From the UK to Nepal, from Amsterdam to Kathmandu, via Morocco and Goa, Mila Jansen, aka “The Queen of hash”, has lived a thousand lives without ever losing her legendary smile and the joint that goes with it. Interview with the queen of all travels.
ZEWEED: How did you learn to make hash?
Mila Jansen: I learned the theory in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and then, in 1968, still in India, I started making charas. I’d learned the art of hash making by years of watching growers rub and sift the flowers. When I moved back to Amsterdam in 1988, I started making charas again, managing 13 plantations with friends. In 1988, I was still sifting my flowers, until one day, while watching my tumble dryer running, I invented the Pollinator*.
At the time, the concept of cannabinoids and terpenes was unknown – to us anyway. Which meant a lot of practical experimentation before I found the right balance [rires]. I loved this period of fine-tuning. And above all, I wanted to offer Amsterdam a good hash, finding the one sold in coffee shops mediocre. After twenty years spent in India, where you could find Afghan, Nepalese and Kashmiri hash, and produce my own, I became demanding!
ZW: It’s quite a feat to succeed in such a dangerous, male-dominated environment…
MJ. : It was intelligence and a good idea that gave me the opportunity to break through, by first creating a machine that did all the manual work, which had been reserved for men! This innovation enabled growers to make their hash in an incredibly short time. When I set up my business, because I had to feed my four children, I wasn’t worried about competing with men because I wasn’t competing with them. Yes, I was entering a world reserved for men, but my business didn’t interfere with the classic activities of production, seeds, lamps or fertilizers, which are in the hands of the male gender. I’m sure that if I’d set up a seed bank, for example, their attitude would have been very different.
ZW: You’re a feminist icon. Was activism in your blood or did it happen without you thinking about it?
MJ. : A few days ago, I came across a quote from Shakespeare: “Some are born great, others rise to greatness, still others are clothed with it.” [Troilus and Cressida, 1609 NDLR] I definitely belong to the latter category, because I never set out to become any kind of icon. I was a single mother until I started my own business. I was a feminist and an activist, yes, but only in the little free time I had, far too busy taking care of my family.
ZW: You lived in Goa in 1968, in the early days of what was to become a hippie counter-culture mecca. What was it like there?
MJ. Goa in 1968 was the paradise we were looking for, nestled between palm trees and a warm ocean. There were only 11 backpackers that year. The following year, there were 200! There was no electricity, music came from a silver flute and a few tables, always with the sound of the sea in the background. We hitchhiked in a buffalo cart to the weekly market, overflowing with fresh fruit, fish and vegetables, picked that very morning by the market women. An explosion of color and sunshine. On the beach, we could buy a dozen fresh fish for two American cents! And, in exchange for a helping hand to lift the nets, the fish was free. We would spend the whole night around a huge candle, to the sound of the flute, sometimes the tablas, but most of the time just the sound of the waves crashing on the sand. And sunsets on LSD… Coming out of the ocean as if we were the first to walk this earth…
ZW: You’ve experienced the underground market. How do you feel about legalization?
MJ. : I hope legalization comes as soon as possible, although I note that it seems to come with a hell of a lot of permits, paperwork, costs and so on. There are too many rules and constraints, which is far from ideal. Just because the government legalizes doesn’t mean it can stick its nose in everywhere. Either way, it seems to play into the hands of big business, while the small, dedicated farmer is sidelined and ultimately doomed to disappear. With a little hindsight, legalization doesn’t really seem to make anyone I know any happier.
ZW: What’s the best hash you’ve ever smoked?
MJ. : It was in the Himalayas, above Kullu, above the tree line, that I found the best hash. We were with local sadhus (Indian holy men who smoke chillums) looking for cannabis plants that had survived the winter under the snow; we rubbed them and scooped the hash out of our hands. We put it in a chillum and smoked it right away. It was more of an acid trip: the sounds of the babbling brook, the colors of the wildflowers, the space and freedom in our brains, the joy! The snow-capped mountains surrounding us, the endless forests and the sadhus themselves – a magical experience!
ZW: Your relationship with the police? There must have been a few in my sixty-year career…
MJ. Yes... In 1965, I opened a boutique, Kink 22, where we sold the first mini-skirts. Later, in early 1968, we turned it into a tea room. It was the time of Timothy Leary, and abandoning this company was where it was at. The tea room attracted people returning from the East, bringing hash and sometimes reaffected American stocks from the Vietnam War – these guys were bringing back LSD! Regularly, there’d be a police raid: the tea room would be searched and I’d spend a night at the Leidseplein police station. Then the police station closed and was replaced by the Bull Dog, a coffee shop. In 2013, we were celebrating my seventieth birthday, very festively at the Bull Dog, and all of a sudden, I had a flash: it was there that I had spent the night in police custody!
ZW: Did you really grow grass next to a fire station?
MJ. Yes, it’s true. It was 1993-1994 and I was growing a lot of grass at the time. As it happened, there was a nice spot right next to a big fire station. And we weren’t spending money on ventilation systems with anti-odour filters… It smelled frankly of grass, but it wasn’t a known odour at the time. We never had any problems with our neighbors, the firefighters.
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