Never thought I’d say this, but there’s almost too much marijuana in the news as of late. With cover stories this month in both Time (by local journalist and former Seattle Weekly scribe Bruce Barcott) and National Geographic (“The New Science of Marijuana”), you can’t walk by a newsstand or go online without getting a contact high. Of course it’s great that mainstream publications are finally treating the subject of cannabis in a more mature manner, rather than continuing to deliver cliched jokes about smokescreens and . . . contact highs. Still, I wish Time and Nat. Geo had saved some for later. Like good ganja, ya gotta space the hits out.
SMOKED SALMON
In addition to the weed-news deluge, a plethora of cannabis culture stories make me want to roll things back to the days of Reefer Madness. Take marijuana-infused salmon. Please.
The owner of Rosenberg’s Bagels in Denver created a seriously smoked salmon when he recently infused the fish with cannabis. The process involved introducing marijuana into Everclear (which extracts the THC, the psychoactive element in ganja), then spreading the tincture over the fish for 72 hours before cold-smoking it (in the traditional way).
“The flavor is really great, not that weed-brownie flavor that you try to cover up with chocolate,” noted general manager Nicholas Bruno. “The dill, lemon, and cannabis—everything melds perfectly with the fish.” While the deli may have made a news splash, they’re ruining a perfectly wonderful fish, as well as some damn fine weed. (The lox/cannabis combo was more stunt than serious sales effort, as all marijuana edibles in Colorado must be clearly labeled and packaged in single doses of 10 mg or less.) I’ll say this much: Don’t even think about ruining our Copper River salmon by infusing it with pot. (Though Copper River Chronic does have a nice ring to it . . . )
Point is, not everything has to be infused with cannabis. Yoga classes are being combined with getting high, for example. Not necessary. Your yogic bliss should be enough for mind, body, and soul, so that it doesn’t require taking bong hits during bandhasana. A company introduced cannabis K-cups last week (Catapult coffee pods retail for $10 each), infusing your morning by truly waking and baking. How ’bout ya don’t!? Moderation, people.
SELLING TO MINORS
The state’s Liquor and Cannabis Control Board just busted four of the 22 recreational-marijuana stores they tested for selling to underage shoppers, which is—without a doubt—a serious screw-up. (As a point of comparison, Colorado did this kind of check last June after their retailers had been open six months, and all 20 passed the test.) The biggest reason these failures are so outrageous is that the board had announced to all recreational shops a month before that they would be doing compliance checks. Many journalists are calling the busts a major setback for marijuana (including Seattle Weekly’s own Daniel Person, declaring “Recreational Pot Is Having Its First PR Fiasco”). In fact, I think it’s just the opposite: A legal system, with due diligence, probing for violations and nailing those not in compliance sounds like a well-reasoned plan that moves in the right direction. (And indeed, idiots selling to underage kids should lose their licenses.) The rest of the stoned state gets a second chance—as every one of the 138 retail operations in the Evergreen State will be checked for compliance by the end of June. #getittogetherpeople
WE LEGALIZED IT—AND WE LIKE IT
Even with bumps in the rasta road, surveys from Public Policy Polling show that in the two states that legalized cannabis, the people like the law—even more than when they voted it in. Fifty-six percent of us here in Washington approve of the recreational weed law, and 37 percent dislike it. In the 2012 referendum, the same percentage of folks approved, but 44 percent voted against the intiative. Better still, 77 percent of voters say the new laws have either had a positive effect or no effect at all. In Colorado, a different poll confirmed the trend. Sixty-two percent of voters there support the new ganja laws, an increase of seven percentage points from the vote tally in 2012.
Survey says: It’s all good.
CLEMENCY
Finally, in a bit of good news related to a previous column (“Prisoners for Pot,” May 13), the governor of Missouri commuted the sentence of a man serving a life term for marijuana. Gov. Jay Nixon’s commutation makes Jeff Mizanskey, 61, eligible for parole after being jailed for 22 years under Missouri’s three-strikes law. Part of the reason for the governor’s move? Four hundred thousand people had signed a change.org petition requesting clemency. Mizanskey’s not free yet, but he’ll plead his very strong case before a parole board this summer. A nonviolent offender, Mizanskey has been a model prisoner—and has served a longer term than many rapists, child-molesters, and murderers. (Parole accepted!)
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Marijuana, the Potformance-Enhancing Drug
Calling out cannabis testing in sports.
Mixed-martial-arts superstar Ronda Rousey is obviously, pound for pound, the most kick-ass fighter in the world, and not to be messed with. She has also ignited a firestorm with her articulate and accurate attack on the idiocy of marijuana testing in her sport. “Rowdy” Rousey made her argument when her friend and training partner, Nick Diaz, was suspended for five years by the Nevada Athletic Association after testing positive for pot.
“I’m sorry, but it’s so not right for him to be suspended five years for marijuana,” Rousey said at a UFC press conference in Melbourne last week. “If one person tests for steroids, that could actually hurt a person, and the other person smokes a plant that makes him happy, and he gets suspended for five years. Whereas a guy who could hurt someone gets a slap on the wrist.”
To make matters worse, UFC fighter Diaz, a popular star in his prime, has a valid medical-marijuana card (from California) and stated he was using medical marijuana for ADHD as well as pain management (of which there is plenty in his brutal full-contact sport). In an absurd side note, Diaz was suspended after a match with the great Anderson Silva, who also failed a drug test—for steroid use. Silva’s punishment? One year. Diaz was suspended for five for having weed in his system—though to be fair, it was the third time in his career Diaz had tested positive for marijuana, making him perhaps not the sharpest tool in the UFC shed. For Diaz, 32, a five-year penalty is essentially a lifetime ban in a sport that takes its toll (and, in my opinion, should be outlawed, along with boxing, NASCAR, motocross, and tackle football).
The whole idea of drug-testing athletes is to see if they’re using substances that may give them a competitive advantage in their chosen sport. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that cannabis is hardly a performance-enhancing drug (at least until couch-surfing becomes an Olympic sport). Diaz has claimed to use cannabis to heal his body between matches. The World Anti-Doping Agency—one of the many institutions drug-testing MMA athletes—states in its rules that marijuana may not be used “during competition”—and thus it’s quite possible Diaz was not in violation, but still had THC in his system from previous use. (A small amount of marijuana is allowed in the urine samples WADA tests, but one of the three samples taken from Diaz the day of the fight had more THC than is considered acceptable.)
Plenty of athletes over the years have admitted to using marijuana, not as a PED but to relax and unwind—including the world’s greatest runner, Usain Bolt; NBA stars Chris Weber and Allen Iverson; beefcake Arnold Schwarzenegger; and swimming god Michael Phelps.
As in martial arts and boxing, NFL players do a lot of head-banging, and use ganja to manage pain, stress relief, depression, and even help repair neurological damage. And they also get suspended for it. In addition to the dozens of players who have been sent to substance-abuse programs for testing positive for pot, long suspensions were recently given to receivers Josh Gordon (Cleveland Browns) and Martavis Bryant (Pittsburgh Steelers) for firing up. Funny thing about the NFL: They have two separate drug policies—one for PEDs and another for recreational drugs.
Since Washington state legalized cannabis for recreational purposes, our Seattle Seahawks should be able to fire up for fun and not be fined (or suspended) for it, right? Sorry—the commish isn’t going for that. (Though a nonprofit called the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition is working to allow medical marijuana to treat ailments for NFL players.) Thing is, if ganja can give professional athletes relief—from joint pain, headaches and concussions, lack of sleep, soreness, and muscle inflammation—they should have it available. If nothing else, it will give these athletes much-needed liver relief after being prescribed a plethora of addictive and highly toxic painkillers and sleep aids by team doctors.
The only organization that seems to be getting it right on marijuana is the Olympics! The World Anti-Doping Agency (good Lord, does everyone use the same lab?) is responsible for drug-testing athletes who are training and participating in Olympic competitions all over the globe. While cannabis is on the agency’s list of prohibited substances (though not explicitly banned by the International Olympic Committee), they recently upped the allowable amount of THC in an athlete’s system from 15 ng/mL to 150—most likely because they didn’t like the idea of suspending 90 percent of their prime snowboarders and skiers.
The WADA lists various competitive advantages of each drug on their Prohibition List. For cannabis, these include “better focus” and “diminished stress.” Now that I think of it, this may be an advantage in synchronized swimming, dressage, canoe slalom, racewalking, trampoline, and whatever the hell a steeplechase is.
Rules on cannabis and sporting should obviously be changed, and, like full legalization, this will ultimately need to take place at the national level. Nick Diaz had a valid and legal (in California) use for medical marijuana, but ran into a state (and a Commission) that invalidated his legitimate needs. We’ll give the great Rowdy Ronda Rousey the last word on the subject: ”I’m against testing for weed at all. It’s not a performance enhancing drug. And it has nothing to do with competition. It’s only tested for political reasons,” said the champ. “I think we should free Nick Diaz.”
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Fare Thee Well
The Grateful Dead celebrate five decades with five shows.
In this era of fly-by-night fame, one-hit wonders, and lame-ass reality “stars,” any group of artists who can create a true following over half a century needs to be recognized and respected. The Grateful Dead, the legendary improvisational stoner band, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a five-show “Fare Thee Well” tour, which started June 27 in Santa Clara, Calif., and will wrap up July 5 at Soldier’s Field, Chicago. The long-sold-out shows (which will be streamed on YouTube) offer a chance to reflect on what makes this band so unique and beloved.
The original Grateful Dead consisted of lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, bass player Phil Lesh, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, a bluesy genius who played organ and harmonica. The group started under the name Warlocks in 1965, playing house parties during author Ken Kesey’s “acid tests.” (Drummer Mickey Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter were added in 1967, and Pigpen passed in 1973 when his liver gave out.)
Though I’m no Deadhead, I loved Garcia’s soulful, often mournful voice and damn fine picking (including his pedal-steel work on Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach Your Children”); so when Jerry passed in 1995 at age 53 from a heart attack (pretty good for a chain-smoking, fast-food-chowing heroin addict) I stopped paying attention. Not that the band needed me—hardcore fans have continued to follow the “Core Four” (aka the Walking Dead or Almost Dead): Weir, 67; Lesh, 75; and drummers Kreutzmann, 69, and Hart, 71. Joining them on the last hurrah will be singer/piano man Bruce Hornsby and Phish singer and kick-ass guitarist Trey Anastasio.
As has been well recorded, the Grateful Dead were most likely the original “jam band.” Never playing a tune the same way twice, the Dead performed songs that often went on for 30 minutes or more, filled with blues and hillbilly licks as well as spacey jazz and rock ’n’ roll. Though that formula may not fit the Top 40 format (the band’s only Top 10 hit was 1987’s “Touch of Grey”), the free-form nature of the sets dove-tailed nicely with the drug trips most listeners were taking. My favorite show was opened by Carlos Santana, and then turned into a strange journey of blurring colors and what I thought were flying sheep in the Tacoma Dome parking lot. (It should be noted that a sober group of Deadheads, the Wharf Rats, has been following the band for decades.)
Anyone old enough to be tripping and traveling the country in the ’60s has to be at least 60 by now, which makes Deadheads both a wonderful and dying breed. But behind the tie-dye and LSD and bootleg tapes comes a dedicated (deadicated?) vibe that’s still the backbone of the counterculture. Peace, love, and understanding are great notions for any generation. Tell me we couldn’t use a little more peace in the Middle East, love among our races, and understanding in our individual lives, no matter the situation.
And if ya think hippies are lazy stoners, take a hard look at the band members. They’ve toured pretty much nonstop in various forms since 1967 (including incarnations as the Other Ones, Further, RatDog, and the Dead), selling more than 35 million albums. Officially, the Guinness Book of World Records has the band etched in stone, with 2,318 live concerts (thus far) in front of a collective audience of more than 25 million, the most in history.
And if ya think hippies are a bunch of commie-pinkos, take another look. While they had wonderful progressive values (the loyal road crew were given both benefits and insurance), the gents were money-making ganjapreneurs long before the latest Green Rush. Led by Hal Kant, an entertainment lawyer who’s made Harvey Weinstein look demure, the Dead scored merchandising deals galore (have you tried the Steal Your Face wine?), and was one of the first acts to retain the ownership of its songs and all-important master tapes. The combo also didn’t put up with TicketBastards, forming their own ticketing company and raking in more than $300 million. The band was always socialistic when it came to bootlegs, allowing fans to record and trade at will . . . so long as they weren’t sold.
Of course it wasn’t just the band that made money—an entire village of traveling artists and vendors (and dope-dealers and massage therapists) followed the group from town to town for decades on end. I’ve got the Tibetan prayer flags flying off my deck to prove it. For a band that spent so much time rocking in a bygone era, their music has been carefully preserved and modernized, going from tapes and reel-to-reel systems to a digital library called The Internet Archive (archive.org), which contains 8,976 recordings of the Grateful Dead. If you’ve never really heard the band, do yourself a favor and scroll to, say, 1973 and click on one of the concert links. You may find yourself on a long strange trip, indeed.
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The Weed Wire
A pot ad ran on TV—almost.
NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME
The first-ever recreational-marijuana ad for television was supposed to air last month duringJimmy Kimmel Live on a Denver-based ABC affiliate. At the last minute, KMGH (Channel 7) got cold feet, pulling the plug after the station’s lawyers freaked out.
The ad, for Neos, a vaporizer and cannabis-oil company, was hardly Cheech and Chong—in fact, it didn’t show marijuana at all. Instead, the spot featured young people hiking up mountain trails and enjoying themselves—weed-free. “You lead an adventurous life, always finding new ways to relax,” boomed the REI-looking advert. “Now enjoy the best effects and control with Neos portable vape pen and recreate discreetly this summer.” Blasphemous!
The station is owned by E.W. Scripps Company, which yanked the spot due to concerns the feds might revoke their broadcasting license for showcasing a substance on federal airwaves that’s illegal at the national level. “Scripps has decided not to accept marijuana advertising at this time,” said Scripps mouthpiece Valerie Miller. “We are proud to be a company of free speech and open expression, but we have concerns about the lack of clarity around federal regulations that govern broadcast involving such ads.”
The same last-minute ditch happened last week in Portland, when ABC affiliate network KATU pulled a marijuana-related commercial that was supposed to run during the six o’clock hour. Again, the ad didn’t feature fat nugs or hipsters firing up—it was for September’s Oregon Medical Marijuana Business Conference. And we’d hate for anyone to attend that, right!?
Ya can’t blame the stations, really; they’re terrified about the possibility of losing their FCC licenses. The Controlled Substances Act is serious and specific about not allowing advertising that promotes Schedule I drugs. In fact, a violation of Section 843 is a felony, kids, with prison time and a roommate who’s probably not nearly as friendly as those featured on ABC shows, includingRevenge, Scandal, American Crime, Castle, Rookie Blue, How to Get Away With Murder, et al…
Those marijuana ads may have gone up in smoke, but they’re the beginning of a move toward the mainstream. As noted, local and state laws are well and good, but issues like banking, medical coverage, insurance, and taxes—and now advertisements—are eventually going to need to be approved by Uncle Sam. (The FCC has no problem, of course, with the alcohol industry spending $2 billion a year on advertising and over $500 million on TV ads alone, much less Viagra ads galore.) Before you know it, a canna-company could be advertising alongside Bud Light in the Super Bowl. (Emphasis on the Bowl.)
CALIFORNIA 2016
The next governor of California, Gavin Newsom, spearheaded a report on legalization in his state, intended to influence the half-dozen groups crafting pro-marijuana ballot proposals for 2016. Before we get to the details, let’s note one important factor: Newsom’s an incredibly handsome bastard! Guy makes Gary Hart look downright hideous! (Sorry, Gary.)The Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy’s report emphasizes child safety, tight regulations on sales, safeguarding access for medical-marijuana users, and preventing the next “Big Tobacco.” God, he’s got great hair! (Sorry.) The 24-member panel, convened by the Brill Boy and American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, lays out 58 recommendations addressing, among other things, training standards, stoned driving, age limits, and taxes for public health programs. “We’re not arguing for a free market,” noted the beautiful Lt. Governor. “We’re arguing for a very regulated market that has real oversight, that is flexible.” (I bet he’sflexible.)
The report recommends a flexible tax structure that’s not too high (which would encourage black-market exchanges) or too low (which would encourage teenagers), and that is also union-friendly. (When you’re in Cali, ya gotta kiss up to the unions, even the ones growing ganja.) It also suggests tax revenue go toward drug education, treatment programs, and policing illegal growers who are sucking up water from streams and public parks.
One small problem with the group’s report: Though there are a shitload of pot smokers in California (almost 15 percent of all pot smokers in the U.S.), overall it’s an export state! It’s estimated that California grows almost 40 percent of the nation’s marijuana—and exports over 70 percent of that! Makes me wonder if these powerful and rich growers really are interested in a seed-to-sale tracking system that taxes, inspects, licenses, and regulates marijuana.
OUT OF SIGHT
Gov. Jay Inslee just signed a new open-container law, making it illegal for unwrapped cannabis edibles and other weed products to be visible in the cockpit of a car. House Bill 1276 is an attempt to get marijuana laws in line with those pertaining to drinking and driving. Just as open alcohol containers are illegal inside vehicles (including the glovebox!), now weed is too. So keep your bong, joints, nugs, brownies, and baggies of Blueberry Kush in the trunk. And if you happen to be driving a VW bus that has no trunk (or minivan, Mom), the law states that marijuana items must be stored behind the seat furthest from the steering wheel. Which is probably where the pot smokers are hangin’ out anyway. What a long, strange road trip this has been . . .
