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(S P E CIAL IZE D IN TOP ICS OF M A R IJ UA N A I N SPANISH.)
juneFI2017 www.freedomleaf.com 3 A D IVI S IO N OF F R E E D OM LEA N C. COM (OTCQB: FR LF)
FEATURES
30 36 FL INTERVIEW: TOMMY CHONG Steve Bloom FREEDOM LEAF GOES TO GERMANY 42 Steve Bloom & Marguerite Arnold 50 HOW TO BECOME A BUDTENDER Chris Thompson 54 DR. BRONNER’S: FROM SOAP TO NUTS Erin Hiatt
THE SINISTER SEVEN: TRUMP’S ANTI-DRUG WARRIORS Allen St. Pierre
NEWS & REVIEWS
8 WORD ON THE TREE Mona Zhang 12 FIVE MARIJUANA MYTHS Paul Armentano 72 JOHN MAYER’S SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING Roy Trakin 76 MOVIE: VAGABONG Amanda Reiman 4
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C O N T E N T S COLUMNS
6 POT ENFORCEMENT 18 Erik Altieri LEGAL IN CANADA 20 Melissa Rolston SSDP2017 22 Scott Cecil SAI PARNTERS 26 Matt Chelsea ISRAELI RESEARCH HEMP WITH YOUR 60 Dr. Aseem Sappal 70 COFFEE Erin Hiatt THE SKINNY ON CHS 62 Dr. Frank D’Ambrosio 78 JUNE EVENTS PIZZA FELLA TAILGATE RECIPES 64 Cheri Sicard 79 Neal Warner BUDLESS IN BRITAIN 68 Beth Mann EDITOR’S NOTE Steve Bloom
Cover photo of Tommy Chong by Matt Emrich Design by Brandon Palma
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MATT EMRICH
EDITOR’S NOTE
Steve Bloom conducted the “Celebrity Interview” with Tommy Chong at the ICBC in Berlin.
Tommy Chong and the Search for the Most High With Tommy Chong on the cover of this issue and an excerpt from Cheech Marin’s autobiography in our last one, you might think we’re obsessed with Cheech & Chong. Well, you’re right. We think very highly of the activists, drug-policy reformers and celebrities who’ve been working for many years to reverse marijuana prohibition. That includes Cheech Marin and especially Chong, who was arrested for interstate paraphernalia sales in 2003 (his company Chong Bongs was caught in a Justice Department sting) and spent nine months in federal lockup. (He turned 79 on May 24.) Freedom Leaf met up with Chong, his son Paris and manager Jon Paul Cowen in Berlin, where the International Cannabis Business Conference took place in April. His team was there to promote Chong’s Choice products. One of the things I learned when I interviewed Tommy live onstage at the ICBC was that he and Paris are working on a new reality-TV show called The Search for the Most High. “We’re going to go around the world like Anthony Bourdain and look for the best of the best,” he revealed. “Actually, we’re just going to follow me around with a camera, because that’s what I do anyway.” An edited version of that interview starts on page 36.
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Another person in the cannabis industry we think highly of is David Bronner, the grandson of Dr. Emanuel Bronner, who founded the Dr. Bronner’s soap company in 1948. Who hasn’t used a Dr. Bronner’s soap, either as a bar or a liquid, with the arcane messages on the side of the packages? When I was growing up, it was in every hippie’s backpack and was used for all purposes: handwashing, dishwashing, shampooing. These days, all of Dr. Bronner’s soaps include hempseed oil. That’s primarily why we’re featuring an interview with David Bronner, written by our hemp expert, Erin Hiatt, on page 54. Politics is on our minds as well. We asked Allen St. Pierre to dig deep into Donald Trump’s inner circle to understand who’s who on his anti-drug team, which remains in flux (page 30). Will Trump gut the Office of National Drug Control Policy and eliminate the Drug Czar position altogether? At press time, it remained unclear which direction the White House is heading on the drug issue. Like most of you, we continue to hold our breath, but the signs are not positive. Stay tuned.
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Steve Blo m
Steve Bloom Editor-in-chief
ISSUE 25
JUNE 2017
FOUNDERS Richard C. Cowan & Clifford J. Perry
PUBLISHER & CEO Clifford J. Perry
ART DIRECTOR Joe Gurreri
VP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Ray Medeiros
NEWS EDITOR Mona Zhang
COMMUNITY & NONPROFIT MANAGER Chris Thompson
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Steve Bloom
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Brandon Palma
COPY EDITOR Steven Wishnia
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER Chris M. Sloan
VP OF ADVOCACY & COMMUNICATIONS Allen St. Pierre
ADVERTISING SALES AJ Aguilar
CONTRIBUTORS: Erik Altieri, Paul Armentano, Marguerite Arnold, Ngaio Bealum, Russ Belville, Scott Cecil, Matt Chelsea, Dr. Frank D’Ambrosio, Mia Di Stefano, Matt Emrich, Erin Hiatt, Mitch Mandell, Beth Mann, Rick Pfrommer, Amanda Reiman, Melissa Rolston, Dr. Aseem Sappal, Cheri Sicard, Roy Trakin, Neal Warner 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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Kansas City and Houston Area Decriminalize Pot
Kansas City, Mo., is among the many cities that have reformed their marijuana laws.
On Apr. 4, voters in Kansas City, Mo. approved a measure to decriminalize possession of marijuana. The new law reduces the maximum penalty for having less than 35 grams to a $25 fine. Previously, pot possession was a misdemeanor; people popped faced up to a $500 fine and 180 days in jail. One complication, however, is that without the possibility of jail time, defendants will no longer be eligible to get Legal Aid lawyers, who represented nearly 60% of people charged with possession last year. “This does not solve anything,” City Councilmember Alissia Canada says. “It just creates more problems for people who don’t have any money and are already overburdened by the criminal justice system.” Last year, nearly 70% of defendants in possession cases were African-Amer-
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ican, according to an analysis of court data by the Kansas City Star. Only about 30% of the city’s 450,000 residents are African-American. NORML KC executive director Jamie Kacz described the measure as a “baby step,” and said the organization was working on assembling a network of attorneys for those who are now ineligible for Legal Aid representation. Meanwhile, in Harris County, Tex., new District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Feb. 16 that her office would no longer prosecute possession of less than four ounces of marijuana as a criminal offense, as long as the person arrested takes a four-hour drug-education class. Harris County, which includes Houston and its inner suburbs, is the nation’s third-largest county, with 4.4 million residents.
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States Push Back vs. Threat of Federal Enforcement Several states with legal recreationalmarijuana markets are looking to their legislatures to protect businesses and consumers in the event of a federal crackdown. On Apr. 12, the Colorado State Senate approved SB 17-192, which would let cannabis businesses reclassify recreational marijuana as medical marijuana by transferring it to a medical licensee “based on a business need due to a change in local, state or federal law, or enforcement policy.” The bill, which would significantly decrease sales taxes collected on marijuana purchases (taxes on patients are lower than those on adult users) and excise taxes on businesses, could cost the state more than $100 million. At presstime, it was awaiting a state House vote. On Apr. 17, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill forbidding retailers from retaining personal information about consumers, such as their birthdates and driver’s license numbers. While retailers are required to see valid photo IDs to verify that the consumer is at least 21, the new law prohibits them from keeping that information for purposes such as marketing, unless the customer gives them written permission. These bills are a reaction to the Trump administration’s sabre-rattling, such as White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s February prediction that states that allow recreational cannabis cultivation and sale could expect to see “greater enforcement” from the federal government, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ April announcement that the Justice Department had formed a task
Oregon Governor Kate Brown
force to review its marijuana-enforcement policies. On Apr. 3, the governors of the four states that have established legal sales to adults—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington—fired off a letter to Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, imploring them to “engage with us” before changing federal policies on enforcement. “Twenty-eight states, representing more than 60% of Americans, have authorized some form of marijuanarelated conduct. As we face the reality of these legalizations, we stand eager to work with our federal partners to address implementation and enforcement concerns cooperatively.” Medical-cannabis patients and businesses are protected until Sept. 30 by the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment to the federal budget bill, which was extended by both houses of Congress on May 4. It prohibits the federal government from interfering with state medical-marijuana programs.
Trump Supports Duterte’s Filipino War on Drugs Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, in which more than 9,000 alleged drug users and dealers have been slaughtered since he took office last summer, has drawn international condemnation, including the UN expressing concern over human-rights abuses. However, that hasn’t swayed President
Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte
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Trump from cozying up to him. He called Duterte on Apr. 30 and invited him to visit Washington. The two had “a very friendly conversation,” the White House said. “They also discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world.” Human Rights Watch Asian advocacy director John Sifton was aghast. “By essentially endorsing Duterte’s murderous War on Drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings,” he stated. “Trump should be ashamed of himself.” One of Duterte’s fiercest critics, Sen. Leila de Lima, was arrested Feb. 23 and charged with taking bribes from drug traffickers. She vehemently denounced the accusations as an attempt by Duterte to silence a political opponent. “It’s my honor to be imprisoned for the things I am fighting for,” Lima said. “They will not be able to silence me and stop me from fighting for the truth and justice and against the daily killings and repression by the Duterte regime.” The government has signaled a
wider crackdown, bringing in the military to work on drug-enforcement efforts. Duterte’s allies in Congress are also pushing a bill that would allow police to target children young as nine years old. Meanwhile, on Apr. 18, two senior government officials, both speaking on condition of anonymity, described Filipino police carrying out extrajudicial killings and receiving cash payments for them. A police commander said he agreed to speak out because he was upset that the campaign was targeting low-level suspects. “Why aren’t they killing the suppliers?” one official asked. “Only the poor are dying.” The other official called the Philippines National Police a “killing machine [that] must be buried six feet under the ground.” Filipino lawyer Jude Sabio filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court, asking it to investigate the “continuing mass murder” in the country. The complaint included the names of various top officials. Some senators have spoken out against Duterte for offering to pardon police officers who are convicted of murder.
Moldy Federal Marijuana Hampers Sisley’s PTSD Study On Mar. 31, Johns Hopkins University backed out the first FDA- and DEA-approved clinical trial of whole-plant cannabis for post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans— before it had enrolled a single participant. The PTSD study, led by psychiatrist Dr. Sue Sisley, had received a $2.1 million grant from the Colorado Department of Health. Johns Hopkins, home of one of The infamous tin for federal medical marijuana patients. the nation’s most prestigious medical schools, had that the research weed supplied by the joined the study in 2015. “Our goals for National Institute on Drug Abuse was this study weren’t in alignment,” the unimoldy, stemmy and weak. “It didn’t reversity said in a statement. semble cannabis,” she said. “It didn’t Two days earlier, Sisley reported smell like cannabis.
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International Roundup: From Canada to South Africa More tolerant marijuana policies continue to spread beyond America’s borders.. On Apr. 13, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially introduced a bill to legalize cannabis, with a system for sales and cultivation expected to be in place by July 2018. The measure fulfills one of Trudeau’s campaign promises. The legislation is expected to pass. It would let adults 18 and older possess up to 30 grams of cannabis, although individual provinces can set higher age limits. Many regulatory details would be left up to individual provinces. (For more, turn to page 20.) On Apr. 28, the Mexican lower house passed a bill to legalize medical marijuana. President Enrique Pena Nieto is expected to sign it, even though he came out strongly against marijuana legalization in 2015. Also in April, a court in South Africa’s Western Cape province ruled that adults have the right to consume cannabis in their own homes. The province is appealing the decision to the Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest. Several more countries made significant moves in March. In Germany, authorities announced the formation of a regulatory agency that will oversee its medical-marijuana program. Patients are expected to be able to get the drug by 2019. (For more, turn to page 46).
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Argentine lawmakers passed a bill that permits the use of medical cannabis oil. The legislation also creates a medical-marijuana research program overseen by the Health Ministry. Patients will be able to receive the medicine from the federal government for free.
Fentanyl Producer Gets Approval for Synthetic THC On Mar. 23, the DEA gave Schedule II status to Syndros, a synthetic THC product developed by Insys Therapeutics. (Marijuana, of course, remains in Schedule I.) The Arizona-based pharmaceutical company also manufactures a fentanyl spray. Last December, the FBI arrested six former executives in an alleged conspiracy to bribe health-care providers to prescribe that intensely potent opioid product to patients who didn’t need it.
Last year, Insys donated $500,000 to oppose a state ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. The Arizona initiative was the only one of the nine cannabis-legalization measures on state ballots in November that was defeated. Mona Zhang publishes the daily cannabis newsletter Word On The Tree. Subscribe to WOTT at wordonthetree.com.
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Five Marijuana Myths
The biggest lies about pot and how to rebut them. By Paul Armentano MYTH
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Consuming Marijuana Lowers Intelligence
The source of this often-repeated claim is a 2012 longitudinal study by Madeline Meier and colleagues that associated the persistent use of cannabis prior to age 18 with lower IQ in middle age. However, a separate review of that data, published in the same journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, disputed any direct link between cannabis use and declining IQ. It argued that Meier’s team had failed to properly control for potential confounding factors, such as subjects’ socio-economic status. After accounting for those variables, the author theorized that the true effect of early-onset cannabis use on IQ “could be zero.” More recent longitudinal studies also dismiss the notion that cannabis use impairs IQ. A 2016 British study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology assessed IQ and educational performance among a cohort of 2,235 marijuana-using teens and non-users. “[T]he notion that cannabis use itself is causally related to lower IQ and poorer educational performance was not supported in this large teenage sample,” the authors concluded. In 2015, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and
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the University of Minnesota evaluated whether marijuana use was associated with changes in intellectual performance in two cohorts of adolescent twins. Participants were assessed for intelligence at ages nine to 12, before they had any involvement with marijuana, and again at ages 17 to 20. Investigators found no dose-response relationship between cannabis use and IQ decline. They also saw no significant differences in performance between marijuana-using subjects and their non-using twins. “In the largest longitudinal examination of marijuana use and IQ change... we find little evidence to suggest that adolescent marijuana use has a direct effect on intellectual decline,” they concluded. “The lack of a dose-response relationship and an absence of meaningful differences between discordant siblings lead us to conclude that the deficits observed in marijuana users are attributable to confounding factors that influence both substance initiation and IQ rather than a neurotoxic effect of marijuana.”
MYTH
2
Legal Cannabis Is Responsible for the Opioid Epidemic
Recent claims by the Trump administration that marijuana use is leading to the alarming rise in opioid abuse are not supported by the available evidence. In reality, numerous studies have found just the opposite.
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Specifically, researchers have linked legal marijuana access to lower rates of opioid use and of hospitalization and mortality from it. A 2016 study by the University of Michigan reported that chronicpain patients reduced their opioid use by 64% when cannabis became available. In Israel, researchers found similar results in a cohort of patients with treatment-resistant pain, reporting a 44% reduction in participants’ opioid consumption after medical cannabis was introduced. That substitution can result in saved lives. In March, the authors noted in Drug and Alcohol Dependence that medical-marijuana legalization was associated with significant reductions in opioid-related hospitalizations. Similarly, a 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine determined that legalizing medical cannabis is associated with a reduction of as much as 33% in deaths attributable to the use of prescription opiates and heroin.
ation would be more positive with heavier use,” the study’s lead researcher, UCLA pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin, stated in 2006. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect” among marijuana-smokers—who had lower incidences of cancer than non-users. Cannabis consumers can mitigate their exposure to the toxic gases produced by burning plant matter by using a vaporizer, which heats marijuana flowers to a point where cannabinoid vapors form, but below the point of combustion. Clinical studies assessing vaporization report that these devices all but eliminate subjects’ potential exposure to gaseous toxins and are “an effective and apparently safe vehicle for THC delivery.”
MYTH
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MYTH
3 Cannabis Smoke Exposure Is More Damaging to the Lungs Than Tobacco Smoke
States with Regulated Marijuana Markets Experience Surges in Violence
While some studies have linked chronic marijuana-smoke exposure to higher instances of cough, phlegm and bronchitis, science has refuted claims that cannabis inhalation causes the sort of serious respiratory diseases commonly associated with smoking tobacco. Specifically, the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana-smoking reported that it was not associated with lung-related cancers, even among subjects who reported smoking more than 22,000 joints over their lifetimes. “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the associ-
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Contrary to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ claim that “there’s more violence around marijuana than one would think,” states that license the production and distribution of marijuana have not seen an uptick in violent crime. In fact, many jurisdictions have had less violent crime since legalization. A 2014 study published by researchers at the University of Texas reported that the enactment of “medical-marijuana laws precedes a reduction in homicide and assault…. In sum, these findings run counter to arguments suggesting the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes poses a danger to public health in terms of exposure to violent crime and property crimes.” A 2012 federally funded study published by UCLA researchers also reported that the proliferation of medical-cannabis retailers in urban areas “was not associ-
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In one study, cannabis use was not associated with lung-related cancers, even among subjects who reported smoking more than 22,000 joints in their lifetimes. ated with violent-crime or property-crime rates.” It speculated that the dispensaries might actually reduce neighborhood crime, since many hire their own door security, have security cameras and take other steps to deter would-be criminals. Data from states that regulate recreational marijuana sales yield similar results. In Washington, after voters legalized adult use in 2012, violent crime declined 10% statewide. In Colorado, which legalized adult use the same year, rates of violent crime and property crime dropped in Denver afterwards. Crime rates have similarly decreased in Portland, Ore., according to the libertarian Cato Institute. (Oregon legalized adult use in 2014.) Overall, Cato’s researchers concluded that concerns about legalization leading to more crime have largely been exaggerated.
MYTH
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Cannabis Legalization Is Linked to a Rise in Traffic Fatalities
While some studies have found that THC-positive only drivers have a slightly higher risk of motor-vehicle accidents than drug-free drivers, it’s still significantly lower than the risk of accidents associated with driving after consuming alcohol. According to a study of 2,000 fatal crashes published in Injury Epidemiology in March, drivers who tested positive for alcohol were more than 10 times likely to have an accident than drivers who tested
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positive for THC. (Drivers who tested positive for both were more than 15 times as likely.) Most importantly, data from states that have liberalized marijuana’s legal status show no uptick in motor-vehicle crashes. “[O]n average, medical-marijuana law states had lower traffic fatality rates than non-MML states,” researchers at Columbia University reported in the December 2016 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. “Medical-marijuana laws are associated with reductions in traffic fatalities, particularly pronounced among those aged 25 to 44…. It’s possible that this is related to lower alcohol-impaired driving behavior in MML-states.” A 2011 assessment of traffic-fatality data from Colorado yielded a similar conclusion: Legal medical marijuana was “associated with a nearly 9% decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely due to its impact on alcohol consumption.” In March, a Congressional Research Service report, “The Marijuana Policy Gap and the Path Forward,” concluded that there was “no trend identified in the percentage of drivers testing positive for marijuana,” either by itself or in combination with other drugs/alcohol, “for those involved in traffic fatalities and who were tested for drugs or alcohol” in Washington state after legalization. A similar review of motor-vehicle crash data by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, issued in December 2016, noted that the “risk of crashes while driving under the influence of THC is lower than drunk driving.” Paul Armentano is deputy director of NORML. This article originally appeared at alternet.org.
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Justice Department Reviewing Fed Marijuana Enforcement By Erik Altieri On Apr. 5, Attorney General Jeff “Good People Don’t Smoke Marijuana” Sessions (caricatured below) issued a memo outlining his request for a task force to look into several issues, including the enforcement of federal marijuana laws. The memo was sent to 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices and Department of Justice division heads to provide “an update on the Department’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety.” Sessions announced the creation of the task force on Feb. 27. The memo says its subcommittees “will also undertake a review of existing policies in the area of charging, sentencing and marijuana to ensure consistency with the Department of Justice’s overall strategy on reducing violent crime and with Administration goals and priorities. Another subcommittee will explore our use of asset forfeiture and make recommendations on any improvements needed to legal authorities, policies and training to most effectively attack the financial infrastructure of criminal organizations.” The task force’s report, due by July 27, might be the first formal announcement on federal marijuana policy from the Trump administration, which has sounded some alarming notes on the issue. On Apr. 3, the governors of the four states that already allow the sale and cultivation of marijuana for adult use—
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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker—sent a letter to Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling on them to uphold the Obama administration’s policies towards states with reformed marijuana laws, as laid out in the 2013 “Cole Memo.” That memorandum instructs federal prosecutors in adult-use states not to expend resources prosecuting the sale or cultivation of cannabis as long as they follow a set of rules, such as not selling to minors. “Overhauling the Cole Memo is sure to produce unintended and harmful consequences,” the governors wrote. “Changes that hurt the regulated market would divert existing marijuana product into the black market and increase dangerous activity in both our states and our neighboring states.” Congress can deny Sessions the ability to even consider a crackdown on legal marijuana by approving the bipartisan Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, which would allow states to legalize medical or adult use of marijuana without fear of federal incursion. To change government policies on cannabis, Freedom Leaf readers need to work at all levels— federal, state and local. Get engaged and be active. Contact your elected officials on pending legislation and join your local NORML chapter at norml. org/chapters.
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Erik Altieri is executive director of NORML.
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In Canada, Legalization Is Right Around the Corner By Melissa Rolston On April 13, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced a bill in the House of Commons that would regulate the production and sale of cannabis for recreational use by July 2018. If passed, Canada would become the second country, after Uruguay, to legalize marijuana. The act would “allow adults to possess and access regulated, quality controlled legal cannabis,” the government’s Website says. It also “seeks to restrict youth access to cannabis; protect young people from promotion or enticements to use cannabis; deter and reduce criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those breaking the law, especially those who import, export or provide cannabis to youth; protect public health through strict product safety and quality requirements; reduce the burden on the criminal justice system; provide for the legal production of cannabis to reduce illegal activities… and enhance public awareness of the health risks associated with cannabis.” The bill allows all Canadian residents 18 years and older to possess “up to 30 grams of legal dried cannabis or equivalent in non-dried form,” share “up to 30 grams of legal cannabis with other adults,” buy “dried or fresh cannabis and cannabis oil from a provin-
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cially-licensed retailer,” cultivate “up to four plants per residence” and produce solvent-free “cannabis products, such as food or drinks, at home.” It would set penalties of up to 14 years in prison for “giving or selling cannabis to youth and using a youth to commit a cannabis-related offense” and “taking cannabis across Canadian borders.” In addition, “illegal distribution or sale” and “production of cannabis beyond personal cultivation limits or with combustible solvents” would be punishable by tickets for “small amounts,” and up to 14 years in prison for more. With prohibition seemingly coming to an end, the entrepreneurial bug has bitten many Canadian medical-marijuana patients, inspiring them to open their own businesses. The Toronto chapter of Women Grow is working tirelessly to help achieve the group’s vision of cultivating one million female and diverse leaders in the cannabis industry. Our team is focused on curating business-centered educational events that assist the longstanding members of Toronto’s cannabis community. We educate, empower and connect Women Grow members at our monthly Signature Networking Events. The next event is scheduled for June 1. Melissa Rolston is Women Grow’s Toronto co-chair.
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Diversity Dominates Discussions at SSDP2017 By Scott Cecil From March 24-26, 400 Students for a Sensible Drug Policy members, alumni and staff from 13 nations gathered for the SSDP2017 International Drug Policy Conference in Portland, Ore. It was the first time the annual conference was held in the Pacific Northwest. Holding the event in SSDP’s Pacific region, where all five states (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii) have some form of legal cannabis markets, gave a great glimpse of what a post-cannabis prohibition SSDP network might look like. Those working within the movement to end the War on Drugs have been wondering how their work will change as the struggle to end cannabis prohibition continues to mount victories. That was a major theme of the conference: What still needs to be done on cannabis policy, beyond legalization? In particular, how should policy allocate resources to marginalized communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the drug war? And how can we dismantle barriers for those convicted of drug crimes to getting jobs and housing and building a future, instead of relegating them to a permanent underclass? One of the better-attended sessions, “Staying Woke: Ally-ship, Racial Politics and the Collateral Consequences of the Drug War,” focused on how drug-policy reformers can “stay woke,” and keep informed and conscious. Panelists discussed what those with racial, economic, gender and political privilege can do in order to be effective allies; suggested that radical racial politics are too divisive to help advance the mission to oppose the drug war and mass incarceration; and offered personal stories that demonstrated how the drug war has hurt marginalized groups.
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Sanho Tree addresses the SSDP2017 crowd.
More Conference Highlights • Oregon Attorney General Ellen
Rosenblum gave the keynote address, talking about the progress Oregon has made on criminal-justice reform and cannabis-policy reform, and how she wants the state to continue to be a leader on those issues. • Drug-war scholar Sanho Tree, a longtime SSDP supporter, gave a rousing speech on Mar. 26 that included a scathing indictment of Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and his slaughter of drug users. • SSDP chapters elected six new members to the board of directors, including our first African student board member. SSDP2018 will take place in Baltimore on March 2-5, 2018. Scott Cecil is SSDP’s outreach coordinator.
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THE DRUG THEFAILED. DRUG WAR Start making sense™ WAR FAILED. Start making sense™
Start a chapter, join the Sensible Society, and learn more at Start a chapter, join the ssdp.org Sensible Society, and learn more at
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ssdp.org
NCIA Cannabis Business Summit & Expo Preview One of the most influential cannabis trade shows in the U.S., the Cannabis Business Summit & Expo, returns to Oakland on June 12-14. Hosted by the industry’s only national trade group, the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), the award-winning event brings together the brightest minds and hungriest entrepreneurs in the business for an educational and rewarding experience. “It reflects the historic role that California will be playing and the excitement for the potential,” says NCIA deputy director Taylor West. After decades of thriving in a difficult legal atmosphere, the cannabis sector on the West Coast has emerged as markedly professional. That tone was evident at the 2016 Business Summit, where California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Ahmed Rahim, founder of Oakland-based Numi Tea, gave keynote addresses. This year’s keynote speaker is former Mexican president Vicente Fox. The panelists include West, NCIA executive director Aaron Smith, Betty Aldworth, Steve DeAngelo, Troy Dayton, Sam Tracy, Henry Wykowski, Shaleen Title, Hezekiah Allen, David Borden, Liana Held and many more.
PANEL TRACKS OR THEMES
• Cultivation & Processing: Tips, tricks and tools to increase yield, make the best products possible, and minimize risk. • Fine Print: The financial and legal nuances essential to running a CannaBusiness. • Leading Edge: Introducing entrepreneurs to the newest developments and latest buzz in the cannabis industry. • Policy and Reform: A broad selection of topics to help cannabis businesses stay compliant with the law. • Running Your CannaBusiness: A variety of topics that every CannaBusiness owner should know.
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NCIA executive director Aaron Smith
PANEL DISCUSSIONS SUBJECTS
• Building Trust with the Cannabis Consumer Through Precise Dosing • Cannabis Real Estate: Maximize Your Business with a Strong Foundation • Changing the Health-Care Paradigm: Medical Cannabis Leads the Way • Evolving Regulations on Social Use of Cannabis • Green Rush Meets Sustainability • Idea to Market: Penetration, Domination and Profits • Media Masters: Training for the Spotlight • Opportunities and Pitfalls Facing Tribal CannaBusinesses • Power-Saving, Resource Consumption and Productive Grows • Pros and Cons of Different Cultivation Methods • Raising Money for Your Cannabis Company • Reforming Multilateral Drug Treaties • Registering Patents and Trademarks • Roadmap for Licensing Under MCRSA in 2018 • Surviving IRS Section 280E Enforcement • Sustainably Growing the Industry Through Inclusion of Communities Targeted by the War on Drugs • Ten Tips to Keep Your Cultivation Facility Clean • The Impact of Local Government Regulation on CannaBusinesses • Unveiling the Future: A New Crop of Infused Products • Whole-Plant Extraction and the Entourage Effect When: June 10-12 Where: Oakland Marriott City Center, Oakland, Calif. Website: cannabisbusinesssummit.com Cost: $145-$595
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SAI Partners with Freedom Leaf’s Allen St. Pierre
By Matt Chelsea Marty Joyce knows how to avoid risk in early-stage business launches in emerging industries. A 30-year veteran of Wall Street, he navigated the rough-and-tumble world of Internet stocks during the late 1990s and early 2000s. With a long list of blue-chip investors, Joyce has worked for decades as a deal banker on capital-raising efforts for publicly traded companies. After turning his attention to the cannabis industry eight years ago and slowly building up his team, Joyce has formally launched Sensible Alternative Investments (also known as SAI Partners) as a budding venturecapital firm. For now, Joyce is steering the Boston-based company toward “leafless” investments, avoiding businesses that directly touch the plant, such as dispensaries or grow facilities. He took his time making his first moves into cannabis. Joyce considered investing in Eaze, the so-called “Uber of pot” that makes deliveries where it’s legal under state law, but chose to pass it up.
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Marty Joyce He also weighed investments in PAX vaporizers and MJ Freeway, a cannabis compliance software maker, but while these companies remain viable today, Joyce says they didn’t seem like a good fit at the time. “We passed on a lot of early deals,” he tells Freedom Leaf. “People were throwing money at things. We figured if it doesn’t make sense, we shouldn’t do it. We have a good system of checks and balances.” Finally, Joyce took a long look at Merry Jane, the cannabis-lifestyle Internet portal and production company launched by Snoop Dogg and Ted Chung in 2015. “It checked off all our boxes,” Joyce said. “We’re math guys, and their demographic reach was strong from millennials to baby boomers.” In 2015, SAI Partners and other investors participated in a $10 million Round A capital-raising for Merry Jane. Joyce says the value of his firm’s investment has already increased about eightfold, based on recent private valuations of the company’s growth.
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With this success under its belt, SAI management Partners is raising $75 million for a venteam, deep investor ture-capital fund, which held a closing network and prudent on April 20. While Joyce declines to investment strategies. He talk about fundraising in detail, he says decided to focus on investSAI has numerous contacts from his ment opportunities in cannabis days on Wall Street. The firm’s ties to companies that don’t directly handle many top bankers and venture capitalthe plant. ists make it easier to find prospective “Research bore out that ancillary investments and attract investments in the capital for deals. cannabis space proHe continues to vided greater return look for cannabis on investment than investments with his direct investment team: chief investment into cultivation and officer Mark Slater, sales without the a former investment clear legal risks crebanker who worked ated by the ongoing with Joyce on deals in federal prohibition,” the past, and brings St. Pierre notes. a long track record This approach Allen St. Pierre and deep connections may prove effective if to big institutional inthe Trump administravestors; and Allen St. tion’s reefer-madness Pierre, former execubluster turns into tive director of NORML policy. “Bittersweetly, and current vice preswith the Trump adident of communicaministration seemingly tions and advocacy for doubling down on Freedom Leaf, and rhetoric and actions to now a partner at SAI. ‘bring back the War on St. Pierre says Drugs,’ SAI’s investJoyce contacted him ment strategy is inMark five years ago, just as creasingly looking preSlater the cannabis industry scient—and therein, was eyeing the prosinvestable,” he adds. pect of sales to adults being legalized Joyce sees St. Pierre as an invaluin Colorado and Washington State. “At able resource for SAI because of his exthe time I advised him that while federal pertise in a sector that could be worth laws still prohibit any cultivation, sale and tens of billions within the next decade. use—even for medical use—there will So far the firm has a Wall Street guy who be a large ‘green rush’ of companies that knows how to raise capital (Joyce), a are willing to take the legal and financial rock-star banker (Slater) and a leading risks of running afoul of the DEA, and industry expert in the U.S. market (St. at the same time be a legally compliant, Pierre), plus other talent at the ready. state-licensed cultivator or seller,” he Potential areas of interest include explains. compliance software and services, real When he left NORML last year, St. estate, technology and media. “We’re Pierre received numerous job offers and building a terrific team,” Joyce brags, inquiries from headhunters, but opted then predicts: “We feel we’re at the beto join SAI because of the firm’s ginning of a 40-year monster industry.”
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THE SINISTER SEVEN
Pot prohibitionists dominate the Trump administration. Here’s a rundown of its top drug warriors.
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BY ALLEN ST. PIERRE
mpervious to public opinion, voterenacted laws, science, the Constitution and common sense regarding cannabis, Pres. Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have been assembling a virulently anti-pot team that seeks to roll back the Obama administration’s criminal-justice reforms and return federal drug policy to the darkest days of the War on Drugs in the 1980s and early 1990s. At nearly the four-month mark in his presidency, Trump’s national drug control strategy teeters between chaotic and reckless with his first drug czar nominee, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), going down in flames and rumors galore in Washington budgetary circles that the Trump administration is actually going to to slash the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) budget by 95%, effectively closing down the bureaucracy by reducing the staff by half and ending their two primary grants programs. With the Marino nomination pulled, Richard Baum, a 20-year federal bureaucrat is currently leading the ONDCP. “These drastic proposed cuts are frankly heartbreaking and, if carried out, would cause us to lose many good people who contribute greatly to ONDCP’s mission and core activities,” he lamented on May 5 after an Office of Management and Budget document was leaked to the press. On May 10, the White House revealed the members of the newly formed Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. They’re a who’s who of well-known advocates for longfailed drug policies, including Massachusetts’ Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who opposed the cannabis legalization voter initiative that passed in his state in November; North Carolina’s anti-pot Republican Gov. Roy Cooper; former alco-
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holic, drug addict and Democratic Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who also heads up a national anti-cannabis non-profit, Smart Approaches to Marijuana; Harvard professor and former ONDCP staffer Dr. Bertha Madras, who’s against both medical marijuana and Naloxone; and New Jersey’s rabidly anti-drug Republican Gov. Chris Christie (more about him later in the article).
JEFF SESSIONS A Republican senator from Alabama for 20 years before Trump appointed him to the nation’s top law-enforcement post, Jeff Sessions has long been the most rabidly anti-marijuana member of Congress, hands down. For his entire political career—most notably when he was Alabama’s attorney general—he has taken every opportunity to show both
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his ignorance and loathing of cannabis and of the adults who cultivate, sell and consume it. In Issue 23, we summarized his most offensive comments, such as “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” Since then, he’s stated, “I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much” and claimed that pot is “only slightly less awful” than heroin. At a press conference held at an Air Force base in Arizona on Apr. 11, Sessions added: “When they nominated me for attorney general, you would have thought the biggest issue in America was when I said, ‘I don’t think America’s going to be a better place if they sell marijuana at every corner grocery store.’ I’m surprised [people] didn’t like that.” (According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, 59% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, a historic high point of public support.) On May 12, Sessions sent shivers down the spines of drug reformers everywhere when he issued a memo that calls for stricter mandatory minimum sentencing in drug cases, wiping out the Obama Justice Department’s efforts to reduce the prison population with more lenient sentencing in non-violent cases. “Consistent with longstanding Department of Justice policy, any decision to vary from policy must be approved by a U.S. Attorney or Assistant Attorney General,” he wrote. The cast of characters Sessions has assembled to take control of the $30-$40 billion a year War on Drugs is just as troubling as his attitude and record. Nominated by Trump to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Commission (FDA), New JerseyDR. SCOTT born Dr. Scott GottGOTTLIEB lieb, 44, is a longtime drug-industry consultant who, if approved, will likely have a major say on issues such as rescheduling mari-
juana. Efforts to move it out of Schedule I, which forbids any medical use, failed again last year, but if it were rescheduled, that would allow genuine scientific research on its medical safety and utility, free from the influence of federal law-enforcement and propaganda agencies. Associated with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute think tank, Gottlieb was a deputy commissioner of the FDA in the Bush II administration, and has also served on the boards of Big Pharma firms like GlaxoSmithKline. “He’s basically been a shill for pharmaceutical corporations for much of his career,” says Public Citizen director Dr. Michael Carome. “That has no doubt framed his thinking. They believe he’ll promote their interests.” From 2013-2105, Gottlieb received $413,000 from various pharmaceutical and medical-device companies. In 2016, he was paid $3 million in speaking fees. Until last May, he was also a director of Kure Corp., which manufactures e-cigs and nicotine products. “With Gottlieb, conflicts of interest should be addressed,” notes Rachel Sachs, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
TOM PRICE Trump’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), 62, is a physician from Michigan who relocated to the Atlanta suburbs after completing his residency as an or-
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DEA’S CHUCK ROSENBERG: “What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal— because it’s not.” thopedic surgeon at Emory University. In 1996, he was elected to the Georgia Senate, and moved up to the U.S. House in 2004, winning a seventh term last November. HHS oversees the scientific arms of the narcocracy: the FDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Rather than acknowledge the medicinal benefits of cannabis, Price has consistently relied upon dated and non-scientific talking points to espouse his uncaring views. “He has a long record of opposing marijuana-policy reforms that have come to a vote in the House,” says John Hudek of the Brookings Institute. “Price is a physician, and the medical community broadly has been conservative about the use of medical marijuana, and nearly universally opposes it for recreational use.” Like Marino, Price voted against the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment (six times) and the VA doctors’ bill (three times), as well as against a bill that would prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from targeting adult-use states like Colorado. However, he did back hemp and CBD bills. In 2016, Drug Policy Action and NORML both gave him Ds for his voting record.
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STEVEN H. COOK Appointed by Sessions as a senior official in the Justice Department, Steven Cook is a former cop who rose to prominence as a U.S. Attorney in Tennessee. Like Sessions, he wants to swing drug policy back to the Just Say No cliché of the 1980s, when “we started filling prisons with the worst of the worst,” he said in 2016. “If hardline means my focus is on protecting communities from violent felons and drug traffickers, then I’m guilty. I don’t think that’s hardline. I think that’s exactly what the American people expect of their Department of Justice.” Cook also opposed the department’s reductions of mandatory-minimum sentences during Obama’s tenure. “We were discouraged from using mandatory minimums,” he complained. “The charging memo handcuffed prosecutors. And it limited when enhancements can be used to increase penalties, an important leverage when you’re dealing with a career offender in getting them to cooperate.” He added: “Drug trafficking is inherently violent. Drug traffickers are dealing in a heavy cash business. They can’t resolve disputes in court. They resolve disputes in the street, and they resolve them through violence.” With Sessions and Cook running the DOJ, expect the screws to tighten on drug enforcement.
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CHUCK ROSENBERG CHRIS CHRISTIE After Trump passed him over for several cabinet-level positions, New Jersey Gov. Christie was tapped in March to head the federal government’s new addiction commission. “Addiction is a disease,” he stated about its focus on the opioid crisis. “It’s a disease that can be treated.” For more than two decades, first as a U.S. Attorney and then as governor, Christie has often espoused the “gateway theory,” that cannabis use leads to heroin and other hard drugs, although it has been debunked by both the DEA and NIDA. Several weeks after the presidential election, an emboldened Christie noted in a radio interview that he had “watched too many kids start their addiction with alcohol and marijuana and then move on to much more serious drugs. Every study shows marijuana is a gateway drug.” After Colorado and Washington both legalized marijuana in 2012, Christie went on the warpath. “I think it’s a mistake,” he bristled. “It’s certainly not something I’ll ever permit as long as I’m governor. We’re not going to have recreational pot in New Jersey. Christie has also taken a stance against medical marijuana, which is legal in his state. “There’s no such thing,” he chortled. “It’s just marijuana, OK? It’s not different.”
At press time, the Trump administration had not nominated a new director for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). That keeps Obama holdover Chuck Rosenberg, 56, a longtime drug warrior, on as acting administrator. Rosenberg replaced Bush holdover Michele Leonhart in 2015 after she was kayoed by a sex scandal among DEA agents stationed in Colombia. He too opposes the very idea of medical cannabis. “What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal—because it’s not,” Rosenberg told reporters in 2015. “We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don’t call it medicine—that is a joke. There are pieces of marijuana—extracts or constituents or component parts—that have great promise. But if you talk about smoking the leaf of marijuana—which is what people are talking about when they talk about medicinal marijuana—it has never been shown to be effective as a medicine.” This reactionary opinion is to the right of Trump and his press secretary, Sean Spicer, who have both occasionally acknowledged the efficacy of cannabis for seriously ill patients. Rosenberg was also a U.S. Attorney and worked as FBI director James Comey’s chief of staff. A former Marine Corps general may not be a likely advocate for cannabis-law reform. However, in one of his first public
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JOHN KELLY: “ICE will continue to use marijuana possession, distribution and convictions as essential elements as they build their deportationand-remove packages for targeted operations against illegal aliens.” way drug that frequently leads to harder drugs. Its use and possession is against federal law, and until the law is changed by the U.S. Congress, we in DHS, along with the rest of the federal government, are sworn to uphold all the laws that are on the books.” Kelly went on to explain that, “when marijuana is found at aviation checkpoints and baggage screening, [Transportation Security Administration] personnel will also take appropriate action,” and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement “will continue to use marijuana possession, distribution and convictions as essential elements as they build their deportation-and-remove packages for targeted operations against illegal aliens.” Which goes to show you can’t trust any unscripted positive statements about marijuana or drug-policy reform that come from the Trump administration.
JOHN KELLY interviews since taking over as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), John Kelly surprisingly stated on Apr. 16 that “marijuana is not a factor in the War on Drugs” and that the country’s drug problems would not be solved by “arresting a lot of users.” Two days later, Kelly did an aboutface. “Let me clear about marijuana,” he said. “It is a potentially dangerous gate-
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The participation of former prosecutors, ardent drug warriors and Big Pharma insiders like Sessions, Gottlieb, Price, Cook, Christie, Rosenberg and Kelly in future policy-making regarding cannabis is cause for major concern. Though the White House has not yet made any decisions or pronouncements on whether it will continue the Obama administration’s policies of tolerating state legalization up to a point, it’s hard to remain optimistic that it will for much longer. Allen St. Pierre is former executive director of NORML and Freedom Leaf’s VP of advocacy and communications.
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FREEDOM LEAF INTERVIEW
For the last 14 months, Tommy Chong and I have made five stops on the International Cannabis Business Conference circuit, starting in San Francisco in 2016. As his personal interviewer, I created a biographical program about Chong’s life. I ask the questions, we show historical photos and play audio and video clips, and he offers pithy answers about his life as a standup comedian in Cheech & Chong, as an actor and director, and his overall career in cannabis. The latest stop was in Berlin, on April 11 at the Maritim ProArte Hotel. Here’s an abridged version of our talk. 36 www.freedomleaf.com 36 www.freedomleaf.com
INTERVIEW BY | STEVE BLOOM PHOTOS BY | MATT EMRICH How do you like Berlin? I like coming to marijuana conferences, because there’s always a gift involved. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. A lot of good smoke, that’s why I’m here. You’ve had several bouts with cancer the last few years. How are you doing? No more cancer, it’s all gone. I’ve got a clean bill of health. I don’t have an asshole, but no cancer. What do you attribute to your recovery? Marijuana. It gave me an appetite. When you get old and you don’t eat, you die. What are memories of Europe in the 1980s when you lived in France? While I was making Up in Smoke, my wife, Shelby, learned French and lived in Paris with her sister. As soon as I got a chance to shoot a movie in Europe, I took it. We shot The Corsican Brothers in France. The only problem I had with the movie was to convince Cheech to do it in France. That’s when I really became a movie director.
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Why did you choose France? I wanted my kids to have a taste of Europe growing up, and why not? Paris was very beautiful. From Paris we went to Morocco on vacations, and to anywhere there was really good weed. With Donald Trump now the president of the U.S., have you giving any thought to moving back to Europe? No, not at all, but it shows you that God has a sense of humor. God said, “I’m going to give your Trump, but I’m going to give you pot too.” Pot will get your through the Trump years, believe me. During the Donald Trump follies we’re going through now, it’s the marijuana that will get us through. You were born on May 24, 1938 in Edmonton, Alberta, and raised in Calgary, in Canada. What’s your heritage? My mother was Scotch and Irish. My father was from China. My mother’s sister married into a Ukrainian family, so I was also raised Ukrainian style. My background is so diverse. That’s the great thing about Canada, it’s such a melting pot. That’s why I feel so at home in Berlin, because I feel like I’m in Canada somewhere. When was the first time you smoked pot? I was 17 years old at a jazz club in Calgary. A Chinese jazz musician brought back a Lenny Bruce album and a couple of joints from California. He gave me the Lenny Bruce record and the joint. We lit his joint up, because I saved mine, and I got high for the first time. You were in the Motown group, Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. What was that like? Our big claim to fame is we played with Jimi Hendrix one night. He sat in with the band. It was a lot of fun, until I got fired over not having a green card. But [Motown founder] Berry Gordy gave me $5,000, and that started my solo career.
What are your first memories of Richard “Cheech” Marin? He had real short hair, because he was dodging the draft from America in Canada, and was trying to blend in. He was the first Mexican I ever met, so I just wanted to touch him. When he met me, he’d never seen anything like me before either. I had real long hair, a Genghis Khan kind of look. Ultimately, we snuck Cheech back into America and went to Los Angeles. We scuffled around trying to make it as a comedy team and we finally did. How did you get the name Cheech & Chong? We were going to be a band at first, so I put a band together. But Cheech and I went out and did comedy for 40 minutes and never played one note. That night we were driving home in the rain. I asked Cheech what his nickname was. I was going, “Cheech & Chong, Cheech & Chong,” and that was it. What’s the story behind your most famous Cheech & Chong routine, “Dave’s Not Here”? Cheech didn’t know I was going to stall. In the original version, he swore a lot. He was really pissed off at me because I wouldn’t open the door. It gave us a path to how to do comedy. Basically, I tortured Cheech for nine albums and six movies. What was it like back then? It was a lot of work. We were constantly working. We’d be in the studio, then on the road, then back in the studio while were on the road. We were working, working, working. We even opened for the Rolling Stones. Which are your favorite Cheech & Chong movies? Still Smokin, because it was the last time we did our nightclub act on the screen. It was supposed to be a concert movie. But when they offered us a million dollars to do a concert movie, I thought, “Wow, a million bucks, I could
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“Basically, I tortured Cheech for nine albums and six movies” do a real movie with that,” especially in Amsterdam. So we turned it from a concert movie to a real movie. I also love The Corsican Brothers. We didn’t do any dope humor in it. That’s what Cheech wanted. By that time, Cheech was tired of doing Cheech & Chong. He wanted to get away from the drugs. Unfortunately, that was the last movie Cheech & Chong ever made. In 1986, Cheech & Chong split up. Was that the main reason? We spent almost 10 years making records and doing live performances, and then another 10 years doing movies. That’s enough. Cheech wanted to try other things, and he did.
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Your life took an unexpected turn in 2003, when you were arrested for interstate paraphernalia sales. You spent nine months in jail. How did that affect you? I was always fascinated with jail, so when my turn came, I was like, “Maybe this won’t be so bad.” Also, I was in my late sixties and I needed to rest. It was one of those minimumsecurity prisons. We cooked out own food and had our own garden. I met a lot of lawyers and doctors in jail, and a ton of pot-growers. When you go to prison and you’re a celebrity, it’s a whole different environment. I spent a lot of my time taking pictures with everybody.
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“Pot will get you through the Trump years, believe me.” What are thoughts on mass incarceration in America? If you look at it from a practical standpoint, you can see it’s good and bad. It’s not good that they arrest people based on race, which they do quite a bit, especially with the drug laws. But on the other hand, when you go to federal prison, if you don’t have a high-school diploma, you have to go to school. Schools are available for you in prison. So I went to school in prison. I studied and tried to get my GED, but I failed it. How has cannabis helped you? If it wasn’t for pot, I wouldn’t have anything that I have today. I don’t know what I’d be doing. But because I got high on pot I came up with all of these great ideas. Medically, it calmed me down, and I started having thoughts of healing. I pictured myself healing. I pictured myself walking out of the hospital healed. Life really is consciousness. If you can manipulate your consciousness yourself—like yogis and people that mediate or are into martial arts do—then you can do anything. Not just heal your body of cancer, you can write great novels and invent great things. When I became a comedian, the first thing I learned was how powerful laughter is. If you can make people laugh, that’s so much power. If you make people laugh and smile, they always want to be around you. There’s humor in everything, no matter what’s happening with your life.
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Tommy Chong and his son, Paris
Inside, I’m not old. When I buy clothes I still go to the skateboard shop. I dress like a teenager because I feel like a teenager. That’s really the secret for me. It’s consciousness. If you can keep it at a high, loving level, you will, if not heal the disease, understand what you’re going through. When you learn all you can on earth, then you evolve to another plane of existence. You’re in Germany promoting your company Chong’s Choice, which is available wherever marijuana is legal in the U.S. Will your products be sold in Europe soon as well? We’re going to get it all over the world. I’m personally involved in testing the products. The only thing I can guarantee is that when you taste or use a Chong’s Choice product, it will be of the highest quality available in that area. We talk to people who want to be involved with me and my philosophy and my way of doing it. I hear you’re also working on a reality show. My son Paris and I are doing a TV show called The Search for the Most High. We’re going to go around the world like Anthony Bourdain and look for the best of the best wherever. Actually, we’re just going to follow me around with a camera because that’s what I do anyway.
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Freedom Leaf Goes to
Germany
NOTES AND PHOTOS FROM THE ICBC IN BERLIN
By Steve Bloom Medical-marijuana law reform started in the U.S. and has been spreading globally over the last 20 years, primarily to Canada, Israel and the Netherlands. Just this past March, Germany became the latest major Western country to adopt a medipot program. With this in mind, I board-
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ed a plane to Berlin for the International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC) on Apr. 10. When I arrived, there was fresh German grass and Moroccan hash to smoke. While Germans usually mix tobacco in with their spliffs, I eschewed the nicotine and took pure cannabis hits. The ICBC started in San Francisco in 2015, and was held in Vancouver last
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year. The Berlin program was packed with German cannabis experts, plus Americans and Canadians who traveled many hours to share their knowledge with European counterparts. The big cannabis news in Germany is the government’s decision to move ahead with medical marijuana. It’s currently available as imports in pharmacies. But by 2019 (at the latest, 2020), German companies will start producing their own pot, which will be covered by health insurance. “The potential is enormous,” one German speaker said. In 2016, 170 kilos of cannabis flower were consumed in Germany by 1,000 patients, and another 9,000 patients are expected to enroll this year. Dutch and Canadian companies are currently exporting medical cannabis to Germany. “Expect that Germany will do it the right way,” was
a common refrain. (For more on this complicated program, turn to page 46.) Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) flew in to deliver the keynote speech on Apr. 12. A former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, he loves to wax nostalgically about when Republicans ran the U.S. in the ’80s. Now, he’s best known in the marijuana community as co-author of the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment to the federal budget bill that protects patients and medical cannabusinesses from federal enforcement of marijuana laws. (The amendment was temporarily extended on May 4.) “No money shall be used in this appropriation of money to supersede state law when that state has legalized medical marijuana,” the congressman explained.
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Wearing a red “Make Cannabis Great Again” cap, Rohrabacher discussed his meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York. “I was very clear about the marijuana issue,” he recounted. “Trump was clear about medical use and leaving it up to the states. I hope he and [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions understand that people want the freedom to use cannabis as U.S. citizens. It’s time to tear down this wall.” It was an appropriate comment in a country that was once divided into West and East nations, with a huge wall separating their parts of Berlin. That
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separation ended in 1989, and you see remnants of the wall all around the city, painted artistically, but still reminders of the Cold War that paralyzed Europe for decades after World War II. Berlin is now a vibrant city, more than 70 years removed from the atrocities of the Holocaust and the continent-wide devastation of World War II. But there are monuments and memorials everywhere. Back at the conference, the “Future of Cannabis Genetics” panel fascinated me, especially when the discussion turned to indica and sativa nomenclature. “Throw ‘indica’ and ‘sativa’ out the win-
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1. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher; 2. outside the Martim ProArte Hotel; 3. Ngaio Bealum; 4. KRS-One; 5. Ed Rosenthal; 6. the Expo floor; 7. Dean Arbit; 8. Dr. Reggie Gaudino; 9. the conference room; 10. Rocker T and Alex Rogers; 11. the International Medical Cannabis panel; 12. the translation booth; 13. women gather for photo shoot. Photos by Matt Emrich
dow,” said Dr. Darryl Hudson from Canada. “Names are less important than the chemical components,” added Dr. Reggie Gaudino, vice president for science and intellectual property at Steep Hill Labs, which has testing facilities in six U.S. states. He noted that the terms indica and sativa had “real values” before hybridization muddied the landscape, and recommended keeping an eye on strains’ terpene profiles. Freedom Leaf particularly enjoyed meeting with Hanf Journal’s CEO, Emmanuel Kotzian, who founded the company in 2000. The newsprint publication is currently published in six languages, and is avail-
able in 10 countries—from the Spanish Canary Islands to Ukraine. We also visited the Hanf Museum (Mühlendamm 5), where we were given a tour and provided hemp tea and cookies, as well as a long pipe filled with German cannabis. Future European events to look forward to include the Mary Jane Berlin Cannabis Expo (June 14-16); Hanfparade, also in Berlin (Aug. 12); the ICACO Experience in Vienna, Austria (Sept. 5-7); and the Medical Cannabis Bike Tour 2017, from the Czech Republic to Vienna (Oct. 3-5).
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INSIDE GERMANY’S NEW MEDICALMARIJUANA LAW On January 19, the German Parliament unanimously voted to legalize medical cannabis. “Critically ill people must be cared for in the best possible way,” federal health minister Hermann Gröhe said at the time. “The costs of using cannabis for medicinal purposes will be met by the health insurance companies if the critically ill, if no other form of treatment is effective.” Dirk Rehahn The law went into effect in March. Patients are now able to receive up to five ounces per month at a cost of $12 per ounce under public health insurance (which covers ABCann Germany’s 90% of Germans). booth at ICBC They can take their The Integra doctor’s prescription to Boost team is expected to any licensed apotheke, or phargrow to between macy, to get it filled. Reimbursement will 5,000 and 10,000 happen via a special fund set up by the per year for the next several years, government, with an eye to public health depending on how doctors respond to insurers then picking up the slack (probagovernment education efforts and patient bly after the five-year trial also mandated demand. by the new law). There’s no list of qualifying illnesses. More than 1,000 patients have All patients need to do is get a doctor to registered with the program. That number
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PHOTOS BY MATT EMRICH
By Marguerite Arnold
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tails, including vetting the responses to Germany’s first applications for domestically grown medical cannabis. Ten grow licenses are up for grabs. There are already indications that leading international cannabis firms will have a clear advantage. All they need is an office in Germany and proof they can deliver 200 kilograms of medical-grade cannabis per year by 2019. If domestic crops in the first grow trials fail, it’s possible that imports will Sen Media’s booth be used to back them up. at ICBC The Canadian firm Tilray, which began to export cannabis extracts to Croatia last year will likely receive one of the licenses. The U.S. company CW Hemp, maker of the “Charlotte’s Web” strain, which already exports to Argentina, Guenter might nab another. In adWeiglein dition, a licensed producer from Israel might partner with a German processor. The German government wants a write them a steady and expandable supply of cheapMichael prescription. Knodt er and domestically produced cannabis, Therein lies the probably in the form of extracts, for the temporary catch. majority of patients. That said, cannabis Even the government flowers will be available for patients if realizes that finding doctors doctors recommend that. willing to write such prescriptions is The biggest uncertainty right now going to be problematic. However, a domestically is what the winning combigrowing “cannabis doctors” community nation of producers will look like. With a is eager to put the law into greater pracdeadline for proposals to the Cannabis tice. Last summer, even before the law Agency coming in early summer, it’s passed, legal sales of cannabis in pharlikely that Germany won’t see its first macies doubled—but pharmacies were domestically grown crops harvested until charging $2,000 an ounce, paid for fully 2019 or 2020. The agency will presumby the patient. ably take until late this year or early in Fourteen cannabis strains are now 2018 to screen, test and vet applicants. legally available, all imported and supWhile some failures in the early testplied by the Netherlands’ Bedrocan ing process can be expected, deadlines and Canada’s MedCann GmbH. Alloware deadlines. Indoor cannabis, in particing home growing has been put on a ular, can be grown with a precision that back burner. comes naturally to a nation where the As mandated by a United Nations trains usually arrive and depart on time. drug treaty, the Cannabis Agency has been established. By May, it had begun Marguerite Arnold is an American expat to recruit staff members. They will go journalist who lives in Germany. about implementing the day-to-day de-
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HOW TO BECOME A
BUDTENDER Ever since the first medical-marijuana dispensary opened its doors in California in the ’90s, stoners everywhere have dreamed of working in the cannabis industry. The main opportunity is in budtending, the marijuana equivalent of the bartender or barista. Wanting to learn more about it, we talked to cannabusiness experts and compiled a quick list of steps to attaining your dream job.
ARTICLE & PHOTOS BY CHRIS THOMPSON
1
KNOW WHERE TO LOOK
A plethora of online services can help you locate cannabis jobs in adult-use or medical states. One of the more popular services is 420careers. com, where you can search for openings in the marijuana industry in your state. Other online options include THCjobs.com, WeedHire.com and ganjapreneur.com, as well as online listing services like WeedMaps, Leafly and Where’s Weed. These sites are excellent resources for making a master list of all the stores in your area. Reading their online reviews can give you a better idea of which ones may be better than others. You can also walk directly into a store and ask if they’re hiring budtenders.
2
TAKE A CLASS
Sign up for local training courses like Jason Sturtsman’s Budtender Fight Club in Las Vegas. This four-hour seminar is for people who are interested in getting involved in
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the marijuana industry, but don’t have enough experience to jump right in. Sturtsman gives attendees a basic outline and an industry insider’s tips on topics including cultivation, terpene profiles, lab testing and local laws. His goal is to educate dispensary workers on the science of marijuana and set best practices for the industry. “Everyone has a different endocannabinoid system, so everyone has a different response to cannabis products,” he stressed at one of his seminars. “As a part of trying to get into the cannabis industry, you should really get into the science and the testing aspects of it. Make sure you educate patients about the different terpenes and cannabinoids. Get away from geeking out to patients about the lineage of the strain. Focus on the medicinal effects they’re going to feel.”
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BE PROFESSIONAL Just because it’s the cannabis industry doesn’t mean you should act any less professional when
Mila Endo, a budtender at Sahara Wellness in Las Vegas, says she trained herself.
applying for a job. Store managers are looking for qualified and knowledgeable applicants. During the interview, don’t talk about how much weed you smoke or how your plants at home are doing. Instead, mention your professional experience and how good you are with customers. That’s what will set you apart.
4
BEYOND BUDS
At Sahara Wellness in Las Vegas, budtenders need to know more than just the 18 strains available, says Brenda Gunsallus, a former tennis pro and missionary who was one of the four women who founded the dispensary in 2016. Today’s dispensaries are chock full of cannabis products like oils, waxes, edibles, tinctures, creams and patches. “We stock a lot of edibles,” Gunsallus explains. “Many of our patients have never smoked, so we try and find a lot of products where they can get their medicine and don’t have to inhale.” Budtender Mila Endo is an example of the new type of dispensary worker,
one who’s knowledgeable about the plant’s medical and scientific aspects. She discovered cannabis after seeking treatment for epilepsy, and is now studying to become a doctor. “I never took any sort of budtender training,” she explains. “I actually started by reading through articles and deciphering abstracts from literature. I trained myself through that.”
5
CARING ABOUT THE PATIENTS
“If you don’t care about people, this isn’t the industry for you,” Gunsallus tells prospective budtenders. “We probably put our budtenders through more than anybody. I can teach people about cannabis, I can teach them about business. But really, you can’t teach people to care about people. And I know within the first 10 to 15 minutes if a potential hire really cares about people.” That caring personality can mean everything to patrons with serious medical conditions. “The elderly come in, and they’re so proud because their tremors
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SAHARA WELLNESS
Located at 420 W. Sahara Ave. in Las Vegas, this dispensary was founded in 2016 by four women, including Brenda Gunsallus (left).
have slowed down,” she adds. “That’s what’s especially exciting being a part of this industry—finding products that really help the patients.” But working in a dispensary is not all rainbows and sunshine. “This is hard, Gunsallus notes. “We work 12 to 14 hours a day. But I can sleep at night knowing I’m helping people. You know, a lot of people come in here because they have no hope. The doctor says, ‘You have four or five months to live.’ It really wrenches at your heart, because you want to help people so bad.”
6
PICK THE RIGHT LOCATION
Ultimately, you need to choose the store that’s right for you. If you’re most interested in helping people with their medical problems, are compassion-
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ate and caring, and are willing to learn about terpene profiles and diagnoses, then a medical dispensary with patient-focused care is probably best for you. However, if you’re more interested in strain genetics and stoner culture, are good with sales and pushing products to consumers, and are looking for a more chill work environment, then an adult-use store in a state like Colorado may be a better fit. Despite how cool it sounds, budtending is still a retail job. If retail is not your strong suit, there are plenty of other jobs in the cannabis industry, such as cultivation, extraction, production, operations, marketing, human resources, event promotion, social media and more. According to Marijuana Business Daily, the industry now employs between 1000,000 and 150,000 full- and part-time workers Opportunities are certainly available in adult-use and medical states, so don’t hesitate to put yourself out there. It’s likely that there’s a job for you in the fastgrowing cannabis industry. Now go out and find it. Chris Thompson is Freedom Leaf’s community and nonprofit manager.
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Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! Teach the Moral ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly 6 billion strong & we’re All-One. “Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!”
HAS BEEN PROMOTING
ITS MESSIANIC MESSAGE
SINCE THE COMPANY WAS FOUNDED BY A GERMAN-JEWISH IMMIGRANT IN 1948. Now available in 13 countries, Dr. Bronner’s All-One! products have come a long way since its humble beginning in 1948 under the leadership of Dr. Emanuel Bronner. The company’s revenues have increased from $4 million in 1998, just before it began adding hemp oil to its soaps, to $100 million in 2015. The Vista, Calif.-based company’s organic and GMO-free soaps, which contain hemp, olive and jojoba oils, are bestsellers in the natural-products marketplace. It offers products for both adults and children, and has added eucalyptus, lavender and other scents to its traditional peppermint. Bronner, who was never really a doctor, was the third generation to make soap in a German-Jewish family named Heilbronner. He emigrated to the United States in 1929, after his Zionist beliefs and differing views about the business caused a family rift. That decision saved his life. His parents, who remained behind, perished in Nazi death camps. He dropped the “heil” from his last name during Adolf Hitler’s rise, and took on the title of “doctor” in the 1940s. With his degree in chemistry, the moniker stuck.
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Emmanuel Bronner passed away peacefully on March 7th of 1997. The business continues to be run by the Bronner family with no break in continuity. Over 1000 acres of his beloved Rain Forest was donated by his family to the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Diego County, California. Underprivileged children can now camp under the stars within sight of Mt. Palomar which is often mentioned in the Moral ABC. Free articles. Moral ABC Book $2.
Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! Teach the Moral ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly 6 billion strong & we’re All-One. “Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!”
1st: If I’m not for me, who am I? Nobody! 2nd: Yet, if I’m only for me, what am I? Nothing! 3rd: If not now, when? Once More: Unless constructive-selfish I work hard perfecting first me, absolute nothing can help me! 4th: Only hard work–God’s Law can save us, but if we teach only our clan? We’re all hated then! So, we must teach friend & enemy, the whole Human race, the full-truth, hard-work, free speech, press-&-profitsharing Moral ABC’s All-One-God-Faith, lighting-like, 6-billion strong, for we’re All-One or none! All-One-God-Faith, as teach the African shepherd-astronomers Abraham & Israel, for 6000-years, since the year 1: “Listen children eternal father eternally one!” – We’re one! All-One! Exceptions eternally? None! Absolute none! 5th: Whatever unites mankind is better than whatever divides us! Yet, if absolute-unselfish I am not for me, I’m not but classless, raceless, starving masses, never free nor brave! Only if constructive-selfish I work hard perfecting first me, like arctic owls – penguin – pilot – cat – swallow – beaver, bee, can I teach the Moral ABC’s All-One-God-Faith, that lightning-like unites the Human race! For we’re All-One or none! All-One! “LISTEN CHILDREN ETERNAL FATHER ETERNALLY ONE!” EXCEPTIONS ETERNALLY? ABSOLUTE NONE! “The 2nd Coming of God’s Law” Mohammed’s Arabs, 1948, found Israel Essene Scrolls & Einstein’s “Hillel” prove that as no 6-year-old can grow up free without the ABC, so certain can no 12-year old survive free without the Moral ABC. Mason, tent & sandalmaker, Rabbi Hillel taught carpenter Jesus to unite all mankind free in our Eternal Father’s great All-One-God-Faith! For we’re All-One or none. “Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!”
Thank God we don’t descend down from perfect Adam & Eve to sinful sinner, Brother’s Keeper, divided slave! United, hardworking-trained-brave, from dust we ascend up! Thank God for that! Our Brother’s Teacher of the Moral ABC mason Hillel taught carpenter Jesus to unite all mankind free!
Whatever unites mankind is better than whatever divides us! Yet, if absolute-unselfish I am not for me, I’m not but classless, raceless, starving masses, never free nor brave! Only if constructive-selfish I work hard perfecting first me, like arctic owls – penguin – pilot – cat – swallow – beaver, bee, can I teach the MORAL ABC’S ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH, that lightning-like unites the Human race! For junefather 2017 www.freedomleaf.com we’re ALL-ONE OR NONE! ALL-ONE! “listen children eternal eternally one!” EXCEPTIONS ETERNALLY? ABSOLUTE NONE!
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David Bronner, 43, Emanuel’s grandson and current CEO (Cosmic Engagement Officer) of Dr. Bronner’s, says the company’s All-One belief system was born out of Emanuel’s grief after his wife, Paula, died in 1944. “Somehow in the midst of the massive personal tragedy, our grandfather experienced intense mystical love and the oneness of humanity,” he explains. “That we are all children of one ever-loving divine source. That in our ignorant blindness we’ll destroy ourselves, especially in a nuclear-armed world. He urgently promoted his All-One mission to convince the public and world leaders alike that we must recognize our transcendent unity across ethnic and religious divides or we will perish. We’re AllOne or None!”
Emanuel Bronner took to the streets of America to evangelize his unorthodox views and pass his soap out to curious onlookers. The soap, however, proved much more popular than his sermons. After noticing that people were paying more attention to the soap, he put his Jewish and Christian-inspired philosophies, the “All-One-God-Faith” and the “Moral ABC,” on the label the company still uses today. Dr. Bronner’s current soap package features this message in its small print: “A human being works hard to love his enemy, to help unite all mankind free or that being is not yet Human; so, go the second mile, hold the other cheek, brave, not meek! Small minds decay! Average minds delay! Great minds teach All-One today!” However, Emanuel Bronner’s sister took his passionate speech-making as mad ravings and rantings. She had him committed to an Illinois mental hospital in 1945, where he received shock treatments. He later blamed those treatments for his declining eyesight and eventual blindness. Three years after he got out of the mental hospital, Bronner began production of his famous peppermint soap. The company hit its stride during the 1960s and 1970s, when the quirky label with
Dr. Emanuel Bronner with his famous soap bottles.
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messages of unity and peace and the pure-castile liquid soap’s utilitarian uses (shampoo, dishwashing) endeared it to the hippie counterculture. David Bronner sees the company’s products as the vehicle for the larger All-One vision. “The counterculture consciousness around issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility inform everything we do today,” he tells Freedom Leaf. “Our company continues to grow and spread the All-One mission, as more and more consumers realize they want their product choices to reflect their values.” A Harvard graduate, Bronner is a former mental health counselor. He started running the company with his uncle, Ralph, and mother, Trudy, in 1998, a year after Emanuel’s death at age 89. Trudy is now chief financial officer, while David’s wife, Kris, is strategic advisor, and his brother Michael is president. Dr. Bronner’s acquires 20 tons of Canadian hempseed oil each year. Now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing organic certification of hemp oil produced under the regulations of the 2014 Farm Bill, it’s working with Colorado and Kentucky hemp farmers to meet its quality specifications, bringing the company closer to its goal of connecting with U.S.-based hemp farmers. The company isn’t going to jump on the booming CBD bandwagon any time soon. Bronner says it has no plans to add cannabinoids other than industrial hemp oil to its prod-
ucts. But he understands the challenges facing the hemp/CBD industry. “We need to ensure that CBD products are regulated as supplements, not pharmaceuticals,” he says, “and make sure that non-THC cannabinoids generally do not fall prey to regulatory overreach by the DEA’s attempt to classify them as Schedule I drugs.” Even though progress has been made with cannabis acceptance and legalization, Bronner believes that much work remains to be done. “We need Congress to pass the Industrial Hemp Farming Act and remove this versatile, sustainable plant from the Controlled Substances Act,” he says. “We need full recognition of medical cannabis under the federal law, as well as for responsible adult use. Until those federal regulations are lifted, the activist fight continues.” Bronner has been arrested several times during hemp protests. In 2009, he planted hemp seeds outside the DEA building in Arlington, Va. Three years later, he locked himself inside a caged trailer in front of the White House for several hours. Washington, D.C. marijuana activist Adam Eidinger, who recently was arrested outside the Capitol for handing out free joints on 4/20, is the company’s director of social action. Dr. Bronner’s annually donates millions of dollars to advance LGBT, environmental justice, cannabis-law-reform and animal-rights causes. On Apr. 17, Dr. Bronner’s announced it would donate $1 million per year for the next five years to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit education and research organization dedicated to developing “legal, medical and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.” The money is earmarked to finance MAPS’ Phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder. “MAPS is doing crucial work to legal-
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QUICK QUESTIONNAIRE WITH DAVID BRONNER WHEN DID YOU START ADDING HEMP TO YOUR SOAP?
Hemp oil was introduced to our Castile Liquid Soap formula in 1999. It made our soaps’ lather smoother and more moisturizing. The soap is really the vehicle for the larger All-One vision. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR OTHER COMPANIES IN THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY?
We set a strong, positive example for how other companies can be successful without sacrificing ethics. I’m always happy to advise anyone who asks.
Rocking on a whole other level, making positive impacts all over the place. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR HEMP AND CANNABIS ACTIVISM?
Progress has been made toward lifting the prohibition on industrialhemp farming and on cannabis generally, but much work yet remains to be done. WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN CAUSES?
WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU VALUE IN PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS WITH WHICH YOU DO BUSINESS?
We care about all social-justice and environmental issues, especially those that affect us personally in some way, and act in areas where we can have a real impact.
WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DRUG POLICIES?
It’s not good, but so far, but not as bad as feared on the drug-policy front. Otherwise, it’s a disaster.
Honesty, integrity and competence.
ize psychedelic medicines and liberate their immense therapeutic power,” Bronner notes. “Dr. Bronner’s and MAPS’ goal is one and the same—we want to see psychedelic medicine responsibly integrated into our culture and readily available to those who need it most while helping the rest of us open our hearts and minds to each other and to the miraculous world we live within.” Bronner met MAPS founder and executive director Rick Doblin at Burning Man in 2005, when a friend of Bronner’s was having a bad psilocybin trip and found himself in the MAPS sanctuary space there. (MAPS also often provides help and support for those needing assistance with their drug experiences at events like Burning Man.) At the time both were suing the DEA—MAPS for the right to grow marijuana and Bronner for the right to cultivate hemp—and a friendship was born.
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WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR BUSINESS IN FIVE YEARS?
“Investment into making MDMA a legal medicine will turn MAPS into a self-sustaining organism,” Doblin says about the generous donation, “exponentially increasing our ability to heal suffering in the world.” Today, Dr. Bronner’s reach is no longer limited to natural-product markets. The soaps, which come in multiple colored packages, can be found at Amazon, The Vitamin Shoppe, Rite Aid and Target. Bronner, who says he’d like to see the company “take it to a whole other level making positive impacts,” is doing just that by infiltrating mainstream marketplaces. “Stand strong for your values, take care of your people and stay on the cosmic,” he advises, “but don’t get lost in the clouds.” Erin Hiatt regularly writes for Freedom Leaf and THC magazine.
june 2017
“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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ISRAEL LEADING THE WAY IN CANNABIS RESEARCH AND POLICY BY DR. ASEEM SAPPAL
On March 5, Israel’s cabinet officially decriminalized marijuana possession, reducing the penalty for public use to a fine of about $270 for a first offense. The move is one more example of how the Middle Eastern nation is ahead of the United States in both cannabis research and policy. The first modern medical-cannabis research in the world began in Israel in the early 1960s, when Dr. Raphael Mechoulam (pictured above), a chemist now known as the “godfather of marijuana research,” isolated THC as marijuana’s main active ingredient. He’s studied cannabis and other natural products for more than 50 years, published more than 350 scientific articles and won many awards, including the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Discovery Award in 2011. Mechoulam’s research also led him and his colleagues to discover CBD, CBG and the human body’s naturally occurring endocannabinoid system. “It couldn’t have happened in the United States, because the laws were too strict,” Mechoulam, now 86, has stated. In fact, he’d asked the U.S. National Institutes of Health for a grant to study marijuana in the ’60s, but they weren’t interested, in part because researching cannabis in the U.S. was, and still is, next to impossible. U.S. law classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance with “no valid
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medical use” and “a high potential for abuse,” the same as heroin and LSD. That means scientists who want to study it have to go through a multiagency review process involving the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and NIDA, each of which has its own approval system, That creates substantial obstacles to obtaining not just federal grants to fund research, but even access to a legal supply of cannabis to use in it. These processes can take years, and the projects are often rejected. The U.S. currently has the largest cannabis industry in the world, with revenues projected to surpass $20 billion by 2020; some estimate that the global industry might reach $50 billion by 2025. Perhaps that’s why in February, the Israeli government proposed allowing the exportation of medical cannabis. In the U.S., DEA approval is required for any cannabis imports and exports, and federal law prohibits both recreational and medical use. To sidestep that, some Israeli cannabis companies have already set up shop in U.S. states that allow medical use, with their own cultivation and extraction labs. Unlike in the U.S., Israel isn’t being held back by stigma and dated “reefer madness” that ultimately impedes research. Dr. Aseem Sappal is provost and dean of the faculty of Oaksterdam University.
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• 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
Oaksterdam University 10 Year anniversary!
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B
D R . FRA N
K
Y
D’ AMBROSIO TH S I B E A HYP SKINNY ON CANNME EREMESIS SYNDRO Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome 60 different compounds contained in raw (CHS) is a rare consequence of longmarijuana might directly affect the limbic term (usually 10-plus years), heavy, daily system or hypothalamus in ways that cannabis use, characterized by nausea, have not yet been defined.” vomiting and abdominal pain. The sympThe onset of CHS may be due to istoms are often temporarily relieved by sues with the body’s endocannabinoid hot baths or showers, or in the long term, system and the cannabinoids themby stopping use altogether. selves. A 2004 study based on shrews CHS symptoms are often confused suggested that THC suppresses vomitwith cyclic vomiting ing, while higher syndrome (CVS), doses of CBD enwhich usually afhance the likelifects children. The hood of vomiting. DISCOVERED: 2004 in Australia two conditions are This makes sense, related, but CHS since CBD is a SYMPTOMS: Severe cyclic nausea, goes away after CB1 antagonist, vomiting and abdominal pain cessation of cansuppressing the reREMEDY: Hot baths or showers, nabis use. ceptor’s activation. cessation of cannabis use You might The number be asking, “But I of people going to thought cannabis was supposed to prehospitals for CHS increased after state vent nausea and vomiting?” The theory legalization began to take effect in 2013. so far is that CB1 agonism (cannabinoids Some have posited that this is because binding to the CB1 endogenous-cannabiof the high potency of dabs and edibles, noid receptor in the brain and activating but there’s little evidence of that so far. it) stops vomiting, and CB1 inverse agoPesticides and pathogens, such as mold nism (binding to the receptor, but causing spores, may also be a cause, but this an opposite action) promotes vomiting. can be avoided by proper regulation and This may be true for some or even most going to the right dispensaries. people, but it’s not true for everyone. With CHS being so rare, I’d also be “The mechanism by which cannabis, careful of misdiagnosis. Other gastroa product commonly regarded as an anintestinal problems may be at play, and tiemetic, causes cyclic vomiting in some cannabis could be either helpful or hinpersons after a prolonged use is not dering in such cases. As with so many known,” Dr. Leon Gussow writes in Emerpotential issues with long-term cannabis gency Medicine News. “Because cannause, we just don’t have enough data to binoids are lipophilic and have long halfdraw any hard conclusions. lives, they may accumulate with chronic heavy use to the point where they start Dr. Frank D’Ambrosio hosts the weekly to exert a paradoxical effect…. Any of the podcast Elevate the Conversation.
CHS BASICS
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recipes
Bong Game TAKE ME OUT
TO THE
Is there anything more American than baseball? Maybe not, but hot dogs and burgers have to be a close second. They’re perfect fare for a baseball tailgate party. This versatile party plan is infinitely customizable—it works with veggie burgers and veggie dogs and all manner of ground meats and sausages. It’s best to medicate the condiments, side dishes and dessert.
High Hamburger Ground-meat recipes like this one are one of the few times I cook with actual bud. Simply decarboxylate crumbled flowers by heating in a 250-degree oven for 20 minutes, then stir them into the meat along with the seasonings.
1 lb. ground beef, 20% fat ¼ tsp. black pepper, freshly ground ½ tsp. onion powder ½ tsp. garlic powder 1 gm. decarboxylated marijuana flowers, crumbled Salt to taste
Place all ingredients in a bowl. Use your hands to blend until everything is evenly incorporated. Divide mixture into four patties and grill or cook over medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes per side. Makes four burgers.
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Infused Southwestern Veggie Burger This veggie burger is moist and bursting with Southwest Flavors. Since its a bit more delicate than a beef burger, cook in a skillet. (Place it on your grill if you are cooking outdoors.) 1 cup cooked or canned black beans, drained ⅓ cup corn kernels, fresh, frozen or canned 1¼ cup cooked quinoa ½ cup red onion, diced ¼ cup red bell pepper, diced 2 large chipotle peppers, chopped 1 tbsp. garlic, minced ¼ cup cilantro ¼ tsp. cumin 1 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. salt 1 egg, beaten 2 tsp. vegetable or canola oil 2 tbsp. cannabis-infused oil 8 corn tortillas Hamburger buns and avocado slices for serving
Place tortillas on baking sheet and heat in a 400°F oven until crispy and starting to brown, about 10 minutes. Remove and use a food processor, blender, or a mortar and pestle to grind the tortillas into fine crumbs. Set aside. Heat oil in small skillet and add onion and red pepper. Sauté until softened and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for another 3 minutes. While onions are cooking, place beans in large bowl and use a potato masher to mash them until they’re mostly smooth but with a few larger beans intact. Mix in cooked onion mixture, corn, quinoa, cilantro, chipotle, canna-oil, cumin, salt and pepper until well combined. Add beaten egg and tortilla crumbs, and mix until everything is well combined. Divide mixture into six portions and form each into a patty. Cook burgers in an oiled large, preferably cast-iron, skillet over medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes per side or until browned and heated through. Serve on buns with avocado slices and salsa on the side. Makes six burgers.
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recipes Chronic Condiments Kind Ketchup 1 tbsp. vegetable oil ½ cup onion, finely chopped 1 tbsp. fresh ginger, grated 1 tsp. garlic, minced ½ tsp. mustard powder ⅛ tsp. ground allspice ⅛ tsp. cayenne pepper ⅛ cup tomato paste 1 14-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes 1 bay leaf ¼ cup light brown sugar 3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp. molasses ½ tsp. salt 1½ gm. decarboxylated kief Heat oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Mix in ginger, garlic, mustard powder, allspice and cayenne, and stir for a minute. Add tomato paste and stir for another minute before adding the tomatoes. Stir well, then puree mixture until smooth with an immersion blender in the pot, or in a blender or food processor. If you’re using the latter, return the mixture to the pot and add bay leaf, brown sugar, vinegar, molasses, kief and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Reduce to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until very thick, about 35-40 minutes. Let cool, remove bay leaf and store covered in the fridge until ready to use. Makes 1¼ cups (20 servings).
Mota Mustard 1 cup cold water ½ cup apple cider vinegar ¾ cup yellow mustard powder ¾ tsp. salt ¾ tsp. turmeric 1 tsp. garlic powder 1½ gm decarboxylated kif Whisk together the water, mustard powder, salt, turmeric and garlic powder in a small nonreactive bowl until smooth.
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Cook mixture over medium-low to low heat, stirring often, until reduced to a thick paste, about 20-30 minutes. Stir in kief until combined. Whisk in vinegar and cook until mixture thickens to the consistency of commercial mustard, about 10 more minutes. Let mustard cool, then store in the fridge. This mustard will be quite hot at first, but will mellow with time. Be sure to cook this in a well-ventilated area—or prepare to have your sinuses cleared. Makes 1 cup (16 servings).
Marijuana Mayo 2 large egg yolks 1 tsp. Dijon mustard 4 tsp. lemon juice ½ cup cannabis-infused oil ½ cup vegetable oil Salt and pepper to taste Place pasteurized egg yolks, mustard and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process until well combined. With motor running, drizzle in canna-oil and vegetable oil, in slow steady streams. Mixture will thicken as it emulsifies, but won’t be quite as thick as commercial mayo. Season with salt and pepper, and refrigerate until ready for use. Makes 12 servings (1 tbsp. each).
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Blueberry Yum Yum Cobbler Cupcakes These cupcakes take the guesswork out of portion control. 1 cup all-purpose flour 1½ tsp. baking powder ¼ tsp. salt 1 cup sugar ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg 1 cup milk ½ cup cannabis-infused butter, melted 1 tsp. vanilla extract ¾ cup fresh or frozen blueberries Vegetable shortening or butter for greasing the pan 2 tsp. coarse natural sugar (optional) Whipped cream or ice cream for serving (optional) Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 12 muffin tins with vegetable shortening or butter. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and nutmeg. Whisk in milk, melted cannabutter and vanilla, and mix just until smooth and
well combined. Fill each muffin tin about half full. Sprinkle blueberries onto the batter, but don’t press them into the batter. Sprinkle tops of cakes with coarse sugar, if using. Bake until golden brown, about 40-45 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Serve warm or cooled with whipped cream or ice cream. Makes 12 cupcakes. 1 tsp. Dijon mustard 2 tsp. salt ⅛ tsp. cayenne pepper Pepper to taste
Herbed Red Potato Salad Here’s a fresh vegan potato salad that’s loaded with flavor. 1½ pounds red potatoes, scrubbed and sliced into ¼-inch rounds ¼ cup fresh Italian parsley ¼ cup green onions, chopped 1 large celery stalk, chopped ½ teaspoon garlic, minced 3 tbsp. cannabis-infused olive oil 1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
Place potatoes in large pot filled with water. Add salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook until potatoes are tender, about 7-10 minutes, then drain. Toss potatoes with onions, parsley and celery. Whisk together canna-oil, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, cayenne, and salt and pepper until well combined and emulsify. Pour dressing over potatoes, toss to coat, and chill until time to serve. Serves six. Cheri Sicard is author of The Cannabis Gourmet Cookbook and Mary Jane: The Complete Cannabis Handbook for Women.
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In her first dispatch from England, BETH MANN SAYS a good stash is hard to find. Pot has always naturally fallen into my lap. I don’t find it; it finds me. But now that I’m living in the United Kingdom for a spell, I’ve been forced to wonder if my marijuana magnetism has run its course, or if most people in England don’t actually partake. Maybe I’m stereotyping, but they hardly fit the profile. Could the well-mannered and slightly stuffy Brits really be as pot-friendly as my hardcore hippie friends in Colorado or my surfer-stoner posse in California? Doing some research, I found that “cannabis is widely used throughout the U.K., by people of all ages and from all socio-economic backgrounds.” Thanks, Wikipedia. A good start, but what about the U.K.’s star pot-smokers? Who are their Snoop Doggs or Willie Nelsons? Other than Queen Victoria, who used tincture of cannabis to relieve cramps, there’s Paul McCartney. England hasn’t progressed much in the legalization department. Like the U.S., it’s kept marijuana woefully stuck in a classification where it doesn’t belong (Class B, along with amphetamines), which has led to hundreds of thousands of arrests over the years. For a brief period (2004-2009), marijuana was reclassified to Class C (considered less harmful, with no criminal penalties for possession). But the prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown, led a scare campaign against so-called stronger “skunk,” and cannabis was moved back to Class B.
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Arrests for cannabis possession in England and Wales have fallen by 46% since 2010. Unfortunately, as in the U.S., there’s a distinct racial disparity among arrestees. A 2014 report by the London School of Economics and the drug-lawreform group Release noted that, in London, blacks caught with cannabis were more than five times likely to face criminal charges than whites. But a cultural counterforce to prohibition continues to grow. In April 2016, 47% of Brits polled by The Independent favored legalizing the sale of cannabis through licensed shops. Taxation from sales and savings on criminal-justice costs could tally up to £1 billion a year (about $1.24 billion), according to a report from the Adam Smith Institute and Volteface. The U.K.’s European neighbors continue to make progress on pot. Germany recently legalized for medical purposes, the Netherlands began tolerating cannabis coffeeshops decades ago and Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. But in spite of the burgeoning social and political changes regarding cannabis in the U.K., this writer can’t manage to score a nickel bag. Does anyone have Paul McCartney’s number? Beth Mann is president of Hot Buttered Media.
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Have Some Hemp in Your Coffee By Erin Hiatt Coffee mavens Tim and Bret Larson were first introduced to hemp coffee when a friend from Colorado suggested that they add hemp seeds to their blends. “We brought it to our roasters,” recalls Tim, the older of the two brothers. “It tasted really bad. I was skeptical.” The Larson brothers, who own six Opus Coffee shops in Gainesville, Fla., and have been in the coffee business since 2002, knew they could do better after researching the health benefits of hemp, but they’re first and foremost coffee roasters and retailers, Tim explains, “We’re not just adding hemp seeds to coffee willy-nilly.” Bret, the younger brother, travels all over the world finding the best coffees for their business, working with small local farmers who sell organic, fair-trade certified and shade-certified beans. “He developed roasts to go exactly with toasted hemp seeds,” Tim adds. The result is their Paradise Hemp Coffee line of blends. The five blends (Guatemala Ceylon, East Timor, Cuban Espresso and two house blends, each $20-$25 for a 12-ounce bag) are made with organic hemp seeds sourced from Canada. According to Tim, if you add cream to your coffee, you may not have to do it with their hemp coffee. “People add cream to the coffee because coffee is acidic,” he says. “But when you add hemp, it increases the alkalinity, and it’ll bring the pH down.” Hemp oil and seeds, however, are known to go rancid and release unhealthy oxidants when heated at high temperatures, but Tim notes that brewed coffee doesn’t get hot enough for that to happen. Still he says the best way to make their coffee is cold brewing, a process similar to iced tea. Tim also tells
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Freedom Leaf that they’ll soon be releasing a CBD-infused cold-brew blend. (CBD, when heated, goes rancid almost immediately.) Born and raised in Florida, the Larsons aim to create a positive working environment for their employees and to craft the best possible coffee experience. They’re also active community members, catering charity events, donating to the University of Florida Shands Cancer Hospital and participating in local fundraisers. Paradise Hemp Coffee is not yet available at Opus Coffee, but can be purchased online at paradisehemp.coffee. Erin Hiatt writes about cannabis for several publications.
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REVIEWS
John Mayer & Company’s Search for Everything By Roy Trakin
In October, John Mayer will turn 40. It’s hard to believe 16 years have passed since the shaggy-haired pop heartthrob won his first Grammy award for the winsome love song “Your Body is a Wonderland.” Mayer’s seventh studio release, The Search for Everything, his first since 2013’s Paradise Valley, is a determined move back into pop-music relevance. Several media gaffes over the years and a series of tabloid flings with the likes of Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift and, most notably, Katy Perry did much to undermine whatever rock’n’roll credibility his Clapton-influenced guitar playing had established over the course of six Top Ten albums. After holing up on a remote Montana ranch for several years, Mayer returned to fill Jerry Garcia’s shoes in Dead & Company, starting in 2015. He’ll be touring again with the band from May 27 to July 1.
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But back to Mayer’s new album: Once again teaming up with the sterling rhythm section of drummer Steve Jordan (who doubles as executive producer) and bassist Pino Palladino (who moonlights as the late John Entwistle’s replacement in the Who), Search is ostensibly a breakup album. Despite the angst, it goes down easy—maybe a little too easy—like the breezy blue-eyed soul of ’70s hitmakers Boz Scaggs and Hall & Oates. With an eye towards the brave new world of digital distribution, Mayer chose to release the 12-track album in pieces, starting with the single, “Still Feel Like Your Man,” then in two “waves” of four songs each. Mayer’s aching falsetto and his always-crisp guitar licks reveal someone clinging to the past when he sings, “Still think I’m never going to find another you.” The gentle acoustic ballad “Emoji of a Wave,” with just a hint of strings, shows Mayer is still a master of wordplay. “Your heart is where my head should be,” he croons with the comfortable warmth of James Taylor. There isn’t a real guitar solo until the soulful “Helpless,” on which Mayer addresses the
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REVIEWS contradiction he’s wrestling with: “The same brain that gives me ecstasy/Is the same brain that gets the best of me.” “Love on the Weekend,” a fantasy that comes across like a ’80s anthem (think the Pretenders or Chris Isaak), offers a nod to mood-altering substances (“We found a message in the bottle/We were drinking”) and a lyrical hint about a “serotonin overdose.” These days, Mayer no longer drinks. “I’m actually very thoughtfully entering cannabis life,” he recently stated. On “In the Blood,” which features Sheryl Crow, he ponders nature vs. nurture with his own genetic background: “And what about the feeling that I’m never good enough?/Will it wash out in the water or is it always in the blood?/I can feel the love I want/I can feel the love I need/But it’s never gonna come the way I am.” And the Dylanesque “Changing” finds Mayer declaring: “I may be old/I may be young/But I am not done changing.” While “Moving On and Getting Over,” another lost-love song where he admits, “I’m one text away from being back,” exudes Steely Dan-style R&B (minus the cynicism), “Never on the Day You Leave” recalls Coldplay’s Chris Martin’s “conscious uncoupling” with ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow. Mayer’s George Benson-ish vamping, along with gurgling organ, playful flute and punchy horns, turns “Rosie” into hot-buttered Memphis soul, and Greg Leisz’s plaintive pedal steel on “Roll It on Home” provides the most obvious Grateful Dead homage on the album. The final track finds Mayer detailing an apocalyptic future to highlight the depth of his commitment to love, whistling and then soloing on the piano, reminiscent of Randy Newman’s tonguein-cheek “Political Science (Let’s Drop the Big One Now),” except it substitutes hope for despair as the strings swell and Mayer admits, “Life is full of sweet mistakes/And love is an honest one to make.” For John Mayer, as he searches for everything, love means always having to say you’re sorry.
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Mayer’s Dead Connection “It was probably around 2011, when I first got into the music based on a groove thing—the way the guitar was bouncing around ‘Althea.’ It wasn’t one of the front-line tunes. It came up on some Pandora algorithm.” “As soon as you find your first entry, it’s like threading beads on a necklace. I’ll never forget that beautiful, bouncy interlude between the verses in ‘Playing in the Band’ or hearing songs like ‘Estimated Prophet.’ Nobody handed me a record. I took it all in via SiriusXM, the Grateful Dead channel, which I still play for hours each day, whenever I’m in the car.” —Rolling Stone, 2016 Roy Trakin writes for Freedom Leaf, Variety and other publications.
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REVIEWS
Filmmaker J.D. Maplesden (top left) and his mother, Louise, with Amanda Reiman (bottom left).
Vagabong Doc Debuts in San Francisco By Amanda Reiman On Mar. 30, the Bay Area glass-blowing community came together at The Chapel in San Francisco for the world premiere screening of Vagabong: The American Pipe Dream. The documentary’s director, J.D. Maplesden, is also a blower, and spends much of his time traveling around the country to glass shows and expositions. Last year, he took a camera as he wove his way up and down the West Coast giving demonstrations. It’s a world that, like cannabis, looks much different from the inside. Glass-blowers can come off as rough around the edges, unlike the smooth pieces they create. Indeed, the crowd at the event was lush with bushy beards, calloused hands and gruff voices. But, according to Maplesden’s mom, Louise, who flew in from Great Falls, Mont. for the event, they’re both caring and compassionate. She bragged about the time J.D. and some of his friends flew to Texas after a natural disaster to make some pieces and sell them to raise money for the victims. In the film, Brando, a Spokane, Wash.-based blower, raises $14,000 for his annual toy drive by selling glass pieces. The film follows Maplesden from event to event, such as Chalice Festival in San Bernardino, Calif. and Degenerate
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Flame-Off in Eugene, Ore., to capture the variety of both people and pieces involved in the industry, and the magic that happens when someone discovers how life-changing glass-blowing can be. Pride was definitely a theme at the screening, in both the film and the crowd. Hoots and whistles filled the air as attendees recognized themselves and glass icons like Bob Snodgrass on screen. Many of the film’s participants spoke of their work as a journey. Their craftsmanship and artistic quality was evident in the array of glassware on display at the event—as was the demand. Attendees rushed to buy small glass plugs for their pieces with the excitement and urgency of a teenager on the day the new Xbox comes out. As the community celebrated Vagabong and Maplesden in a state where marijuana is legal, many spoke of the underlying political activism in their work. For them, the creation of vessels to consume an illicit product is a sort of silent protest against the War on Drugs. And as silent protests go, it’s been quite successful. Indeed, the purchase of glass pipes and bongs has become a silent protest for millions. Amanda Reiman is communications manager at Flow Kana in Oakland.
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