled by visitors strolling inside the temple premises. Among them were two youths from Koteshwar, and they were constantly trying to approach him. “Sadhu ji, how much do you charge for each cigarette?” asked one of the youths in hushed tone as the Pashupatinath Area Development Trust (PADT), the body responsible for managing and maintaining the temple area, has banned the sadhus from selling cannabis to visitors. The sadhu asked for Rs 25 for each cigarette. The youth promptly paid 50 rupees and took two cigarettes filled with cannabises and fled the scene. “I was too scared as I have heard that civil cops have been deployed around the temple area to contain the trade of weeds,” said one of the youths when this correspondent approached them later. They did not want to be named fearing legal action from the police authority. Despite the ban on the trade of cannabises and other drugs to the visitors, the sadhus and santas arrived in the temple for the festival are overtly found selling the drugs, especially cannabises and hashish. Some visitors wandering in the temple looking for cannabis informed that the cigarettes refilled with the cannabis were mainly for selling. They say the sadhus smoke cannabis in cone-shaped pipes. Ram Purna Swami himself admitted that he sells each cigarette filled with cannabises at prices ranging from Rs 25 to Rs 100. He said he had sold three pockets of refilled cigarettes on Monday. “It is true we have been forbidden to sell the drugs. But during the festival, the followers of the Lord Shiva have the right to enjoy the drugs,” added Swami. Ramesh Dhami of Baitadi, who is in Kathmandu for foreign employment, was another visitor to the temple looking for cannabis. “I was strolling. But one of the sadhu himself approached me. He provided me a handful of hashish,” he said, showing the hashish. Though the PADT has banned selling the drugs to devotees and the police authority has deployed civil cops to enforce the ban, the sadhus and santas residing in Chaar Sivalaya Temple, Tilgagna and Ram Temple areas in the Pashupati area are selling the drugs either covertly or overtly. Deputy Superintendent of Police Abhi Narayan Kafle, chief of the Metropolitan Police Circle, Gaushala, said, the police is trying its best to enforce the ban. “We have already arrested four sadhus from the temple while caught selling the drugs,” he assured, adding, around 150 police, both in uniform and plainclothes, have been deployed to maintain law and order in the temple during the festival. In the last three days, the police have already arrested 10 persons while purchasing the illegal drugs. http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=70141
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