Freedom Leaf Magazine - Issue 24 by Freedom Leaf

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30 32 34

SPECIAL

4/20

26 28

SECTION

4/20 BY THE BAY Debby Goldsberry COMING OUT ON 4/20 Joe Dolce

FEATURES

36 44 50 54 4

FL INTERVIEW: ETHAN NADELMANN GUIDE TO CANNABIS ACTIVISIM Russ Belville HOLISTIC CANNABIS HEALTH Mia Di Stefano WHEN CHEECH MET CHONG Cheech Marin

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420 EVENTS OAKSTERDAM U.’S GUIDE TO 4/20 Dr. Aseem Sappal THE FIGHT GOES ON AFTER 4/20 Ngaio Bealum

NEWS & REVIEWS

8 12 72 76

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WORD ON THE TREE Mona Zhang CANNABIS BILLS ON CAPITOL HILL Paul Armentano WILLIE NELSON’S GOD’S PROBLEM CHILD Roy Trakin ERICA DANIELS’ COOKING WITH LEO Cheri Sicard

C O N T E N T S COLUMNS

6 16 18 20 26 43 62

EDITOR’S NOTE Steve Bloom SSDP ALUMNI IN ACTION Brad Cecil CONSERVATIVE BACKLASH Erik Altieri WOMEN GROW LEADERSHIP SUMMIT Alexis d’Angelo THE STATE OF THE CREDIT UNION Matt Chelsea THE DPA AND ME Amanda Reiman EMERALD TRIANGLE GROWERS ON EDGE Rick Pfrommer

64 68 70 79

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SPRING COOKING Cheri Sicard SPRING CLEANING FOR STONERS Beth Mann HEMP WICK: THE HIPPIE LIGHTER Erin Hiatt PIZZA FELLA Neal Warner

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Steve Bloom surrounded by Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin, Nov. 3, 2016.

Bring Me the Head of Cheech Marin I love Cheech & Chong. In the ’70s, they worked the same stages and concert venues that featured the likes of Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Robin Williams, Roseanne Barr and Robert Klein. They were comedic forerunners who happened to include pot gags in their act. After years of success performing stand-up skits, Cheech & Chong brought their talents to the silver screen. In 1978, Up in Smoke really put them on the map. Considered the greatest stoner movie of all time, it was followed by a number of sequels. But by 1985, they decided to go their separate ways. While Chong continued to play his famous “Hey, man” character in movies and on television, Cheech Marin went the opposite route: He became a mainstream actor, appearing on TV’s Nash Bridges and in movies like Tin Cup and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Eight years younger than Chong, Marin needed to spread his wings. The duo didn’t perform together for almost 20 years. Then Chong went to federal prison for nine months for selling bongs. When he was released in 2004, Marin agreed to a reunion. They’ve been performing off and on ever since. In this issue of Freedom Leaf, we excerpt a chapter from Marin’s autobiogra-

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phy, Cheech Is Not My Name… But Don’t Call Me Chong, on page 54. Our focus is on “When Cheech Met Chong,” which took place in 1969 in Vancouver. It’s a fun flashback to the heady days when Chong ran a burlesque club and Marin wrote for a music journal. Their meeting was a moment of kismet. We’re also thrilled about the cover design created by Brandon Palma. It’s his first effort for Freedom Leaf. Expect to see more exciting covers from Brandon in the future. This is, of course, the season of 4/20, when stoners get together to celebrate their favorite plant. We’ve packed the issue with a number of articles on the subject, including two from new contributors Debby Goldsberry (page 26) and Joe Dolce (page 28), plus a special event calendar. Lastly, I’d like to give a shout-out to Ethan Nadelmann. During his more than two decades in drug-policy reform, no one has made a bigger impact. Now that he’s leaving the DPA, Nadelmann was kind enough to grant us “the first long interview I’ve given about my departure” (page 36). Thanks, Ethan, and good luck.

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Steve Blo m

Steve Bloom Editor-in-Chief

ISSUE 24

APRIL /MAY 2017

FOUNDERS Richard C. Cowan & Clifford J. Perry

PUBLISHER & CEO Clifford J. Perry

ART DIRECTOR Joe Gurreri

VP OF OPERATIONS Chris M. Sloan

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Steve Bloom

NEWS EDITOR Mona Zhang COPY EDITOR Steven Wishnia

EDITORIAL INTERN Deuvall Dorsey

VP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Ray Medeiros

VP OF SALES & MARKETING Charles Mui

VP OF ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATIONS Allen St. Pierre COMMUNITY & NONPROFIT MANAGER Chris Thompson

CONTRIBUTORS: Erik Altieri, Paul Armentano, Ngaio Bealum, Russ Belville, Scott Cecil, Matt Chelsea, Alexis d’Angelo, Mia Di Stefano, Joe Dolce, Debby Goldsberry, Erin Hiatt, Ellen Komp, Mitch Mandell, Beth Mann, Brandon Palma, Rick Pfrommer, Amanda Reiman, Dr. Aseem Sappal, Cheri Sicard, Roy Trakin, Neal Warner CREATIVE DIRECTION BY 8TH DAY CREATE 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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Sean Spicer and AG Jeff Sessions Stir the Pot

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “Marijuana is a cure for opiate abuse? Give me a break.”

The White House began sending smoke signals about cannabis on Feb. 23, when press secretary Sean Spicer warned that the Trump administration might crack down on states that have legalized sales to adults for recreational use. “I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement,” he told the media after being asked about the medical-marijuana law Arkansas voters enacted last November. “You should follow up with [the Department of Justice], but I believe that they are going to continue to enforce the laws on the books with respect to recreational marijuana.” Spicer argued that there’s a “big difference” between allowing medical use and recreational adult use. During the presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump said a few times that he believed the legalization of cannabis

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was a state issue. Whereas New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of his rivals for the Republican nomination, said that he would “use federal authority to shut down sales of recreational marijuana in states like Colorado,” Trump stated last July he “wouldn’t do that… I think it’s up to the states.” But Spicer indicated that while states’ rights for medical use would be protected (the Rohrabacher-Blumeenauer amendment, which forbids the federal government from interfering with state-authorized medical-cannabis programs, will expire April 28), that would not be the case when it comes to adult use. Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized it, with California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada joining the list last November. “When you see something like the

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opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing that we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer claimed. “There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.” A 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences debunked the “gateway theory,” finding “no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.” The cannabis industry reacted quickly. “Spicer’s comments on recreational marijuana seem to be a disturbing departure from Trump’s purported position on states’ rights,” stated Steve Gormley, CEO of cannabis private-equity fund Seventh Point. “I have a feeling our stock is going to take a beating,” MassRoots CEO Isaac Dietrich noted. “But that just creates an opportunity for investors who believe in the long-term trajectory of the cannabis market.” Indeed, Canadian cannabis stocks fell after Spicer’s comments. Four days later, Attorney General Jeff Sessions added fuel to the fire when he told reporters, “I am definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana… It does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not.” Sessions said he was reviewing the Justice Department’s 2013 directive, known as the Cole memo, which provides guidelines for enforcing federal marijuana-prohibition laws in states that allow cultivation and sales to adults. It directs prosecutors to focus on drug-related violence and trafficking across state lines, not on businesses and individuals who are complying with state laws. He’s already rescinded another department memo aimed at doing away with private prisons. “Experts are telling me there’s more violence around marijuana than one would think and there’s big money involved,” he said. “You can’t sue somebody for a drug debt. The only way to get your money is through strong-arm tactics,

“THERE IS STILL A FEDERAL LAW THAT WE NEED TO ABIDE BY WHEN IT COMES TO RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA AND OTHER DRUGS OF THAT NATURE.” – SEAN SPICER and violence tends to follow that.” Sessions continued his anti-cannabis comments the next day. “Marijuana is a cure for opiate abuse? Give me a break,” he snarled. “It’s just almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana or even its benefits. I doubt that’s true. Maybe science will prove I’m wrong.” On March 2, 11 senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), sent Sessions a letter asking him to continue the department’s current policy “regarding states that have implemented strong and effective regulations for recreational marijuana use. “It’s critical that states can continue to implement these laws under the framework of the Cole Memorandum,” they wrote. “In addition, we request that state and local elected officials, and public health and safety officials, be afforded an opportunity to comment on any shift in policy from that expressed in the Cole Memorandum, to avoid disruption of existing regulation and enforcement efforts.”

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Cannabis Culture Dispensaries Raided in Canada Longtime Canadian activist-entrepreneurs Marc and Jodie Emery were arrested Mar. 9 after seven of their Cannabis Culture dispensaries in Ontario and British Columbia were raided by law enforcement. The activist couple was en route to the Spannabis cannabis exposition in Barcelona when they were detained at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Medical marijuana is legal but regulated in Canada, and 40 licensed producers serve the country’s patients. But storefront dispensaries, including the 19 Cannabis Culture shops in three provinces, are not licensed, and they operate in a legal gray area. The raids targeted five locations in Toronto, one in Vancouver and one in Hamilton, Ontario. The couple was charged with conspiracy, trafficking and possession of cannabis, and released on bail two days later on the condition that they stay away from Cannabis Culture dispensaries and cease their business activities with the shops. While Marc Emery has been busted more than 30 times in Canada and served a five-year sentence in the U.S. from 2010–2014 for selling cannabis seeds across the border, it was the first arrest for his wife Jodie. “This is a political persecution and the police and the government are looking at preventing us from being able to exercise our right to be active and to run

Arrested in Toronto: Jodie and Marc Emery.

businesses,” Jodie Emery railed after their release. Cannabis lawyer Kirk Tousaw also condemned the arrests: “That we continue to waste resources and ruin lives in the pursuit of the futile goals of cannabis prohibition is immoral and a national disgrace.” Toronto CIty Councillor Jim Karygiannis has called the raids a “waste of money,” while criticizing the slow progress toward full adult-use legalization on the federal level. “It’s mind-boggling,” he noted. “Get the regulations in place.” On Mar. 27, the Canadian government announced that federal cannabis legalization will go into effect on July 1, 2018.

Congressional Caucus Takes Aim at AG Sessions On Feb. 16, a bipartisan group of four House members officially launched the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, the first of the nearly 300 issue-focused caucuses devoted to marijuana. The four initial members—Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Don Young (R-Alaska)—told reporters they’re ready to put up a fight should the Department of Justice ramp up enforcement of federal prohibition. “If we have to, we’ll bump heads with the Attorney General,” said Young, referring to prohibitionist Jeff Sessions.

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From left: Caucus Reps. Jared Polis, Earl Blumenauer, Don Young and Dana Rohrabacher.

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“We’ll be trying to do everything we can to keep the momentum going that we’ve established in these last four to five years,” noted Rohrabacher, the first sitting congressman to admit his own medical-marijuana use while in office. “We’ve seen great progress on this issue.” Most important, the caucus will work on changing federal cannabis policy. “We don’t want to have to rely on the goodwill of which side of the bed the Attorney

General wakes up on at any given day,” Polis said. All four represent states where adult use or recreational marijuana has been legalized. The caucus also plans to focus on reforming Section 280E of the federal tax code, which prohibits cannabis businesses from taking typical deductions for expenses, and resolving the banking problem for companies so they don’t have to work with cash.

Vermont Legislature Revisits Pot Legalization

The Vermont capitol building in Montpelier, where state reps are considering cannabis bills.

Eight states have legalized marijuana since 2012—but in each case, voters made the decision, not the legislature. Last year, Vermont came close to becoming the first exception, with legislation modeled on Colorado’s Amendment 64. While then-Gov. Peter Shumlin and a majority in the state Senate had endorsed the bill, the House overwhelmingly rejected it. Two similar measures have been introduced in the current session. H.170 would legalize possession of up to one ounce of cannabis and permit adults over 21 to grow six plants at home, but doesn’t allow for a commercial market—similar to Washington, D.C.’s cannabis law. On Mar. 22, the House Judiciary Committee passed it by an 8-3 margin. The other bill, H.490, is similar to last year’s, in that it would regulate the commercial cultivation and sale of cannabis. While its chances of passing are slim, 13 representatives have signed on as cosponsors.

“The more conservative [the bill] is, the more appealing it will be to people outside this room,” says Rep. Tom Burditt, a Republican who’s one of H.170’s three sponsors. However, unlike his predecessor, Vermont’s new governor, Phil Scott, has said he will not support any legalization measure that doesn’t include some way for law enforcement to test drivers for cannabis impairment. There’s currently no reliable test that does that. Despite such opposition, Matt Simon, New England political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, remains confident. “Most Vermonters agree it makes no sense to continue punishing adults for consuming a less harmful substance than alcohol,” he declares. “Vermonters are ready to close the book on marijuana prohibition.” Mona Zhang publishes the daily cannabis newsletter Word On The Tree. Subscribe to WOTT at wordonthetree.com.

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Pro-Cannabis Legislation Sponsored on Capitol Hill Numerous pieces of legislation are pending in Congress that would protect users and businesses in legal states. By Paul Armentano The RohrabacherBlumenauer Amendment

The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act

The major priority is ensuring that members of Congress re-authorize the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and former Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), who recently retired and has been replaced by Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer as the Democratic sponsor. First enacted by Congress in 2014, this budgetary amendment ensures that no federal funds may be spent for the purpose of preventing states from “implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.” However, because the measure explicitly impacts the federal budget—and doesn’t permanently change federal marijuana laws—politicians must reapprove the language annually in order to keep its provisions in effect. The 2016 version of the amendment (which was granted a three-month extension) is set to expire on April 28, 2017. Contact your congressional lawmakers in support of this bill: bit.ly/2lvvc9Y.

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Congressional lawmakers are also pushing multiple measures to amend the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Most significantly, a coalition of seven Republicans and six Democrats have introduced House Bill 975, the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017, to prevent the federal government from criminally prosecuting individuals or businesses engaged in state-sanctioned activities specific to the possession, use, production and distribution of marijuana. The measure amends the CSA to read, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the provisions of this subchapter related to marihuana shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with State laws relating to the production, possession, distribution, dispensation, administration or delivery of marihuana.” Passage of HB 975 would halt federal officials from prosecuting individuals and businesses for violations of federal law in the 29 states that permit either medical or adult use and distribution of marijuana. According to national polling, 71% of voters, including majorities of

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Berkeley Patients Group and Harborside Health Center, by initiating civil forfeiture proceedings. (Those two efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.) The extensive use of forfeiture proceedings, which in some cases permit the government to seize property without charging anyone with a crime, is also a favored tactic of new Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Contact your Congressional lawmakers in support of this bill: bit.ly/2m3VzH6. Republican Rep. Tom Garrett from Virginia has co-sponsored two pro-pot bills in Congress.

both Democrats and Republicans, believe that state officials—not the federal government—ought to be the ultimate arbiters of marijuana policy. Contact your Congressional lawmakers in support of this bill: bit.ly/2mpQg61.

The Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017

On Feb. 27, Reps. Tom Garrett (R–VA) and Tulsi Gabbard (D–HI) reintroduced the Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017, which excludes the cannabis plant from the federal Controlled Substances Act. Like the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, this measure would also ensure that states can set their own marijuana policies free from undue federal interference. The act was originally sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–VT) and introduced in the Senate last year. This is the first time the bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives. Contact your Congressional lawmakers in support of this bill: bit.ly/2lmbbBE.

House Bill 331

Passage of HB 331, introduced by California Democrat Barbara Lee and five co-sponsors, would “amend the Controlled Substances Act… to exempt real property from civil forfeiture due to medical marijuana-related conduct that is authorized by state law.” This change would be significant, since previous administrations, including the Obama administration, have tried to close some of the nation’s most prominent state-authorized dispensaries, like California’s

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House Bill 715

Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith, along with co-sponsors Blumenauer and Garrett, have introduced HB 715, which seeks to remove the cannabis plant from Schedule I of the CSA. Specifically, the measure “directs the Department of Health and Human Services to submit to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) a recommendation to transfer marijuana from Schedule I to another controlled substances schedule. The DEA must consider the recommendation and issue a final rule to reclassify marijuana.” The bill also amends federal law to exclude cannabidiol (CBD) from the definition of marijuana, and to remove it from the CSA. The introduction of the bill comes just months after the DEA rejected a pair of petitions seeking to reschedule marijuana (see “DEAja Vu” in Issue 18). Contact your congressional lawmakers in support of this bill: bit.ly/2lQagNv. Expeditious passage of these measures is especially needed in these uncertain political times. Recently, both Attorney General Sessions and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer have indicated that the federal government will step up federal enforcement in states with adult-use marijuana laws. Congressional approval of one or more of these measures would ensure protections for patients and recreational users from undue federal interference by the Justice Department, potentially end the state/ federal marijuana conflict and keep the notoriously anti-pot Sessions at bay. Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of NORML.

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SSDP Alumni Campaigning For Legislative Legalization It’s shaping up to be another big year for cannabis policy reform. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) alumni are at the forefront of this surge at the state level. Here’s what four of them have to say about how working with SSDP chapters in college paved the way for career opportunities in drug policy reform.

Jared Moffat

Rhode Island Political Director, Marijuana Policy Project:

Monique Chavez Executive Director, New Mexico NORML:

“As a recent law school graduate, it’s my goal to help reform current drug policies and push for policies that emphasize public health. Our recently formed New Mexico NORML chapter helped plan and direct the recent Cannabis Awareness Lobby Day at the New Mexico capitol in Santa Fe. More than 100 supporters gathered throughout the day in small groups to lobby New Mexico legislators. My involvement in SSDP during law school really pushed me to realize that I could mesh my passion—drug policy reform—with my profession.”

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“I instantly gravitated to SSDP as a freshman at Brown University because it was clearly an organization that focused on achieving concrete victories. The members of Rhode Island’s SSDP chapters became some of my best friends, and I even ended up marrying one. These chapters were instrumental in pushing the medical marijuana law over the finish line in Rhode Island in 2006. As president of the chapter at Brown, I helped lead the successful effort to pass the Rhode Island marijuana decriminalization law in 2012. Thanks to the skills I learned through SSDP, I was ready to launch a campaign for full legalization when I graduated in 2013. Along with a couple of other SSDP alumni, we kicked off Regulate Rhode Island as a grassroots effort. In 2014, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) offered me a fulltime position. Last year, I was the Field Director for the successful Yes on 4 legalization effort in Massachusetts. I’m hoping Rhode Island will become the first state to legalize marijuana through the legislative process.”

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Sam Tracy

Rachelle Yeung

“I was born and raised in Connecticut and went to UConn. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to legalize marijuana in my home state. We’re pushing to regulate marijuana like alcohol. Since Connecticut doesn’t allow ballot initiatives, we must do it through the legislature, so we’re in a friendly competition with nearby Rhode Island and Vermont to be the first state to pass a bill to regulate marijuana for all adults. I never would have been hired for my current position if it wasn’t for my years working with UConn SSDP and the larger SSDP network, which both got me more interested in marijuana policy and gave me invaluable experience to lead a campaign.”

“Founding then SSDP chapter at University of Colorado Law School in Boulder was perhaps the smartest thing I ever did. It led me to work on Amendment 64, the voter initiative that ended cannabis prohibition in Colorado in 2012. Since then, I worked for the MPP and Vicente Sederberg LLC (a.k.a. “The Marijuana Law Firm”), before landing my current job with the American Civil Liberties Union. SSDP opened a lot of doors for me, and I plan to do everything I can to hold those doors open for others as I navigate my professional life. Being part of SSDP taught me how to find my voice so I could speak truth to power. I will always be grateful for that.”

Director, Connecticut Coalition to Regulate Marijuana:

Maryland Public Policy Counsel, ACLU:

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Conservative Call for Renewed Pot Prohibition By Erik Altieri Ever since the 2016 election, marijuanalegalization supporters have been wondering if President Donald Trump will crack down on state-approved recreational and/or medical marijuana programs. The Heritage Foundation believes it knows the answer. The Washington, D.C.-based rightwing think tank has proposed several ways the federal government could do that without needing to pass any new legislation or expend much political capital. It could reaffirm its position as supporting marijuana’s illegality under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, and reassert support for the international treaties that require countries to enforce prohibition. These actions would make headlines, send a chill across the industry (particularly in states that have yet to establish their legal marijuana markets) and make clear in which direction the White House has decided to go when dealing with legal marijuana businesses. The Heritage Foundation calls for rescinding the Obama administration’s Cole memo, which gives states leeway to implement legalization, and replacing it with a memo that makes it clear that the Department of Justice “fully expects states to not permit commercialized marijuana production and sale.” Federal prosecutors could then select a number of marijuana businesses and charge them with violating laws against cannabis cultivation and sales, which would create “a real threat of prosecution.” It recommends overturning previous guidance from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which opened the door to very limited banking for a handful of businesses in the marijuana industry. This would scare off the already minuscule number of financial institutions working, or considering working, with marijuana-related businesses (see “The State of the Credit Union” on page 22). It also

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says the federal government could use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to target investors. With all of this in mind, the only option we truly have to ensure our victories are upheld and that we move forward with nationwide legalization is to change federal law (see “Pro-Cannabis Legislation Sponsored on Capitol Hill” on page 12). Amendments such as RohrabacherBlumenauer, which prohibits the use of federal funds to interfere with state-approved medical-marijuana programs, stem the bleeding a bit, but require a new political fight every year. Congress needs to pass the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, which would permanently prevent the federal government from interfering in state-approved adult use or medical programs. Even better, Congress should remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely. If you want to see the cannabis revolution continue, call your members of Congress today and tell them to support federal marijuana-law reform. For more information on pending legislation and to easily email your elected officials, visit norml.org/act. Erik Altieri is executive director of NORML.

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Leadership Summit Message: Inspire, Educate, Empower By Alexis d’Angelo The Women Grow 2017 Leadership Summit, held in Denver Feb. 1–3, was the place to be for hundreds of current and up-and-coming cannabis leaders. The summit kicked off on Feb. 1 with “Market Day,” where Women Grow market leaders from across the U.S. and Canada met to discuss the exciting future of the organization. The evening ended with a VIP welcome reception and networking mixer at the Curtis Hotel. On Feb. 2, Women Grow CEO Leah Heise opened the day of lightning talks designed to inspire, educate and empower attendees at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Heise spoke about how her interest in the cannabis industry was piqued just two years ago with the passage of Maryland’s medical cannabis legislation; about her struggle as a longtime chronic pancreatitis patient; and how she successfully applied and received a license to operate a dispensary in Maryland. “Take a moment to set your intentions and record it in your journal,” she advised the attendees, just as she did during the 2016 summit. More than 35 speakers—including Chanda Macias, Cassandra Farrington, Maureen McNamara, Renee Gagnon, Gail Rand, Isamarie Perez, Steve Franczuz, Amy Dilullo, Stormy Simon and Lauren Rudick—told their cannabis stories during the lightning talks. Presenting my own lightning cannabis story, “Breaking Free from the Big Pharma Lifetime Loyalty Program,” I spoke about the difficult decision I made to leave corporate American healthcare so that I could use CBD and THC in order to save my own life. Heise ended the day with a message of inclusion and gratitude, acknowledging the families and patients that have been incarcerated or have had their children taken from them because of cannabis

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Women Grow CEO Leah Heise at the Summit in Denver: “Take a moment to set your intentions.”

prohibition, and gave thanks to the countless pioneers who’ve had their businesses closed or face continued harassment from authorities. The Feb. 3 panels and breakout sessions featured such topics as Parenting in the Cannabis Industry; Changing the Conversation of Cannabis with Effective Marketing and Branding; Cannabis Cultivation; Sex, Intimacy & Cannabis; and Winning My Cannabis Business License. As Chairwoman of Women Grow Los Angeles, I look forward to changing the perception of cannabis medicine and the stigma associated with it. I encourage everyone who has an interest in the industry or a desire to be part of the largest professional networking organization for women in cannabis to attend one of our monthly Signature Events and become a Women Grow member.

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The State of the Credit Union Cannabis banking gets a lift in Colorado. By Matt Chelsea While the federal banking system and most commercial banks remain hostile to working with the legal cannabis industry, some local credit unions have been able to make inroads to help dispensaries and other legitimate operations avoid doing business in cash. For Sundie Seefried, president and CEO of Partner Colorado Credit Union in Denver, it all came down to the credit union’s founding principles. The local lender’s roots date back to the 1930s, when Post Office workers sought to avoid profit-driven commercial banks. “Credit unions were originally chartered by Congress to provide deposit and lending services to the unbanked,” Seefried tells Freedom Leaf. “We were chartered as a postal credit union for employee deposits and lending. We exist for our community.” While Colorado legalized adult use of cannabis in 2012 and sales began in 2014, marijuana has remained illegal on the federal level. That kept commercial banks from providing services to the state’s budding marijuana trade. Instead of paying bills, taxes and employees with checks, dispensaries and other businesses were forced to use piles and piles of cash. In early 2014, under the Obama administration, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released guidance that allowed banks concerned about money from marijuana-related businesses to provide services while still following requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act, enacted in 1970 to restrict money-laundering. The guidelines said banks could work with cannabis enterprises if they perform due diligence to determine whether a business has been appropriately licensed by the state, correspond with them about their products and track public sources about their operations.

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Sundie Seefried isn’t anticipating a federal crackdown on Colorado’s cannabis industry.

However, banks remained averse to wading into the pot pool, for good reason. “Possession or distribution of marijuana violates federal law, and banks that provide support for those activities face the risk of prosecution and assorted sanctions,” Frank Keating, former president of the American Bankers Association, stated at the time. Seefried decided to follow the guidelines because she was concerned about the risks of violent crime from too much cash floating around. It took courage to do so, but she believed banking services for cannabis companies fit the credit union’s historical legacy: to address the local business community’s current needs. “Nothing in this area is clear when it comes down to it,” she adds. Partner Colorado started opening accounts about two years ago via Safe Harbor Private Banking, its unit that serves cannabis businesses. Her advice to

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At least 10 credit unions in the U.S.—mostly in Colorado and Washington— provide account services to cannabis businesses. other lenders boils down to two simple meeting. “After the November election messages: Document everything and [when eight more states approved some heed the law. Seefried shared these and form of legal cannabis use], people realother lessons in her 2016 book, Navigatized they’re going to have to pay attening Safe Harbor: Cannabis Banking in a tion. Education is the first step.” Time of Uncertainty. Despite the anti-marijuana signals Today, Partner Colorado serves 113 from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, clients in the cannabis business, including she’s not expecting a federal crackdown dispensaries, cultivators, and makers of on the industry. However, contingency oils and extracts. They have a total of plans remain in place at the credit union about 300 acif it’s forced to shutter counts at the bank accounts and pay credit union’s back deposits from six offices, and cannabis businesses. bank about In one setback, $65–$75 million when the Fourth Corper month. ner Credit Union, a At least 10 Denver-based credit credit unions in union that intended to the U.S.—mostspecialize in serving One of Partner Colorado Credit Union’s locations. ly in Colorado cannabis businessand Washington es, tried to open State—provide account services to canin 2014, the Federal Reserve denied its nabis businesses. Roughly half of Coloapplication for a master account, on the rado’s businesses rely mostly on cash for grounds that it would be handling the transactions, but the number of accounts proceeds of crimes. But existing credit is expected to grow. Seefried is currently unions such as Partner Colorado Credstudying ways to introduce mobile payit Union already hold master accounts, ment and other electronic solutions for which are essential for them to operate. cannabis banking as well. Once cannabis businesses make their She recently traveled to Washington, deposits, the cash enters the federal sysD.C. to attend a Congressional briefing tem through normal interbank transacwith Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) and tions, along with the tax money that busiDenny Heck (D-Wash.), who’ve been nesses pay. working to win passage of the Marijuana “It blows my mind every time I think Business Access to Banking Act, with no about all that money,” Seefried notes, luck so far. “We led with the safety issue,” “and where it would be if it wasn’t in an Seefried says about the well-attended account.”

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420

One of the original discoverers of 420 recalls the flyer and the festivals that kicked off the stoner phenomenon. I first heard about 420 in 1990, at a Grateful Dead show at the Oakland Coliseum, when a hippie breezed by our Cannabis Action Network (CAN) booth giving out flyers. They had a scrawny marijuana leaf drawn next to “420” and “Wake’n’Bake,” surrounding a proclamation asking everyone to “Smoke Pot at at 4:20.” The CAN crew quickly figured out it was 4:20 somewhere, more than 24 times a day, and got busy spreading the news to others. CAN was on the road back then, driving from city to city hosting Hemp Tour events and rolling with big festivals like Lollapalooza, H.O.R.D.E. and Warped. This was pre-Internet, so we simply copied that flyer and passed it out along the way. Each day at 4:20, in whatever time zone we were in, the crew would break out pipes, joints and bongs, knowing that people everywhere were joining us in solidarity. It was a great feeling to imagine all the others celebrating at the same time. The original flyer claimed 420 was police code for pot-smoking in progress in California, starting a myth that still lin-

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From left: Ed Rosenthal, Debby Goldsberry and Steve Bloom at 1994 CAN fest. STARS LONG BEACH DUB ALL The original flyer gers today. It’s from 1990. not; we’ve since

learned that a bunch of students at San Rafael High School in Marin County started the phenomenon in the early 1970s, using 420 as their code to meet after school to get stoned. Ultimately, that group of friends, known as the Waldos, was credited with coining the term 420 (see “The History of 420, in Three Acts” in Issue 5). They passed it around through Deadhead circles in the Bay Area until the 420 flyers mysteriously appeared

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on Shakedown Street at the Oakland Coliseum shows that closed out 1990. CAN set up a national office in the Berkeley in 1992. As the years went by, we kept spreading the message of 420. It was still rare enough to be subversive, but widespread enough that 420 was becoming a national rage. About nine months after Bradley Nowell, the lead singer of Sublime, tragically died in 1996, I received a phone call from the band’s manager. The remaining members of Sublime wanted to perform in San Francisco on 4/20 in 1997 both as a tribute to their fallen bandmate and to launch their new group, the Long Beach Dub Allstars. CAN was experienced at organizing marijuana-themed events in San Francisco. We’d produced a number of free outdoor events, mostly in Golden Gate Park, the biggest of which, in 1994, featured Fishbone, Total Devastation and Los Marijuanos at the park’s famed bandshell. Nearly 30,000 people gathered that day, including Flea and Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were in town playing a show. I said yes right away to produce the Long Beach Dub Allstars 4/20 show. Now we needed a venue, so I called Boots Hughston, who owned the Maritime Hall, San Francisco’s hippie haven. I remember trying to be discreet about the fact that we wanted to hold a big marijuana event at his venue. But when I asked about renting the Hall on April 20, he replied, “Hell yeah! That’s 4/20.” The party that followed was legendary. As the doors opened at 4 pm, there were hundreds of people lined up outside waiting to get in. By 4:20, the place was, quite literally, fully lit. From the cannabis café in the basement to vendors in the middle room to music in the Union Hall ballroom upstairs, the event was three floors high. It ended, appropriately, at 4:20 am. We held the 4/20 party at Maritime Hall for the next four years, until it closed in 2001. Our final 4/20 event in San Francisco took place in 2002. It was billed as the National NORML conference’s

San Rafael’s “Waldos” are credited with coining the term “420” in the early ’70s.

after-party. Several hundred conference attendees, along with a handful of other people, bought tickets in advance. But there was a huge problem. The nightclub we booked was raided on April 19, after the DJ allegedly sold drugs to a state Alcohol Beverage Control officer. The venue owners promptly cancelled our event, which was homeless until the fearless attorneys at San Francisco’s Pier 5 Law Offices stepped in and offered their space for the 4/20 revelers. We figured if anything went wrong, at least there would be plenty of lawyers around to help. More than 200 people descended on Pier 5, filling nearly every nook and cranny of the office. Pot smoke fogged the air, and good food and drinks abounded. The place was so crowded it was hard to move, but the show had to go on. So when the 35-piece marching band that had been scheduled to perform at the club arrived, there was nowhere to go but up. The flag twirlers climbed the file cabinets, and sundry instrumentalists jumped atop desks. The drummers were everywhere, and the crowd went wild. It was a perfect 420, and a great way to end that era. Debby Goldsberry is executive director of Magnolia Wellness in Oakland and author of the upcoming book, The Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Cannabis Business.

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420

4/20 Coming Out on BY JOE DOLCE

n my world the high holidays are Bicycle Day (Apr. 19), Cannabis Day (Apr. 20) and Earth Day (Apr. 22). While 4/19 celebrates Dr. Albert Hofmann’s bike ride on LSD in 1943, and 4/22 has focused on bettering the planet since 1970, 4/20 has more of a nebulous history. It commemorates a group of high-school students in San Rafael, Calif. in the early ’70s, who would gather for an after-school puff at 4:20 pm. This is a year of grand political gestures, but rather than rolling a mile-long joint to smoke on the steps of your state capitol this 4/20, let me suggest a different tack. Tell someone you don’t know well—a colleague, acquaintance, neighbor—that you use marijuana and would like to do so without fear of being arrested, imprisoned, or stigmatized. Imagine the ripple effect if every soccer mom, lawyer, or service provider took this step. “Saying that you support medicinal cannabis, or ending the prohibition of it, or even that you use cannabis and don’t want to be treated like a criminal can be a powerful act,” says Dr. Julie Holland, a psychiatrist in New York and author of The Pot Book and Moody Bitches. “The more people who stand up to be counted, the further this movement will go.” Dr. Holland credits Harvey Milk, who led the gay-rights struggle in San Fran-

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cisco until he was gunned down in 1978, for proving the effectiveness of this coming-out tactic. Milk said: “If you want these rights, you have to stand up and be counted.” That helped every grandmother and uncle realize they had a gay or lesbian friend or family member who deserved the same rights. It’s the same with pot. Everyone knows someone who smokes and who doesn’t deserve to be treated as a criminal. Four years ago, I started writing a book on weed, which caused me to go away for weeks on end and led to clients, associates and others asking what I was up to. Rather than lie, I came clean. I live in New York, where it’s decriminalized, but there are still many states where cannabis users can have their kids, jobs, public housing, drivers’ licenses, student loans or freedom taken away. I’m also white, which means I’d probably get a slap on the wrist if busted, while people of color are often locked up. My cannabis coming-out went smoothly. Most people were curious (or

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420

420 EVENTS

jealous) about my project or shared a story about their own use. A small percentage lectured me about the dangers of the plant, telling me about friends who smoked away their lives. I reminded them that HASH BASH all substances, includUniversity of Michigan ing sugar, cause some Ann Arbor, MI percentage of the pophashbash.com ulation to overuse (9% of drinkers are alcoholLAS VEGAS HEMPFEST ics), but that the majoriCraig Ranch ty of cannabists remain Regional Park responsible citizens. In North Las Vegas, NV 5,000 years of use, there lasvegashempfest.com hasn’t been one death, not to mention no mass THE 420 GAMES outbreak of psychosis, Santa Monica Pier amotivation, or damaged Los Angeles, CA babies, due to weed. 420games.org Thanks to the 80-yearlong prohibition, cannabis is the world’s oldest victim of “fake news.” Dr. Holland agrees: THC FAIR “Keeping cannabis illegal Oregon State Fair causes so many prob& Exposition lems. It forces people Center to hide their use, which Salem, OR causes guilt and shame, thcfair.com and can lead to more compulsive use. The first casualty in the drug war has always been information. It’s why the govASA 2017 UNITY ernment can’t be honest CONFERENCE about this plant and what Omni Shoreham Hotel it can do medicinally.” Washington, DC So, think about how safeaccessnow.org/ you celebrate the high unity_2017 holidays this year, when so much is at stake. The more people that come out about cannabis, the CANNAMED less risk there is for others 2017 who follow suit. Harvard Medical Joe Dolce is author of School Brave New Weed: AdvenCambridge, MA tures into the Uncharted cannmedevents.com World of Cannabis.

APRIL 1

APRIL 1-2

APRIL 7-11

APRIL 9-11

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APRIL 10-12

INTERNATIONAL CANNABIS BUSINESS CONFERENCE Maritim ProArte Hotel Berlin, Germany internationalcbc.com/ icbc-berlin

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CANNABIS BUSINESS EXPO Phoenix Convention Center Phoenix, AZ imperiousexpo.com

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BOISE HEMPFEST Julia Davis Park Boise, ID boisehempfest.com

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CANNIFEST 2017 Redwood Acres Campground Eureka, CA cannifest.com

APRIL 19-24

PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE 2017 Marriott City Center Oakland, CA psychedelicscience.org

APRIL 20 420 IN THE PARK San Francisco, CA

APRIL 20

420 TORONTO Yonge-Dundas Square Toronto, ON bit.ly/2lMUAb6 420 VANCOUVER Sunset Beach Vancouver, BC 420vancouver.com DENVER 4/20 RALLY City Hall Park Denver, CO http://www.denver 420-rally.org/

APRIL 20-22

CANNACON Sonoma County Events Center Santa Rosa, CA cannacon.org/santa-rosa NORTHWEST 420 FEST Filbin Grounds The Dalles, OR bit.ly/2lgFBJf

APRIL 21-22 WORLD MEDICAL MARIJUANA BUSINESS CONFERENCE & EXPO Lawrence Convention Center Pittsburgh, PA compassionatecertificationcenters.com

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SWEETWATER 420 FEST Centennial Olympic Park Atlanta, GA sweetwater420fest.com

Hash Bash in Ann Arbor, MI

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APRIL 22 KAYA FESTIVAL Bayfront Park Amphitheatre Miami, FL kayafestival.com

HIGH TIMES CANNABIS CUP NOS Event Center San Bernardino, CA cannabiscup.com/socal SOUTHWEST CANNABIS CONFERENCE & EXPO Fort Worth Convention Center Fort Worth, TX swccexpo.com

Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;CANNABIZ CONFERENCE & EXPO Sheraton Centre Hotel Toronto, ON ocannabiz.com

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NEW ENGLAND CANNABIS CONVENTION Hynes Convention Center Boston, MA necann.com

APRIL 28

420 REGGAE FEST Cow Palace Daly City, CA 420freedomfest.com

APR 22 NATIONAL CANNABIS FESTIVAL RFK Stadium Festival Grounds Washington, DC nationalcannabisfestival.com

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OREGON MARIJUANA BUSINESS CONFERENCE Valley River Inn Eugene, OR oregonmbc.com For more events, go to: freedomleaf.com/events.

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420 OAK S TERDAM UNI V E RS IT Y ’S GUIDE TO

BY DR. ASEEM SAPPAL April 20, or 4/20, has become a cannabis-counterculture holiday around the globe. Over the years, it’s evolved into an international day of protest against the unjust marijuana laws, from Canada to Australia. Sometimes those protests pay dividends, like last year in Canada, where thousands of people turned out at 420 rallies across the country. In December, a government task force recommended legalizing adult use of cannabis, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to introduce a bill to do that. With rumors spreading that legal sales would begin as soon as next year, stocks in Canadian 420 businesses soared in value. (However, they fell off somewhat in early March, after Trudeau’s “pot czar” said developing regulations would take longer.) Meanwhile, the U.S. is still divided over cannabis. In states with adult-use legalization and an established industry, like California and Colorado, 4/20 looks quite different than it does in states where it’s still prohibited

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(Texas) or ones with strict medicinal laws (New York). In California, High Times brings its venerable Cannabis Cup back to the NOS Event Center in San Bernardino on April 21–23, where you can attend what they call “the world’s largest 420 celebration.” High Times should know: The magazine was the first to report on the 420 phenomenon and trace its roots to the Bay Area suburb of San Rafael. If you want to be a part of something more “organic,” there’s the 4/20 gathering on Hippie Hill in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, where 15,000 people attended last year. In Colorado, 4/20 has become a huge tourism draw, with big increases in flight and hotel bookings. Most of the rallies, festivals, concerts and other events take place in the Denver area. Advocates will gather in Denver’s Civic Center Park on 4/20 for a rally and hip-hop concert that attracted 100,000 people last year. In Washington, D.C., the National Cannabis Festival returns on Apr. 22 after its promising 2016 debut. Though cannabis is legal in the nation’s capital, none of the surrounding states have yet to follow suit, making it more important to protest and rally to reform laws. 4/20 is also popular in London, with the Cannabis Picnic in Hyde Park. Last year, more than 5,000 people showed up, prompting the press to ask, “Is weed legal for a day?” And Down Under, at Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, thousands participate in the annual Free Cannabis event. No matter where you are in the world, there’s surely a way for you to get involved on 4/20.

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Dr. Aseem Sappal is provost and dean of faculty at Oaksterdam University.

• Over 30,000 graduates from over 30 countries • Over 150 faculty members • Indoor & outdoor horticulture training • Business, medical & legal courses available • Hands-on education, horticulture labs & grow room design • Network with professionals & establish roots in the industry • OU also trains local, state & international government agencies

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THE FIGHT GOES ON

AFTER 4/20

BY NGAIO BEALUM

4/20 is a great day to celebrate all the hard work cannabis activists have put in over the last year. Everyone should take the time to blaze and enjoy the cannabis freedom we’ve created. Last year was one for the ages, with four states voting to legalize adult use and four more to allow medical cannabis. Local efforts to end prohibition have spread from New Orleans to Nashville to Pittsburgh. Well done, everyone! Dabs all around! Then, get back to work. The backlash against cannabis legalization has started. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed a desire to go after the industry with a vengeance. We need to stop him. Here are three things you can do:

PRESSURE YOUR LEGISLATORS

Politicians love money and jobs. Marijuana is a billion-dollar per year business in Oregon, Colorado and Washington State. And that’s just in sales. The money and jobs created by the industry can’t be easily replaced. Call or email your Congresspeople and tell them to join the Cannabis Caucus (see page 10) and support the several bills introduced that would reform the federal cannabis laws (see page 12). Let your representatives know that working for pot legalization will help them get re-elected.

KEEP THROWING EVENTS

Back in the day, marijuana events were almost always an act of civil disobedience. Sure, they may have seemed like

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parties, but they were parties with a purpose. Thousands of people peacefully smoking weed in a park is a gigantic act of defiance. Throw a smoke-in or a smoke-out. Go to a Hempfest or a Hash Bash. The Seattle Hempfest started as a small “protestival” with maybe 100 people. Today, it’s a gigantic three-day affair. It’s not an understatement to say Seattle Hempfest played a huge role in creating legal cannabis in Washington. Produce your own festival. If city officials try to give you a hard time about permits, remind them that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of assembly. Get up and stand up for your rights.

DONATE MONEY AND TIME TO ORGANIZATIONS

Movements need money. If you can spare a few bucks for the various organizations working toward cannabis freedom (ASA, NORML, DPA, MPP and SSDP are all good choices), that would be terrific. Volunteer to work the phones, gather signatures or attend a lobbying day. If we can manage to keep the momentum going and weather this backlash, I predict cannabis will be legal across the U.S. by 2020. Ngaio Bealum is a Sacramento-based comedian and activist who regularly appears at cannabis events.

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FREEDOM LEAF INTERVIEW

ETHAN NADELMANN INTERVIEW BY STEVE BLOOM AND ALLEN ST. PIERRE Fourteen issues ago, in 2015, we published an interview with Drug Policy Alliance founder and executive director Ethan Nadelmann. At the time, legalization was on the ballot in Ohio. Nadelmann squirmed over supporting it (its critics said the measure would create a monopoly). The initiative failed. Now, following massive marijuana victories at the polls last November, he’s decided to leave the organization that, in large part, is responsible for pushing the legalization envelope. “You now have the first long interview I’ve given on my departure from DPA,” he told Freedom Leaf upon submitting answers to our questions. We wish Nadelmann best of luck in his new endeavors.

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Are Donald Trump as President and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General your worst nightmares? Pretty close. Trump is the closest thing to a fascist—in the very real, traditional sense of the term—ever to win election to the White House. And there’s also lots of evidence that he’s not just an egomaniac, but something of a sociopath. Sessions is a drug-war dinosaur, a “reefer madness” ideologue and a bigot. As for Steve Bannon, he’s the nightmare driving the nightmare. Did you see this Republican takeover of Washington and so many state houses coming? I believed the polling experts. I knew the Republicans had a decent chance of keeping the Senate and doing well in the state elections. I refused to believe that Donald Trump could actually win—mostly because I assumed that most Americans would never pull the lever for a man of such terrible character. Do you think Bernie Sanders could have defeated Trump? There’s no way to know that. On the one hand, he would have appealed more to white working-class voters, especially those who voted for Obama in 2012 but went for Trump in 2016, and also younger voters. But we also don’t know how he would have fared in a general election with billions of dollars being spent to make him look bad, or how many Hillary Clinton voters would have refrained from giving him their vote. How did Obama handle the War on Drugs? Did he do enough, or could he have done more? I was encouraged by his first year in office, when he more or less made good on his three campaign promises—to pull back on federal action against medical marijuana, to push for federal funding of needle-exchange programs and to reform the racist crack/cocaine federal manda-

tory-minimum sentencing laws. The rest of his first term and the beginning of his second, though, were big disappointments. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by his last three years in office. The qualified green light in the form of the Cole memorandum that he and Attorney General Eric Holder issued to Colorado and Washington in August 2013 was pivotal. His rhetoric on marijuana and legalization was mostly good, given how few governors and U.S. senators were willing to step out on the issue. Obama and Holder pushed the right way on lots of other issues—sentencing reform, giving clemency, harm reduction, oversight of racist policing and much more—which was not easy, given the Republican control of Congress. His second drug czar, Michael Botticelli, was bad on marijuana but pretty good, relative to all his predecessors, on other aspects of drug policy. Their opposition to reforming federal civil asset-forfeiture laws was really disappointing, especially since Republicans like Senator Charles Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chair, were keen to do it. So all in all, I’d give Obama a B that first year, a C/C- the next four years, and a B+/A- the last three years, factoring in a curve for the political realities. Why did you decide to step down as executive director of the DPA after 23 years? It basically came down to a combination of personal, organizational and political factors. Planning DPA’s 17th annual budget, 34th board meeting and 9th biennial conference—these things get easier as one gains experience, but the routine of it all was getting to me. Plus, I was turning 60 on March 13, and itching to take on some new challenges while I still feel young and hopefully have some good decades ahead. And, I guess, one other thing: I don’t know anyone who thought it was time for me to step aside. I wanted to be the first to think of that. Organizationally, it’s obviously going to mean a big change for DPA, but the finances are solid and the staff and board amazing, with many of my col-

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What was your most significant political defeat?

JAMES DUNCAN DAVIDSON

Proposition 5 in California in 2008. There was almost nothing in there about marijuana, but it would have been, if it had passed, by far the biggest sentencing reform ever in America—quickly cutting California’s prison population by tens of thousands of drug and other nonviolent offenders, shifting $1 billion per year from incarceration to public health and treatment and saving taxpayers billions of dollars in just a few years. We started off with incredibly high levels of public support. I raised about $7.5 million from an eclectic group of wealthy individuals. But, in the end, the California prison guards union was able to mobilize the entire political establishment and, ultimately, a majority of voters against it. That was an incredibly hard defeat. Ethan Nadelmann at his 2014 TED Talk.

leagues having been at DPA for more than a decade. Our board chair since the beginning, Ira Glasser, is overseeing the transition. What was the most significant political accomplishment during your tenure? I think I’ll be most remembered for my role in legalizing marijuana, from the first successful medical-marijuana initiative, California’s Prop 215 in 1996, to the biggest of the recent legalization victories, last year’s Prop 64 in California. I take great pride in having played a key role in marijuana legalization going from 25% support in polls in the mid’80s to almost 60% today, and from zero states legal to 29 legal for medical and eight for all adult use. But what’s given me the greatest satisfaction is the role I’ve played in building the drug-policy-reform movement, both in my country and abroad. There’s something about weaving together people who come from across the political spectrum, across the drug-use spectrum and across the druglaw spectrum, that’s been particularly challenging and rewarding.

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You made great strides to diversify DPA over the last few years. How is diversity in the cannabis industry going? Too slowly. Hopefully, California’s Prop 64, which incorporates an array of social-justice provisions, like allowing people with prior felony drug convictions to apply for [marijuana-business] licenses, will provide a new model for improving diversity. Who are some of the politicians you’ve worked with that supported drug-policy reforms? Kurt Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore from 1987 to 1999, was my partner in arms for the first decade. He’s really one of my heroes for stepping out as boldly as he did, and sticking with it in the face of tremendous criticism. And Gary Johnson. We met shortly after he spoke out in favor of legalization in late 1999 as governor of New Mexico, and quickly became friends and allies. Gary’s commitment was fantastic. Three politicians in California stand out: former state legislators John Vasconcellos—who later joined DPA’s board— and Mark Leno, and Gavin Newsom,

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“I TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN HAVING PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION GOING FROM 25% SUPPORT IN POLLS IN THE MID-’80S TO ALMOST 60% TODAY.” the former mayor of San Francisco who proved to be such a remarkable ally last year, as lieutenant governor, with Prop 64. In New York, we’ve worked with some great state legislators, Jeff Aubry and Dick Gottfried, and also David Soares, the district attorney of Albany County. In Congress, Reps. Barney Frank, Earl Blumenauer, Jared Polis and Dana Rohrabacher stand out on marijuana policy. There are lots of others, including John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Steve Cohen and Hakeem Jeffries. I really like Senator Cory Booker’s commitment to our agenda. I’ve known him since before he first ran and lost for Newark mayor, back in 2002. And I hope Congressman Beto O’Rourke, whom I first met when he was a city councilman in El Paso, Texas, will run and beat Senator Ted Cruz next year. It’s a long shot, but Beto’s the first person to ever write a book about why marijuana needs to be legalized and then get elected to Congress. I wouldn’t count him out. Who were and currently are some of the worst politicians and/or political appointees on drug-policy reform? That’s a long list. Put William Bennett, the first drug czar following the creation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy back in 1989, at the top. He proved incredibly skillful at playing on

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Middle America’s fears about drugs and race to advance a highly reactionary and punitive political agenda. Jeff Sessions is another one. I hope we’ve advanced to the point where the harm he can do is limited by how much he’s out of step with public opinion, even among Republicans, but we’ll see. The guy who has to be at the top of the list today is Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, who’s been responsible for thousands of extra-judicial assassinations of drug users in recent months. One prays for the day he’ll be prosecuted before a war-crimes tribunal. Do you think Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice will try to shut down adult-use cannabis in the eight states where it’s legal? I don’t think we’ll see a full frontal assault by the Justice Department under Sessions, but it’s not going to be easy sailing. They’re going to appoint a whole slew of new U.S. attorneys and encourage them to mess with the industry. I’m assuming that Sessions is going to direct the Justice Department’s Criminal Division to look for ways to create problems. They’ll probably make use of civil asset-forfeiture laws to hurt people without actually putting them behind bars. And they may get creative with litigation strategies, to make it difficult for state governments to regulate the industry effectively. A lot depends on how much chaos Sessions wants to create. Based on White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s recent statements, will medical marijuana in the 29 states remain status quo? Those comments, together with Trump’s during the campaign, were mildly reassuring, but Republicans in Congress better make doubly sure they reapprove the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment that prohibits the Justice Department from going after medical marijuana in the states that have legalized it. Keep in mind that Sessions has yet to offer the sort of explicit reassurance regarding medical marijuana that Spicer did.

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GABRIEL DE O GLOBO

How is marijuana legalization in the laboratories of democracy— Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska— doing?

prohibition and maybe even repeal it, but it’s going to take a lot more time for the federal government to actually amend the international drug-control treaties.

It seems pretty good to me. The sky has not fallen. There’s been no big jump in adolescent marijuana use. Tax revenue is exceeding expectations. Most folks in the new industry are acting responsibly. Some people are switching from more dangerous drugs like booze and opioids to cannabis. And I like how governors like Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, who opposed the initiative in 2012 and has never been all that favorable to it, are now saying lots of nice things about their successful legalization laws.

What’s next for you?

The marijuana-law-reform movement is now about 50 years old. What’s needed to end cannabis prohibition? We have to keep moving the ball down the field; avoid missteps and overconfidence; neutralize the greedy and nutty players who could derail our progress; and do a lot more work in the states where tremendous numbers of people, disproportionately black and brown, are still getting arrested and even jailed. Congress may act to ease the federal

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I have no specific plans. I’m just going to take it easy for a while. I’d like to finally write the book about drugs that I’ve been wanting to write for a very long time. I plan to stay involved in drug-policy reform, but also will have the freedom to engage other issues. That was something I had to limit while leading DPA. I’m hoping to be more involved in drug-policy reform globally than I had time to be while heading DPA, which focuses primarily on the U.S. I enjoy public speaking and hope to do more of that too. I’ve recently gotten excited about doing my own podcast— that seems like fun. Lots of folks in the legal marijuana industry are asking if I want to consult or help in other ways. We’ll see. But, truth be told, I don’t really know —and I’m very much looking forward to the uncertainty and adventure ahead. DPA’s biennial International Drug Policy Reform Conference is scheduled for Oct. 11–14 in Atlanta. For more information, go to reformconference.org.

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THE DPA AND ME: FIVE YEARS IN THE TRENCHES BY AMANDA REIMAN

At the time, he was running the Drug Policy Foundation, which would become the Drug Policy Alliance. I’m not going to say that I had a religious experience listening to his speech, but I was affected. It made me believe that I could be intelligent, an academic achiever and a scholar, and still seek and speak the truth about drug use. Fourteen years later, in 2012, I was director of research and patient services at Berkeley Patients Group in California. My job was coming to an end because federal prosecutor Melinda Haag had decided to evict us. I saw that there was a job opening for California policy manager at the DPA, where Ethan Nadelmann was executive director. Fourteen years after that life-affirming speech, he hired me. I worked at the DPA until this past January, when I decided to step away from the organization, around the time Ethan made a similar announcement. The DPA was everything I knew it would be. It gave me knowledge of political systems, players and landscapes, and it also sharpened my sense of social justice. As I move ahead, I’m prepared to shape the cannabis industry from the inside, staying true to the values congruent with being a good policy maker and social worker. The War on Drugs isn’t over, and I’m not done fighting.

As an undergraduate studying psychology in 1997 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I was fascinated by drug-taking, and frustrated by how drug use and drug consumers were framed in the journal articles I read for class. Having known many drug consumers myself, I felt that my reality was at odds with the literature in my field. Research questioning the status quo on drug policy was often discounted or discarded—or worse, it ended the career of the researcher who dared to ask questions. It was this dissonance between my lived experience and the scientific literature that led me to attend Students for a Sensible Drug Policy’s first national conference in 1998, at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Surrounded by people I feared didn’t exist and basking in the glow of open-minded acceptance, I was primed for the conference’s keynote speech. We were children of the ’80s who had seen the rise of crack cocaine, the tidal wave of mass incarceration and the pervasive ignorance about the realities of drug use. We were ready for someone to lead us into a new age. Then Ethan Nadelmann took Proud legalization supporter the stage. Amanda Reiman

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Amanda Reiman is communications manager at Flow Kana in Oakland.

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FREEDOM LEAF’S

GUIDE TO CANNABIS ACTIVISM

Legalizing marijuana is a lot of work. Here are four steps you can take to achieve your goals.

BY RUSS BELVILLE n my dozen years of marijuana-activist journalism, one of the questions I’ve heard most often is “When do you think they’re going to legalize marijuana in my state?” I always respond, “That’s the wrong question. When are you going to legalize marijuana in your state?” If you’re waiting for them to legalize marijuana, you might be in for a long wait. The way marijuana-law reform happens is when ordinary people like you stand up, band together and organize for change. Activism is more than just logging on to Facebook and sharing information about cannabis and marijuana-law reform with your friends. Activism means you must act. There are four elements involved in making social change: activists, supporters, voters and laws. If legalization is your road trip’s destination, then your city or state is the car, activists are the engine, supporters are the fuel, voters are the countryside, and lawmakers and initiatives are the roads.

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STEP 1:

The Importance of Meetups Like an eight-cylinder engine is more powerful than a four-cylinder, your reform engine is more powerful with more activists. To build that group, you need to hold public meetings. Don’t be worried if you have nothing to deliver at your first meeting. Use it to network with other like-minded people and ask what reforms they’d like to work on. Reach out to national organizations like NORML, SSDP, ASA, Women Grow, and LEAP to ask if they have anyone who could speak at your meeting. Look for a sympathetic city councilmember or state legislator who’d appear for a Q&A session.

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From these public meetings, you’ll build a cadre of dedicated people who are ready to help you take your public activism to the next level.

TIP:

You can usually get a room for little to no cost at the local library or community college. Bars and clubs are another option.

police start making possession or public-smoking arrests. Have good signs and be media-savvy. Make your most sympathetic patient or conventional soccer mom or clean-cut student available to reporters. Explain not only why your proposed reform is important to you, but why it’s vitally necessary for everyone else, too.

TIP:

When being interviewed, deliver a provocative statistic or powerful anecdote in just six to ten seconds.

STEP 2:

Rallies, Protests, Marches and Festivals The fuel for your activism push is acquired through public events. Rallies are generally when people gather in one place to support something. Protests are fixed gatherings to oppose something. Marches are moving examples of either. Festivals are day-long rallies that usually incorporate entertainment and vending. You can generally gather on public property, such as in parks, without a permit so long as you aren’t erecting stages with loudspeakers. For a larger gathering with such infrastructure, you’ll likely need to work with city officials to secure a permit. For marching, usually you can traverse the sidewalks without permits, but once you take to the streets, permits are required. Make sure to have a lawyer. City officials and law enforcement may try to derail your events because they don’t like the content of your speech, but they’ll often back down once the magic “lawyer” word is uttered—and if they don’t, your lawyer can fight them in the courts. It’s also good to have a lawyer present to tell participants how to assert their rights if

STEP 3:

Conferences, Fundraising, Polling and Media Your activist engine could have a full tank of support, but if you don’t know which roads lead to your destination, you’re just wasting gas. Focusing your organization on defining its goals can be facilitated through a reform conference, where activists from areas of the state that vary in support for reform gather to learn from each other and from national experts brought in to tell about successes elsewhere. “University and college campuses are good locations for conferences, especially if there’s a student group willing to sponsor them,” says Dan Viets, executive director of Missouri NORML. “Usually, these venues are free to recognized student organizations. Progressive churches, like Unitarian Universalists, are also good options.”

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Generate money through selling organizational merchandise, collecting membership dues and accepting donations, but your biggest fundraising will happen at festivals and conferences. At first, you may struggle just to break even on these events, but if they’re successful (and lead to media exposure and legislative progress) you can begin to attract bigger investments in your activism. “The majority of our festival funding comes from vendor fees and board-member personal contributions,” advises Serra Frank, who runs the Boise Hempfest. “Most of the funding comes in just weeks before the festival, so remaining patient and focused on the end goal is definitely a big part of fundraising.” Once funds have been sufficiently raised, start polling. This is where the politics can be difficult. Your supporters may want to go further than possible. They may want legalization, when only decriminalization is attainable. They may want a medical-marijuana law, when only CBD oil has the votes needed to pass. They may withhold support and funding for lesser goals, or they may split from your group to follow their goals. Polling is the GPS for your reform road trip. Serious supporters will respond to polling, and you can position your group as the sensible activists willing to accept reality and make reasonable compromises. Sometimes the group that splits away from you provides a counter-example that makes you look more professional. Most local polling on marijuana issues isn’t done as a separate poll, but rather as a question or two included in more general surveys already being conducted by local news stations, colleges and universities, and private pollsters. When you have the results of your poll, you’ll need to hold a press conference. While your public events have helped build legitimacy to your supporters, becoming a recognized group in the local media is what builds legitimacy with the public, especially the undecided voters you need to win elections and the legislators you need to help pass laws. “Release a report with new data,

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announce a surprising endorsement, or reveal a petition with an impressive number of signatures,” offers Tom Angell, cannabis reporter for MassRoots. “Don’t just stand up there and deliver talking points that everyone has heard before. That’s not news.”

TIP:

Your group can usually pay to get your question inserted into their poll.

STEP 4:

Initiatives, Lobbying and Legislation Now that you’ve gotten your polling and built your support, it’s time to start changing the laws. But where you live can make a big difference in how you do that. Statewide ballot initiatives are how the first eight states to legalize marijuana— from Alaska to Maine—did it. That power, however, is limited to just 24 states, mostly in the West. The remaining states rely solely on legislators to make laws. Initiatives can reach further, since they depend on the votes of the public, which supports marijuana-law reform more strongly than elected officials do. But too often in the initiative states, activists want to go for statewide adultuse legalization as a first reform. In the eight states that have legalized that, it took many smaller steps to get to there. They all went through local reforms, decriminalization, medical marijuana and failed legalization attempts before succeeding at statewide legalization. Some states allow their cities and

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ACTIVISM IS MORE THAN JUST LOGGING ON TO FACEBOOK AND SHARING INFORMATION ABOUT CANNABIS AND MARIJUANALAW REFORM WITH YOUR FRIENDS. ACTIVISM MEANS YOU MUST ACT. counties great latitude in regulating themselves. It’s called “home rule,” and it means activists can circulate petitions to change local ordinances. If you have this power, consider passing a reform in your municipality before jumping up to the statewide level. (For example, San Francisco voters endorsed legalizing medical marijuana in 1991, five years before the statewide law was enacted.) With local successes behind you, you’ll have more standing to build support and funding for your statewide push. If you’re in a state without initiative power, then it’s up to the legislature. That’s where activist lobby days—when you gather your activists on one particular day to visit your representatives in person at the state capitol—come into play. “It’s always good to wear a pin or some item of clothing that identifies your group members visually, so that, when they’re seen in the halls of the capitol, people automatically know why you’re there,” Viets advises. It’s also best to “dress for success” when visiting elected officials in statehouses or city halls. While the idea of meeting elected officials can be intimidating, remember that these are your public servants and their job is to listen to you. “The name of the game is networking, making relationships and starting conversations,” says Sharon Ravert, executive director of Peachtree NORML in Georgia. Sometimes lobby days will include an opportunity to present testimony in a

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hearing. Public comments are welcomed, but you usually must register before the hearing begins. Bring photocopies of your written testimony and any exhibits, enough for each member of the committee and their staff. Those materials can go into lengthy detail, but you may only have two or three minutes for your spoken testimony, so stick to the basics. Lobby days are best organized around a bill or amendment that will be voted on by your representatives. Some states allow citizens to submit bills directly to the legislature, but usually the process begins with cultivating a relationship with a supportive lawmaker who will introduce the bill on behalf of your group. “Showing up with pitchforks and flames is not an effective strategy to convincing legislators to support your bill,” explains Sam Chapman, an SSDP alumnus who now heads New Economy Consulting in Oregon. “If a legislator likes the bill and generally believes that it has a chance at passing, it will become a bill and will be assigned to a committee that focuses on the subject at hand.”

TIP:

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to take your reform road trip. Learn from the activists who have done it all and seen it all before. Most of them are very excited to pass their knowledge on to the next wave of reformers. Russ Belville hosts The Russ Belville Show daily at radicalruss.com.

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holistic

Cannabis YOGA, MASSAGE, HERBALISM, EXERCISE, ATHLETICS AND TANTRIC SEX ARE ALL PART OF THE NEW WEED-INSPIRED LIFESTYLE. BY MIA DI STEFANO Marijuana’s rapidly growing acceptance is shaping a new cannabis consumer. Businesses, services and entire movements around holistic and socially conscious use have gained traction and are a rising force within the industry. In California, the medical-use law allows doctors to recommend marijuana for “any… illness for which marijua-

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na provides relief” to adult residents with valid state-issued identification. That intentionally unrestrictive law has allowed patients to receive recommendations for a host of illnesses, from serious conditions like cancer and glaucoma to more common ailments like insomnia and back pain. With adult-use (or recreational) cannabis legalized by the Prop 64 ballot initiative last November, the legal grey area of whether cannabis is being used medicinally or recreationally becomes a question of one’s personal health-care choices. A prevailing view among alternative-medicine practitioners is that all marijuana use is medicinal. “When you use cannabis, you’re treating an endocannabinoid deficiency and returning your body to homeostasis,” says naturopath and master herbalist Dr. Lakisha Jenkins, who runs Kiona’s Farm’acy in Merced, Calif. “We get cancer patients from El Portal Cancer Center and Merced Medical Center all the time. We deal with everything from colds and flu to terminal and degenerative illnesses like Parkinson’s.” Cannabis is just one of hundreds of herbs Dr. Jenkins stocks, although it’s probably the most popular. She sells raw flowers and makes topical cannabis oils in-house, often blending them with herbs such as passionflower, rose and lemon balm. While medical dispensaries typically sell only cannabis products and services, some, such as Harborside Health Center in Oakland, offer acupuncture, hypnotherapy, tai chi and yoga. Some of the earliest known yogic texts refer to herbal enhancement, including the Yoga Sutras, which are believed to have been written between the 2nd and 4th centuries. Ganja is thought to have been one of those herbs. Dee Dussault is known as the founder of the “ganja yoga” movement. She began in Toronto in 2009 with a “BYOC” (bring your own cannabis) class, and has since moved to San Francisco, where she personally selects flower and concentrates that are shared half an hour before classes begin.

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Ganja yoga pioneer Dee Dussault

“Usually, we get a sativa-dominant hybrid for the active part of class and an indica or CBD hybrid for mediation,” Dussault explains. “I use Bloom Farms vape pens because they’re socially responsible and ethically sourced. They donate a meal to a person or family in need for every pen sold.” Another San Francisco hot spot for pot enthusiasts, Power Plant Fitness, is slated to open in May. Dubbed “the world’s first cannabis gym,” the facility will couple cannabis consumption with personalized training. Power Plant Fitness’ co-founders are 420 Games creator Jim McAlpine and former NFL running back Ricky Williams, who was suspended several times for failing drug tests for cannabis during his 10-year pro-football career. Athletes and casual sports enthusiasts are looking to cannabis for both preventative care and to relieve pain and muscle tension. Hiker and marathon runner Chris Franklin uses marijuana as a treatment for muscle spasms that can leave him immobilized. Based in Portland, Ore. where both medical and adult-use cannabis are legal, he applies cannabis topicals to his muscles, and smokes weed as well. “A major part of being an athlete is

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letting your body rest,” he explains. “I started using it to help me recover from workouts, marathon runs, heavy gym training and rigorous hikes. It just makes for a more relaxed body. The muscles loosen up, which is what you want so they can heal.” Massage can also help. Former nurse Jordan Person estimates that 60% of the visitors to her Denver-based massage company Primal Therapeutics are tourists. “I feel a total connection to my patients,” she says. “The empath in me puts myself in the shoes of every person that I touch.” Another area in which cannabis use has become more accepted is the bedroom. “Cannabis used as an aphrodisiac goes back thousands of years,” says Antuanette Gomez, a tantric sex coach who runs the Toronto-based company Pleasure Peaks. She sells a Cannalube spray, offers “Cannabis Sex Ed” classes, and promotes intimacy in a range of situations from yoni-egg sessions to tantric retreats. “Cannabis is attached to a lot of wellness ideas because it’s already in the consciousness community,” she says. “It helps couples create stronger intimacy and a stronger bond. The CBD in cannabis lubricants can help women that have a lot of pain in their pelvic area or have really tight muscles.” By building health-conscious communities in the cannabis culture, consumers are redefining what it’s used for. There’s still room to eat pizza and watch Netflix at the end of a long day, but the 21st century stoner might go to yoga first. Mia Di Stefano is chair of Women Grow NYC and consults on digital strategy for medical-cannabis startups.

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april/may 2017

Cheech met Chong V When

OR HOW A MEXICAN-AMERICAN DRAFT DODGER FOUND HIS LIFELONG COMEDY PARTNER IN CANADA. BY CHEECH MARIN ancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in North America, and in 1969 it was the “San Francisco of Canada,” with all the counterculture implications—only Canadian, so it was more polite… as in “Can we please have a revolution?” On my first day in Vancouver, my roommate Len MacMillan took me to the corner of Main and Pender, the most squalid point in the city. It was the conjunction of Chinatown, Skid Row and Junkyville. As we walked by a nightclub named the Shanghai Junk, I couldn’t help but notice their promotional photos in a little waterlogged glass showcase. “The Junk,” as I was to come to know it, was Vancouver’s first topless bar. Light-years from what we know as a topless bar today, these ladies wore large pasties with tassels and sequined underwear. The photographs in the case showed the ladies interacting with some fully

clothed hippie/greaser guys dressed in police uniforms with army helmets on. My first reaction was, “What the fuck is this?” Oddly enough, I’d seen something similar when I was in high school. There was this place on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley called the Zomba Cafe, and it was a burlesque house that featured strippers and comedians. But I just thought these photos were odd and funny and walked on. About a month later, I ran into a highschool buddy of mine from Los Angeles who was in Vancouver because of his difficulties with the draft. Hank Zevallos was an odd character. He was senior class president. He also ran track and was an aspiring writer who wrote for the school newspaper. Hank told me that he and another guy, a Ukrainian named Ihor Todoruck, had started a music-scene magazine called Poppin. They had ambitions to be bigger than Rolling Stone, but right now they were selling their publication on the streets of Vancouver. Hank, who was the editor, remembered that I used to do

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some writing for the school newspaper and suggested that I could write some pieces for Poppin. Whatever. “I could put your name on our masthead,” Hank continued. “You could get free albums and get into shows free and get free drinks and food.” Now I was listening. In short order, I went to a bar and was introduced to Ihor, the magazine’s publisher. After a long conversation and a few short drinks, in which I briefed him on my background, Ihor said I could work with Hank and write for them. Before I left the bar, Ihor gave me a mischievous smile and said, “There’s this guy I think you should meet.” He said he knew this guy named Tommy Chong who was running an improvisational theater company in a topless bar in Chinatown. I quickly realized that he was talking about the Shanghai Junk, the bar I had passed when I was walking around with Len that first day. Eventually, I’d realize that Tommy was the musician that everybody in Calgary knew because he had co-written the song “Does Your Mama Know About Me?” that Diana Ross and the Supremes had recorded. It was first a hit for Tommy’s band, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, on Motown Records. He was a legend in Calgary. The song went on to be recorded by other performers, too, like Stephanie Mills, Jermaine Jackson and the Harlettes, Bette Midler’s backup singers. Ihor set up a meeting, and we were to meet at a farmhouse out in the countryside. On the appointed day, I drove out there and knocked on the door, which was quickly opened by a very pretty young blonde hippie-type chick. It was Shelby Fiddis, Tommy’s girlfriend, a person I would come to know very well for the next forty years (and counting). Crawling around the floor was an angelic little one-year-old girl with cookie smeared all over her face, Precious Chong. Tommy came out from a back bedroom, and at the instant we first laid eyes on each other, we both had the

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Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong at the Bitter End in New York, April 5, 1972.

same thought: “What the hell are you?” Tommy was wearing brown leather pants held up by a wide leather belt fastened to a handmade hippie belt buckle. He was also sporting a blue nylon wifebeater T-shirt that revealed a crude, homemade eagle tattoo on his left arm where one wing was bigger than the other… and not on purpose. He had long, wild black hair parted in the middle. To top it off, he had a scraggly and sparse Fu Manchu moustache and goatee… and he was brown, which I took to be a good sign. The overall effect was of a hippie-biker Mongolian weight lifter. And he had gold-framed eyeglasses and a big gap in his front teeth. You know, your typical topless-bar improvisational-theater look.

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Canadian dollars a week. Right away, I knew we were a fit.

ALLEN GREEN

DO YOU HAVE A NICKNAME?

I was sporting the exact opposite look. Working at Sunshine Village Ski Resort required a short haircut and no facial hair. I looked like a narc, which everyone in the troupe would suspect at first. I began filling Tommy in on my background, starting with my draft-resister status and ending with my experience as a member of Instant Theater, an improvisational-theater group in L.A. A total fucking lie, but a very good improv. I had seen Instant Theater many times and immediately knew I could do improv. Tommy knew that I was a writer for Poppin magazine, so he hired me as a writer for the group. But first I had to come down and check out the show to see if we were a fit. I asked him how much the job paid, and he said sixty

Very quickly we heard of this “battle of the bands” at the Garden Auditorium. Perfect place to try out our new act. We got a time slot for Tommy Chong and the City Works. I had heard Tommy say more than a few times that the next act or group he was in would have his name in the title. He didn’t want to be anonymous like he was in Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. I totally understood. I wanted exactly the same thing. We decided to begin with a couple of comedy bits and then play some music. We started out with “Old Man in the Park,” where Tommy plays a crotchety old geezer and I play a biker. We have a conversation, which is pictured on the back of our first record album. We began performing the bit while everybody was still milling around. Very quickly a bunch of people rushed to the front of the stage. I thought they were going to jump onstage, which is what we were used to, but they just wanted to hear what was going on. These kids, for the most part, would never have gone down to the Junk. So while they never heard of us… we were them. When we finished the bit, we got a big cheer. We knew what a rock‘n’roll audience was like. We both had been musicians and performers all our lives. I’d been in a number of bands all through high school and college. Tommy, the same. We had more to give them, and we did. We went into another bit, and most of the arena had quieted down and were following us. They wanted another bit and then another. We never got around to the music. The band stood there the whole time. We got a rousing rock‘n’roll reception. As we came off the stage, one of the band members asked, “Well, when’s our next gig?” Tommy and I both looked at each other and knew the answer. There would

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TOMMY CAME OUT FROM A BACK BEDROOM. AT THE INSTANT WE LAID EYES ON EACH OTHER, WE BOTH HAD THE SAME THOUGHT: ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?” be no next gig for the band. We were now a bona fide comedy duo. As we drove home in Pop Chong’s car, we were floating on a cloud of euphoria. In Vancouver, where it always rains, it’s necessary to have windshield wipers that work. Ours did, but the windshield-wiper motor had been broken for a while. The wiper was hooked up to a straightened-out wire clothes hanger that the driver used to move the blades back and forth… by hand. We didn’t care, though, as we drove along bursting with joy. We went back and forth going over the show and how the audience responded. We were thrilled that they not only listened and laughed, but that they didn’t throw shit at us. Soon we were driving along in a happy silence. While working the windshield wiper, Tommy seemed lost in a reverie. “We need a new name.” We both realized that “Tommy Chong and the City Works” would not work if there were just the two of us. So we tried out all the combinations. Marin and Chong. Chong and Marin. No. Both sounded too much like an ambulance-chasing, “Se habla Español… and Chinese” law firm. Tommy and Richard. Richard and Tommy. No. Sounded like two white guys. Then finally, Chong asked, “Do you have a nickname?” “Well, my family calls me Cheech, which is short for chicharrón.” “What’s a chicharrón?” “It’s a pork rind, you know, a deepfried pig skin. They’re all curled up and small. When my uncle Bano saw me for

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the first time in my crib he said, ‘He looks like a little chicharrón.’ It very quickly got shortened to ‘Cheech,’ and that was always my nickname in the family. Everybody in my family had nicknames, usually two or three.” Chong said softly, “Cheech, Cheech.” And then “Cheech and Chong.” And that was it. We didn’t even try “Chong and Cheech.” We were both musicians, and our ears told us that name had the right sound. Cheech and Chong… and that’s the way it’s always been. We drove into the rain, over a bridge that was condemned and had a big sign that warned PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. Tommy, while still working the wiper by hand as we disappeared into the fog, softly chanted, “Cheech and Chong, Cheech and Chong... Man, we’re gonna be big.”

ONE SMALL PROBLEM Though we didn’t know it at the time, and hadn’t planned it, our first gig as Cheech and Chong was at that battle of the bands at the Garden Auditorium. We played one more gig in Vancouver at Ronnie Scott’s Blues and Folk Club on Davie Street. It was May 1970. Scott’s was the epicenter of the blues and folk scene in Vancouver. We were opening for blues great T-Bone Walker. Once again, people in this scene had never seen us, but we went over great. T-Bone was very late getting on, and when he did show up, he was totally drunk and had to be helped onto the stage. He sat down in his chair, and a roadie laid a guitar in his lap. The band, which had already started to play, waited for him to join in. Finally, he started playing his guitar and singing in a very drunk voice, slurring all his words. The strings on his guitar had been loosened for the plane ride, so they were all out of tune. But it didn’t bother T-Bone, because he just kept singing and playing. I don’t think he even knew where he was. A roadie crept onstage and tried to tune as he played, which only seemed to annoy

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“Cheech Marin is one of the biggest inﬂuences on my comedy and my marijuana advocacy. Whatever you do, do not smoke this book, read it!” —DOUG BENSON, COMEDIAN

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Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio

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Best buds Cheech & Chong, circa 1969

him. The band finished the tune, and the audience leapt to their feet to give him a standing ovation. Tommy and I almost fell over laughing in the back of the room. Later on, Chong would use that performance as the basis of his blind blues singer Blind Melon Chitlin, which is still in our act today. After the show, Chong and I had a conversation about what we would do next. If we really wanted to make it, we would have to go to either Los Angeles or New York. New York was cold and we knew nobody there, Los Angeles was warm and I grew up there. There was only one problem: I was wanted by the FBI because of my draft-resistance activities. You must remember that there was total bureaucratic and administrative chaos in the United States at this time. The Vietnam War was raging, and a huge portion of the country, especially college-age kids, were doing everything

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they could to fuck with the government. I figured they were never going to notice li’l old me. This was well before the computer age. They were still making carbon copies of shit. So I went to the airport armed with a phony ID. It was the driver’s license of my friend Bill Knorr… with his picture on it. Still, I was a little bit nervous… so, I looked for a bar at the airport. I saw something Irish sounding with a shamrock on it so I went in and ordered a double vodka on the rocks. My cover story, if I needed one, was that I was a writer for Poppin magazine, which I was, and I was going down to the U.S. to do some interviews with the Grateful Dead, Santana and the Jefferson Airplane. I ordered another shot. I downed it as soon as it came and then got up and walked to Gate 34. Rounding a corner into a long hallway of gates, I saw Led Zeppelin coming out of a door at the other end. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page led a gang of roadies. There was nobody else in the hallway. They acted like they were being attacked by a hundred groupies. They were laughing at the top of their lungs as they pretended to kick them away and fight their way through the nonexistent crowd. I thought I was in the movie Blow-Up. I steeled myself for my interaction with the U.S. border officer. As I showed him my phony ID, I leaned in closely so that he could get a whiff of the vodka on my breath. I wanted to make sure he believed that I was a journalist. I started telling him my story of going to get interviews. He stopped me in the middle of the story, handed me back my ID with Bill Knorr’s picture on it and said, “Welcome to the U.S.” I stepped across the line and, after three years, I was back home.

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D RA L EM E

GLE IAN TR

GROWERS ON EDGE BY RICK PFROMMER

In November, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada doubled the number of states that have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use. That was the good news. The bad news was the election of Donald Trump as president. Trump’s appointment of Jeff Sessions, who’s made a number of inflammatory statements about pot (see page 8), as Attorney General has cast a pall over the marijuana world, signaling that the federal government will pursue a much more prohibitionist drug policy. In Northern California’s famous cannabisgrowing region, the Emerald Triangle, where state regulators have been aggressively registering growers and issuing permits under the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act of 2015, cultivators are concerned. “I was all for getting my permit, and now that I’ve got it, I’m wondering

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if it was such a good idea after all,” says a Trinity County grower who prefers to remain anonymous. The permits require growers to give the exact GPS locations of all the crops, processing and storage areas, and provide detailed records of whom the cannabis is sold to. Additionally, trimmers need to provide W-9 forms in order to work. Many, known as “trimmigrants,” are not U.S. citizens. So far, Trinity County, with only 14,000 residents, has issued more permits per capita than the Emerald Triangle’s more populous counties, Humboldt and Mendocino. One of the scariest parts of California’s permitting process is the involvement of the state Water Sources Control Board and the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Under the new enforcement guidelines, if a property is not in compliance with regulations, either Fish and Wildlife or the Water Board can issue civil violations that have accompanying fines, and the land can be seized if those fines aren’t paid. The fines can cost as much as $1,000 per day, making seizure a serious possibility. The sad irony is that the fees from the permit applications are funding that enforcement. Six months ago, it seemed that everything was coming up sinsemilla flowers. While investment dollars pour into the legal cannabis market and growers continue to cultivate ever-larger amounts of high-grade Cali green, many are anxious. The federal government has never been a friend to the cannabis industry, and with prohibitionists like Sessions in charge, hard times may lie ahead.

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Rick Pfrommer is the principal consultant at PfrommerNow.

s s m roo pre f w p e a n ac d “Fascinating: a highly coherent, comprehensive, and fully compelling account of the fusion of jazz, the igniting influence of drugs, and the emergence of the Beats. Torgoff is a terrific storyteller.” —John Tytell, author of Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation

“This exuberant appreciation, made luridly entertaining by all of the intoxicants, captures the wild energy and fertility of these seminal movements.” —Publishers Weekly

“Torgoff cuts between scenes with the skill of a consummate filmmaker.... A sometimes harrowing but essential read.” —Buffalo News

“Excavates the origins of the great American youth revolt that Allen Ginsberg called the ‘bop apocalypse’—the musical, literary, sexual and narcotic experiments of the late 1940s and early 1950s.... Mr. Torgoff has an aficionado’s knowledge of music and drugs.” —Wall Street Journal

SS R E pany P O om

P C CA Group A D ook eB

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recipes

Spring

Cooking RECIPES BY CHERI SICARD L PHOTOS BY MITCH MANDEL

Did you know that that average piece of produce travels 1,500 miles to get to your supermarket? Cooking with produce that’s naturally grown and harvested offers a lot of benefits for both the individuals consuming it and the earth at large. Produce picked at the height of ripeness in its natural season is more nutritious, less expansive and better for the environment. In order to encourage you to cook seasonally, the recipes here focus on four of my favorite foods now in season or coming into season: artichokes, avocados, onions and Meyer lemons.

OG Onion Soup au Gratin For the best, most intensely flavored onion soup, brown the onions until they’re a deep mahogany. 2 tbsp. unsalted butter 1 tbsp. olive oil 1 large sweet onion (Maui or Vidalia) 2 large shallots 2 large leeks, white and pale green parts only

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1 tbsp. garlic, minced ½ cup dry sherry 6 cups beef stock 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 1 bay leaf 1 gm decarboxylated kif 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar 1½ cup shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese 4 slices French baguette (preferably day-old) Salt and pepper to taste

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Heat butter and olive oil in large pot over medium heat. Add shallots and leeks and sauté, stirring occasionally, until almost brown, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook onions for 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes until they’re deep brown. Add garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and deglaze pan with sherry, scraping up all the brown bits from the bottom. Cook until most of the sherry is gone, about 2–3 minutes, then add stock, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Preheat broiler. Remove bay leaf from soup. Stir in kif or hash until dissolved. Stir in balsamic vinegar. Remove soup from heat and divide among 4 ovenproof bowls. Arrange bowls on a baking sheet. Sprinkle half the cheese over the soup in the bowls. Add a baguette slice to each bowl and top with the remaining cheese. Place baking sheet with bowls under the broiler until cheese is melted and lightly browned, about 3–4 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Awesome Artichokes Benedict This creative recipe is equally at home for brunch, lunch or dinner. The rich Hollandaise sauce and liquid egg yolk blend to make an amazing dip for the steamed artichoke leaves and heart. Vegetarians can omit the Canadian bacon and still enjoy a satisfying entrée. 4 large artichokes 4 large eggs 4 slices Canadian bacon, optional

Hollandaise Sauce

5 tbsp. butter 3 tbsp. cannabis-infused butter 3 egg yolks 2 tbsp. Meyer lemon juice, freshly squeezed ¼ tsp. salt ¼ tsp. pepper 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper Cut off the top quarter of artichokes and stems at the base with a serrated knife. Place in steamer basket above a couple of inches of boiling water. Cover and steam for 30 minutes or until a leaf pulls away easily from the base. Be sure to check the water level often, and add more as necessary during cooking. To prepare Hollandaise sauce, place butter and cannabutter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until bubbly, but do not brown. Combine egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, pepper and cayenne in food processor or blender and

mix at high speed for 2–3 seconds. While the processor or blender is running, add melted butter in a slow, steady stream. Set aside. Once artichokes are cooked and cooled enough to handle, gently spread the leaves. Reach in and pull out the small center leaves. Use a spoon to continue to clean out the center, including all traces of the fuzzy “choke.” Put one artichoke on each of the 4 serving plates and spread the leaves to expose the inner heart. If using Canadian bacon, quickly warm four slices in a skillet and place 1 slice on top of each artichoke heart. Poach eggs by carefully sliding cracked eggs into a skillet of simmering water. Cook for 2–3 minutes or just until the whites are set. Remove eggs with slotted spoon and place 1 poached egg in the center of each artichoke. Divide the Hollandaise sauce over the 4 plates. Makes 4 servings.

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recipes

Avocado Layer

Avocado and Spicy THC Tuna Stacks This is easy to make, yet it never fails to elicit wows. If you don’t have ring molds, cut both ends off of a tin can to serve the purpose (be careful of sharp edges).

Won Ton Chips

1 package (14 ounces) won ton wrappers 2 tsp. vegetable oil 1½ tsp. salt 2 tsp. sesame seeds

Ponzu Reduction

2 tsp. Meyer lemon zest ¼ cup Meyer lemon juice 3 tbsp. reduced-sodium soy sauce 1 tsp. ginger, grated 1½ tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. white wine ½ tsp. cornstarch

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2 large ripe avocados 2 green onions, minced 1 tsp. Meyer lemon juice ½ tsp. garlic, minced 1 small Persian cucumber, peeled and finely diced 2 tsp. cannabis oil Salt and pepper to taste

Spicy Tuna Layer

6 oz. sushi grade ahi tuna, cut into tiny cubes 2 green onions, minced 1 tbsp. mayonnaise 1 tsp. sriracha hot sauce ½ tsp. Meyer lemon juice 1 tsp. cannabis oil ½ tsp. toasted sesame oil Prepare won ton chips by cutting wrappers diagonally in half and spreading them in single layers on 2 baking sheets.

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Brush with oil and sprinkle with salt and sesame seeds. Bake in a 350°F oven for 7–10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside. Prepare sauce by combing all ingredients (except for wine and cornstarch) in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook for 8–10 minutes or until reduced almost by half. Mix wine and cornstarch together, add to simmering sauce, and cook for another minute, stirring. Remove from heat and set aside. Mash avocados and stir together with remaining avocado-layer ingredients until well combined. Mix spicy-tuna layer ingredients together in a separate bowl until well combined. To assemble, place 4 ring molds on 4 serving plates. Divide half the avocado mixture between the 4 molds. Divide the tuna mixture in fourths, spooning on top of the avocado layer in the mold. Finish with the remaining avocado to make 3 layers. Carefully slide off the ring mold, and garnish top of stack with half a lemon slice and a chip. Drizzle the sauce around the edges of the plate. Serve with more chips on the side for dipping. Makes 4 servings.

Meyer Lemon Haze Poppy-Seed Cookies

This is my all-time favorite cookie recipe. I recently added ganja to the recipe.

2¾ cups flour ½ tsp. salt ¼ cup butter 1 ⁄3 cups sugar 1 large egg 2 tsp. lemon extract ½ tsp. baking powder 4 tsp. poppy seeds 2½ tsp. Meyer lemon zest, grated ¾ cup cannabis-infused butter

Filling

12 oz. cream cheese, softened ¼ cup Meyer lemon juice 1½ cups confectioners’ sugar In a small bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. In large bowl of an electric mixer, beat cannabutter and butter until light and fluffy. Add in sugar, egg, poppy seeds, lemon zest and lemon extract,

FRUIT FAVE Originally imported from China, Meyer lemons are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a Mandarin orange. Sweeter than regular lemons, although still mighty tart, they feature a complex aroma and flavor with subtle spice undertones that will add a new dimension to your dishes. The recipes that call for lemons will work with the ordinary ones if you can’t find the Meyer variety, which are now in season for a limited time. To “zest” lemons (or any citrus fruit), use a fine grater to scrape off the outermost brightly colored part of the rind, where the essential oils are.

and mix well. Reduce mixer speed and add dry ingredients until just combined. Divide dough in half, press into two large discs, wrap in Saran Wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll out a dough disk to 1/8–inch thickness. Use a 2½–inch round cookie cutter (or the bottom of a small glass). Arrange cookie dough on the prepared baking sheets 1 inch apart. Gather the scraps and re-roll to make more cookies. Bake for 20 minutes or until they’re just starting to turn brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Beat all the filling ingredients together until light and fluffy. Spread a thin layer of filling on the bottom of one cookie and press another cookie, bottom side down, onto the filling. Makes 36 cookie sandwiches. Cheri Sicard is author of The Cannabis Gourmet Cookbook and Mary Jane: The Complete Cannabis Handbook for Women. Visit her blog at CannabisCheri.com.

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By B e

Ma nn

Spring

CLEANING FOR STONERS

Why do people spring-clean anyway? The answer may be based on simple biology. During the winter we experience less sunlight. This means our pineal gland produces an increased amount of melatonin, the hormone responsible for sleepiness. Stoner or not, no one really wants to clean house in the winter. But come spring, we awake from our melatonin-induced stupor and have more energy. We feel the need to purge, cleanse and start anew. By clearing space around us, we clear space within as well, making room for new ideas and a fresh outlook on life. Spring cleaning is a traditional custom the world over. Chinese people clean their homes in anticipation of their new year, which began Jan. 28. They sweep to rid bad luck that may have accumulated over the previous year. Once the house is clean, then they welcome good fortune by prohibiting sweeping for several days. This way, the good luck has a chance to accumulate. Similarly, Iranians celebrate the New Year by taking part in khane takani, which translates to “shaking the house.” Drapes, rugs, bedding, floors, ceilings and knick-knacks all get a good, thorough cleaning on the vernal equinox. In observance of the spring holiday Passover, Orthodox Jews remove all chametz (leavened products) from the house, searching for and removing every breadcrumb buried deep in every crevice and corner.

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The act of cleaning house also improves our mental health. Clutter is exhausting to live in, and order invigorates our brains. And while messy living may seem easier, it’s actually the contrary. Think of searching for your keys amid piles of clothes or piles of paperwork on your desk. Disorder in the household impedes almost every activity you perform; in short, it’s a buzzkill. For stoners, cleaning is a relatively easy process that many find is assisted by a few puffs of weed. Wiping mirrors in a circle with a paper towel? Done and done. Besides seeing yourself more clearly, other benefits for the springcleaning stoner include: • Discovering lost stash in your couch. • Finding lost lighters. • Smoking a fatty in a clean pad when you’re done. So shake off those cobwebs, turn up your stereo, light a fatty (a sativa for its more motivating effects) and fire up the vacuum. Hoover those dust bunnies. Roll up your sleeves and do some scrubbing. Clean that nasty bong or bowl (soaking your bowl in a baggie with rubbing alcohol and salt for a few hours does the trick). Nothing’s better than a freshie, after all. Welcome to the spring clean, where buds aren’t always found on trees. Beth Mann is President of Hot Buttered Media.

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The Hippie Lighter Reduce your carbon footprint with hemp wick. By Erin Hiatt Touted as the environmentally friendly way to light up, hippies have been unspooling I-tal Hemp Wick— hemp twine coated with beeswax—for years to help spark joints and bowls. Now, they have other choices. “One day I saw a kid using a string to smoke with, and I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’” says Brett Watson, founder and President of Northern California’s Humboldt Hemp Wick. Watson has a background in forestry, makes hemp wick in cannabis-friendly Humboldt County and sells it online. His hemp wick prices range from $3.98 for 10 feet to $21.98 for 250 feet. The wicks come in three widths: fine, full or heavy. Watson also sells dispensers, from $15.98–$34.98. He plans to roll out a thicker-gauge hemp wick, called Bigfoot Fire. “You can use it for camping, emergencies, to light a fire, to fix your backpack strap,” he explains. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Lisa Taylor, founder of Wicked Wick of the West, has been selling hemp wick online for more than five years. She famously dresses up as a witch at Seattle Hempfest and hands out samples. Her brother turned her on to the wicked wick. “He gave me a hemp wick from this company in Hawaii and said, ‘There’s this hemp wick. You spend all this money on good-quality marijuana and then you torch it with chemicals,’” recalls the former lead singer of the Seattle rock band Water Fae. Taylor’s Wicked Wick costs $5 for five feet and $25 for a 400foot spool.

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Both Watson and Taylor view hemp wick as a healthier alternative to lighters, which contain butane, a noxious gas. With hemp wick, once you ignite the string, it burns like the wick of a candle until you put it out. Many believe that hemp wick provides a purer taste. For Watson, hemp wick has multiple uses. She keeps spools around the house for utility purposes, and says it’s especially helpful for people with carpal tunnel and arthritis conditions who can’t easily flick lighters. Both proprietors use locally produced organic beeswax, and currently source their hemp from Europe. Humboldt Hemp Wick can be found at Amazon, Etsy and at humboldt-traders.com. Taylor’s products are also available at Etsy and at wickedwickofthewest.com, as well as at many Seattle retail locations. Erin Hiatt writes for Freedom Leaf and THC magazine.

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REVIEWS

Willie Nelson’s Latest: God’s Problem Child By Roy Trakin

Scheduled for release just a day before his 84th birthday this April 29, Willie Nelson’s latest album, God’s Problem Child, caps off a period of feverish activity for the prodigious singer-songwriter. It’s Nelson’s ninth release since signing with Sony’s Legacy label in 2011, a period highlighted by his recent Grammy victory for Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin over heavy hitters like Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category.

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God’s Problem Child is Nelson’s first album featuring all new songs—he co-wrote seven of them with longtime producer Buddy Cannon—since 2014’s Band of Brothers. It contemplates the past and even dares to peek into the future. Songs like “Little House on the Hill,” written by Cannon’s 92-year-old mother, Lynell Rhodes, look backward, and “Old Timer” and “It Gets Easier” extol the benefits of aging. The former insists, “You’ve still got dreams inside your head/ Some days it’s a struggle just to get out of bed,” while the latter boasts, “As we get older/It gets easier to say go away, not today.” Appropriately for a guy who titled his 2012 memoir, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me

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REVIEWS When I Die, Nelson faces the prospect of death with his own stoned humor. “Still Not Dead” pokes a hole in all those online rumors. “I woke up still not dead again today,” he deadpans. “The Internet said I had passed away.” On his dead-serious political commentary, “Delete and Fast Forward,” a not-so-veiled reflection on the 2016 presidential campaign, Nelson warbles pointedly, “The elections are over and nobody won… We had a chance to be brilliant and we blew it again.” Mickey Raphael’s jocular harp and James Mitchell’s bluesy, Dead-like guitar riffs add layers to the tune. Regrets? Sure, Nelson’s had a few. On “A Woman’s Love,” he picks out a Latin melody on his faithful acoustic guitar, Trigger, over Jim “Moose” Brown’s plinking piano. Nelson croons about the fleeting nature of love on “Butterfly,” and can’t escape his past on the classic country lament, “Your Memory Has a Mind of Its Own,” a timeless sentiment he makes sound brand-new. The rueful “I Made a Mistake” is his mea culpa for past transgressions, on which he admits: I thought I was Jesus And believe me I’m not I thought I was right And I was wrong by a lot I feel a little like Elvis When he was alone I made another mistake Lord I thought I was wrong

1. “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” – on Heroes (2012)

2. Countryman – reggae album (2005)

3. “Me and Paul” – on Me & Paul

(1985). Lyric: “Busted in Laredo for reasons I’d rather not disclose.” Gary Nicholson, it tugs at the heartstrings when Nelson sings: A fugitive and a branded man Mama tried to understand Left us a lifetime of song And he won’t ever be gone

Nelson’s joined by Jamey Johnson, Tony Joe White and his old collaborator Leon Russell, who passed away in November, on the album’s title track, co-written by Johnson and White (of “Polk Salad Annie” and “Rainy Night in Georgia” fame). “I feel the shine following me,” Russell sings with his iconic Tulsa drawl. “Not far behind/ That’s where I wanna be.” It’s one of Russell’s last recorded moments. The closer, “He Won’t Ever Be Gone,” is dedicated to another of Nelson’s compadres, Merle Haggard, who also passed away in 2016. Written by Grammy-winning songwriter/producer

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Willie Nelson’s Top 3 Stoniest Songs and Albums

As Nelson emotes, Haggard’s son Ben delivers a wrenching electric guitar solo that ties a final bow on the song and album. Willie Nelson may be in the autumn of his years, but he’s certainly not going gently. God’s Problem Child offers conclusive proof that rumors of his demise, per Mark Twain, another humorous Southern storyteller with whom he has much in common, have been greatly exaggerated. Roy Trakin is the former Senior Editor of HITS and writes also writes for All Access.

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REVIEWS

The Autism Diet

Healthy cooking with the Daniels family.

By Cheri Sicard Erica Daniels packs a lot of hope into Cooking with Leo, especially for parents of autistic children who will relate to the author’s desperate struggle to not only heal Leo, her severely autistic son, physically, but also to connect with him emotionally. Like many on the autism spectrum, Leo suffers from severe and chronic digestive issues and life-threatening food allergies. Realizing the root of all healing comes with food, this dedicated mom spent years researching and experimenting to come up with ingredients and recipes that would improve her son’s health. Despite the hardships autism can put on a family, Cooking with Leo manages to be a joyous celebration of life. Daniels’ down-to-earth, reassuring tone is like getting advice from a trusted and sympathetic friend. If you bought Cooking with Leo for the 60 allergen-free, autism-diet-friendly recipes alone, you’d get your money’s worth. The book is beautifully produced with clear, kid-friendly instructions and lots of colorful photos. But it’s far more than just a cookbook. It’s a guide to how to use food and cooking to create bonding experiences and meaningful connections with your children, which is particularly important and challenging for parents of autistic kids. By following the advice in these pages, preparing meals becomes less of a chore and more of a party. Erica, Leo and his younger sister, Scarlett, actually have fun in the kitchen. The kids participate in every part of the process—shopping, recipe prep and cleanup. The recipes are all free of gluten, dairy, soy, nuts, peanuts, sesame, fish, refined sugars, GMOs, additives, preservatives, and artificial flavors or colors. With so many restrictions, you might

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expect boring or bland fare filled with unfamiliar “health food” ingredients that kids would balk at eating. To the contrary, even fussy kids will chow down Daniels family favorites like roast chicken, meatloaf, mac ’n’ cheese and chili, with gusto. Cooking with Leo should find a wider audience of people who just want to improve the quality of their family’s diets. Certainly, anyone with autism or family members on the autism spectrum—or people with common food allergens—will benefit from it. Parents grappling with similar challenges will find them less daunting after reading about Leo’s trials, tribulations, failures and successes. Daniels’ trailblazing efforts will no doubt empower others to take a more active approach to their children’s health. See Erica Daniels’ article, “Autism Matters,” in Issue 21.

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HENRY ROLLINS Keynote Speaker + VIP Reception

OMBC OREGON MARIJUANA BUSINESS CONFERENCE

APRIL 28, 2017 | EUGENE Valley River Inn

OregonMBC.com 888.920.6076

Tickets On Sale Now!

JOIN THE FREEDOM LEAF MOVEMENT ADVERTISING@FREEDOMLEAF 877-422-0411

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CHAMPS InterStore Heady Exchange The CHAMPS Heady Exchange has been created to give Smoke Shops around the country the ability to give their heady glass case a fresh look without having to invest a large amount of capital. By connecting retail stores around the country we hope to provide a way to safely and securely allow high end functional glass art to be traded amongst glass retailers. This is strictly an Inter Store Exchange. The public will NOT be able to participate. This is a free web service to verified retail stores that attend Champs. In addition at the Atlantic City show attendees can bring up to 2 heady pieces to the show and trade or sell them to other retailers free of charge. For more info call Shawn at (818) 469-5997 80 www.freedomleaf.com

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We’re Giving Away A Goodie Box An Hour! Filled With Fantastic Products From 12 Different Vendors Worth $2500 at Retail

And $2500 In Cold, Hard CASH! Every hour we will draw the name of one lucky store buyer*. That store wins a “Goodie Box” filled with items you can put on your shelves for sale! The items come from 12 different vendors and the total price of the items in the box is approximately $2500 at retail. The Goodie Box winners are then in the running for the GRAND PRIZE DRAWING - $2500 in Cold, Hard CASH! *Eligibility limited to brick and mortar stores with 51%+ tobacco and/or 420 products. Call for details.

CULTURE M

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COME EXPERIENCE THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY OF TOMORROW

The 2017 Southwest Cannabis Conference and Expo create an electric environment where industry members, entrepreneurs, local leaders, companies, job seekers and curious individuals come to learn about the rapidly expanding cannabis industry and the impact on our changing culture. Together we bridge the gap between state programs, education and responsible patient care. Get involved and learn more today.

DALLAS/FORT WORTH April 21-23, 2017

MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE June 8-10, 2017

PHOENIX October 12-14, 2017

R E G I S T E R & L E A R N M O R E AT S W C C E X P O.C O M

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