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74
PRESENTS
Hail To The Queen Dutch entrepreneur, inventor, and adventurer Mila Jansen has been smoking, smuggling, and making hashish for over a half-century. Along the way, she’s revolutionized how it’s made, established herself as an international Cannabis icon, and more than earned the title by which she’s best known—the Hash Queen. EARLY LIFE Mila Jansen was born in Liverpool on December 5, 1944. The daughter of a Dutch oil executive, she spent her childhood traveling between England, Indonesia, and the Netherlands before settling in Amsterdam in 1955. She worked in greenhouses during her teens before getting pregnant at 18 and dropping out of school. It wasn’t until 1964 that she first tried hashish—thanks to her boyfriend, who was studying medicine and wanted to observe its effects. “I rolled my first joint [tobacco and hash], and I remember just lying on the floor rolling with laughter,” Jansen says. “It was love at first toke.”
Mila Mila presents presents the the Best Best Nederhash Nederhash trophy trophy at at the the 2010 2010 Cannabis Cannabis Cup Cup in in Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
by some to be a precursor of the Cannabis coffeeshops that would follow. “We might have been the first coffeeshop, apart from the fact that we never sold anything,” Mila chuckles. “We just traded and shared whatever hash might arrive from Turkey, Lebanon, or Afghanistan.” Their hip hangout attracted all kinds of people from around the world who came to drink tea, have a smoke, and trade goods. It became Mila & partner Henk at their so popular that neighbors complained about it, boutique Kink 22 (1966). and within a year, the police had shut it down. What’s worse, they KINK 22 threatened to take Mila’s daughter away from In 1965, Mila got a job at a local fashion studio, where she her, so she decided it was time to go. befriended a gay designer named Henk Koster. Before long, “I was about to travel to Mexico when this guy the duo opened their own clothing boutique called Kink 22. walked into the teahouse who’d been to India, Employing custom designers, they began churning out mod and within two hours, my whole plan changed. and hippie style clothing and were the first shop in Holland to No more Mexico—I was heading for India!” sell miniskirts. At the height of the counterculture revolution, In 1968, with only $600 in her pocket, Mila Kink 22 attracted creative spirits from all over the world—inand her daughter set out for India. cluding Tina Turner, who once bought a dress there. And in 1967, a Dutch filmmaker shot an art film there (“De VerloederPASSAGE TO INDIA ing van de Swieps”), in which Mila had a role. But the boutique Mila’s six-month-long journey to India took her became so popular that they soon had trouble keeping up with through much of Europe and the Middle East. demand, so in November 1967, they switched the boutique Along the way, she spent nearly a month in into a teashop. And since the cups of tea often came with a Mazar-I-Sharif making dry sift with the locals, free joint (again, tobacco and hash), the shop was considered
July 2022
Mila in 1967. A scene from the film “Deterioration of the Swieps Family” (1967).
