This issue is devoted to events surrounding three high days in Amsterdam, the 8th-10th of February 1980, when the 1st International Cannabis Legalisation Conference took place. High Times magazine and Homegrown were co-sponsors of the conference.

In this issue I've tried to re-capture something of the spirit that abounded and how it touched me. I've chosen to present the contents in a random order, juxtaposing manifestos, prison letters, poems and polemics with a commentary and transcriptions from tapes of the conference. Three hundred of us from twenty different nations came together to exchange ideas and to talk about our experiences in our particular homelands.

The host was Simon Vinkenoog, Dutch beat poet and one of my counter-culture heroes. There were talks on Ganja in Jamaica, Pot culture in Poland, lighting up with Alexis Korner, the first legal cannabis smoker in the West, Robert Randall, a glaucoma sufferer, and prisoner 1509 Francis Martin, a housewife, mother of five and grandmother many time over.

I am featured in Bryan Talbot's three-page graphic account of the event, Spaced out in Amsterdam. Conference and Smoke Bears picnic photos by Harry Podlewski.