Marks of a good education
Talking to Howard Marks was remarkably similar to talking to a fellow student who you spoke to in Fresher's week but who, somewhere in the middle of their first term, became absorbed into a nocturnal world that takes place somewhere up the Cowley road and smells very much of pot. The eternal undergraduate is easy to talk to, but constantly gives the impression that between you and him there exists, in quite a literal sense, a pungent smokescreen. Through the fumes you can detect a mild air of cynicism and discontent, and as the air clears you can even tell that there are reasoned, if controversial, views which would develop into something striking if the holder could ever be arsed.
Howard Marks, however, is different for a number of reasons, not least because he left Oxford thirty years ago and has, since then, spent seven years in an American penitentiary for drug-trafficking. He is also clearly distinguishable from the stoned undergraduate in that he certainly can be arsed: his vehement support for the legalisation of cannabis cause has involved attempting to be arrested by smoking a joint in from of a policeman (the policeman wasn't interested) and attempting to get elected in Norwich East and West constituencies on a "legalise cannabis" platform (he lost his deposit).
Many of his comments do, however, seem to have their source in the eternal undergraduate rather than the serious political campaigner. I begin by asking him how he enjoyed last term's visit to that bastion of rich tradition, the Oxford Union, and he simply replies "yeah, it was great: don't remember much though". Clearly unembarrassed by the shades of Chris Moyles. He also expresses approval at the invitation of less heavyweight speakers such as himself: philosophically, he points out that although the Union is a different place from its days during his low-key involvement in the mid-60s, : "the world is different." There is not a word of criticism for what is seen by many as an establishment institution from the man who blows smoke in the face of the establishment. Marks is clearly happy in this instance to live and let live, taking full advantage of the Presidential hospitality as he does so.
I was a little concerned that Marks would be bored of discussing his well-publicised drug-filled past, but he brings it up before I do when I ask how he enjoyed his Oxford days. Flashes of the 18 year old appear again as he laughs a wheezy laugh and says, before I can even finish my sentence, "I took lots of drugs." Blushing slightly at my apparent naivety, I persevere and admit that what really puzzles me is how a working class boy from South Wales,who wished to pass his days in a smoke-filled haze could actually have enjoyed this environment of strange other languages and academic rigour. After all, we are talking about over thirty years ago, when most colleges still imposed a curfew of midnight and Balliol college itself was almost fifteen years away from admitting women.
If he is interested in championing the cause of the pot-smoker, Marks is certainly not interested in being a working-class hero. He concedes that "the odds were stacked against you" but remembers "there were a bunch of us who used to go around together, climbing over fences after midnight, sneaking into the women's colleges and all that." He points out that Balliol was ultra-traditional: he hated reading physics and only applied in the first place under pressure from his headmaster, but is only too happy to focus on the positive side of his time here. Clearly he found his own niche and reports without a trace of the bitterness observed in other Oxford misfits.
Marks' description of his undergraduate days tcasts doubt on assertions that the 'swinging sixties' bypassed Oxford: in fact he and his friends seem to have been a head of their time in their acquisition of "acid and hash". Differences between the Oxford now and the Oxford of thirty years ago seem to be imperceptible as Marks tell of a degree spent consuming drugs and spending the last three months of his undergraduate life "learning my degree". He and his friends were allowed, it seems, to live how they pleased: Marks points out that the only time the college or university officers were concerned about illicit substances was "when it hit the papers." His tale is reminiscent of those of thousands of more recent graduates. His philosophy is also the kind of liberal, mildly concerned world-view most undergraduates would ally themselves with: he believes whole-heartedly in the legalisation of all drugs, not as a question of civil liberties but rather as a common-sense method of "harm reduction", to tackle the crime element and stop drugs from being "artificially expensive". What he finds most ludicrous is the idea of prison as a deterrent for potential drug-takers. "there are probably about three million people in the world smoking a spliff at this very point in time", he claims, "and in any case the police don't care. If you were bound to get caught then of course that would deter people, but it wouldn't be practical".
I point out that whilst the liberal argument for the legalisation of cannabis might seem credible, the same principle used for 'hard' drugs does not work in the same way. Marks, however, sees the essential point about drugs to be the fact that other people are not being harmed. "If there was a drug that made people violent and go round killing people, then it should be banned", he concedes. When I push the point and ask him if he sees drugs like heroin in the same category as so-called 'recreational' drugs, he simply says "I tried heroin once but I didn't like it".
If it is surprising that Marks bears no bitterness about his Oxford days, it is far more surprising that he is not at all bitter about spending seven years in a US prison, missing a vast chunk of his childrens' upbringing. When I talk about prison as a penal sanction, I expect to arouse some anger or passion, but am met instead with the surprising assertion that "I don't regret dealing drugs. If I could do it all again I would do it exactly the same way." When I ask him if he enjoys his status as a criminal icon, he reacts in much the same way as faux-modest Hollywood stars do when asked whether they like being sex symbols. "I think it's hard to define what an icon is, but I'm quite happy for people to focus on my criminal aspect", he says dismissively.
The striking thing about Howard Marks is that there is very little about him that is striking. He has had a strikingly different life from the rest of Balliol's class of 1965, and seems to be acutely aware of the position he is in to argue convincingly and publicly for the legalisation of drugs. However, he does not try to move far beyond the well-worn tenets of the liberalism of his generation, nor does he try to portray himself as anything other than an accidental hero. One gets the impression that stunts like his candidature in the General Election and his public pot-smoking are little more than the stunts he pulled at university when he broke his curfew: there are no pretensions to serious political comment. Marks himself points out that although the legalise Cannabis party was a one policy party, they had "some sort of policy on immigration", extending my view of him as an only averagely well thought out liberal.
He enjoys his fame and is not ashamed to admit it, and amuses himself occasional with such occupations as writing a column for Loaded. He is neither pretentious or overly self-effacing, and I came away with the impression that he is getting through life in exactly the same way he got through his degree: enjoying himself in an unobtrusive way and just generally getting on with the business of living as a free man. Fr someone so intent on people's right to get high on the substances of their choice, Marks has his feet surprisingly firmly on the ground.
4th May 2000