IT'S hard to interview someone who just giggles.

But international drug smuggler turned pot smoker's 'cause celebre' Howard Marks has got a lot to laugh about.

After being caught in possession with intent to supply the whole of the western world, Mr Marks now makes a healthy living talking and writing about the illegal love of his life - marijuana.

While drug czars talk about the evils of drugs, this Oxford educated Rasputin points the finger at prohibition and is convinced it doesn't work.

"Let's get pot legalised, purified, out of the hands of gangsters," he says.

And after a chequered but colourful life fleeing from the likes of the CIA and the Drugs Enforcement Agency, his views have changed little over the years.

"Prohibition is a relatively recent social experiment that has consistently proved disastrous. Making substances illicit makes them more appealing. It also drives them underground where they get cut with all kinds of stuff. I like to smoke, Nepalese if I can get it, and I don't do anyone any harm.

"It's ridiculous I can be arrested for smoking a joint. Can you believe I got my first caution just weeks ago at Shepherd's Bush tube station?"

At the height of his career Howard was smuggling 50 tons of cannabis at a time but never touched other drugs and was famous for giving away a lot of the ill-gotten gains. In fact, supplying dope to people who wanted to smoke it became something of a personal crusade.

His show "Conversations with Mr Nice" arrives at the Platform on October 20 and he delights in sharing his nefarious activities with the audience.

"I've got plenty of stories and anecdotes to tell. One of my favourites is the time I paid a member of the Mexican secret service £500,000 to give evidence on my behalf at the Old Bailey. Looking back there's been some pretty hairy moments. It's mostly off the cuff and I like the audience to join in. At the end I have a question and answer session. Yes, I get people who are upset for saying that I enjoy smoking dope and that it should be legal. But I encourage that sort of thing, it adds to the discourse."

His autobiography "Mr Nice" has sold 265,000 copies in the UK alone and he recently teamed up with that infamous imbiber Shaun Ryder to make a single.

"I was getting smashed with Shaun in Ibiza when we came up with the idea for the single. Shaun's a great lyricist and a first class caner. It was a good laugh. I like to laugh a lot. I like to smoke as much as I can and then laugh a lot."

Originally from a small village near Swansea, Howard's voice is a deep as a Welsh coal mine and he chuckles like an unrepentant schoolboy caught smoking behind the bikesheds.

I asked him how his memory was.

"Better than you'd think - just a little selective."

He giggles again. It's obvious Howard Marks lives in another world. He's a modern day pirate on the high seas of hypocrisy and, like smugglers of old, has a good tale to tell.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.