±MoreLess±: “I can say that I have used cannabis since forever”

Cannabis has been part of his life since he was 15 and was almost always present in his artistic creation process. Two years ago she decided to quit smoking, but what really cost her was quitting tobacco. Completely anti-prohibitionist, Miguel Januário, known in the art world as ± MaisMenos ±, shared with Cannadouro Magazine his vision on the culture of the plant.

Interview originally published in #2 of Cannadouro Magazine, by Laura Ramos and João Carvalho
Photos: Marco Valente

±MaisMenos±, or Miguel Januário, was born in 1981 in Porto and began his career at the Escola Artística de Soares dos Reis, having later joined the Communication Design course at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, where he created the project of intervention '±MoreLess±. For over 20 years Miguel has been dedicated to graffiti in the urban space, positioning himself in the national and international art scene as one of the most critical artists of the system and as a reference of the street-art world.

Under the banner '±MaisMenos ±', he produced several creative works, from video to installation, from painting to performance. In addition to numerous public art interventions in different countries, the project was also shown in individual and group exhibitions in various institutional contexts, all over the world, from Lisbon to Bangkok, passing through São Paulo, Rome, Paris and Luanda, with interventions that leave no one indifferent.

Why do you agree to participate in an interview entitled “Take the cannabis out of the closet”?
Because I think it's essential to get cannabis out of the closet. There is a kind of taboo, a certain stigma and prejudice, for cultural reasons, because there is a certain indoctrination that cannabis is a drug, but this comes from the lack of information, almost a cultural insufficiency, in relation to what is the knowledge about what is cannabis. There has been a huge regression in recent decades in terms of knowledge about cannabis, due to purely economic and financial interests, often propagated even by the cultural hegemony of the United States, precisely because it was very much against what was the nature of appropriation and exploitation of that which are the earth's resources. I think it all starts not only with the exploitation of energy resources, which we know that cannabis could largely replace the consumption of fossil energy, but also with an issue related to work and the way in which capitalism imposes itself on its ideal for daily production, working hours and so on. The idea of ​​recreation, of leisure, often associated with the use of cannabis, goes against the idea and requirement of capital to have hours of work, to produce, to be always ready to be part of the machine, to tighten screws. And then there are other things. If we start to think that people sitting at the table using cannabis can have ideas and discuss them, that also goes against what is maintaining the status quo, which is not questioning, not having time for great things other than watching news about the ball and crimes of passion on CMTV. And so if we start using cannabis and talking to each other, maybe we start questioning the system, we start questioning more about what life is and maybe even having ideas that challenge the system itself, so there is this whole energetic, social, psychological control of keeping a little status quo, and cannabis fights all that a little bit, doesn't it?

Do you consider yourself an anti-prohibitionist?
Yes, completely, without a doubt! And then we haven't even touched on the issue of pharmaceutical interests here, which, incidentally, are now changing their positioning, precisely because, despite everything, there has been an opening to the production of cannabis and the possibilities that cannabis brings, but because it is give money, because it is quoted on the stock exchange and because the quotation itself can give money, that is, it feeds the capitalist system itself. When the capitalist system sees that there is a profitable way to accept what it was against from the start, then it is already “in good shape” to enter the scheme. 

In this regard, I remind you of the challenge we gave you in the last edition of Cannadouro, which materialized in a graphic with the word “Cannapitalismo”. Where did this idea come from?
Things take a turn when the system realizes they are profitable. And it's interesting, because capitalism has this recipe a lot. Everything that starts as a counterculture of the system ends up entering a mass culture and becoming a product. It's very easy, it happened with everything, with PAN, with street art, happens with what are anti-system movements and that very quickly become profitable for the system itself. This is a way of acting for capitalism and I think cannabis also has a little bit of that side. When you realize that you can make money from a counterculture, then it's not such a bad thing anymore, because there is a way to make it profitable, so “Cannapitalism” was a critique of that. All of a sudden, if you think back 20 years ago, when we were teenagers, it was niche, it was super taboo to talk about these issues, and nowadays there's a lot more openness. I think it's capitalism itself realizing that there are niches and that it can make money from them. Hence this little criticism, that is, the thing becomes legal or acceptable, because there is a possible source of income from there. It is not often because there is a social or cultural transformation in relation to a movement or a specific issue, but because it becomes profitable, and then the financial, economic, capitalist system allows this to be more acceptable.

You were talking about adolescence and I remembered to ask you when was your first contact with cannabis. Do you still remember the first time?
I remember, it was when I was 15, at Escola Soares dos Reis, where I studied. I had never had any experience, but I also didn't give in and pretended that I did (laughs). It was with a group of colleagues, locked in the bathroom, where I had no idea what was happening. But I didn't play weak and tried it (laughs). It was a super common practice there, in an artistic school, on top of that, secondary, that was something very common. It was daily, it was part of the culture of the place. We go back to 1996, there have been some brave years.

How was it when you smoked for the first time?
At the time, honestly, I don't think I felt anything, I think it was more the expectation than any kind of effect. In fact, I only realized the effects later, in other experiments. Now, seeing from a distance, what we had access to was of very poor quality, it was that terrible hashish, those soaps. It tasted bad, it smelled bad and if you think about it, it makes me vomit now, thinking about it, but that's what there was at the time. But what he felt was a daze. I think I only really felt the true essence of the thing when, a few years later, in 1999, I went to Holland, to Amsterdam, and it was the first time I tried weed, in a coffee shop. And then, yes, I could understand what the effect of cannabis was, which I wasn't expecting at all. In other words, it was something more serious and, fortunately, over time, we started to have access to good things, we started to have weed. Here in Porto, at least, it was super hard to find weed, nobody had it. I think it wasn't until the mid-2000s that things started to arrive here, because until then it was just this snotty hash.

And did cannabis somehow enter your creative process?
Yes, without a doubt, I think this is unavoidable, because for a long time I was consuming like that, as a student, at Soares, at Belas Artes. It was part of everyday life, having a few drinks, he always accompanied me, everywhere, in my neighborhoods, at school, at college, wherever I went. I don't think I knew almost anyone who didn't smoke a couple of joints every now and then. Everyone always had it, everyone always smoked, so yes, it's unavoidable.

You talked about your initiation, your student days. And now, as an adult, as an artist already renowned and internationally recognized, how does cannabis enter your daily life?
Nowadays it doesn't come in much, because I stopped smoking two years ago. Smoked tobacco. This is really horrible consumption. I stopped smoking cigarettes, because I had been smoking for a long time, and a lot! We here, unfortunately, have a terrible habit, which is to add tobacco, nicotine, to joints. I made up my mind and had to quit smoking everything. I was fooling myself, because I was going to continue to consume nicotine and I wasn't going to give up the nicotine addiction, so in the last two years I've really stopped smoking everything. In a while, even because I miss you a little, I will try to smoke weed without nicotine with the vaporizers, but in two years I smoked once or twice, because a friend had a vaporizer and I tried it. But in fact, for two years now, cannabis is no longer part of my life. 

What was more difficult, quitting tobacco or quitting cannabis?
Tobacco, clearly, without a doubt. For me the biggest difficulty was giving up nicotine, that is what was the problematic scene. I liked that moment when I smoked, I stayed there thinking, and many times I was thinking about work, about things. I enjoyed that reflective moment. It was my moment, as there must be people who drink their whiskey like that at night, their tea, and I had my moment, which was to smoke a weed like that and be there in my scene. But one force was greater than the other, because nicotine was a horrible scene and I really had to stop smoking tobacco. It's really hard. I had been smoking for 20 years, it was a really bad thing. And I don't miss it at all, on the contrary, none, none... If I now drink a beer or a glass (which is when it's hard, isn't it?), at a meal or when you're having a few drinks, I don't even remember anymore, I got used to the process of it not being part of my life, I don't even remember it exists.

When you were using cannabis, how did you get it?
I never had a chance to cultivate. Sometimes, friends who cultivated, offered, but usually, I ended up buying through contacts, friends from the street, here and there, but they were contacts. There were phone calls, to find out who grew and has weed, or who brought something from Morocco… There was a lot out there.

There was a time when you proposed to form a political party. Was this for real?
This was an intervention of the ±MaisMenos± project. It was more or less serious and it was more or less a party, because we still got about 3500 signatures, so it was more or less there (laughs). But it was an intervention, a kind of artistic exercise almost with one foot in reality. And it was interesting for that too, because, precisely, the boundaries became very tenuous between what I felt as an artist and not knowing very well what proportions it could take, but it ended up being almost an exercise of analysis of society in that we are experiencing today. In fact, what that ended up bringing was a very exact reading or close to what is today's society, this super polarized society that we are witnessing, without an ideological root, half lost even in populisms. And I realized that a lot in this process that I was doing in the party. In the collection of signatures, there were both people with very far-right ideals and there were people with very far-left ideals and who somehow wanted to feel represented, so this brings a very concrete reading of what we live today. On the other hand, there were people who signed without knowing what they were doing, so this intervention also proves the void that exists today in relation to politics, which is what we are experiencing, whether in Brazil, in the United States. with Trump, or here with Chega. These are very accurate readings of reality. As an artistic exercise it brought very interesting results. And it was used for my PhD thesis, which I'm writing right now.

What is your thesis about?
The thesis focuses on the paradoxes of street-art and the intervention in the public space, on a more commercialized side and on a more political and intervention side, and how this also ends up being expressed in the society in which we are living. That is, in a society of polarizations, of society more or less, not only in the context of the project, which is the context of street-art, as in the context that the project proposes to criticize, which is the social and political context. It is an analysis of these dualities of society, these polarizations.

And if you were ever elected, what would your proposal on cannabis be? How would you imagine the ideal framework?
First, in relation to all drugs, I tried to have a much more perspective for total legalization, whatever the drug was, because this maintenance of drug prohibition only perpetuates the black market, it only perpetuates the illicit enrichment of dark forces, closely linked to politics , to the security forces, to international forces, because the thing exists and we will never be able to circumvent all kinds of drugs. I was trying, in this case, for the State, with a regulatory role, to have a very assiduous presence on what drugs are, be it cocaine, heroin, MDs, and so on. There is a production, it exists, there is a brutal market about it, we are not going to get around it. There is a huge public health crisis, of terrible contours that we all pay for, in relation to consumption, to social issues, so I think there had to be a much more honest approach to what exists.

And informative, at bottom, isn't it?
Without a doubt. It's covering the sun with a sieve, almost as if nobody used drugs. We will be here forever in a fight that will never end, because even on hard drugs, for example heroin or cocaine consumption, it is ridiculous and super hypocritical for us to continue to think that it is the security forces that, attacking small consumers or small dealers will ever make this stop. This will never end! It's like the arms trade. These are things that have an international level with huge amounts of money. States have to start looking at this. They don't look, because they're involved in it down to the marrow too, right? There is a whole dark side that passes us by, about the involvement of States in drug trafficking, the police, and so on. 

For example, like Canada or the US, the government could make a lot of money from legalizing cannabis by collecting taxes.
Of course, not to mention that, which already happens in the Netherlands with cannabis, taxes go to society in general, while the shady business goes to just a few interests. Taxes are a community distribution on income, everyone gains from this collection, while if you keep this illegal business on the sidelines, only your cronies gain. Is easy.

In what you've done artistically, do you remember anything you did because you got a big inspiration after smoking cannabis?
I can say that I have used cannabis since forever, so I think that can be said of almost anything.

And now how is it? Do you miss it or have you adapted to this new reality without smoking?
It's normal, I don't have those moments of relaxation and introspection anymore, but I do it differently. It's okay, because that's not a necessary thing either, and I think that's the cool thing. It's there, but if it doesn't exist, you'll also have a good time and get things done. It's a bit like Obelix or like riding a bike, you don't need to be on a bike to know you can walk.

In a legalization scenario, what would be more suitable for Portugal? A dispensary, a social club or is it indifferent?
In an informed and calm culture, without prejudice, I think I could perfectly well be in the supermarket.

Next to the whiskey bottles?
No, instead of…! Because alcohol is even worse! You have access to medicines, in a pharmacy, that kill you, that can completely tamper with your physical state, you have super aggressive alcoholic beverages for sale in any supermarket, for anyone over 16, for God's sake, right? I think it could be over the counter anywhere. It was what made sense. It's just a matter of cultural failure, it's nothing else. In fact, we have an incredible example here, which is this issue of decriminalization, which served as an example for the whole world, that is, here a few years ago, when Portugal took that decision, and that consumption was thought to rise, that it was going to be a horrible thing and that we had to be careful with a misfortune, on the contrary, it was proved precisely that this was a super positive attitude at various levels, from justice, in social, political terms, and so on.

And consumption decreased.
And consumption decreased, exactly.

And it was 20 years ago!
Yes, it was 20 years ago. Portugal is an example to the world, which is still talked about today. It's ridiculous to criminalize drug possession, it makes no sense. It's a matter of culture, nothing more.

And you now have a daughter, she will grow up, she will be a teenager, aged 15 and maybe in Soares dos Reis, like you…
It will bring some cool scenes for the father… (laughs)

How do you plan to approach this issue with her or what would you say to young people today about this plant?
There will be this conversation and that doesn't worry me at all. I'm more concerned about those things that we don't even know yet, that are part of the consumption of young people and that are drugs that we don't even know the name of, with names like Elon Musk's son, C422H33 (laughs). I think this is much more worrying and will also have its conversation in its own time, but I think it's opening up and talking about things, not hiding them. This conversation will come at the right time, I think.

Do you think that the future involves giving young people more information so that they can make better choices?
Without a doubt, I think there is no other way. It's informing, it's talking, it's opening the game, it's being comfortable. How are we when we land a beer

already on the table. There are a lot of people dying daily from alcoholism, with serious family problems due to alcohol, and it's something that we don't have any taboo on the table every day.

I don't know if you know, but the leading cause of overdose among teenagers is alcohol. It's not a drug, it's an alcoholic coma.
And we return, once again, to interests. I.e, there is a giant alcohol lobby in Portugal and in the western world, mainly. It's a question of culture, product culture. And we go back to the beginning of the conversation, to the economic issues we talked about. The replacement, which we haven't talked about much here, what cannabis could replace, in relation to so many things: fibers, industry, an industrial revolution that could almost exist with the use of cannabis... but that doesn't matter, so this taboo too kept because of that.

Do you think there would be anything to gain from exploring the industrial part of cannabis more nationally?
Of course, we already explored! We already had the hemp valleys and we already had a nautical industry that was very dependent on hemp and that is no longer, precisely because it is no longer socially accepted.