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reserve your ad hereAs a Welshman, it is with sadness that I reflect on the Life and High Times of Howard Marks and celebrate his lifestyle and Iconic Welsh status, five years after his untimely death from cancer on the 10th of April 2016. Born in 1945 in Kenfig Hill near Bridgend, South Wales, on the 13th of August, he attended Oxford University and started smoking and selling, then smuggling hashish from around the world. At his height, he controlled a tenth of the hashish produced in the 1970s and ’80s. As I was growing up and started indulging in Marijuana and Cannabis, I became aware of Howard Marks appearing on the BBC Wales News about his impending American court case in the mid-eighties. An irate, overzealous DEA agent had pursued him. The US taped his conversations about Nordle (code for cannabis) when he was using aliases to pursue an indulgence in a natural plant and consumed his cannabis in a joint, mainly…smuggling cannabis into America in rock bands, speakers, and kit for shows.

On the run around the world, he continued to traffic cannabis, but it culminated in him being found guilty and sentenced to 25 years, serving the time in the notorious Terre Haute State Penitentiary, Indiana, and nicknamed ‘Narco Polo’ by fellows there. Because of good behavior and continued self-education, he served around 7years and was released, then subject to a book commission to write his memoirs. Thus transpired Mr. Nice, the book, then the film, after a life of excess in the cannabis world. A name from one of his many false ones. Howard was a man of the world, he had the voice of Richard Burton, and he looked like a Rolling Stone. He promoted his successful books and traveled and was a DJ as well as performing with musicians Super Furry Animals and others.
He pursued the cause of cannabis Liberation and legalization, supporting THC4NHS, an event to support the UK National Health Service back in 2011, locally to Tredegar, organized by myself, near the birthplace of the British National Health Service in 1947 in the HOT-VW…he stood for UK Parliament and helped cannabis aficionado Shantibaba start Mr. Nice Seedbank. I last saw him in Amsterdam in 2014 at the Cannabis Culture Awards, which he lost to Marc Emery. Also, many times in the audience at his Stand-up show, smoking and not smoking! He placed Jamaica as an admired place to visit and, when traveling to the Indian sub-Continent, saw as much as a ton of hash in one deal. But loved Wales! Howard produced fiction as well as his own story, Mr. Nice, and his tales and musings about cannabis in his Dope Stories. Other travel tomes were published about a Welshman abroad. A raconteur, orator, and generally great man, much missed and still celebrated with the Marks Marijuana March held in the Welsh Capital, Cardiff, in May annually, part of global cannabis awareness.
– Jason Rice Heads of the Valleys Wales CC (HOT-VW CC) 2021-03-01 St David’s Day, Patron Saint of Wales
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reserve your ad hereJason Rice was at Educated at Brynmawr Comprehensive in his teens and started indulging in Hash and Herb forty years ago. Involved in the British Federation of Film Societies (BFFS) in the 1980's and trained as a Silk Screen Printer as well as a qualified Holistic Therapist, Rice is a Member of ENCOD for just and effective drug policy in Europe in the 2000's and gained a BA with Honours in Media Communication and Film Studies in 2008 from Glamorgan University. Rice has attended Spannabis Expo since 2007 and 3 Cannabis Cups in Amsterdam over the years, as well as going to Jamaica for his 50th birthday. He enjoys listening to and watching live music, reading, and films and he has had several articles published in Weed World magazine as well as Festival Eye magazine in the UK in the past. Rice organized THC4NHS with Howard Marks in 2011 to highlight cannabis in the National Health Service at a local theatre as part of Howard's stand-up shows. Recently he has started the HOTV-VW CC, Heads of the Valleys Wales CC, and is trying to Encourage the Welsh to Grow More Weed. Rice has an extensive Cannabis/MJ book collection as well a big collection of paraphernalia and he grows his own herb, cooks, and makes concentrates.