“Ban Tosh, Radio Told”: How Peter Tosh caused a huge stir in 1976
It’s often forgotten now just how controversial Peter Tosh’s solo debut landed in the reggae world and beyond way back in 1976.
It was a big year. Across those 12 months, Bob Marley cemented his roots stature with Rastaman Vibration, a dub classic was forged with The Upsetters’ Super Ape, and Burning Spear dropped both the acclaimed Man in the Hills and Garvey’s Ghost. A dispute with Island Records two years earlier saw the co-founders of Marley’s Wailers also contribute to Jamaica’s reggae apex, Bunny Wailer releasing Blackheart Man and Tosh eagerly winding up the day’s industry suits and moral guardians with his celebration of the country’s most iconic plant.
He’d already twisted knickers the previous year, ‘Legalize It’ released ahead of its namesake album in light of the Jamaican authorities’ clampdown on cannabis use of any kind. Contrary to the popular impression of weed’s ubiquity, and despite its essential global export in the drugs trade, marijuana was as illegal in Jamaica as anywhere else, first prohibited as early as the 1910s, with no legislative ease well into the 1970s. The white British planter origins of the law weren’t lost on Tosh, remarking in 1977, “We are the victims of Rasclot circumstances. Victimisation, colonialism, gonna lead to bloodbath.”
Jamaica succeeded in banning the single from airplay, but Tosh didn’t back down from promoting ‘Legalize It’, continuing to perform the number at live shows and ensuring his point was made even clearer by surrounding himself with a swarm of wild cannabis plants and smoking on a hash pipe for Legalize It’s ‘fuck you’ cover. Tosh found himself a figurehead of marijuana advocacy around the world and scored one of reggae’s most enduring hits, despite industry efforts to thwart its spread.
“Ban Tosh, Radio Told” Jamaica’s The Daily Gleaner starkly reported at the time. According to the article, the UK’s Independent Broadcasting Authority had sent a notice to all the country’s independent radio stations, heeding caution in giving Tosh’s pro-weed single a spin, lest it potentially contravenes a footnote of UK law whereby the law is being explicitly called to be changed.
It didn’t matter that The Beatles sang ‘Got to Get You into My Life’s sunny reefer ode or Black Sabbath cut a celebration to the joint for ‘Sweet Leaf’, Tosh’s transgressions were the arguable subversion of Britain’s law and order.
“We don’t like to use the word banned,” an IBA spokesman told The Daily Gleaner. “But we have told the stations that the record cannot be played because it promotes drug taking and might therefore offend public taste.”
So, less legal worries and more conservative moralising as per. Wielding their clout, the IBA’s advertising arm rejected Virgin Radio’s efforts to air a commercial for the album, but Tosh cracked on with his cannabis agenda, splashing Melody Maker with a full-page ad for Legalize It and its provocative message. He’d continue to push the herb’s presence, sparking up on stage for 1978’s One Love Peace Concert in Kingston and admonishing politicians Michael Manley and Edward Seaga from the respective PNP and JLP parties for their inaction, as well as routinely being the target for police harassment for his frequent possession.
Jamaica eventually shook off its colonial legal residue, decriminalising cannabis in 2015 and becoming more concerned with the trafficking trade at large over personal use, risking little more than a low-level ticket or a paltry fine for gratuitous public smoking. Tosh never got to see the landmark reform, sadly dying in a robbery in 1987, but there’s no doubt that ‘Legalize It’ helped sway the hearts and minds needed before the long arm of the law woke up and smelt the ganja.
