Cancer, Heart Disease, or Unborn Baby

It’s not often that a day goes by where we aren’t intrigued, amazed, or even astounded by the Fijian culture. Since arriving in Fiji we’ve seen and experienced things ranging from utterly sublime to outright appalling. I couldn’t possibly write about all of them. However, there are some things that are either so funny or so absurd they make your brain hurt, such as running across a guy in the middle of the jungle wearing an honest to goodness “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt (I wanted to ask Michelle to stand next to him so I could take a picture, but my guess is that she would not have been the slightest bit amused.).

Nonetheless, some of the most amusing instances arise from everyday occurrences involving some of the ever-present vices. Just like anywhere else in the world, there are vices present in Fiji. Some overindulge on yaqona. Others partake in that universal social lubricant known as alcohol. A few even consume that evil weed known as marijuana. A large portion of the population smokes. Each of these vices has its own associated baggage in Fijian culture as I will explain further.

I’ve referenced yaqona (also called “kava” or “grog”) previously. As I noted before, yaqona is a native plant grown in many parts of the South Pacific related to the pepper plant. When the root of the plant is dried and pounded into a powder, it is then mixed with water in a communal bowl known as a tanoa and distributed to all the people in the room through a single cup known as a bilo. It started in the ancient Fijian culture as a ceremonial drink shared only among high chieftans in very small portions. As humanity is often prone to do, however, the Fijians took it to a whole new level.

Never mind the public health issues that arise from 20 or so men drinking from the same cup that is dipped in a bowl of dirty water sometimes mixed by the bare hands of a guy with questionable personal hygiene. You may as well be French kissing every dude around the tanoa bowl in terms of communicable disease. In fact, I am almost 100% certain that a fever I contracted after a late night grog session was the direct result of drinking from what amounts to a giant petri dish. After 3 days in bed and a fever exceeding 102 degrees, what do you think was the solution proposed by a villager?.... “You should drink more grog to cure your fever!” Just like suffering the consequences of a bad night with Jose Cuervo that ends with puking your body inside out, the last thing you want to taste on your lips after a bout of “grog bowl fever” is that tongue-numbing taste of dirt and bark that is yaqona.

Today, yaqona is no longer a ceremonial drink, but is a social drink. Many Fijians will openly admit that these days they simply abuse yaqona. Our local Methodist minister even confirmed that most Fijians abuse the drink…right before slurping down what was probably his 20th bilo. The thing with yaqona is that it works exactly the opposite of booze with respect to tolerance. With alcohol, the more you drink, the greater the tolerance that you build, and the longer it takes for you to get drunk. With yaqona, the more you drink, the more saturated your liver and bloodstream become, the less tolerance you retain, and the faster you get “doped” as they call it here in Fiji. Nevertheless, even once you’ve saturated your system, you may have to sit around and drink up to 15 bilos over a 2-hour period just to feel doped.

I’ve only been doped on grog once since coming to Fiji. It feels a little like being drunk on alcohol except your mind remains fully functional while your motor skills degenerate and all you want to do is find someplace to pee. So, in short, you retain the mental faculties that allow your brain to work faster than your body can move. Upon leaving the grog session feeling a little waterlogged and off balance, I reached for a handrail that I completely missed. As my hand sailed past the spot where I was sure I intended to place it, my mind thought about what I had for breakfast that morning, part of a book I had just read, the complete lyrics of a song I was learning on guitar, and, finally, the words, “shit, this is gonna hurt” right before the left side of my face hit the ground. Luckily, the grass hadn’t been cut for a while and it was a relatively soft landing resulting in only a few stars. I can’t say I really enjoyed the experience because I spent the remainder of the night getting up from what would be a sound sleep to pee every hour.

So it’s difficult for us westerners to understand why Fijians drink yaqona. At every grog session I’ve ever been to I’ve watched every single one of the men grimace and recoil after each bilo as if it were one of the worst 3-stomp whiskeys you could buy in a plastic bottle. I’ve yet to meet anyone, Fijian or otherwise, who honestly likes the taste of grog. Just like you’ll never find “Marlboro Ice Cream,” you’re equally unlikely to find a “Yaqona Candy Bar.” But I guess it boils down to the two most important things for any drug: (1) it’s free – you can grow it legally all over Fiji – or at least really cheap; and (2) it messes you up. Taste and health impacts are irrelevant with respect to those two factors. Moreover, you might not be able to drink anyone pretty or pick a fight with someone twice your size on yaqona, but (despite the feeling of wanting to barf from being so full of liquid) the actual sensation of being “doped” does feel pretty good. Nonetheless, yaqona hangovers are brutal and are likely the single largest reason for reduced productivity in Fijian culture.

Booze is less prevalent among the Fijians, especially in the villages where funds are limited. A considerable sin tax makes alcohol prohibitively expensive even for westerners visiting. For example, even a cheap fifth of whiskey can cost as much as $50 USD. The Indo-Fijian culture seems to love the stuff, though. My guess is that probably three-quarters of the annual production of domestically purchased alcohol goes into Indo-Fijian homes. Alcohol, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Humanity has used booze as a ceremonial and social centerpiece of eons. However, “everything in moderation” is an axiom that Fijians, or Americans for that matter, have failed to recognize.

Fijians, and Indo-Fijians from what I’ve seen, treat alcohol the same way that they treat yaqona. Sometimes they even go as far as to drink it “Taki Style”, which means that a group shares a single bottle and glass just like a tanoa and bilo. Each person takes a turn drinking a small glass into which the single bottle is poured…until the entire bottle is gone. Then they do it again. If someone shows up with a 12 pack of one liter bottles, just like if someone shows up with a full waka (bundle) of yaqona, they drink it all in one sitting. There doesn’t seem to be such a thing as “having a few beers to relax.”

I’m not even going to elaborate on the issue of marijuana in Fiji. It is controversial enough in the U.S. and the U.S. has clearly played a role in establishing drug policy here in Fiji. I just want someone – anyone – to give me a rational, reasonable, and logical explanation based on scientific data and health statistics that justifies why alcohol is legal and marijuana is not. Here, just like in the U.S., the penalties for marijuana possession are more harsh and steadfastly enforced than domestic violence or child abuse violations, which is just…well…stupid. Even more appalling is the way that the Fijian medical establishment states as scientific fact that marijuana causes schizophrenia (it doesn’t and has never been shown to do so), which under Fijian medical standards requires institutionalization and electroshock therapy…electroshock therapy! I guess on the bright side they aren’t requiring lobotomies.

Of course, the most prevalent vice here in Fiji is the same vice one may find the world over. It is the #1 cause of preventable death, creates the single largest burden on the health care system, and is perfectly legal for sale everywhere. Yes, I’m talking about the most profitable poison distributed globally over the last millennium …tobacco. Here in Fiji, just like in every other developing nation, men and women spend unjustifiable amounts of their meager incomes on a product that the producers deliberately make as addictive as possible even while knowing that it is deadly.

Fortunately, there appears to be very little effort by the tobacco companies to advertise in Fiji. We certainly haven’t seen, “9 out of 10 doctors in Fiji prefer Camels.” However, one of my friends has observed either one of the most brilliant subversive advertising maneuvers by the tobacco industry or a misunderstanding that makes you want to laugh, cry, or both.

So my friend, who happens to be a slave to the nicotine monkey himself, was at a yaqona session late one night when one of the other men asked to “kerikeri” (borrow) a cigarette. My friend obliged and passed him the pack. The man looked at the pack, scowled, and pitched the pack back to my friend without taking a cigarette. “I only smoke unborn baby. I don’t like cancer.” said the rangy Fijian man. My friend was stunned and could not figure out what the hell the man was talking about, so he asked. The man explained that there were three flavors or grades of cigarettes for this brand: (1) unborn baby; (2) cancer; and (3) heart disease. He then showed my friend on the package where the distinguishing language was…which was in the bold type of the health warning required by the Fijian government to be put on every cigarette pack that is sold.

My friend tried desperately to explain to the man that those words did not indicate in any way a difference in that brand of cigarettes, but the man, and apparently many other Fijians, swear that they taste different. My friend nonetheless argued for a while and tried to explain what a warning label is, but it’s hard to argue something is bad for you when one is smoldering in your hand. Nonetheless, it makes me wonder what other warning labels they interpret as a flavor or grade. Maybe the "seizures" grade of bathroom cleaner has a more delicate finish on one's palate?

Sometimes people do things even though they know in the end it will be bad for them and others, and that doesn’t seem to change regardless of the culture. In the end, I guess we should celebrate the fact that in the U.S. we have the personal freedom to slowly poison ourselves and others if we so choose, but we should also celebrate the fact we have a government that cares about its citizens enough to try and protect them through meaningful regulation that is rooted in science and evidence. There might not be people who look for unborn baby or cancer in the U.S., but there are plenty of morons who refuse to believe any science showing something is bad for them. And to be honest, rather than deal with people who are “willfully ignorant” because someone told them to think that way, I’d rather deal with folks who are “actually ignorant.” At least someone who truly doesn’t know can be educated, someone who refuses to be educated is hopeless.