Freedom Leaf Magazine - Issue 28 by Freedom Leaf

OCTOBER 2017

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(S P ECI ALIZ ED IN TO PICS O F MA R IJ UA N A IN SPANISH.)

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CONTENTS

FEATURES

80 YEARS OF PROHIBITION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HEMP TOUR DEBBY GOLDBERRRY

1996: MEDICAL MARIJUANA BECOMES LEGAL MIKEL WEISSER

1937-1972 PAUL ARMENTANO From the Marihuana Tax Act to the Controlled Substances Act.

HARRY J. ANSLINGER AND JAMES MUNCH MONA ZHANG The fathers of pot prohibition.

THE DUTCH CANNABIS EXPERIMENT MARGUERITE ARNOLD Once a unique haven for cannabis, Holland faces stiff competition from its neighbors and the U.S.

POT, PROHIBITION AND PEOPLE OF COLOR NGAIO BEALUM

FREEDOM LEAF INTERVIEW: DR. LESTER GRINSPOON ALLEN ST. PIERRE The author of Marihuana Reconsidered traces the roots of cannabis prohibition.

1973-2017 STEVEN WISHNIA From Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush to Bush, Obama and Trump. 4

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MARIJUANA HARVEST ED ROSENTHAL AND DAVID DOWNS In this book excerpt, the authors provide the basics for trimming your crops.

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CONTENTS

COLUMNS

PROHIBITION MONEY TRAIL LEADS TO LEGALIZATION STEVE GELSI

WORD ON THE TREE MONA ZHANG

WHEN NORML PROMOTED "REEFER MADNESS" KEITH STROUP

REEFER MADNESS STILL ALIVE AND WELL IN WASHINGTON JUSTIN STREKAL

TOGETHER, WE HAVE MORE POWER KRISTINA NEOUSHOFF

IT’S TIME FOR PROHIBITION TO RETIRE BETTY ALDWORTH

MEDICAL-CANNABIS HISTORY 101 DR. ASSEM SAPPAL

NCIA’S AARON SMITH ON 80 YEARS OF PROHIBITION 6

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RECIPES: MUNCHIES MADNESS CHERI SICARD

HEMP’S LONG ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY ERIN HIATT

CANNABIS: CAN YOUR HEART STAND IT? FRANK D’AMBROSIO

REVIEW: THE WAR ON DRUGS’ “A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING” ROY TRAKIN

PIZZA FELLA NEAL WARNER

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EDITOR’S NOTE 80 YEARS OF MARIJUANA PROHIBITION THE WAR ON DRUGS has been America’s longest war. Federal, state and local authorities have waged it against users of marijuana and other drugs for more than a century, dating back to the first state ban on cannabis, in 1914 in Massachusetts. For this special issue, we’ve assembled a terrific team of writers to dig deep into pot prohibition. Many movement and industry leaders—SSDP’s Betty Aldworth, NCIA’s Aaron Smith, NORML's Keith Stroup and Justin Strekal, Women Grow’s Kristina Neoushoff and Oaksterdam University’s Dr. Assem Sappal—weigh in. Freedom Leaf contributors Steven Wishnia, Paul Armentano, Mona Zhang, Ngaio Bealum, Debby Goldsberry and Mikel Weisser wrote the issue’s 12-page centerpiece, “80 Years of Prohibition,” starting on page 32. Inspired by the lurid images and bold headline fonts of the original Reefer Madness posters, our art director Joe Gurreri and chief technology officer Joshua M. Halford created the visuals you see on the cover and throughout the magazine. Two of the leading resisters to prohibition, Dr. Lester Grinspoon and Jack Herer, receive tributes. Allen St. Pierre visited Dr. Grinspoon, who is now 89, at his home outside of Boston, to conduct our feature interview on page 50. The retired Harvard professor has written many books about cannabis and other drugs, but none more respected than 1971’s Marihuana Reconsidered. He also famously got high with Carl Sagan and John Lennon. Jack Herer helped reignite the legalization movement in the ’80s and ’90s with his book The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Traveling from town to town in converted school buses and hippie vans, Herer preached the hemp gospel—that it could save the world— to scores of student activists and Deadheads (see Goldsberry’s article on page 41). Erin Hiatt also cites him in "Hemp's Long Road to Respectability" on page 64. 8

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For info about how to order posters of this month’s cover, turn to page 7. For 80 long years, ever since the Marihuana Tax Act was passed in 1937, cannabis users have had targets on our backs. There was hope during the Democratic presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that marijuana would be descheduled, thus legalizing adult use. But so far, all efforts to persuade the federal government to end an archaic policy rooted in fear and racism have failed. While eight states have enacted laws to set up a legal, regulated systems for cannabis cultivation and sales, the other 42 watch and wait for direction from a White House that would rather lock us up and throw away the key. It is indeed, as Betty Aldworth writes on page 22, time for prohibition to retire.

Steve Blo m

Steve Bloom Editor-in-Chief

FOUNDERS Richard C. Cowan & Clifford J. Perry

PUBLISHER & CEO Clifford J. Perry

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Steve Bloom

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER Chris M. Sloan

ART DIRECTOR Joe Gurreri

VP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Ray Medeiros

NEWS EDITOR Mona Zhang

VP OF ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATIONS Allen St. Pierre

SENIOR EDITOR Steven Wishnia

COMMUNITY & NONPROFIT MANAGER Chris Thompson

SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR Paul Armentano

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Joshua M. Halford

CONTRIBUTORS: Betty Aldworth, Marguerite Arnold, Ngaio Bealum, Dr. Frank D’Ambrosio, Mia Di Stefano, Steve Gelsi, Debby Goldsberry, Erin Hiatt, Ellen Komp, Mitch Mandell, Beth Mann, Kristina Neoushoff, Amanda Reiman, Ed Rosenthal, Dr. Aseem Sappal, Cheri Sicard, Justin Strekal, Roy Trakin, Neal Warner, Mikel Weisser Copyright © 2017 by Freedom Leaf Inc. All rights reserved. Freedom Leaf Inc. assumes no liability for any claims or representations contained in this magazine. Reproduction, in whole or in part, without permission is prohibited.

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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

A ZHANG N O ’ M

GUTERRES URGES U.N. TO FOLLOW PORTUGAL’S LEAD ON DRUG DECRIM IN A JOINT statement on June 30, the United Nations and the World Health Organization called for “ending discrimination in health-care settings.” Among their suggestions was “reviewing and repealing punitive laws that have been proven to have negative health outcomes and that counter established public health evidence.” Certain laws, they said, that “have proven to have negative outcomes” are ones that criminalize “drug use or possession for personal use.” In other words, the UN and 10

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WHO endorsed drug decriminalization. As the UN General Assembly’s Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) last year reaffirmed support for prohibitionist policies, one might wonder whether the UN-WHO statement foreshadows a more reform-friendly mindset at the international organization. Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, which have suffered a disproportionate share of violence associated with the drug trade, advocated a more “humane solution” during that special session, as did several other nations. But countries like Indonesia and Singapore defended their harshly prohibitionist policies. Since then, however, former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres has become Secretary General, taking office Jan. 1. Guterres was prime minister when Portugal decriminalized possession of all illicit drugs in 2001. Sixteen years later, average rates of drug consumption there are substantially lower than in any other country in the European Union. The Cato Institute, a leading U.S. libertarian think tank, has declared the policy “a resounding success.” In June, Guterres called for honoring the commitments made during UNGASS to reduce drug trafficking, but he also pointed out Portugal’s experience. “I know from personal experience how an approach based on prevention and treatment can yield positive results,” he said in a statement. “Portugal now has one of the lowest death rates for drug use in Europe. Overall drug use rates have also fallen. I hope this experience will contribute to the discussion and encourage member states to continue exploring comprehensive and evidence-based solutions.”

ANTI-WEED GROUP CLAIMS CANNABIS INDUSTRY VIOLATES THE COLE MEMO IN 2013, IN what is known as the “Cole Memo,” former deputy attorney general James Cole instructed federal prosecutors not to expend resources going after cannabis activities legal under state law. That Justice Department policy has enabled marijuana markets to flourish in the states that allow them. But on Aug. 30, the nation’s most prominent anti-legalization group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, sent a report to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, urging him to “target the big players in the marijuana industry.” “Large-scale marijuana businesses, several of which now boast of having raised over $100 million in capital, and their financial backers, should be a priority,” said the report, “The Cole Memo: Four Years Later.” “These large businesses are pocketing millions by flouting federal law.” The report doesn’t recommend prosecuting individual consumers, but it pointby-point argues that cannabis-legal states have failed to comply with the eight priorities set forth in the Cole memo, including preventing marijuana sales to minors and out-of-state diversion. It claims that youth

James Cole

use of marijuana in Colorado “increased significantly” after stores there started selling cannabis to adults. This followed letters Sessions sent to officials in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington on July 24 complaining about their legal cannabis programs (see “Sessions Gets Snubbed on Prohibition Push” and “Freedom Leaf Interview: James Cole” in Issue 27). “SAM’s frivolous claims are just another prohibitionist attempt to halt the positive strides of an industry that’s been proven to be an economic force in states where marijuana is legal,” says Kevin Gallagher, executive director of the Cannabis Business Alliance. Apparently, SAM cofounder Kevin Sabet has Sessions' ear. The Daily Beast reports that he and the attorney general have had at least one phone conversation.

PRO-POT LAWMAKERS RUNNING FOR GOV IN SEVERAL STATES AS CANNABIS-LAW REFORM becomes an increasingly mainstream political issue, pro-legalization candidates are running for governor in several states. Two states could elect governors who support reforming cannabis laws this November. In New Jersey, Democratic candidate Phil Murphy says he'll legalize recreational marijuana if he wins the race to

Diane Russell

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succeed Chris Christie. In Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam has focused on marijuana decriminalization as a social-justice issue. Several more will be running in other states in 2018. In California, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a vocal proponent of legalizing recreational marijuana last year, is running to succeed Jerry Brown. Newsom has already received more than $300,000 in donations from the cannabis industry. Some in the industry, however, fear that as it expands from medical to recreational use, Newsom will favor big companies over the small businesses that have historically served medical-marijuana patients. In Colorado, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) wants to follow Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.w Polis, currently serving his fifth term in the House, was one of the

U.S. BANKS TAKE AIM AT LEGAL CANNABIS SALES IN URUGUAY IN 2013, URUGUAY made history when it became the first country in the world to legalize the sale of marijuana. Residents can grow up to six plants at home, the state sells cannabis at participating pharmacies and people can partake in cannabis-growing co-ops. While the start of the regulated market was beset by delays, commercial sales kicked off in July. More than 12,500 people 12

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founding members of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and has championed reforming cannabis laws. In Maine, former state Rep. Diane Russell is one of eight Democrats who are hoping to succeed far-right Gov. Paul LePage in 2018. During her eight years in Maine’s House, the former Portland representative sponsored several marijuana-legalization bills, before Pine Tree State voters opted to legalize cannabis at the ballot box in 2016. “As governor,” she says, “I’ll spend every day fighting to unrig the system and make Maine a place where everyone gets a fair shot.” Todd Mitchem, former chief revenue officer for O.pen Vape and founder of the marijuana-focused social app High There!, is running for Polis’ seat in the House as a Libertarian. He’s never held public office.

have signed up despite being required to submit fingerprints to the government. (See “Legal Cannabis Sales Underway in Uruguay” in Issue 26.) Fifteen pharmacies started selling it, and another 20 were interested in joining the market, until they received letters from their banks threatening to close their accounts. Financial institutions in the U.S., including the Bank of America, had threatened to stop doing business with the Uruguayan banks that served the cannabis outlets. They cited the Patriot Act, which prohibits banks from doing business with sellers of illegal drugs. That problem has led some pharmacies to

stop selling marijuana. Others who want to get into the business are putting off their plans. “We can’t understand how the government didn’t have the foresight to anticipate this,” griped pharmacy owner Gabriel Bachini. The banking problem has long plagued

SOCIAL USE GAINS IN DENVER AND ALASKA AS NEVADA LAGS BEHIND DESPITE THE LEGALIZATION of marijuana in a number of states, one stubborn obstacle remains: There is no equivalent of bars where people can use it socially. While Colorado and Oregon have become destinations for cannabis consumers, no state allows marijuana lounges. The situation leaves tourists, who eagerly visit pot shops but have no place to light up, in a bit of a bind. It’s also problematic for state residents who live in public housing or don't have 420-friendly landlords. That may be starting to change. Denver voters approved a ballot initiative last No-

U.S. state-legal marijuana markets. What is happening in Uruguay should raise concerns in Canada, the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, which is preparing to begin a regulated adult-use market in 2018. Will U.S. banks put similar pressure on Canadian financial institutions?

vember that creates a cannabis-consumption pilot program, the first of its kind in the nation. City officials began accepting applications from businesses for social-use licenses in August. The regulations exclude cannabis dispensaries and any business that has a liquor license. That leaves locations like cafés and art galleries, but only those that are not within 1,000 feet of a school, child-care facility or drug-treatment center. The 1,000-foot rule is a particular sticking point among advocates, who are considering suing the city over its restrictions. “Distance restrictions make it such that these social-use businesses can only establish themselves in the very neighborhoods that the City Council deemed too concentrated with cannabis businesses last year,” Kayvan Khaltabari, one of the drafters of the initiative, said in a letter to city officials in August. Meanwhile, Alaska could become the first OCTOBER 2017

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state to implement social-use regulations. The state Marijuana Control Board drafted a proposal that would let cannabis stores have on-site consumption areas. The proposed rules, unlike Denver’s, would allow consumers to buy and smoke in the same establishment. Regulators are seeking public comment on them until Oct. 27. Nevada just rolled out recreational sales on July 1, and social use has already become a prominent topic of debate. With more than 40 million tourists visiting the state each year, the lack of cannabis consumption areas is a particular headache for visitors. “We’re saying, ‘Come to Las Vegas, because you can buy recreational marijuana,’

but you can’t use it in your hotel room, on the Strip or at a concert,” Senator Tick Segerblom (D-Las Vegas) said at a cannabis-law event in Denver in July. “But they do.” Segerblom’s Senate Bill 236, which would allow cities to authorize cannabis consumption at special events, was passed by the Senate earlier this year, but it died in the Assembly. On Aug. 24, the Nevada Gaming Commission voted to discourage casinos from hosting cannabis trade shows, such as the MJ Biz Conference that’s scheduled for Nov. 15-17. The event, previously held at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, has been moved to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

REP. TOM MARINO NOMINATED FOR DRUG CZAR FOR THE SECOND time, Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) is being considered to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The news that Marino, 65, was President Trump’s choice for the drug czar post came four months after he withdrew his name due to a “critical illness” in his family. Marino has a sketchy track record. In 2007, when he was U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, he resigned abruptly during a Justice Department investigation for abuse of authority. In 1998, he was accused of “judge-shopping” when trying to get a friend’s cocaine-dealing conviction expunged; according to court records, he hand-delivered an expungement request to a judge three weeks after a different judge had refused it. Marino was elected to Congress in 2010 from a largely rural district in the state’s northeast. “The only way I would agree to consider legalizing marijuana is if we had a really indepth study,” Marino said last October. “If it does help people one way or the other, then produce it in pill form. But don’t make an excuse because you want to smoke marijuana.” Marino has repeatedly voted against the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment (now known as Rohrabacher-Blumenauer), which protects 14

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Rep. Tom Marino

state medical-marijuana programs from federal interference. He also voted against a bill that would have allowed Veterans Administration doctors to recommend medical marijuana in states where it’s legal. “He’s a disastrous choice for drug czar and needs to be opposed,” says Bill Piper, Drug Policy Alliance’s senior director of national affairs. “Our nation needs a drug czar who wants to treat drug use as a health issue, not someone who wants to double down on mass incarceration.” Mona Zhang publishes the daily cannabis newsletter Word on the Tree. Subscribe to WOTT at wordonthetree.com.

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’70S STORY: WHEN NORML PROMOTED "REEFER MADNESS" BY KEITH STROUP

DURING NORML’S VERY early years, in 1971 and 1972, I began to get a few inquiries from college lecture bureaus asking if we were interested in speaking to their students about NORML and what we were trying to achieve. Some of those calls came from New Line Productions, then a small lecture agency based in New York that was focusing on the campus market and looking for what might be called “fringe” speakers— those whose messages may have been a bit out of the mainstream, and thus appealing to many college audiences. I accepted a few of these early gigs, where I quickly realized that while my principal motivation was to inform the students, it was far more important that I develop a standard stump speech designed to entertain a college crowd. That meant keeping my presentation to no longer than an hour, which was about the upper end of their attention span. At one of these early bookings, New Line marketed my lecture as part of an evening that also included a showing of the 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness. The movie presented the ultimate stereotype: an overwrought, hysterical sto16

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ryline in which the principal character smokes a marijuana cigarette and immediately proceeds to go crazy, raping and killing anyone within reach. It was not a good movie by any standard, but the absurdity of it all touched a nerve with the students, and it made the program campy and undeniably entertaining. I asked New Line about the movie, and they advised me that they had obtained a copy of it from the Library of Congress, as the copyright had been allowed to lapse— and thus Reefer Madness was in the public domain, available to anyone who bothered to look for it. I promptly obtained a copy from the Library of Congress. For the next several years, New Line marketed my NORML lecture with Reefer Madness to scores of colleges all across the country. It became a wonderful way for us both to raise some significant funding for the organization and to get the word out about NORML and our efforts to legalize marijuana in America. Keith Stroup founded NORML in 1970. This article originally appeared in Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide (2010, Abrams Image).

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80 YEARS LATER, REEFER MADNESS IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL IN WASHINGTON BY JUSTIN STREKAL ON AUG. 21, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson strayed into the marijuana debate during a speech at the Native American Housing Assocation in Polson, Mont. Unfortunately, he did not know his facts. “I’m not all that enthusiastic about marijuana because there have been numerous studies that show exposing a developing brain to marijuana can lead to lower IQs,” he said. “We already have enough people with a low IQ, and we don’t need any more.” That stereotype of marijuana consumers may be funny in movies, but it runs counter to science. NORML has reported on three studies over the last year and a half that dispel the myth that marijuana use decreases one’s intelligence. In a 2016 study, “Effect of Marijuana Use by Adolescents on Cognition and IQ,” British researchers concluded, “The notion that cannabis use itself is causally related to lower IQ and poorer educational performance was not supported in this large teenage sample.” In 2015, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Minnesota studying “The Impact of Adolescent Marijuana Use on Intelligence” found: “Marijuana-using twins failed to show significantly greater IQ decline relative to their abstinent siblings. Evidence from these two samples suggests that observed declines in measured IQ may not be a direct result of marijuana exposure, but rather attributable to familial factors that underlie both marijuana initiation and low intellectual attainment.” The results were published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). In a another study using twins, “Associations Between Adolescent Cannabis Use 18

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HUD Secretary Ben Carson thinks "marijuana can lead to lower IQs." and Neuropsychological Decline,” published by Addiction in July, researchers wrote: “Short-term cannabis use in adolescence does not appear to cause IQ decline or impair executive functions, even when cannabis use reaches the level of dependence. Family background factors explain why adolescent cannabis users perform worse on IQ and executive function tests.” These studies’ findings are consistent with several others about adolescent cannabis use. Secretary Carson’s above remarks echo a statement he made during the 2016 presidential campaign: “Regular exposure to marijuana in the developing brain has been proven to result in decreased IQ. The last thing we need is a bunch of people running around with decreaed IQ.” Don’t let outdated rhetoric fool you. Stay vigilant against those who maintain the systems of prohibitionist oppression. Join NORML today at norml.org. Justin Strekal is NORML’s political director.

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TOGETHER, WE HAVE MORE POWER BY KRISTINA NEOUSHOFF WOMEN GROW CELEBRATED our third anniversary in August. Coincidentally, it was in August 1937 when President Roosevelt signed the Marihuana Tax Act. It’s now 80 years since that law went into effect, and the cannabis community is still fighting for decriminalization, access to education and resources, and support for patients and legal businesses. Our cofounder Jane West recently wrote an open letter to the Women Grow community in which she discussed launching the company and the hurdles of building a business in an ever-changing industry, and the reasons why she became a Cornerstone member this year. Her key message was to take action. When I became CEO of Women Grow in April, my objective was to use my experiences in the technology and retail industries, and focus on supporting new leaders to build strong businesses and strategic partnerships in this industry. I’ve seen Women Grow bring together a community of brilliant minds, remarkable stories and thriving businesses. We must continue moving forward together to overcome challenges. The pioneers in the cannabis space blazed a trail, clearing a path for both them20 20

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selves and those following in their footsteps. These individuals have protested for fair policies, pushed for legislation and regulation, and addressed the criminality of the War on Drugs. Women Grow is only able to exist because of these pioneers, and we stand with them: To push for more education, cultivate connections among business leaders, empower one another to bring our best selves to this industry and inspire each other with stories of personal growth. We have a common goal: To work collectively as a community and take action in many forms. We’re leaders that have the power to create a new standard—to be kind to one another, to commit to building each other up, to promote the idea of profiting with purpose and to pledge to uphold these beliefs. Women are leading the charge in this industry, as women have done so many times before. We can be heard raising our voices as lobbyists, entrepreneurs, professionals and advocates. At every level, we need to raise our hands and our voices to ensure that we’re heard. We will not turn back. Instead, we’ll join hands and shout from the rooftops, “Together, we have more power!” Kristina Neoushoff is Women Grow’s chief executive officer.

Kristina Neoushoff

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IT’S TIME FOR PROHIBITION TO RETIRE BY BETTY ALDWORTH ON AUG. 1, Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) introduced groundbreaking legislation to remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act. His Marijuana Justice Act is not the first attempt to do this, but it is the first with the explicit intent of targeting the racist origins and continued racist enforcement of the War on Drugs. Drug policy in the U.S. has always been used as a tool to target and oppress specific groups of people. The first anti-marijuana laws, enacted in the early 20th century, were originally directed at Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans. By the time the Marihuana Tax Act was signed in 1937, other countries had banned cannabis use, possession or trade. Many more would follow. Marijuana prohibition escalated under Nixon’s direction and largely focused on poor people of color. During the ’80s, mass incarceration and law-enforcement budgets both skyrocketed under Reagan’s. Marijuana continues to account for the most of the trade in and consumption of illicit drugs in the U.S. Around the world, nations have participated in the dehumanization of their own citizens by allowing or conducting eradication campaigns, criminalizing users and producers of cannabis, and stripping indigenous communities of their medicine or religious sacraments. And for what? While cannabis prohibition hasn't reduced production, trade or use, it has devastated communities and denied life-saving medicine to millions. Eighty years after federal prohibition began in the U.S., it’s proven to be a failure and is being dismantled in many places internationally, SSDP is driving that dismantling by changing cannabis policies—and perhaps more importantly, attitudes—from university campuses to the United Nations. We’re a community of young people who deeply understand the insidious nature of the drug war. We’re using the tools of coalition FREEDOM OCTOBER 2017 22 22FREEDOM LEAFLEAF OCTOBER 2017

Betty Aldworth: "Eighty years of ineffective policy is enough."

building, advocacy, public perception and scientific evidence to end that war and influence the nascent cannabis industry. We empower students to participate in the political process and develop leaders who advocate for policy changes based on justice, liberty, compassion and reason. Since 1998, SSDP members have participated in nearly every cannabis-policy reform campaign in the U.S., and have also led campaigns for reforms in other countries. Just last year, we made 70,000 contacts to educate and turn out voters in support of that. In 2018, we’ll do it again. If you’d like to help end prohibition, visit ssdp.org. Join or start an SSDP chapter or become a supporting member today. Betty Aldworth is SSDP’s executive director.

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MEDICINAL CANNABIS HISTORY 101: FROM ANCIENT USES TO PROP 64 BY DR. ASEEM SAPPAL CANNABIS HAS BEEN used medicinally for thousands of years. It was a staple of traditional medicine in many ancient cultures, including India, China, Greece and Egypt. Yet, Western doctors weren’t aware of the plant’s medicinal benefits until the 1830s, when Dr. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish physician who worked in Kolkata, India, performed medical experiments with cannabis. He began prescribing it to patients with ailments very similar to those it’s currently used for, such as muscle spams, stomach cramps and general pain. Once O’Shaughnessy shared his findings with the medical community, other Western doctors began to prescribe it for migraines and melancholia (now known as depression), and as a sleeping aid, analgesic and anticonvulsant. By 1937, 2,000 medicinal cannabis products existed, including extracts and tinctures produced by more than 280 manufacturers in the U.S, Germany and Britain. Cannabis was outlawed in the United Kingdom in 1928, and Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937. After the Supreme Court struck down that law in 1969, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, which put drugs into five categories. Cannabis was placed in Schedule I, the strictest category. In 1996, California passed the country’s first law allowing doctors to “recommend” medical-marijuana, the Proposition 215 ballot initiative. Twenty years later, California became the most populous place in the world to legalize full adult-use access to cannabis, when the state’s voters approved Prop 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. Many Oaksterdam University faculty mem24 FREEDOM FREEDOMLEAF LEAF 24

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bers were involved in the 215 campaign, including Chris Conrad and Mikki Norris. In 2016, Conrad, Norris and another Oaksterdam faculty member, attorney Lauren Vazquez, formed the Friends of Prop 64, which brought activists, politicians and the public together to get the signatures needed to put it on the ballot, register people to vote and campaign for the measure. Medicinal uses of cannabis are not new. It was used to help the same ailments in the ancient times and the 1800s as it is today. Racist and misinformed lawmakers in the 20th century are to blame for prohibition, but hardworking activists are to thank for recent cannabis victories. Even though California, seven other states and Washington D.C. have ended cannabis prohibition, the fight for access won’t be won until the U.S. lifts its federal ban on the plant and the rest of the world follows suit. Dr. Aseem Sappal is provost and dean of the faculty at Oaksterdam University.

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NCIA’S AARON SMITH ON 80 YEARS OF CANNABIS PROHIBITION It’s been nearly five years since Colorado and Washington legalized cannabis. What effect has this had on reversing federal prohibition? First and foremost, we’re seeing less people being put behind bars for simply possessing a plant. Reducing the number of arrests related to cannabis prohibition means that those traditionally most affected by the War on Drugs—African Americans and Latinos—are under less risk of being arrested for cannabis possession during a traffic stop, for example. This fits into the important social-justice reforms that are happening with the legalization of cannabis across the U.S., state by state. Is there one key piece of legislation currently proposed in Congress that you are passionate about? Yes, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017, which mandates that individuals and businesses that are compliant with state marijuana laws are therefore compliant with federal marijuana laws. This would be a game-changer in reconciling state and federal cannabis laws. What’s the biggest hurdle to overcoming 80 years of cannabis prohibition? For the most part, we still live under a failed prohibition regime because of inertia: the natural resistance to change, absent overwhelming pressure to enact reform. Unfortunately, marijuana is not a top priority in Congress. Most members of Congress and elected officials do not have a sense of what the industry really looks like and still have a misperception or stigmatized view of cannabis. What are your thoughts on the future market in California? With the new MAUCRSA [Medicinal and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety 26 FREEDOM FREEDOM LEAF LEAF 26

OCTOBER 2017 2017 OCTOBER

National Cannabis Industry Association executive director Aaron Smith

Act] regulations passed by the state legislature, I think California now has one of the most sensible and business-friendly marijuana programs on the books in the country. I look forward to the state successfully replacing its underground market with a booming aboveground industry, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and upwards of a billion dollars in annual tax revenue. The NCIA has been in existence for seven years. How can a national cannabis trade association ultimately contribute to ending prohibition? We maintain a large lobbying and publicrelations operation that advocates for the reform of federal marijuana laws. We want the entire criminal cannabis market to be replaced by regulated businesses that serve adults in a manner similar to how alcohol is sold. Currently, more than half of Congress members are from pro-cannabis states, giving them the impetus to support our issues on behalf of their constituents. These numbers grow annually thanks, in part, to the work of NCIA’s members and financial supporters, and our full-time government-relations staff in D.C. For more information about the NCIA, go to thecannabisindustry.org.

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DuPont was among the companies that benefited from the outlawing of industrial hemp.

PROHIBITION MONEY TRAIL LEADS TO LEGALIZATION BY STEVE GELSI

MONEY AND ECONOMICS drove the push for federal cannabis prohibition starting in the twilight of the Jazz Age. These forces continue to play a tug of war on both sides of the fight to end prohibition. You can look at culture, politics, lifestyles or whatever. But to understand the ban on pot decades ago and the effort to make it legal now, you also need to follow the money. Harry J. Anslinger, who led the fight to ban marijuana, arguably had an economic motive to make it illegal four years after the 21th Amendment repealed alcohol prohibition in 1933. He'd risen to prominence in the federal government in 1929 as assistant commissioner in the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Prohibition. With beer, wine and liquor once again legal to consume, he would’ve been out of a job if not for his successful quest to spread the myth of Reefer Madness as the first commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics. By scaring politicians and others about the supposed dangers of cannabis, Anslinger got the ball rolling on marijuana prohibition. Many argue that this federal effort to 28

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eradicate cannabis helped fatten the bottom line of William Randolph Hearst by eliminating hemp as a competitor to timber interests held by the newspaper magnate. Hearst also had no problem using tales of marijuana debauchery by scary Mexicans and African Americans to sell more newspapers. Synthetic fiber makers such as DuPont often get mentioned as beneficiaries of the push to outlaw industrial hemp as well. With hemp fiber out of the way, DuPont and other companies thrived with sales of materials like nylon. These days, competing economic interests continue to shape the battle over cannabis prohibition. Mark Thornton, a libertarian and author of the book Economics of Prohibition, tells Freedom Leaf that public campaign-finance filings reveal businesses connected to the alcohol, pharmaceutical, tobacco and private-prison sectors routinely support the continuation of cannabis prohibition through political donations. Drug cartels and other organized crime may also be funding the anti-cannabis effort, but it’s harder to trace since their money flows outside of public disclosure rules. “Pro-

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Jeffrey Miron: "We should be eager to legalize it even if the economic impact is zero."

hibition imposes direct costs on everyone with respect to police, courts and prisons in the form of taxes,” Thornton says. “It also imposes enormous costs directly on the people who are arrested and put in prison.” The industries that cannabis could transform include the pharmaceutical sector ($450 billion in revenues per year in the U.S., according to Stastica.com), the synthetic-fiber sector ($8 billion per year, according to IBISWorld.com), and the health-care sector ($4 trillion per year). Cannabis would not necessarily take over these industries, but 2021 LEGAL CANNABIS PROJECTIONS According to Arcview/BDS Analytics: • Total legal cannabis spending in the U.S.: $19 billion • Total economic output: $37.015 billion • Direct employment: 272,300 • Total employment effect: 395,800 30

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it could have an impact. It could lower the costs of many medicines and other products, causing revenues to drop in certain sectors. Most research on pot prohibition tends to focus on the cost of law enforcement and incarceration, which was estimated at about $50 billion in a 2010 study by Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron. He now says calculating the effect of ending prohibition on overall GDP is “very hard to do." Miron, who is also a libertarian, supports cannabis freedom in order to protect individual rights, not because of any business benefits from ending prohibition. "We shouldn't even care about the money,” he says. “We should be eager to legalize it even if the economic impact is zero.” Yet the potential economic benefits of ending cannabis prohibition remain a compelling argument in favor of legalization. In Colorado, the legal cannabis industry contributed to the economy to the tune of $200 million in taxes and more than $1 billion in marijuana-product sales in 2016. It's created thousands of jobs since stores opened for adult use in 2014. The economic forces behind legal cannabis—from dispensaries to edibles makers, equipment companies to service providers— continue to grow stronger. They will take a quantum leap forward once California, the sixth largest economy in the world, rolls out cannabis sales for adults next year. Tom Adams, editor-in-chief of ArcView Market Research, says it’s hard to find a negative data point on the effect of cannabis on American business. “There would be huge economic and societal benefits to bring it into the real economy,” he notes. “The bottom line is we need to show this, because there’s still a lot of opposition based on 80 years of propaganda promoting cannabis as a negative drug.” With ArcView/BDS Analytics projecting legal cannabis sales and related services producing more than $37 billion in economic output and creating nearly 400,000 jobs by 2021, pot's pocketbook appeal is compelling. Steve Gelsi is a finance writer who lives in New Jersey.

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It’s 80 years since the federal government banned marijuana. While alcohol prohibition lasted 13 years (1920-1933), cannabis prohibition has now dragged on for eight decades. Despite countless attempts to persuade the Drug Enforcement Administration, Food and Drug Administration, Justice Department and sitting presidents to end this archaic policy whipped up by the Reefer Madness frenzy of the 1930s, it remains the law of the land. And although eight states have legalized marijuana since 2012, the federal government remains intransigent. Here’s the history of pot prohibition.

1937-1972

FROM THE MARIJUANA TAX ACT TO THE CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT BY PAUL ARMENTANO EIGHTY YEARS AGO, on August 2, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed House Bill 6385, the Marihuana Tax Act, into law. It took effect that October. The law, for the first time, imposed federal criminal penalties on activities specific to the possession, production and sale of 32 FREEDOM LEAF OCTOBER 2017

cannabis, ushering in the modern era of federal prohibition. Congress’ decision followed the 29 states that had previously passed laws criminalizing marijuana, beginning with Massachusetts in 1914. It also followed years of Reefer Madness, during which time politicians, bureaucrats (led primarily by Federal Bureau of Narcotics director Harry J. Anslinger), reporters and science editors continually proclaimed that marijuana use irreparably damaged the brain. A 1933 editorial in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology summarized the sentiment at the time: “If continued, the inevitable result is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable and, without exception, ending in death." Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North

rry J. Left to right : Ha William C. Anslinger, Dr. d Rep. Woodward, an hton ug Do L. rt be Ro

Carolina introduced the Marihuana Tax Act on April 14, 1937. It promised to stamp out the recreational use of marijuana by imposing a prohibitive federal tax—$100 an ounce, at a time when a 25 cent-an-hour federal minimum wage was still a year away—on all cannabis-related activities. Members of Congress quickly rallied around it, a dramatic departure from years earlier, when lawmakers had promptly rejected similar efforts. Congress held only two hearings to debate the merits of the bill. They largely relied on the sensationalist testimony of Anslinger, who asserted before the House Ways and Means Committee, “This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.” He was countered by the American Medical Association’s legislative counsel, Dr. William C. Woodward, who argued that there was no hard evidence to support Anslinger’s hyperbolic claims. “We are told that the use of marijuana causes crime,” Dr. Woodward testified. “But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marijuana habit… You have been told that schoolchildren are great users of marijuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children. Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it, and know nothing particularly of it.” He further contended that the bill would severely hamper physicians’ ability to pre-

CO H E L D N G R E SS O H E A N LY T W R O ING DEB S TO A T E OF T T HE T HE MER AX A I LAR C T. T TS G E LY H THE EY SEN RELIED S AT I O N TEST ONA IMO LI N Y OF ST HAR A N S RY J . LING ER scribe cannabis as a medicine. Woodward’s objections fell upon deaf ears. The Ways and Means Committee quickly sent the measure to the House floor, which promptly forwarded it to the Senate. Senators moved it on the basis of a single hearing, one that was again dominated by Anslinger’s fear-mongering rhetoric. The House and Senate reconciled their versions by midsummer. Just five months after its introduction, President Roosevelt signed the Marihuana Tax Act into law. On Oct. 2, 1937, the first arrests were made when Samuel Caldwell, 58, and Moses Baca, 26, were pinched in Denver, Caldwell for sales and Baca for buying joints from him. Both did time for their transgressions; Caldwell, considered the first cannabis convict, spent four years at the Leavenworth federal penitentiary in Kansas. The law’s ramifications became apparent over the ensuing decades. Physicians ceased prescribing cannabis as a therapeutic remedy, and in 1942, it was removed from the U.S. pharmacopeia. American hemp cultivation also ceased, OCTOBER 2017

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although it got a short-lived reprieve during World War II. Law enforcement began routinely arresting marijuana consumers and sellers. Despite prohibition, marijuana only grew in popularity. By the late 1960s, some eight to 12 million Americans were estimated to be cannabis consumers. As its use continued to grow, pressure mounted on lawmakers to reconsider federal marijuana policy. In 1969, the Supreme Court struck down the Tax Act as unconstitutional, in the Leary v. United States case. The justices unanimously ruled that LSD advocate Timothy Leary, arrested for marijuana possession in 1965, could not have paid the pot tax without exposing himself to prosecution under state laws, violating his Fifth Amendment right to be free from self-incrimination. With the Marihuana Tax Act void, members of Congress formulated a new approach. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act categorized marijuana as a Schedule I prohibited substance, defining it as a drug of abuse with no medical benefits. But there was a caveat: The classification was only intended to be temporary. The new law called for the creation of a special federal commission to study all aspects of the cannabis plant, including its use and users. Once and for all, Congress was going to determine whether there was any truth to the claims that marijuana was a dangerous drug that deserved strict criminal prohibition. After nearly two years of scientific research and millions of dollars spent, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse completed its investigation and issued its report to Congress and to President Richard Nixon on March 22, 1972, trumpeting it as “the most comprehensive study of marihuana ever made in the United States.” In unambiguous language, it rebutted virtually every negative claim made about marijuana’s alleged dangers. The Commission concluded that it was not a so-called “gateway drug” to hard drugs like heroin, that its use was not associated with violence or aggressive activity, and that its consumption was not physiologically or psychologically detrimental to users’ health. “Neither the marihuana user nor the 34

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Timothy Leary

drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety,” the researchers concluded. “Therefore, the Commission recommends... [the] possession of marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense, [and that the] casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration no longer be an offense.” The Commission’s findings and recommendations should have triggered a serious review of federal marijuana policy and penalties. That didn’t happen. Instead, Nixon vehemently rejected the report’s conclusions, and the federal government doubled down on its efforts to demonize the herb. As had been the case more than three decades earlier, science and reason held little sway with federal policymakers, who instead chose to embrace cultural and racial stereotypes over facts and evidence. Flexing the muscle of the newly formed super-agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Nixon declared that his administration was launching the first official “War on Drugs.” Public Enemy No. 1 in this battle was weed. That federal war continues, largely unabated, today. Paul Armentano is deputy director of NORML and Freedom Leaf’s senior policy advisor.

THE ORIGINAL DRUG WARRIORS:

HARRY J. ANSLINGER AND JAMES MUNCH BY MONA ZHANG “KILLS SIX IN A HOSPITAL” blared a 1925 New York Times headline. “Mexican, Crazed by Marihuana, Runs Amuck with Butcher Knife.” At the time, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration, had yet to be formed. But the seeds of Reefer Madness were already being sown in the press. Pre-prohibition headlines in American newspapers often tied cannabis consumption to violent crime, spiced with racist undertones. “Mystery of the Strange Mexican Weed” read one in the Washington Post. “American and Mexican Authorities Seek to Curb Growing Use of Dread Marihuana Drug That Stirs Its Victims to Atrocious Deeds of Violence.” Scholars have attributed such coverage to anti-Mexican racism. But it turns out that many of these sensational stories originated in Mexico, which banned cannabis in 1925, 12 years ahead of the U.S. “Though Americans would quickly turn marijuana lore against Mexican immigrants, that lore was based primarily on Mexican ideas,” historian Isaac Campos writes in his book, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs.

Harry J. Anslinger was working diplomatic posts in Europe and enforcing alcohol prohibition in the Bahamas when the Treasury Department created the FBN in 1930 and named him to head it. But he had a problem: The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 had outlawed heroin and cocaine, but there weren’t that many users of those drugs. When Anslinger saw reports of crazed murderers on mota in Mexico and Florida, he turned his attention to “marihuana.” Those who use it, he contended, “become insane and turn to violent crime and murder.” Dr. James C. Munch, a Temple University pharmacologist, lent credibility to Anslinger’s reefer mania. They managed to convince Congress to pass the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. In the decades that followed, Anslinger made a habit of collecting lurid stories of crimes allegedly committed under the influence of the devil’s weed. He remained federal narcotics commissioner until 1962. Four years later, Munch wrote a paper for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime bulletin that included 69 “authenticated” cases from Anslinger’s files of various crimes committed by users, and asserted that “different races of people vary in their susceptibility to marihuana.” No matter how many doctors and scientists tried to convince Anslinger otherwise, there were always ones like Munch who bought into the marijuana-violence argument.

Dr. James Munch (left) and Harry J. Anslinger (right)

OCTOBER 2017

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POT, PROHIBITION AND PEOPLE OF COLOR BY NGAIO BEALUM By now, you should know that cannabis prohibition is based on racism. The father of prohibition, Harry J. Anslinger, was well known for his racist views. Blacks and other people of color are at least twice as likely to be arrested for possession than white people, even though they use marijuana at similar rates. Even in states where cannabis is legal and arrests for possession are way down, people of color are still busted way more often than whites. If you’re still not aware of how the color of law is used to incarcerate minorities, watch Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th and read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow to get a better understanding. The cannabis industry, in its rush to grab every dollar possible, is not doing enough to create opportunities for the people that have been hurt the most by prohibition. Of all the states and cities with legal pot, only Oakland, California lets people of color get a good shot at creating solid cannabis businesses. Legalization shouldn’t be racist. Keeping people out of jail and creating more economic opportunities for users from all walks of life is the goal, but dismantling a racist drug policy only to replace it with 36

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a legalization system that excludes people of color isn’t progress. We have to make sure that the cannabis industry stays true to its social-justice roots. Support reform organizations like the Minority Cannabis Business Association and the Drug Policy Alliance. If you see racism in the industry, point it out. Anti-racist white people especially need to pay attention to these things and speak up, as many did recently when Trump supporter and political dirty-tricks specialist Roger Stone was scheduled to give a keynote speech at the Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo in Los Angeles in September. I get that legalization needs support from all sides of the political spectrum, but booking Stone, who’s made numerous racist statements in the past, such as Twitter posts calling one black TV commentator a “stupid negro," doesn't help the problem. (He was ultimately removed from the program.) Racists don’t listen to people of color. It’s not their thing. The cannabis industry needs activists now more than ever, but not just to push for nationwide federal legalization. We must make sure that the new people looking to cash in on the legal industry adhere to the ideals of social justice. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Ngaio Bealum is a comedian and activist who regualrly appears at cannabis events.

OCTOBER 2017

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1973-2017

NIXON, CARTER, REAGAN AND BUSH TO CLINTON, BUSH, OBAMA AND TRUMP BY STEVEN WISHNIA President Richard Nixon launched the modern U.S. War on Drugs after having run on a platform of “law and order.” It fit perfectly with his appeal to people who feared and resented the 1960s rebellions by African-Americans, antiwar leftists, hippies, gays and lesbians, and “women’s libbers.” In the fall of 1969, his Operation Intercept virtually stopped traffic at the Mexican border for three weeks, searching almost every vehicle trying to Below: Nancy Reagan just says no. Right: Richard Nixon sniffs a package filled with pot.

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cross in an effort to stem pot smuggling. Its effect on the nation’s weed supply disproved the “gateway theory”: It showed that the lack of marijuana leads users to try other drugs. While crime was rising rapidly, and some of it was related to heroin addicts robbing and stealing, Nixon’s War on Drugs had blatant cultural and racial elements. He personally believed that Communists and left-wingers were "pushing the stuff, they’re trying to destroy us.” “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” former Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman told journalist Dan Baum in 1994. “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Despite Nixon’s call for “all-out war,” pot proliferated pervasively in the 1970s. At rock concerts by bands like the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, clouds of smoke would fill arenas packed with thousands of music-loving stoners. Headshops selling metal pipes, plastic bongs, rolling papers and roach clips popped up on Main Streets and in shopping malls. The annual number of arrests for pot, less than 100,000 in 1968, passed 400,000 by 1973. With penalties in many states draconian— Alabama and Louisiana had mandatory-minimum sentences of five years in prison for possession of one joint, and the maximum in Texas was life—public pressure to ease them grew. Oregon became the first state to “decriminalize” marijuana in 1973, reducing the penalty for possession of less than an ounce to a $500 fine. Ten other states followed over the next five years, including California and New York. Others tentatively allowed medical marijuana, and the federal government—despite the Controlled Substances Act’s declaration that cannabis had “no valid medical use”—established a program to grow

Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1985.

it for qualified patients, after glaucoma sufferer Robert Randall won a court decision giving him the right to have a supply in 1975. President Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976, at one point endorsed decriminalization, but also supported the spraying of herbicides on marijuana fields in Mexico, terrifying potheads north of the border. Meanwhile, a backlash was developing. A 1979 survey found one-ninth of high-school seniors reporting that they got high every day, and use by teenagers as young as 13 was common. Irate and politically connected parents launched a crusade to ban the sale of “drug paraphernalia.” By 1983, more than 25 states and scores of local governments had outlawed most of what was sold in headshops. Some laws were struck down as unconstitutionally vague—how could you prove a pipe was for pot, not tobacco?—but in 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that saying a pipe was “designed for use” with marijuana was clear enough. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 heralded a massive counterattack against liberal policies going back to the New Deal. Gains made by labor unions, blacks, women, gays and the overall 1960s counterculture were threatened. “Between 1977 and 1992, a conservative

THE ANNUAL NUMBER OF ARRESTS FOR POT, LESS THAN

100,000 400,000 IN 1968, PASSED

BY 1973.

cultural revolution took place,” future Drug Czar John Walters would say later. “It was called the Drug War.” In addition to his wife Nancy’s “Just Say No” campaign directed at teenagers, Reagan had DEA helicopters do militarystyle raids in the pot-growing Emerald Triangle of Northern California. His Supreme Court created a drug exception to the Fourth Amendment, greatly easing restrictions on searches and allowing widespread drug testing. The DEA also OCTOBER 2017

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BY 1995, THE U.S. HAD MORE THAN TWO MILLION PEOPLE IN PRISON OR JAIL , AND POT ARRESTS HIT RECORD HIGHS, WITH MORE THAN 500,000 PEOPLE BUSTED FOR SIMPLE POSSESSION. cracked down on the smuggling routes from Jamaica and Colombia that developed in the ’70s, encouraging smugglers to switch to the more profitable and concealable cocaine. The emergence of a violent business in cheap, smokable crack cocaine in 1985-86 created hysteria that led to harsher laws. Federal law now mandated a minimum of five years in prison for growing 100 pot plants—the same penalty as for half a kilo of cocaine or 100 grams of heroin. George H.W. Bush’s term, from 1989 to 1993, was arguably the peak of the Drug War. Bush’s drug czar, William Bennett, contended that casual drug users were actually worse than hardcore addicts, because they showed you could get high without being a strung-out mess. But pot arrests actually declined during these years, as law enforcement concentrated its paramilitary tactics on crack— and on neighborhoods like South Central in Los Angeles, which erupted in riots in 1992 after the acquittal of four cops who’d been videotaped clubbing arrestee Rodney King. 40

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Above: George H.W. Bush was President from 1989-1993, the peak of the drug war. Left: Cartoon depicts L.A. police beating Rodney King in 1992.

Pot culture was regenerating as the 1990s began, especially in hip-hop. A few political figures, notably Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, questioned the validity of prohibition. In San Francisco, the AIDS-ravaged gay community was discovering that marijuana helped relieve the disease’s symptoms. In 1991, 80% of the city’s voters backed a ballot initiative—spearheaded by gay-activist pot dealer Dennis Peron—that recommended legalizing medical marijuana, and the next year, the city’s Board of Supervisors made it the “lowest priority” for police. The election of Bill Clinton as President in 1992 prompted wishful thinking because he famously admitted that he’d used marijuana, but “didn’t inhale.” (There are plausible rumors he preferred eating it.) Whatever his experience was, it didn’t translate into any sympathy for pot-smokers. He continued to escalate the drug war, and fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for her suggesting that the nation should discuss legalization. By 1995, the U.S. had more than two million people in prison or jail, and pot arrests hit record highs, with more than 500,000 people busted for simple possession. CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HEMP TOUR

Goldsberry co-founded CAN in 1988.

BY DEBBY GOLDSBERRY Inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the U.S. counterculture was on a nonstop psychedelic and cannabis-infused pilgrimage in the 1980s. The Grateful Dead fueled the trip, touring almost nonstop and providing oases where heads could gather. It was utopia, except for one problem: the War on Drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration and local police were everywhere, and “zero tolerance” was their buzzword. The laws allowed police to stop and search people who looked like they used drugs, and Deadheads and stoners were easy, nonviolent targets. Jack Herer, whose book The Emperor Wears No Clothes sparked a hemp revolution among cannabis users, hit the road like an evangelist in a school bus with a caravan of followers, giving speeches along the way. He made a cogent case for legalization, explaining how marijuana had been widely used for food, fuel, fiber and medicine until Congress banned it in 1937. Steven Hager, then editor of High Times, had formed the Freedom Fighters, who travelled to annual marijuana events like the Hash Bash in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, in converted school buses. Hager brought along his band, the Soul Assassins, and activists like Chef RA and Roger Belknap. In 1988, I cofounded Cannabis Action Network (CAN) after police beat protesters at the annual Hash Wednesday smoke-in at the University of Illinois in Champaign. In response, we organized events at all five of the state’s public universities the following spring, dubbing it the “Hemp Tour.” It was so successful that we expanded it to five states that fall, and by the next year, held events in 17 states. We had a fleet of vans and RVs and a nonstop desire to spread the word about the need to end prohibition. CAN organized the tours, High Times

WE HAD A FLEE T OF VANS AND RVS AND A NONSTOP DESIRE TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE NEED TO END PROHIBITION. publicized them, and Herer and federal medical-marijuana patient Elvy Musikka were the star attractions. From 1989 to 1996, Hemp Tour held more than a thousand events around the country. The tour ended in the mid-’90s when CAN switched tactics and began tabling at festivals like Lollapolooza, H.O.R.D.E., Warped and Furthur, and at shows by bands like Fishbone and Primus. Today, you’ll find Hemp Tour organizers and people who attended these seminal events everywhere throughout the industry. The tour’s motto was “Planting Seeds”—and it surely accomplished this goal. Debby Goldsberry is author of Starting & Running a Marijuana Business and executive director of Magnolia Wellness in Oakland. OCTOBER 2017

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 40 Much of the increase came from “broken windows” policing, in which minor offenses by young black and Latino men were considered harbingers of lawless chaos. During his two terms as New York mayor from 1994-2001, Rudolph Giuliani made marijuana arrests a top police priority, exploiting a loophole in the state’s decriminalization law: Smoking or possession “in public view” was still a misdemeanor. In 2000, there were more than 50,000 such arrests in the city. More than 85% of those arrested were black or Latino. In the mid-’90s, the pot-legalization movement decided to focus its efforts on medical marijuana, on the grounds that sick people needed cannabis most desperately and there was much more political support for medicinal use. That strategy paid off in 1996, when California voters passed Proposition 215, changing state law to let doctors recommend cannabis for any purpose they found appropriate. (See "1996" sidebar on page 43.) “This is not medicine,” Clinton’s drug czar, Barry McCaffrey warned, “it’s a Cheech & Chong show.” The movement’s momentum kept growing. Two years later, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, and the District of Columbia voted to legalize medical use, followed by Maine in 1999, and Nevada and Colorado in 2000—along with Hawaii, the first state whose legislature passed a medical-marijuana law.

Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama gang up on Republican George W. Bush.

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George W. Bush, selected President by the Supreme Court in December 2000 when it prohibited Florida from recounting votes, also prompted wishful thinking among pot-smokers. Some people thought that as a self-proclaimed “compassionate conservative” and recovering alcoholic who’d never explicitly denied using cocaine, he might take a more humane position on illegal drugs. That didn’t happen. Bush picked Walters as his drug czar. The DEA regularly raided medical-marijuana dispensaries in California. In 2003, after the city of Oakland tried to regulate the industry by deputizing ganja-gardening expert Ed Rosenthal as a municipal cultivator, he was promptly prosecuted on federal felony charges. (He got one day in jail, after jurors said they’d been duped into convicting him.) In 2001, the Supreme Court held that “medical necessity” was not a legal defense for dispensaries, and in 2005, it rejected a claim that the federal power to regulate interstate commerce couldn’t apply to homegrown weed given away to patients in the same state. During these years, pot busts averaged more than 700,000 a year nationwide, setting a record in 2007 at 873,000—775,000 for possession and the rest for sale and cultivation. New York City averaged 40,000 arrests a year between 2002 and 2011. Atlanta and Baltimore had even higher arrest rates. By 2008, black people, 12% of the U.S. popCONTINUED ON PAGE 44

Dennis Peron (right) championed medical marijuana in California. He tokes as Jack Herer looks on.

1996

MEDICAL MARIJUANA BECOMES LEGAL BY MIKEL WEISSER On Election Day, Nov. 5, 1996, “Macarena” was at the top of the charts. The New York Yankees had just defeated the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. And President Bill Clinton won a second term against Republican Robert Dole and third-party candidate Ross Perot. While most Americans were focused on the presidential election, voters in California and Arizona launched the modern era of American cannabis law by approving ballot measures to legalize medical marijuana. California’s initiative was called Proposition 215, or “The Compassionate Use Act.” Arizona’s Prop 200 had a much longer title: “The Act Relating to Laws on Controlled Substances and Those Convicted of Personal Use or Possession of Controlled Substances.” Both would pass by wide margins, winning 55% in California and a whopping 65% in Arizona. However, only one would be implemented. Prop 215 legalized possession and cultivation by patients, but did not set up a system to regulate growers and sellers. “The idea of asking the state to regulate an industry was light-years away,” California NORML director Dr. Dale Giering-

er tells Freedom Leaf. “We were focusing on personal rights, in the very first stages of the concept, and in no way could have anticipated all the complications that would be involved.” California’s cannabis movement had been growing since the mid-’60s. The nation’s first initiative to legalize pot made the state ballot in 1972, but lost badly. Northern California’s Emerald Triangle cultivation community was well established by the early ’90s, when AIDS patient groups in San Francisco, led by Dennis Peron, formed collectives to distribute cannabis to AIDS and cancer patients. It was his Prop P in 1991, which endorsed allowing medical use in San Francisco, that got the ball rolling. Peron would go on to cowrite Prop 215. Arizona’s march to the 1996 election also began in 1972 when activists tried, but failed, to get legalization on the ballot. Twenty-four years later, Prop 200 made the ballot. “I’ll always remember that watch party,” AZ4NORML director Bill Greene recalls. “The next day I held a press conference in my back yard, and we were smoking on national TV. It wasn’t until months later we realized they were going to take it all away.” By early 1997, the Arizona legislature had gutted the marijuana portions of Prop 200. It would be another another 14 years before Arizona voters passed the medical cannabis initiative, Prop 203. This one stuck. Now Arizona has one of the sturdiest medical-marijuana industries in the country. Mike Weisser is director of Arizona NORML. OCTOBER 2017

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Donald Trump is the first president in almost 30 years to never use marijuana.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42 ulation, were almost one-third of those busted for pot. In predominantly white cities such as Boston, Minneapolis, and Charlotte, N.C., more than half the people arrested were black. Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President, prompted wishful thinking among pot-smokers as well; when asked if he’d inhaled, he answered, “That was the point.” Obama had also written sympathetically in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about a highschool friend in Hawaii getting busted for pot. Initially, that didn’t translate into policy. In 2010, the Obama administration openly opposed California’s Proposition 19, an initiative for full legalization that won 46% of the vote. It harassed medicalmarijuana dispensaries more intensely than Bush did, threatening landlords with forfeiture of their buildings. A series of raids in 2012 decimated “Oaksterdam,” Oakland’s cluster of dispensaries and related businesses. Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire vetoed a bill to license medical-marijuana growers and dispensaries after federal prosecutors warned her that the workers administering the regulations could be prosecuted. That changed in 2012 when Colorado and Washington voters legalized cultivation and sales for recreational use by adults. With Colorado a swing state, Obama, who needed young voters to win re-election, was conspicuously silent. The next year, Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memo telling federal prosecutors they had better things to do 44

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than go after legal marijuana businesses under state law. Voters in Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C. backed legalization in 2014, and the 2016 election saw four more states—California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada—pass initiatives to allow the sale of marijuana to adults. California, where Proposition 64 won by almost two million votes, was the biggest victory of all. Medical marijuana also broke through in the South, with Florida and Arkansas voting to legalize it. But 2016 also saw the election of Donald Trump, a loudmouthed multimillionaire whose family fortune came from renting whites-only apartments, as President. He lost the popular vote by almost three million, but carried enough states to score a victory in the Electoral College. Trump, the first President in almost 25 years who’s never used marijuana, prompted some wishful thinking among pot-smokers because he’d previously said he thought medical use should be left up to the states. However, his choice for Attorney General, former Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, is a hardline prohibitionist who denounced the Obama administration’s cannabis policies as dangerously soft, and in 1986 remarked that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “were OK until I found out they smoked pot.” Trump promoted himself as a “populist,” but aside from egomania and greed, two of the core aspects of his personality are authoritarianism—particularly the belief that any problem can be simply solved by bullying the designated villain—and racism, the two psychological building blocks of the War on Drugs. If he and Sessions choose to re-escalate the war on marijuana, will they be able to take out the eight states that now allow adult use, the more than 30 that allow medical use and the industry that’s grown up to supply it? How much are they likely to try? The bookies in Las Vegas haven’t set odds on that. Steven Wishnia is Freedom Leaf’s senior editor and author of The Cannabis Companion: The Ultimate Guide to Connoisseurship.

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FREEDOM LEAF 45

THE DUTCH CANNABIS EXPERIMENT BY MARGUERITE ARNOLD

HOLLAND’S STATUS AS A MARIJUANA PARADISE HAS BEEN DOWNGRADED.

annabis in Holland, once the only country in the world where you could enjoy it legally, has taken some hits lately. It was already underway in 2012, when authorities raided and shut down the High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, where it had been held since 1988. Two years later, the government refused to grant the American media and event company a permit to stage the Cup, effectively banning it from doing business in the country. The dream of a society where stoners could sit in coffeeshops and openly smoke ganja was being challenged. Regulations imposed by a Dutch government increasingly uncomfortable with the global spotlight on its cannabis industry began to have their own strange and often unintended impact. Since 2010, the Dutch government 46

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has been trying to come to terms with several realities: Its legitimate cannabis market, which still draws tourists, is actually a gray market that relies on loopholes in the law; countries around the world, including in Europe, are moving closer to legalizing marijuana; and the black market remains an ever-present threat. A concerted effort to rezone the nation’s coffeeshop trade, particularly in Amsterdam, has forced the closing of beloved shops like Mellow Yellow (for being too close to a private hairdressing trade school). Still, the Dutch are not shy about cannabis tourism, as it draws as many as 25% of the tourists visiting the country. Last year, Amsterdam had five million more tourists than it did in 2012. The “Weed-pass” law, also introduced in 2012, which was intended to limit the tourist trade linked to ganja, has been widely abandoned in most of the country, except for border towns like Maastricht. Those passes, essentially “licenses” given to locals who wanted to toke, hoped to limit the number of tourists who flock to the country for its legal cannabis and coffeeshop culture. The net effect of these policies has concen-

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WHEN IT COMES TO CANNABIS, HOLLAND IS NO LONGER THE EXOTIC HOTHOUSE ANOMALY IT ONCE WAS. trated the cannabis trade even more in and around Amsterdam. The number of shops in Amsterdam where you can order cannabis and hash from menus and sit and smoke socially with others has declined by more than half over the past 20 years, from 350 in 1995 to 167 in 2017. The closures have happened for a variety of reasons, from violating rules about proximity to grade schools to unrelated financial and legal problems. As no new licenses are being issued, the remaining shops must deal with higher traffic. This requires restocking several times a day, because local regulations place strict limits on how much cannabis can be kept on the premises at any one time, which leads to more robberies of couriers and shops. It also increases black-market street trade, particularly to tourists. In addition, last fall Dutch health insurers suddenly began cancelling cannabis coverage for patients. This has put Bedrocan, Holland’s largest producer of medical marijuana, in a quandary. Patients whose insurers had reimbursed them for cannabis in the past now have to purchase it from coffeeshops instead. Facing decreased sales, Bedrocan decided to seek other markets outside of Holland and applied for a German grow license in April. If selected, Bedrocan will have an instant market right across the border for its products. The Dutch cannabis market is now in a state of flux. The government would prefer to define marijuana as a “recre-

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ational substance,” not a drug. However, with insurers refusing to recognize its medical efficacy (at least temporarily), the entire question of legal marijuana has been thrown into a conundrum. Drug-policy reforms in countries across the EU (primarily in Spain, Portugal and Germany) and in the U.S. and Canada are driving change in Holland. Legislative efforts to regulate the marijuana producers that supply the coffeeshops has passed the lower house of the Congress, but it’s unclear if the First Chamber (the equivalent of the Senate) will agree. Majority support for this reform is still not quite there. However, the forces now moving in Holland and elsewhere in the EU generally tolerate the idea of legitimizing the industry in a way that doesn’t rock the boat. How that will affect the coffeeshops is uncertain. It’s likely that it will be transformed, as the cannabis industry has been elsewhere, into one that’s more regulated and more expensive to enter, where volume and bigger bottom lines become more of a necessity. When it comes to cannabis, Holland is no longer the exotic hothouse anomaly it once was. If there’s a victim here, it may well be that the old feel and vibe of the coffeeshop scene is changing, if not gone. Marguerite Arnold is an American expat journalist who lives in Germany.

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FREEDOM LEAF INTERVIEW

DR. LESTER GRINSPOON BY ALLEN ST. PIERRE

AT 89, DR. LESTER Grinspoon is the patriarch of the marijuana-legalization movement. Born in Newton, Mass, in 1928, he attended Tufts University and Harvard Medical School; he’d go on to teach at the latter for more than 40 years. He’s the author and coauthor of numerous books, including the groundbreaking Marihuana Reconsidered (1971), Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (1979) and Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine (1993). He was a member of NORML’s advisory board from 1976 to 1984 and on its board of directors from 1996 to 2000. Former NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre interviewed him at this home with his wife Betsy in Auburndale, Mass. 50

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Unlike alcohol prohibition, which went from 1920-1933, why has cannabis prohibition lasted 80 years? Pre-alcohol prohibition, the alcohol industry was relatively huge and influential in all quarters of American life. The manufacturers and sellers of alcohol have always possessed immense political power. Since alcohol production is so much more labor-intensive than cannabis, businesses had a strong interest in re-establishing alcohol commerce in America, and not having cheaply made competitors like cannabis be readily available for the masses. During these 80 years of prohibition, essentially all meaningful opposition to reforming cannabis laws has come from either government—the

“THE MARIJUANA MOVEMENT HAS MUCH TO BE PROUD OF IN WHAT IS TRULY A ‘DAVID VS. GOLIATH’ STRUGGLE." Drug Enforcement Administration, National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Office of National Drug Control Policy— or so-called nonprofit groups that are largely funded by the government, such as the DARE program and the Partnership for a Drug- Free America. The government has suppressed scientific information and research about a plant that many believe, myself included, is, frankly, miraculous. What could the cannabis-law-reform movement have done better to hasten pot prohibition’s demise? My contribution to the public discussion was the need for the government and the public to reconsider the cannabis policy, having science, not politics, largely guide the policymaking process. My first book on cannabis, Marihuana Reconsidered, was an attempt to start a public conversation, and all these years later, with 60% of Americans in public surveys supporting cannabis’ full legalization, I think it can safely be said that in the ensuing years since the book’s publication, America, and other parts of the world, have reconsidered prohibition and, thankfully, favor legalization now instead. In the 1970s, NORML used to run ads in the media that compared marijuana to alcohol, tobacco and pills, asking the question, “Which of these drugs is most harmful?” I wish the organization could have kept running those ads, notably during the Reagan years. Despite how long it’s taken to start to throw off the shackles of pot prohibition, the marijuana movement has much to be proud of in what is truly a “David vs. Goliath” struggle. With numerous states having legalized and taxed cannabis in the last several years, the federal government must be feeling serious pressure to end its long failed prohibition.

Of all the cannabis prohibitionists you’ve debated over the years, who was the most disingenuous and/or intellectually dishonest? That’s easy: Dr. Gabriel Nahas, a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical School. No other individual pursued an anti-marijuana and anti-Lester Grinspoon agenda more than that man. Nahas would regularly harass and complain to the editors of scientific journals that published my work, attend conferences specifically to harangue me from the audience and insist to TV show bookers that they slate himself against me in a debate. In the late 1970s, there was a general cultural and political acceptance of cannabis’ inevitable legalization. Then President Reagan’s Just Say No focus considerably ratcheted up Nixon’s War on Drugs. How did this happen? There were many contributing factors as to why cannabis and drug-policy reform on the whole hit the skids in the 1980s. Virtually all research protocols that examined any therapeutic effects of drugs like cannabis were immediately cancelled, and researchers like me were, for all and intents and purposes, blacklisted by NIDA and other government agencies. Most social and political reforms achieved by cannabis-law advocates in the 1970s stalled out in the worst possible ways in the Just Say No era. What was the darkest period for cannabis-law reforms? The 1980s marked cannabis-law reform’s nadir. The two drivers principally behind U.S. drug policy were large pharmaceutical interests and the federal government. The former, after investing billions in drug development that seeks exclusive marketing rights from the Food and Drug OCTOBER 2017

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“IT’S GOING TO TAKE A LOT OF STATES, LIKELY A MAJORITY OF THEM, TO ADOPT LEGALIZATION BEFORE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GIVES UP ON THEIR UNPOPULAR STANCE AGAINST MARIJUANA.” Administration, didn’t want a cheaply produced competitor in the form of cannabis, and the latter cranked out publicly funded anti-marijuana propaganda campaigns. The pharmaceutical companies and their government regulators were, in effect, in cahoots against cannabis. As cannabis could not be patented, Big Pharma would rather fight it, since they couldn’t at the time see a way to make a profit from it. When I learned in the early 1990s that the Partnership for a DrugFree America was an idea put forward by the pharmaceutical, alcohol and tobacco companies, I knew the deck was stacked against cannabis-law reform lock, stock and barrel. Did you honestly believe you’d live to see the day when states would legalize marijuana? Yes, and that the states were very likely going to lead the way against a recalcitrant federal government. It’s going to take a lot of states, likely a majority of them, to adopt legalization before the federal government gives up on their unpopular stance against marijuana. When did the tide turn against pot prohibition? The end of America’s prohibition on cannabis began in earnest after California voters, in the nation’s largest state, adopted medical access via the Prop 215 ballot initiative in 1996. Unsurprisingly, as 52

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more and more states either legalize or medicalize cannabis, the percentage of citizens surveyed nationally that favor it continues to rise to levels that elected policymakers can no longer ignore in any state, and soon enough, maybe not in my lifetime, the federal government too. Now that California has passed legalization, I can’t imagine prohibition is long for this country as a whole. Sure, some states, like a Kansas or an Oklahoma, can continue to be foolish about cannabis, but most of the country will be post pot prohibition sooner than later. What are some of the factors that have led to cannabis legalization being favored today in public surveys by more than 60%, compared to 20% in 1990? The three basic elements that have moved the country away from prohibition are activism, education and medical-cannabis advocacy. It’s hard to imagine cannabis prohibition ending without the existence of advocacy groups like National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Drug Policy Alliance, American Civil Liberties Union, Marijuana Policy Project and others. Given their limited resources, the reform organizations did a far better job educating the public about cannabis than did federal and state governments—who spent billions of tax dollars annually trying to perpetuate pot prohibition. The focus on the

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LESTER GRINSPOON TOP 5 CANNABIS BOOKS • Medical Marijuana Papers by Tod Mikuriya, M.D. (1972) • Licit and Illicit Drug Use by Edward Brecher (1972) • Drug, Set and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use by Norman Zinberg, M.D. (1984) • The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer (1985) • From Chocolate to Morphine by Andrew Weil, M.D. (1993)

therapeutic effects and safety of cannabis for medicine substantively changed the trajectory of the public debate, nationwide and globally. What needs to be done to effectively cajole and pressure the federal government to follow the states’ lead in legalizing and regulating cannabis? Nothing. States are going to continue to chip away at the federal government’s cannabis prohibition. I’m a strong believer that progress is inevitable among humans, observing often in my lifetime that progress is driven first by local and not national governments. The more state cannabis-law reforms, the faster national prohibition will conclude. Post-federal prohibition, what do you envision as ideal cannabis policies? Clearly, from the varied cannabis-reform policies that have emerged in a half dozen states recently, there are numerous ways to craft new and purposeful cannabis policies. From Massachusetts’ heavily regulated legalization policy to Washington, D.C’s “depenalization” approach, they all share one basic ten54

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et: Ending enforcement of cannabis prohibition. American society, working with public advocates and the emerging cannabis industry, will likely steer common-sense cannabis-related policymaking regarding driving, preventing youth access and deterring workplace impairment, more so than the government and law enforcement. Who are some of your heroes that stood up against cannabis prohibition? There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people that I’d count as my heroes when it comes to ending cannabis prohibition—certainly all of the pro-reform volunteers, protesters and organizations. However, two individuals that I hold in the highest regard for their contributions to this social struggle are NORML founder and public-interest lawyer Keith Stroup and WAMM (Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana) founder and patient Valerie Corral. Both have worked effectively and selflessly for decades on cannabis-law reform, not for fortune or fame, but because it was genuinely the right thing to do. Do you expect a backlash against cannabis by Trump’s Justice Department, or will it be business as usual? It will be business as usual going forward for marijuana-law reform and the hundreds of sanctioned marijuana growers and sellers at the state level. Trump can’t withstand the public backlash from consumers, patients and cannabis-related businesses, and now, because of the hundreds of millions annually they now derive from legal-and-taxed cannabis commerce, state and municipal governments whose citizens have voted affirmatively to end cannabis prohibition. Who, other than governmental anti-drug agencies, law enforcement and the drug-rehab industry still favors a continued prohibition on cannabis? The notion of re-banning cannabis commerce in America is getting to a place you can’t tread. In a word, cannabis legalization is now largely unstoppable. Allen St. Pierre is Freedom Leaf’s VP of Advocacy & Communications.

“My goal is to have cannabis recognized by the American Medical Association as a viable medicine for various ailments, including Epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, MS, Cancer and who knows what else. That’s my goal.”

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Marijuana

It’s trimming season across North America as outdoor crops reach their peak.

By Ed Rosenthal & David Downs Trimming marijuana is the preparation of the bud after it’s been cut from the plant. How and when buds are trimmed depends on the grower’s goals and strategy. The purpose of trimming is to separate the highest-quality part of the plant, the ripe female flowers (buds), from the stems and leaves. PARTS TO BE TRIMMED The bud is the cannabis plant’s jewel. It’s a clutch of flowers that continues to grow for 6 to 12 weeks. The flowers squeeze tightly between and on top of one another, forming thick layers, until the entire group is a dense floral mass. More than one bud grows on each branch. If buds grow large enough, they grow into each other, forming one continuous group called a “cola.” It’s always found on the outer extremity of the branch. The branch usually grows at nearly a 90° angle to the plant’s stem, although branches of

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some varieties may curve upward. Trimming starts with the removal of the branches from the main stem. From that point, the order of the trimming process varies greatly, but to create a fully manicured bud, it’s first clipped from the branch or cola. Then the fan leaves, trim leaves surrounding the buds and an extraneous material are removed. What’s left is the manicured bud. Fan leaves contain small amounts of cannabinoids, and trim leaves contain a larger amount. Both are usually saved either for use or sale for extractions and concentrates.

TRIMMING STYLES AND STRATEGIES There are many ways to trim. Style and method depend on the quantity and quality of the crop, goals and personal preferences. The biggest difference is between wet and dry trimming. This refers to the condition of the harvest, whether the material still contains the moisture it had as a living plant or whether it has been dried. The complexity of planning increases with the size of the crop. De-leafing is the removal of the large fan leaves shortly before harvesting. Removal opens up the plant so sunlight can reach

the buds. This enables the buds to grow and ripen faster and develop more potency. Harvesting will be easier without the bulky leaves.

WET TRIMMING Wet trimming is a sticky, time-consuming process, but it’s popular with growers who are concerned with processing their harvest quickly or have limited space to dry their crop. The process of trimming wet bud takes longer, but if a grower has an entire team of people standing by, she or he may not have the luxury of waiting for the entire crop to dry. If you have a lot of material to process or don’t have a lot of manpower, then a wet trim is probably the safer option. If quality is your main priority and you have sufficient manpower, then a dry trim is recommended.

PROS: • A naked bud takes less time to dry than a bud surrounded by leaves. • Buds are dried in trays and on screens, which take less space than hanging whole stems. • Wet trichomes are more pliant, so fewer snap off. • Wet hand-trimming produces plentiful “finger hash”—hashish that’s ready to be smoked right off workers’ gloves or hands. • The crop is processed as soon as it’s cut and is ready once it’s dried and cured. • Wet-trimmed buds often have a “tidier” appearance than dry trimmed buds.

CONS: • Wet handtrimming is slower than dry trimming because the wet plant is pliant and harder to cut. • The crew may need to be temporarily enlarged to trim the buds before they wilt.

DRY TRIMMING Dry trimming is preferred by some producers, because dried buds are stiffer and easier to cut and handle. However, dry trichomes are brittle and break off easily during trimming. Collect them using screens and trays. This powder, called kief, can be smoked, sprinkled over bowls and into joints, pressed into hash or used for processing into extract.

PROS: • Dry trimming is faster and easier than wet trimming. Rather than using scissors, gloved hands can simply snap off the brittle dried leaves. • The only tasks essential to the harvest are to cut the buds, colas or whole plants, and provide them the proper environmental conditions to dry. A small crew will trim for a longer period after the harvest. • Buds can be trimmed anytime they’re dry. There’s no immediate need for large crews working around the clock.

CONS: • Buds allowed to dry on the stems with leaves attached dry more slowly and take up more space than buds that are manicured wet and dried on screens. • More trichomes are lost to handling. Once the trichomes are dry and become brittle, they fall off buds more. OCTOBER 2017

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HOW TO HAND-TRIM 1. Install a clean

table and adjustable-height chairs that comfortably place trimmers over the table, or use a trimming tray that sits on the lap.

2. Use gloves at all times. 3. Place a screen under the trimming area to collect trichomes. They fall off constantly during handling. Capture them using framed silkscreen or stainless-steel mesh. Prefabricated screens are available online or are easily made with a 100-micron-thick mesh fastened to a frame. 4. Disinfect transport bins and tools with hydrogen peroxide or alcohol. This helps prevent bacterial proliferation.

5. Arrange separate bins for mid-grade buds and for top buds, all other saleable buds, extractable material and trash. Only the top buds need to be manicured. The other material will be sold or used for processing. 6. Clip off the popcorn buds (also called

larf). Place them in their own bin.

7. Trim the smaller, multi-fingered leaves surrounding the buds. They’re called sugar leaves or trim leaves. They’re also clipped off.

8. The bud should now appear almost

naked, except for some single-fingered leaves sticking out from between the flowers as well as the few sugar leaves for protection. Watch out for buds that are much bigger than the others. They take longer to finish drying and are more susceptible to mold. They can be dried separately or broken down into smaller buds.

9. Collect trichomes from the table or trim bin. 10. Scrape finger hash from scissors. 11. Clean up. 58

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If you’re a seasonal gardener, hand-trimming your buds might be the perfect reward for a season’s worth of hard work. However, labor-saving devices shorten the time it takes to perform these tasks. Electric scissors save hands, wrists and arms from repetitive stress while maintaining much of the control and the gentleness of hand trimming. About a dozen different types of electrical scissors and clippers are on the market. Here are three recommendations: • The Bonsai Hero Handheld Electric Trimmer has two stationary blades and a double-edged swinging blade that’s constantly functioning. It allows the operator to trim two to three times faster than a manual trimmer. • The Magic Trimmer is an affordable, corded, rotary-action electric trimmer that’s used to buzz leaves down—a faster process than clipping the leaf base. • The Wander Trimmer is a corded electrical hand-trimmer with a suction hose that connects to any wet or dry vacuum. It promises 60%-70% faster trimming than scissors. Excerpted from Marijuana Harvest: Maximizing Quality & Yield in Your Cannabis Garden. ©2017 Ed Rosenthal. Reprinted by permission of Quick American Publishing, Piedmont, CA.

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Munchies RECIPES BY CHERI SICARD • PHOTOS BY MITCH MANDELL WHILE THE WORD “MUNCH” dates back to the 14th century, it took until about 1971 to evolve into “the munchies,” meaning the “craving for food after smoking marijuana,” according to etymonline. com. Packaged foods like Doritos and Twinkies have long been stereotyped as stoner snacks, but there are many better homemade options.

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CINNAMON POT-CORN

JALAPENO POT POPPERS These little stuffed peppers are the perfect munchies: crunchy, cheesy, creamy and salty, with just enough heat. • 12 medium fresh jalapenos • ½ cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated • ½ cup mozzarella cheese, grated • 3 large eggs • 1½ gm. decarboxylated kief or hash • 1 cup breadcrumbs • 2 tsp. salt • 2 tsp. pepper • 3 cups vegetable oil for frying • 1 small link chorizo sausage, optional Cut a slit into each jalapeno from stem to bottom, then make a crosswise “T” cut at the top. Using a paring knife, carefully remove the inner membranes and seeds, leaving the pepper intact. Combine the cheeses in a bowl. Divide the cheese mixture and the kief or hash into 12 portions each. Take a portion of cheese and squeeze it around a portion of kief, and carefully stuff it all inside the pepper. (This technique allows for more consistent dosing.) Squeeze the seams together to compact the stuffing inside. Beat eggs together in a small bowl. Stir breadcrumbs, salt and pepper together. Use tongs to dip each stuffed pepper in the eggs, then roll in breadcrumbs. Repeat the process, double-dipping each pepper. Place on a clean baking sheet. If using chorizo, cook in a small skillet over medium heat, about 5 minutes. Toss cooked chorizo with grated cheeses and oregano and set aside. Heat 2 inches of oil in a large, preferably cast-iron, skillet. Fry poppers in two batches until golden brown and cheese is melted, about 3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels or a wire rack and serve. Serves 4.

SEASONED POT-CORN Popcorn is a great blank canvas on which to make marvelous medicated munchies. Pop some plain kernels on the stovetop or in a popper, and toss with one of these seasoned blends.

CHEESY GANJA GARLIC-HERB Melt 2 tbsp. cannabutter and 3 tbsp. plain butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Stir in ½ tsp. garlic salt and 1 tsp. Italian herbs and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Toss with 8 cups of hot popcorn along with ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese.

Reefer Ranch Drizzle 2 tbsp. melted cannabutter and 3 tbsp. melted butter over 8 cups hot popcorn and toss together with a 1-oz. packet of ranch seasoning mix. Add salt to taste.

Sativa Sriracha Whisk 2 tbsp. melted cannabutter and 3 tbsp. melted butter with 2 tbsp. sriracha hot sauce, ½ tsp. grated lime zest and 2 tsp. lime juice. Toss with 8 cups hot popcorn and season with salt.

Sinsemilla Cinnamon Drizzle 2 tbsp. melted cannabutter and 3 tbsp. melted butter over 8 cups of hot popcorn, and toss together with 3 tbsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. brown sugar, 2 tsp. ground cinnamon and ¾ tsp. salt.

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STONY SLIDERS These are the sliders Harold and Kumar would have really wanted. • 1 lb. lean ground beef • 1 medium onion, chopped • 2 gm. decarboxylated kief or ground dry hash • 1½ tsp. garlic powder • 1 tsp. black pepper • 2 tbsp. ketchup • 2 tbsp. yellow mustard • 14 small slices cheddar or Jack cheese • 14 round dill pickle slices • 14 dinner rolls or mini hamburger rolls In a medium bowl, mix together ground beef, kief or ground hash, garlic powder, and black pepper until all ingredients are evenly combined. Divide beef into 14 equal portions. Press each portion into a very thin round patty, slightly larger than the circumference of the roll (to allow for shrinkage). Stack patties between waxed paper. Open rolls and spread each half with a very thin smear of ketchup, then the other half with a thin smear of mustard. Top half of each roll with a slice of cheese. Top cheese with a sprinkling of chopped onions. Use cooking spray in a large skillet or griddle over medium-low heat. Cook burger patties for about 30 seconds per side or until just cooked through. Place on the rolls and close. Serve hot.

RIPPED ROCKY ROAD BROWNIES A classic stoner sweet-tooth favorite. • 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate • 4 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate • ¾ cup all-purpose flour • 2 large eggs • ½ cup butter • ½ tsp. salt • 1 cup granulated sugar • 1 tsp. vanilla extract • ½ cup cannabis-infused butter • ¾ cup toasted almond slices • 1 cup miniature marshmallows • Butter or vegetable shortening for greasing pan 62

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Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil and grease with either butter or vegetable shortening. Melt cannabutter, butter and chocolates over low heat in a medium saucepan, stirring constantly. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes. Stir together flour and salt and set aside. Stir sugar into melted butter-and-chocolate mixture until well combined. Beat in eggs, vanilla, flour and salt. Reserve ½ cup of brownie batter and spread the remainder into the prepared pan. Bake batter for about 20 minutes. Prepare the topping by stirring the reserved batter with toasted almonds and marshmallows. Spread topping on baked batter and return to oven for about 10 more minutes, until marshmallows are browned. Let cool in pan. Lift the foil and remove the ganja brownies. Slice and serve.

BODACIOUS FRENCH-BREAD PIZZAS Keep medicated pizza sauce in your freezer for munchies relief any time.

Sauce • 2 oz. tomato paste • 2 oz. water • 2 tbsp. cannabis-infused olive oil • ½ tsp. balsamic vinegar • ½ tsp. garlic, minced • ¾ tsp. Italian spice blend • ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper (optional)

Pizza • 1 large soft French bread or Italian bread • ¾ cup mozzarella cheese, shredded • ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded • Pizza toppings of your choice, such as mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, bell pepper, garlic and onions.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all sauce ingredients until well combined. Cut bread in half lengthwise. Spread sauce over the open sides of the bread. Spread mozzarella in an even layer over the sauce and sprinkle with Parmesan. Add toppings and bake in a 400°F oven until cheese is melted and browning, about 10 minutes. Cut each piece in half and serve. Serves 4.

Sauce-less variation Mix ½ tsp. crushed garlic with 2 tbsp. cannabis-infused olive oil and 1 tbsp. regular olive oil. Brush bread with oil instead of sauce and proceed with the remainder of the recipe. Cheri Sicard is author of The Cannabis Gourmet Cookbook and Mary Jane: The Complete Cannabis Handbook for Women.

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HEMP’S LONG ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY BY ERIN HIATT PERHAPS NO OTHER plant has as longstanding a relationship with humans as hemp. In addition to its millennia-long history, it is grown on every continent except Antarctica. Scraps of hemp cloth have been dated to 8000 BCE, and hemp paper has been around since 150 BCE. It’s believed that China has been cultivating hemp continuously for some 7,000 years. China now grows more than 70% of the world’s annual output. According to hemp historian John Dvorak, founder of Hempology.org, the 1500s to 1800s, when ships ruled the world, were hemp’s heyday. “Hemp was huge for all the rigging, cordage and sails,” he tells Freedom Leaf. “They used ships for commerce, exploration and defense. It was essential to have a strong Navy, so hemp was very important.” “All those ships don’t just have hemp ropes to rig them,” exclaims Eric Steenstra, cofounder and president of Vote Hemp. “They had hemp sails, and even the material that essentially kept the boats afloat, oakum, was made of hemp and pine tar.” During the Colonial era, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both grew hemp and colonists were required by law to sow

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the versatile plant. By 1810, hemp was primarily used for linen, canvas and paper. Hemp’s stronghold was Kentucky, but without unpaid slave labor to process it, it began to decline after the Civil War. Hemp production also decreased as steamships replaced sailing vessels in the late 19th century. By 1899, only 16,000 acres of hemp were sown in the U.S. “People weren’t growing hemp,” Dvorak explains. “The demand was low because of the steam engine and there were other, cheaper fibers like jute. The hemp industry was dead as a doornail in 1900, based on just regular supply and demand.” When the Marihuana Tax Act was enacted in 1937, hemp got caught in the dragnet for its psychoactive cousin, marijuana. It made a brief comeback during World War II with the “Hemp For Victory” government campaign that rallied farmers to cultivate the versatile crop for the war effort. Enter Jack Herer, author of the hemp manifesto The Emperor Wears No Clothes and discoverer of the Hemp for Victory short film. “The biggest highlight post-1970 is the publication of Jack’s book,” says Steenstra. “That’s how I first learned about hemp.

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I think you could find thousands and thousands of people who’ve been educated by Jack’s book. He singlehandedly brought back the knowledge about hemp and cannabis.” Herer’s book, published in 1985 and revised several times since then, has sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide. It’s also available for free at JackHerer.com, a site maintained by his widow, Jeannie. “We probably wouldn’t be talking about hemp if it wasn’t for Jack and his book and everything he did for hemp and marijuana,” Dvorak adds. More recently, a big step forward for hemp was Section 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill (Legitimacy of Industrial Hemp Research), which allows pilot programs in association with universities to research industrial hemp. “Our 2016 crop report showed 800 licensed hemp growers under the pilot program, 9,600 acres planted and 30 universities conducting research,” Steenstra says excitedly. “The farm bill has really opened the door for hemp to make a comeback.” He sees great promise in technologies like hemp-derived carbon nanosheets resembling graphene, products for home and car building, and the rise of the industrial hemp/CBD market. Steensta also expects the Industrial Farming Act (HR 3530) to pass, which would open up state commercial markets and usher in more investments. “The future is figuring out how to extract the maximum value of the plant,” he notes.

A TASTE OF THE EMPEROR Until 1883, from 75%-90% of all paper in the world was made from cannabis hemp, including books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, and newspapers: The Gutenberg Bible (in the 15th century); King James Bible (16th century); Thomas Paine’s pamphlets (18th century); and the works of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas and Lewis Carroll (19th century). The first draft of the Declaration of Independence (June 28, 1776) was written on Dutch hemp paper, as was the second draft completed on July 2, 1776. — JACK HERER If industrialization killed hemp, it could be capitalism that resurrects it. “I really think we’re building a trillion-dollar industry,” crows Dvorak. “You’ve heard of the dot-com era? This is the dot-bong era, and it’s going to blow that away. This is a disruptive innovation, like cell phones. We’re taking control of our health. We’re going to clean the environment and rebuild the economy.” Erin Hiatt also writes for THC Magazine.

Slaves worked the hemp fields in the early 20th century.

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CANNABIS: CAN YOUR HEART STAND IT? BY DR. FRANK D’AMBROSIO A RECENT STUDY published in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology concluded: •“Marijuana use may increase the risk for hypertension mortality.” •“Increased duration of marijuana use is associated with increased risk of death from hypertension.” •“Recreational marijuana use potentially has cardiovascular adverse effects which needs further investigation.” The study is by no means a bad one, but like many observational studies, it draws simplistic conclusions.

CANNABIS AND BLOOD PRESSURE Various studies on cannabis and blood pressure show a wide variety of results. The 2002 study, “Cardiovascular System Effects of Marijuana,” concluded: “Marijuana and delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) increase heart rate, slightly increase supine blood pressure and on occasion produce marked orthostatic hypotension.” However, it noted that “marijuana’s cardiovascular effects are not associated with serious health problems for most young, healthy users.” Those with cardiovascular disease should be aware of the risks associated with marijuana use, the study warned. While there may be a rise in blood pressure, it’s often followed by a decrease in blood pressure as exposure to cannabis is repeated, and “orthostatic hypotension disappears, blood volume increases, heart rate slows and circulatory responses to exercise and Valsalva movement are diminished.” In fact, there may even be some increase in blood pressure after abrupt cessation of dai68

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ly use. This explains why some people may use marijuana to decrease their intake of blood pressure medicine. The jury is out on whether cannabis use increases or decreases blood-pressure overall, although it might be fair to say that for some people, possibly many, cannabis initially increases blood pressure, but then decreases it.

CANNABIS AND STROKE In March, the American College of Cardiology posted the scare article, “Marijuana Use Associated with Increased Risk of Stroke, Heart Failure.” It linked cannabis use “with a variety of factors known to increase cardiovascular risk, such as obesity, high blood pressure, tobacco smoking and alcohol use.” After being adjusted to account for the other factors, “Marijuana use was independently associated with a 26% increase in the risk of stroke and a 10% increase in the risk of developing heart failure.” In contrast, another 2017 study of 49,000 Swedish men born between 1949 and 1951

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“found no evident association between cannabis use in young adulthood and stroke, including strokes before 45 years of age.” Cannabidiol (CBD), which is considered a neuroprotectant, may help protect brain cells from glutamate toxicity after ischemic stroke, and from other chronic conditions like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

CANNABIS AND HEART DISEASE The problem with calling something “heart disease” or “cardiovascular disease” (CVD) is that it covers a broad range of conditions, including hypertensive heart disease, heart arrhythmia and heart failure, the aforementioned stroke and blood pressure, and anything involving atherosclerosis (the thickening of artery walls by white blood cells and proliferation of smooth muscle cells, which form a plaque that blocks blood flow). Smoking is one of a number of “triggers” that can cause heart disease or CVD. The 2003 British study, “Comparing Cannabis with Tobacco,” concluded: “There is no evidence at present on whether smoking cannabis contributes to the progression of coronary artery disease, as smoking cigarettes does. More studies of the cardiovascular and pulmonary effects of cannabis are essential.” Since there are so many different CVDs, all with different causes, it’s hard to state for sure that cannabis use contributes to any one of them. However, it’s best to not rule it out as a possibility. It could be a factor for some people, especially if they ingest it by smoking.

Oils and tinctures high in CBD can counter the effects of a stroke.

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WHAT CAN WE CONCLUDE FROM THIS? If we’re to treat cannabis as a medicine, we must realize it has both potential positives and negatives, just like any other medication. It’s important to understand, in as much detail as possible, the drug interactions, side effects and pros and cons cannabis use may have. From the evidence gathered so far, it seems that most of cannabis’ negative health outcomes derive not necessarily from longterm use, but from the short-term effects that occur within the first hour of inhalation, resulting in blood pressure and heart-rate increases. This might not be so much of a problem if you’re relatively healthy and avoid other CVD triggers, but it could be if you suffer from health issues that may cause hypertension, or have a family history of heart failure. Though the evidence varies, for some people cannabis could very well help do the opposite and save them from a cardiovascular disease. If anything, this just shows how complex the cannabis plant is and why it needs to be researched further to find out how it works for different people and their different endocannabinoid systems. If cannabis was able to prevent or remedy heart conditions, whoever figured that out and how it worked would deserve Nobel Prize consideration. Dr. Frank D’Ambrosio hosts the weekly podcast “Elevate the Conversation.”

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SHAWN BRACKBILL

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH THE WAR ON DRUGS BY ROY TRAKIN

EVERY GENERATION NEEDS its guitar hero, and unassuming frontman Adam Granduciel sets out to claim that mantle on The War on Drugs’ fourth album and major-label debut, A Deeper Understanding—a title that almost begs you to don the headphones and, well, “get into it.” The Philadelphia-by-way-of-Oakland 72

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band originally sported fellow garage-band uberhero Kurt Vile, but this is now Granduciel’s baby. His glistening solos stud each of the 10 songs, all but one clocking in at over five and a half minutes. At the album’s center is the epic 11-minute-plus masterpiece, “Thinking of a Place" (like "An Ocean Beneath the Waves" from 2014's Lost in the Dream). It recalls the heyday of Haight-Ashbury psychedelic shamans like the Grateful Dead or Quicksilver Messenger Service in its depiction of a self-referential sonic universe: “And it feels so very real/Oh, it was so full of love.” The War on Drugs’ clever name is not intended as a comment on Richard Nixon’s ill-fated campaign, but an open-ended moniker that allows the band to defy categorization and float in the nether region between country, folk, rock and prog, gently cascading in songs like the opening “Up All Night” and the single, “Holding On,” with its video of death, rebirth and transcendence

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DUSTIN CONDREN

Adam Granduciel in a story of a man who loses a loved one, only to discover their spirit in a frolicking pony. “I keep moving to changes,” sings Granduciel, echoing the music’s supple nature, “heart or hope.” Upon first listen, the album floats like some chiming, languid Mark Knopfler guitar solo, but the more you delve into it, the deeper the understanding. The War on Drugs has clearly taken advantage of having a major-label budget to craft, hone and polish the album to an acid-soaked shine, giving listeners any number of aural rabbit holes to explore. Like “Holding On,” “Strangest Thing” also wonders about overstaying one’s welcome. “Am I just living in the space between/The beauty and the pain?” Granduciel asks in a Dylanesque plaint, as Anthony LaMarca’s slide guitar merges with the emotion of the lyrics and runs with it. “Knocked Down” is delivered in muted tones, Granduciel dreaming of making it rain and “diamonds in the night sky… I’m like a child all alone, beaten up, free,” before the pace picks up on the Dire Straitsish “Nothing to Find,” another song about the primal elements, in this case, fire and rain. “Oh, it always changes, I don’t understand/I keep moving through the edge and now/Comes a feeling I can’t stop/Emotionless and dead,” he sings as his jangling gui74

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tar and a swirling E Street Band-like organ spark a resurrection. “In Chains” reiterates the album’s themes of freedom and captivity, love and loss, “gettin’ in the middle/and shining every light upon it.” Here is where those “next Springsteen” comparisons begin to make sense, evoking Tunnel of Love-era Boss. You can also hear the mournful tone of Neil Young on the lovelorn “Clean Living,” a song that evokes After the Gold Rush as Granduciel persists, “I ain’t giving in/I know my way around it.” The closing “You Don’t Have to Go” builds from heartache and longing to ecstatic guitar release before fading to black as Granduciel intones, “I can feel the change/ Winds of love blow few, and they move through me, and they blow through you/ And take you into the night…” In a world of electronic music and superstar DJs who don’t play a note except on their laptops, is there still room for The War on Drugs’ traditional guitar/bass/drums approach, particularly one that so clearly acknowledges its debt to music that came before them? With ’80s synths, metronomic drums and lush atmosphere, A Deeper Understanding rewards repeat listening. It’s the kind of album that should be heard on vinyl, as you pore over the liner notes, clean your weed on its gatefold cover, roll one up and immerse yourself in Adam Granduciel’s soundscapes of the mind. THE WAR ON DRUGS DISCOGRAPHY 2008 – Barrel of Batteries (EP) 2008 – Wagonwheel Blues 2010 – Future Weather (EP) 2011 – Slave Ambient 2014 – Lost in the Dream 2017 – A Deeper Understanding LINE-UP Adam Granduciel – vocals, guitar Anthony LaMarca – guitar Robbie Bennett – keyboards David Hartley – bass Charlie Hall – drums John Natchez – saxophone Roy Trakin also writes for Variety.

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4-6

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CWCBEXPO John B. Hynes Convention Center Boston, MA cwcbexpo.com

CANNABIS NURSES NETWORK CONFERENCE UNLV Greenspun Hall Las Vegas, NV cnnc2017.com

GROW UP CONFERENCE Scotiabank Convention Centre Niagara Falls, ON growupconference.com

INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE Omni Hotel Atlanta, GA reformconference.org

SOUTHWEST CANNABIS CONFERENCE + EXPO Phoenix Convention Center Phoenix, AZ swccexpo.com NEW WEST SUMMIT Marriott City Center Oakland, CA newswestsummit.com

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SPANNABIS MADRID Glass Pavilion Madrid, Spain spannabis.com/madrid3/en

CANNABIS SUSTAINABILITY SYMPOSIUM Downtown Embassy Suites Denver, CO cannabissustainability.org RELEAF SUMMIT Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, NV alternativeassetsummit.com

GLOBAL MEDICAL CANNABIS SUMMIT Old Truman Brewery London, United Kingdom canna-tech.co

CHAMPS ORLANDO Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center Kissimmee, FL champstradeshows.com

CANNAGROW EXPO Crowne Plaza Denver Airport Hotel & Convention Center Denver, CO cannagrowexpo.com

DECEMBER 1,2,3 Hawaii has a vast potential for investors looking to increase their interest in medical cannabis, and the market is wide open. Join us this December for the best cannabis business event you will ever attend, with networking opportunities at our VIP Reception, After Party, and our very own Kauai Classic Golf Tourney!

Looking ahead to 2018 we have San Francisco Feb. 1,2 and Berlin April 11,12,13

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! INTERNATIONALCBC.COM OCTOBER 2017

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The Future of Cannabis Media. Will mainstream media capitalize on the growth of the cannabis industry?

The Cannabis Industry is exploding as its legalization continues to sweep the country, open new markets and generate the creation of new cannabis products and services. Investors and consumers are eager to participate, but companies face a problem getting the word out. Mainstream media has limited and, in some cases, banned any cannabis related products or services from being promoted. Media companies and ad agencies are scrambling to catch up with the rapid development of an entirely new product sector, trying to differentiate the legalized areas of the country from those who have yet to embrace the movement. The ability for mainstream media to capitalize on the growth of the cannabis industry is a key component for the acceptance of the movement, and will be highly profitable in terms of opening up traditional media for the cannabis industry. One marijuana company has solved this issue: the Canna Broadcasting Media Company. Canna Consumer Goods, Inc./DBA Canna Broadcast Media provides access to mainstream media for cannabis companies through developed relationships with mainstream media properties. By placing commitments with these properties, cannabis companies are able to promote themselves through traditional broadcast television networks, radio stations as well as digital and print media. CBMJ provides direct access to national television and radio programming and has recently purchased LoudMouth 80

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News. LoudMouth News is the first syndicated terrestrial radio news program that focuses on news in the marijuana industry. LoudMouth News uses a neutral manner to highlight the most current news in politics, products, sociological issues and the ever-changing perceptions of marijuana usage. They are currently cleared to air on over 700 radio stations throughout the country. CBMJ has already become the go-to media company for the elite of cannabis investor companies, including InvestorsHub. The unique capabilities for CBMJ to provide coverage for cannabis companies caused InvestorsHub to partner with CBMJ to bring mainstream media attention to its International Cannabis Investors Conference, MJAC 2017. The future of the legal cannabis industry is bright with new businesses, products and investment opportunities appearing daily. Although mainstream media is still struggling with acceptance of cannabis topics, one public company has solved the initial challenge of broadcasting on a national level. Another company providing print and digital media for companies in the cannabis/hemp industry is Freedom Leaf Inc. It was founded by passionate executives with over 200 years of experience in the cannabis industry. They distribute their magazine, Freedom Leaf, to over 40 states and recently acquired La Marihauna.com. Using media platforms to broker deals across the industry, Freedom Leaf continues to be a loud voice for the industry.

2017

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PRESENTS -

Champs Florida A Unique Trade Show Experience

October 27-29, 2017 Gaylord Palms Resort Kissimmee, Florida

248 select only booths. Preferences to exhibitors with seniority. 10 x 10 booths starting at $2,450.00. SHOW HOURS: Friday, October 27 8am-6pm Exhibitor Set Up Friday, October 27 6:30pm-10:30pm Select Buyers Saturday, October 28 11:00am -6:00 pm All Qualified Buyers Sunday, October 29 11:00am -6:00pm All Qualified Buyers

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Bring the Family. The Gaylord Palms Resort is a five star resort perfectly situated for fun and profit. When you step inside the luxurious Gaylord Palms Resort, you’ll be awestruck by the 4.5 acre soaring glass atrium with winding waterways and lush gardens. Here, you‘ll find the best of Florida. Major attractions: Disney World, Epcot, Sea World, Golf Courses. On site is the Cypress Springs Family Fun Water Park, South Beach adult only pool and the award winning Relache Fitness Center. Room rates can be extended three days before the show or three days after the show. The room rate is $189. SELECT BUYERS (those with 3 or more stores): We’re hosting a special event Friday night, 6:30-10:30, for Select Buyers. Also, CHAMPS will help pay the bills: Buyers with 3 or more stores, CHAMPS will pay for 1 night of your stay. Buyers with 5 or more stores, CHAMPS will pay for 2 nights of your stay.

CHAMPS Heady Pipe Giveback-Smoke Shops, this is another opportunity to score an awesome heady. 16 select glassblowers are competing in a Halloween themed competition. All SELECT BUYERS will receive a raffle ticket that is a chance to win one of the 16 headies (minimum value $420). For more information go to ChampsTradeShows.com or call 818-855-1528. OCTOBER 2017

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