It’s a Monday night and I’m in a student apartment in Dublin, surrounded by people smoking weed who don’t particularly care about whether or not they have lectures to attend the next day. Guys and gals are strewn across the living room, balancing themselves on beanbags, picking at choice morsels of cheese and passing round joints. Sitting enthroned in the corner of this party, however, is a more mature gentleman who is the object of curious glances from the other twenty-somethings in the room. Along with his halo of scraggly silvered hair, every wrinkle on his wizened face suggests a story well worth listening to: and after the evening we’ve had we can only speculate at the wealth of stories still to be revealed by the best-selling author and world-famous drugs baron. The gentleman sitting in the corner of the sitting room is of course Howard Marks. He is tapped on the shoulder. “This fella here sends this over to you.” An appreciative nod passes between Marks and the ‘fella’ in question and yet another joint is ceremoniously handed over. Adulation is a very strange thing and it’s something Marks has had to get used to. He is the high priest of the party: a legend to anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with drugs, 1960s culture or even culture in general. I lean in and ask him whether he ever gets used to the fan culture that surrounds him. “It goes with the job” he grins. Marks is an opportunist who realises that if he wants to sell books or sell his upcoming cinematic biopic, accepting joints from starry-eyed fans is a matter of course. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
A few quick-fire facts about Howard Marks: Famously described by the Daily mail as ‘the most sophisticated drugs baron of all time’, Marks is said to have controlled ten percent of the world’s hashish trade at the height of his career. He has worked with the British Secret Service and has been connected with the Mafia, the IRA, MI6 and the CIA. Sentenced to twenty-five years in America’s toughest federal penitentiary, Marks served only seven years. Presumably, he got time off for good behaviour. In 1996, Marks released his autobiography, Mr. Nice, thus launching his new international career as an author and all-round nice guy. Mr. Nice remains an international best seller in several languages and was the best selling non-fiction book of 1997. Not bad for a convicted drug trafficker.
For many, Marks is so hot he’s human lava: so charismatic you can tangibly feel his presence in the room. Invited by Trinity Ents to speak in the Ed Burke theatre on Monday the1st of February , he held court over an enthralled lecture hall, passing on stories and wisdoms collected over years of drug smuggling, writing and dodging the law. The next morning, I trudge up to the Merrion Hotel for a one-on-one interview, admittedly a little worse for wear after the previous nights adventures. Despite years spent as a fugitive traversing the globe, it is Marks’s Welsh accent that strikes you first upon meeting him. With Marks, Marijauna, the drug that made him famous becomes “Mari-wa-ni” and this quirk endears him to me instantly as a fellow ‘culchie’. A native of Kenfig Hill, a small coal-mining village near Bridgend, Marks moved to Oxford to study nucleur physics. “People from Kenfig Hill tended not to go to Oxford, so I was unusual in that respect. When I got to Oxford, people there thought I was some primal primitive throwback to some uncivilised state… I was unable to be understood, which was embarrassing.” Despite his status as a Welsh outsider, Marks excelled in his studies and was soon introduced to drugs. His first joint was given to him by an older student at a party in Oxford when Marks was nineteen. “I smoked that, liked it and started smoking from there.” I’m curious about the difference between students in the 1960s and students today. Marks is in the unique position of being an expert on the subject. “There’s differences brought about by the lack of grants and stuff like that. Students these days have massive debts which obviously must effect them. We were lucky to not have that so there was certainly much more freedom. We felt that the older generation were invested in us. They were taking care of us, giving us a fairly easy experience of life so we could establish ourselves as employable for the rest of our lives. That seems to have gone now. As far as drugs were concerned, drug-taking was almost a recreation of the academic whereas now it’s much more prevalent amongst all the classes. There was very much an intellectual elite who thought drugs were adventurous, whereas now it’s not seen in the same way.”
With the current and ongoing furore over Head shops and legal highs in Ireland, it’s a delicious prospect to hear the world’s most famed drugs smuggler talking about drug-taking as an ‘academic’ and ‘intellectual’ adventure. Marks himself comes across in person as intimidatingly intelligent so it’s not surprising that he is the poster boy for functioning drug-users everywhere: he has achieved a degree in Nuclear Physics and a Masters in philosophy, ran a multi-billion dollar operation and revitalised his public persona via an international bestseller. And he did it all on twenty-five joints a day. It’s enough to make you feel just plain lazy. “Among my generation, there is certainly a sense of frustration with the lack of same drugs policy. We always thought it would be just a matter of time before the law was changed and that was 41 years ago. I am frustrated at the lack of progress.” Marks himself admits he would be in favour of legalising all drugs “so there is an element of control over them and people aren’t forced to pay money to crackpots like me.” He concedes, however, that his viewpoint might have to be amended should a particularly harmful drug come on the market, “for example, if someone created a drug that incited rape or murder. Of course, I couldn’t support that.”
So then, having established that drugs are great, I should probably talk about Marks’s latest endeavours, most notably his writing, his merchandise and the biopic of his life being released later this year. Mr. Nice, the dramatisation of the autobiography, stars Rhys Ivans as Marks and Chloe Sevigny as his wife Judy. Ivans, a fellow Welshman, had been friends with Marks for years before the film was even pitched. “When I met him he was singing in the Super Furry Animals, before they became good,” Marks tells me. “He was sleeping on the drummers floor thinking of becoming an actor. I was on the front of the Super Furry Animals cover, thinking of being an actor. He said to me one day ‘If you ever write a book and it’s made into a film, can I play you?’ And I said yes, and we shook hands on it. I’ve got the conversation on video somewhere actually. It was a fantasy in both of our heads. We always talked about it whenever we would see each other. We saw each other at Glastonbury every year. We used to have drug taking competitions, which I won every time.” Marks complains about the length of time it takes to complete and release the film, especially since the forthcoming release of his next book has been delayed to coincide with the film. I put it to him that it’s surprising the film was made at all and Marks agrees. “It was a long process. We thought it would never be made. It’s very non-PC, if you like. There is no ‘moral’ to my story.’ Nothing bad happens to me and I don’t learn a lesson in the end.”
Perhaps this is the secret to Howard Marks’s appeal. He is the cheeky chappie who consistently “gets away with it” – part university academic, part drug connoisseur. In an effort to remain stoically cynical about something, anything, this man has done in his career, I ask him about the merchandise available on his official website – ‘Mr. Nice’ marijuana seeds and various branded rolling paraphernalia. Surely, this is all in blatant conflict with his anti-authoritarian, hippie background. Marks doesn’t pause for a second. “I’m just trying to milk it really,” and he smiles that crotchedy smile. I really want to question him, interrogate him on the contradiction these new ventures present. He’s selling his name after all. He’s become a brand. Howard Marks is essentially the Victoria Beckham of drugs! But I can’t be too hard on him. I really can’t. He’s just so…nice. Trust me, you’d like him too.
