Reefer Madness: A Review

Matt Saber REEFER MADNESS: White Lies, White Youths and the Privilege of Scapegoats

The last time I smoked marijuana, I spent ten minutes giggling at a lawnmower. I had smoked grass and the lawnmower cut grass, so I assume the joke manifested from that realization. As far as I can recall, I didn’t violently murder anyone that night; but if I have learned anything from Reefer Madness, it is entirely possible that I went on a killing spree and have simply forgotten.

Reefer Madness is a laughably bad 1930s film designed to warn parents of the dangers of cannabis. As with all great films, Reefer Madness takes place at a meeting of the School-Parents Association (SPA), at which the parents are warned that “marihuana” causes uncontrollable laughter, violent outbursts, and inevitable insanity. An intense urge to eat large quantities of snack food is not mentioned—but obesity wasn’t invented until 1950, so they likely decided it was an irrelevant side effect. The bulk of the film is a story told by the head of the SPA. It’s a story that could happen in YOUR town to YOUR children. It’s also the story of a few fine white kids and how pot destroyed their lives.

The first beautiful WASP child who has his life ruined by the Chronic is Jimmy. Jimmy is a fine young lad who says things like “jive” and dances as poorly as you would expect any white boy to dance. While the Devil’s lettuce doesn’t improve his dancing, it does cause him to drive extremely fast and run over a pedestrian. Jimmy drives away and feels bad about the hit-and-run, but sees no real repercussions for his actions. The realism of a white kid getting away with manslaughter is meant to lure the viewer in, to ground the upcoming stories in fact, and to distract the viewer from the realization that if you’re truly stoned, you’re much more likely to drive 20 MPH under the speed limit while also constantly checking your mirrors.

Next on the chopping block is Bill, a promising young tennis star who quotes Shakespeare and gets embarrassed when his girlfriend’s mother sees them kiss. After lighting up a few reefers, Bill starts whiffing tennis balls and hooking up with a hussy in some strange lady’s apartment, before getting into a fight and being accused of murder. Because of the dangerous memory loss associated with ganja,

REEFER MADNESS1936 poster

Bill believes that he committed the murder (although he was actually framed by a joint-hustling street tough) and is found guilty by a jury. The judge eventually throws out his conviction because he doesn’t want to ruin Bill’s tennis career; but golly, that was a close call.

Mary, being a woman, doesn’t fare quite as well as Bill. Unfortunately for Mary, she has no sense of smell, and inadvertently smokes a marijuana cigarette thinking that it’s just tobacco. After surviving an attempted rape, she is the victim of a stray bullet and dies. The other main female character in the film, Blanche, is so distraught over Mary’s death and her role in it that she throws herself out a window. You see, women actually feel guilt, while men just pretend to.

Finally, there’s Brock, an upstanding member of the Stanford swim team. After smoking the sticky icky, he brutally rapes a woman in an alley—though to be fair, he’d hallucinated her consent first. Brock is found guilty, but because he was white and under the influence, the judge merely sentences him to a lifetime of regretting that he ever got caught.

Some of you have probably seen a black-and-white movie or two, and have realized that the last example wasn’t actually in the film. What you may also have realized, simply by being a human with a number of questionable life experiences, is that cannabis does not cause individuals to rape and murder each other. Certainly, a few reefers can cause impaired driving and judgment, but the insanity and violent outbursts claimed by the film are seemingly white lies with the intent of scaring the good people of the 1930s into action. To understand the mindset that drives a film like Reefer Madness , you have to understand that all white children are inherently good—until an outside force corrupts them. Whether that force is marijuana, rap music, or NFL players kneeling during the national anthem; white kids are all just future Ivy League graduates until something unsettling gets in the way.

Luckily, times are changing. Old mindsets evolve, and wacky tobacky is no longer the scourge threatening to corrupt our promising youth. We’ve realized that God’s green goodness has medical uses for old white people, so we’ve moved on to villainizing the true menaces to young white minds: feminism and civil rights movements. Someday, we’ll make our way out of the 1960s and white men are going to pay. Until then, light up a bowl and enjoy your privilege.

Samuel Clemens Long

ASK AN EXOTICALLY WHITE GUY

Honeysuckle is a hilarious mix of people from every walk of life; something we’re proud of. So it should come as no surprise that editorial meetings for the Cannabis issue are a real reflection of the variety that New York has to offer (in both people and strains).

So here we are, those of us who partake, enjoying this miracle plant, and the subject of race comes up. Great, I need fodder for my column. As everyone should know, black people were only counted as a fraction of a human in the not too distant American past (3/5 to be exact). Not to be outdone, someone from the Jewish delegation one upped their black colleague by saying that at least they were a fraction human, unlike the Jews whom, as everyone should know, have been accused of descending from “apes and pigs” by another major world religion (and some Reichs of the past).

Then someone looked around the room and did the math. Everyone in the room was black, brown or Jewish except one person. And who do you think that was, dear reader? Of course it was I, your humble narrator, the exotically white guy.

What’s it like being the only human in the room? Fucking hilarious. And I wasn’t the only person laughing (although the image of me just laughing maniacally in a room full of people staring at me is almost better). And then someone who didn’t find the whole situation funny asked me why it was. And although as E.B. and Katherine White point out, “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process,” I’ll try.

It’s the sheer absurdity of racism. Years ago people were like, “Oh clearly this person standing next to me, speaking the same language as me, dressed in clothes/living/breathing/etc like me is a different species. Clearly.” And everyone else was like, “Yeah, sure, what that guy says.”

And our modern audience will say that they aren’t anything like those racists of the past. Of course not! But today we live and participate willingly/unwillingly in a country where systematic racism sees black and white Americans use drugs at similar rates, yet blacks are imprisoned at 6 times the rate of whites. The modern racist says, “Oh clearly we should lock up a disproportionate percentage of the black/latino community for crimes in a clearly lost war on drugs.” And everyone else is like, “Yeah sure, what that guy says.”

Let’s just hope that the revolution contained in these pages continues. And those black and brown men and women get let out of their cages, where they can finally be just as human as me.

MINDFUL REVOLUTION: STAYING " WOKE " WITH CANNABIS DURING THE NU JIM CROW ERA Shellise Rogers

Gently floating through the air private homes, apartments, social gatherings, and street corners. Slipping between the millions of dollars being collected by states across the country, the billions collected by the DEA, and pungent on the breath of countless people arrested for having small amounts. Relaxing the minds of those looking to unwind from a long day's work, or from the world, and its trauma porn depicted in the mistreatment and exploitation at the hands of a sometimes violent criminal-justice and capitalistic system. Alleviating thousands from thoughts of the hate group rallies that glide across our social media timelines. An aromatic flower with hairs and scintillating crystals that has been present for centuries and has many times fostered cross-cultural conversations about racial, social and economic injustice, the recasting of our cultures, our overall health, and pushing back against prejudice by conceptualizing a suitably regulated system for it all.

Cannabis has been known to alter a person's perceptions. To be ‘Woke’ means to be keenly aware of what is going on in the community. It ruffles the spirit of complacency that settled into the homes of those who survived the civil rights era, and awakens them to the fact that Racism and Jim Crow laws were never eradicated. They simply changed form.

Are you still sleep? Or are you woke?

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The Hard truth is: We have all been deceived. Systematically misled about what cannabis is and does, left estranged from information alluding to its effects on our bodies and minds—deluded by decades of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy. Our lives so deeply embedded, comfortably coddled in the delusion within the systems of oppression that are so complex, most of us hardly know it’s there. We can’t ignore what's right outside our front doors, in our faces at each corner, and under our noses.

Richard Nixon’s former Chief Advisor John Ehrlichman said, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” 1

African and Latin American people have been stigmatized with the negative connotations of ‘marijuana’. In this ‘other’ America, punishments are disproportionately enforced by the War on Drugs. “A Black person was 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person—a disparity that increased 32.7% between 2001 and 2010” 2 Consistent with how our president views D.A.C.A, there is no consideration of inclusion or reparation on a state or federal level for the use of ‘Jim Crow’ laws that enforce segregation and exclude communities destroyed and ensnared in the criminal justice system by the War on Drugs from profitable participation in the cannabis industry.

The civil rights movement failed to secure or find a solution to economic mobility for the ‘other’ America where thousands still exist living at staggering rates of unemployment, poverty, and a lack of opportunity. Ask yourself, “How is it that my government swindles money off cannabis while still keeping the criminal marijuana laws that persecute minorities intact?”

The Controlled Substances Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon is our country’s federal drug policy; it places all regulated substances under existing federal law into one of five schedules. The placement of a substance is based on its medical use, the potential for abuse, and safety or dependence liability. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determine which substances are added or removed from these Schedules.

Cannabis, a Schedule I substance, is listed beside other substances such as Heroin, LSD, and Meth. This means these substances have a “high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use or other substance under medical supervision.” While Marinol - a synthetic version of THC is prescribed to control nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and in stimulating appetite in AIDS patients—is classified as a Schedule III substance. Meaning: it is viewed as having “less potential for abuse,” “a currently accepted medical use in treatment,” and a “moderate or low physical dependence or psychological dependence from any abuse of the substance.” 3

You are still ‘sleep’ if you think healthcare and public well-being must be a priority for our local and state governments for twenty-nine states as well as the District of Columbia to have medical marijuana programs. There must be a reason why, amongst these states, eight of them

FOCUS by Maria Lau

have legalized “Adult” (aka Recreational) Use, downplaying Federal rulings of the Controlled Substances Act. Perhaps, they’re addicted to tax revenue and corporate interests.

Eventually, legalization and de-scheduling will happen from the pressure for freedom and democracy, or the outcry against capitalist greed. Awakening the masses by contradicting our blind trust in the government’s commitment to the public’s best interests and providing a space of curiosity are documentaries such as What the Health by Kip Andersen, Prescription Thugs by Chris Bell, 13th by Ava DuVernay, and ‘Requiem For The American Dream’ by Noam Chomsky. If you have a gold mine there will be a point in the goldmine where you have the richest part which is called the motherlode. Within the cannabis community there are countless conversations, case-studies, and research being completed about how cannabis affects our ways of thinking and seeing the world differently. Those within that society study how we can utilize the legalization of cannabis and hemp to make interventions that address the housing, financial and employment needs of low-income populations, and how to use the cannabis plant to engage in ways that actively challenge the world we live in. These efforts are catalysing change for the progression of all people through community effort. The goldmine of this movement is indeed the revenue—but the motherlode, the concentrated essence of the spirit of cannabis, is revolution.

Medisi Ventures is a social impact enterprise that utilizes impact investing and consulting to ensure the legalized cannabis industry has a long lasting positive impact on our society. TiYanna Long, the founder of this enterprise, informs us that, “New and booming industries change the face, structure, and identities of cities. An increase in economic power has often come at the detriment of already struggling communities. Cannabis legalization is creating a new economic power and is going to have a massive impact and affect housing, transportation, education, healthcare, and so much more. It is up to us, as the cannabis community to ensure we are covering all of our bases as we build this foundation. Sustainability is the goal.”

We entice advocates and activists to stand together. One of the greatest weapons and strengths of the civil rights era wasn’t non-violent protest. It was community and solidarity. There are common threads between all of our differences and struggles that bring us together as humans. We can’t solve our country’s problems using the same kind of thinking that was used to create them. We shift the paradigm together much stronger than we do individually. We should all strive to heighten our consciousness and overcome our egos.

We are the disinherited of this land and we have weapons in our hands. Chiefly, the weapon of protest against social, racial, and economic injustice. We will secure our rights as American citizens and have a seat at the table of economic opportunity. If we are wrong, the Constitution is wrong. If we are wrong, our congress, the DEA and the FDA is wrong. If we are wrong, nature itself is wrong.

1 LoBianco, Tom. “Report: Nixon's war on drugs targeted black people.” CNN, Cable News Network, 24 Mar. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/ politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index. html. Accessed 7 Sept. 2017.

2 Edwards, Ezekiel, et al. The War on Marijuana in Black and White . ACLU, New York, NY, 2013, pp. 1–185, The War on Marijuana in Black and White

HYAPATIA LEE ON CANNABIS Interview by April Hall

day I was clear as a bell. I could think, and the colors weren’t gone from my world as they were with the prescription drugs. Cannabis gave me my life back.

When did you start smoking marijuana and why?

My stepfather sexually abused me when I was young, so I ran away from home to live with my grandmother. A few years later I was raped and it all became too much. I called the police and they took me to the local hospital. There, I was given all kinds of medication to help me deal with the emotional trauma of my sexual abuse, but none of it was doing any good.

But I met a therapist while I was at the hospital and he suggested that I try smoking pot. Twelve bowls later, I had the first good night’s sleep since my rape. And when I woke up the next

You developed dissociative identity disorder – commonly referred to as multiple personalities. Did cannabis help you with that?

Absolutely. I’m Native American and I’ve studied with traditional medicine men and women throughout my life. These healers taught me about a story called The Flowering Tree, which says that inside each of us there is a man, a woman, a little boy, a little girl and two wise elders. I learned that my multiple personalities were just the people in the flowering tree.

Pot lets me communicate with these people and gain insight. According to Native American traditions, you can't achieve wisdom until you shut down the adult worries about life – “Oh, I didn't pay my bill. I left the water running. I’ve got to feed the cat.” Pot helps me turn down those adult voices and listen to the children and the elders.

You were an extremely popular adult film star in the 1980s. In recent years you became a professional cannabis grower. How did you get from one career to the other?

When I was in adult film, I used to write a sex advice column for Cheri magazine. A number of years ago, I contacted the editors of High Times magazine and asked them if they would be interested in a column of sexual advice for stoners. They loved the idea, so the High Times column ‘Stoner Sex’ was born.

Several years later, I was looking to get out of Indiana where I was living. Colorado was starting to legalize marijuana, not just for the ill but also for recreational use. I called my editor at High Times and asked him if he happened to know anyone in Colorado looking for a grower. I had been growing marijuana for the black market in Indiana for quite a while, so I had a lot of experience. The editor put me in touch with someone and, after hearing about my background, I was offered a job. I moved out to Colorado just weeks later.

How did you learn to grow cannabis?

Necessity is the mother of invention. I needed marijuana for my medical needs and it was too expensive to buy on the black market in Indiana. So I started picking out the seeds and grooming them every time I bought some pot. I networked with growers on the black market for information on how to grow. I started watching a lot of instructional YouTube videos. And High Times was a great resource too. I learned how to grow in soil, in water, in the air. I learned about nutrients and pH balance and salt. I really became an expert.

Has marijuana ever gotten you into legal trouble?

Oh yeah, a few times. One time I was driving in Indiana and I got pulled over because my license plate had expired. When the cop walked up to the car, he asked, “Do I smell marijuana in here?” Of course, I answered “Absolutely not!” but he gave me a summons to appear in court anyway. Luckily the cop didn’t show up at the court date, so the summons was dismissed.

Another time when I was dancing on the strip club circuit, my then-husband and I tried to bring a quarter pound of pot into Canada with us. When we got to the border crossing, Customs officials found a few seeds and stems on the floor of our truck. They arrested my ex for the seeds, but luckily when they searched the truck they didn’t find the quarter pound – the Great Spirit must have been with us. I bailed my ex out and the case was ultimately discharged.

And right before I moved to Colorado, I had a really close call. One early evening, a couple of helicopters starting flying over my 18 acres where I was growing about 300 plants. I knew right away that my teenage son, who liked to brag, must have talked too much. When the helicopters left, I went out in the night and pulled up all the plants myself. It was a ton of work, but it paid off because I never was arrested.

What can you tell us about your job as a grower in Colorado?

Photos courtesy of The Rialto Report

It was a big job. We had about 300 different strains and approximately 10,000 plants across four greenhouses and several acres of outside grow. The nice thing about Colorado is there’s enough carbon dioxide in the air that you can grow really nice plants. The soil isn’t great, but you can work around that and, of course, grow aeroponically or hydroponically.

I left that job not that long ago and now just grow personally. I have a permit and supply marijuana to several patients I work with.

What have you been doing since you stopped working as a professional grower?

I’ve been working on ‘Native Strength’. It’s a program for living a full life of integrity based on a variety of Native American traditions. I’ve written five books on the strength system that you can find on Amazon. And I just finished shooting the eighth episode of my ‘Native Strength’ television show that can be found on YouTube. One of the episodes is focused on the use of plants, including cannabis, in traditional medicine.

Even though I’m no longer growing professionally, I’m still using and promoting cannabis as an alternative to industrial pharmaceuticals. Have you heard the side effects on some of those prescription drug TV ads? I’ll stick with the drug that at worst might cause the munchies or the giggles as a side effect!

What have you been doing since you stopped working as a professional grower?

I’ve been working on ‘Native Strength’. It’s a program for living a full life of integrity based on a variety of Native American traditions. I’ve written five books on the strength system that you can find on Amazon. And I just finished shooting the eighth episode of my ‘Native Strength’ television show that can be found on YouTube. One of the episodes is focused on the use of plants, including cannabis, in traditional medicine.

Even though I’m no longer growing professionally, I’m still using and promoting cannabis as an alternative to industrial pharmaceuticals. Have you heard the side effects on some of those prescription drug TV ads? I’ll stick with the drug that at worst might cause the munchies or the giggles as a side effect!

POT LUCK Jay Neugeboren

Pot luck favors The prepared mind, I mused, spotting the nickel bag, alone, in a box marked Fresh Direct. So I was. She stopped. Your joint or mine? Why not if it’s good pot, she laughed. Time and chance happens to me all the time, plus I’ve got rolling papers. I’ll brew the stew. You gauge the gauge. Later, we saw the light we’d made. She inhaled my joint, I sipped her stew. What luck when high to fuck! Then she to me: It’s easier to fall in love on pot than not.

SAM by Ronit Pinto

213 E Maple Rd, Birmingham, MI 48009 (248) 593-6991

“DX 21” Dasun A POTHEAD’S NIGHTMARE

Ain’t nuthin’ in my pocket coming close to having trap Just a half a bag of kush and some change to cop a wrap Now how in the hell do I re-up on some get high? I guess I’ll hang out with some stoners that I live by Will they spark a blunt or play frugal and fucking front? The smoke spot got what I need and what I want But the funds are low, so I guess I’m going to suffer Save my last buds for getting lift after supper Who got the get high? Come put me on! I’m down to my last and after that my shit is gone! I got you high before so come return the favor Or next time when I got some smoke I’ll see you bitches later!!!

This is a pothead’s nightmare This is a pothead’s nightmare This is a pothead’s plea:

I BARELY GOT A DIME I BARELY GOT A DIME I’M RUNNING OUT OF WEED I’M GONNA LOSE MY MIND! I BARELY GOT A DIME I BARELY GOT A DIME I’M RUNNING OUT OF WEED I’M GONNA LOSE MY MIND! I BARELY GOT A DIME I BARELY GOT A DIME I’M RUNNING OUT OF WEED I’M GONNA LOSE MY MIND!

Please. Help me.

Tom Huth your highest High

What’s your favorite high of the day? Your wake-and-bake? Your soak-and-toke? Your heading-to-work buzz? Your getting-home balm? Your before-dinner lift? Your sleepytime drift? What is your choicest time to elevate your state of awareness?

Here are my own Top Three tee times.

It’s hard to beat the first altered adventure of the day. A walk, for ex ample—the sun still low in the sky, the puzzle-pieces of shadow and light dancing across the sidewalk, the morning glowing with promise, untarnished by doubt. I feel a glad-to-be-aliveness in my step, a gratitude. I admire an ancient oak tree, battered yet sturdy, and pretend that we‘re brothers-in-arms.

Then there’s the high of first sitting down to work at my desk. When I write something stoned, the words that come out of my fingertips feel fresh from the oven. They dance—or at least I see that I can teach them to dance. They invite me to join in the suspense of arranging them across the stage in just the right order. I’m down on the screen with them, shuffling them around, bringing in new darlings for tryouts, marrying some and divorcing others: beseeching them to sing together in harmony.

But my highest high often comes from a little ritual I observe several evenings a week. It involves going alone to some friendly (but not too friendly) bar, and selecting a stool where I have lots of elbow room, and unfolding a few pages of whatever I’m writing, then going out to the parking lot to consult with a small wooden pocket pipe.

I come back inside and take a sip of wine, which only magnifies the lyrical sense of disorientation. Now, when I pick up those pages of writing, I look at the words with new eyes, as if I’ve never seen them before.

Chadley Britton MORE THAN MARIJUANA

*Note: I am not a doctor or professional herbalist; these are MY personal experiences as well as the experience of one other person with these plants. Please consult a doctor before using any plant for any medical or recreational uses. **

Have you heard about damiana? Well, until having an unfortunate reaction to smoking pot a few years ago that left me anxious and paranoid, neither had I. Willing to give up cannabis but not herbs in general, I visited a loose-leaf and herb shop. The dried fl owers and leaves of the damiana plant are commonly smoked as an aphrodisiac and can be used to reduce anxiety and nervousness. The idea that a plant could get me buzzed and turn me on was a total win-win.

Four ounces and less than ten bucks later, I was home brewing a cup. It was a pleasant taste to me (after adding a touch of honey), and after a few minutes I felt more relaxed and yes, a bit more aware “down there.” I decided to take it step further and smoke a bit of it in one of my old bowls. It was a bit rough on the inhale and the smell immediately reminded me of the bitter tang of cannabis, except not as dank. I did, however, feel a buzz, but nowhere as potent as with pot; it was more of a relaxed, mellow high, almost equivalent to having a single glass of wine. It didn’t fog up my head or make me feel heavy or disconnected from my body as some strains of marijuana have done to me in the past. The effect didn’t last as long as weed either and wore off about thirty minutes later. I will continue to drink the tea and save the smoking for special occasions. My friend, Alicia H. is not into marijuana but she is a proponent of other plants, not only for relaxation but for her own personal growth and self-searching. She runs her own online forum (https://www.octiimmortalis.com/) for furthering knowledge of plant benefi ts and energy exchange. It's a fantastic blend of the natural scientifi c world and esotericism. Here are a few of Alicia’s thoughts on Mugwort: Smoking is therapeutic and instant, but more so in a tea form before bed. The tea has a slower reaction for me, but it hard punches in a dream state. The tea brings about prophetic dreams and astral projection and digs deep into the subconscious. If you're not ready to face yourself and truly move forward, I would advise people to hold off on it. It won’t give you what you want. It will give you what you need. There are times however when it’s more fun than 'detoxing the psyche.'" Marijuana is a great plant and has so many benefi ts and can help with so many people’s personal lives, but Mary Jane isn’t the only plant with healing properties in the world. Do some research, head to an herb or holistic shop and ask about other plants that might help you in other ways.

DAMIANA

Other Benefi ts of Mugwort (in tea form): • Alleviates anxiety and depression • Eases menstrual pain and some joint pain • Can aid in weight loss * Vivid or lucid dreaming or dream recalling

**Chadley Britton is a writer and sex educator based in New York City. @goldtonegoddess

Leah Wells OxyKitten The Different High of Cats

“Every feline, no matter how small, is a masterpiece,” proclaimed Leonardo DaVinci. Devoted cat owners readily agree with him, but can we say what, exactly, draws us irresistibly to cats? Do we receive a ‘contact high’ from them; do cats produce their own effect parallel to that of water’s negative ions or cannabis’s THC? If so, how?

Of all mammals, cats have the biggest eyes in proportion to their faces. These enthralling green or golden eyes, with pupils that wax like the moon from a crescent to an orb and back with the changing light of the day, were used to tell time before cuckoo clocks and smart phones. Their acrobatics have made them a funny page favorite (Garfield) and earned them the lead in popular cartoons (Tom and Jerry). To this day, their languid grace inspires poetry and even long-running Broadway musicals.

For all the sorcery and varied roles attributed to the cat throughout human cultures—sun god, literary muse, fertility talisman, pocketwatch—is it possible that, in addition, there is a certain chemically-induced kick that accounts for their timeless appeal? Recent studies tell us: absolutely yes! Petting cats releases endorphins, hormones that attach themselves to receptors in our brain in order to relieve pain. We also experience a rush of other “feel good” chemicals, including dopamine, prolactin, norepinehrine, and oxytocin—the famous “cuddle chemical” or “love hormone.” As with a mother and baby or two romantic lovers, the release of oxytocin can occur just by looking into the eyes of a beloved pet.

While petting and stroking cats has proven therapeutic, their purring also provides surprising and amazing benefits—to them, and to us. Purring, the soft, rumbling vibration produced by cats under certain circumstances, is one way they communicate. Recent studies into bioacustics (the science of animal sounds) reveal that a cat’s purring can actually help to heal our broken bones, ligaments, and tendons. Veterinarians have long observed that cats rarely suffer from bone or joint-related diseases. We’re only beginning to learn about how the frequency of their purring actually aids in restoring bone fractures and reducing inflammation. Talk about good vibes!

Yes, let’s talk about them: Cats bring us so many chemically-induced pleasures—but it doesn’t stop there. Cats permit us to murmur sweet nothings and be silly in the middle of a busy day. Even when we have our big boy power suits and big girl hats on, they allow us to “let our hair down,” to “let go” and be informal. We may be between love relationships, but a friendly cat entitles us to coo and cuddle away our loneliness, to run our hands softly through their fur and stroke them meditatively; to laugh, to buy toys and play games with feathers and rattle mice.

Our own gregarious silver tabby, Gaucho, warmed up the entire floor of my building by introducing neighbors. Chatting over cats even produced a job for me. Out on the block, cats are an integral part of the neighborhood. Like farms of old, many shops and newsstands have their own cat, such as Jimmy at Gem Spa on Saint Marks Place—a local celebrity who greets customers. Other working cats can be found in hospitals, nursing homes, even prisons.

We have domesticated and cared for animals over centuries, and now human society looks increasingly to the animal world for salvation. With therapy animals of every stripe achieving mainstream acceptance, even on seats of commercial air flights, there is growing respect for the power of simply holding a cat to mend a broken heart or apparently, even a broken bone. And yes, to get us high!

But can what makes us high get cats high? Can we enhance our mystical bond with them by sharing second-hand smoke? Not a good idea, as it happens: THC is not appropriate for kitty or other animals. When we light up, we expect to get high. Animals experiencing these “stoner” effects don’t know what’s going on, and can become disoriented and even dangerously stressed out. Yet a product like CBD oil (with THC removed) can be used to alleviate afflictions like arthritis and nausea in animals, as in humans. Still, the best high that human and animals can share is simply love.

Recently, a humorless FDA prohibited “love” from being listed as an ingredient on the side of a bag of granola. Imagine if the etheric elixir of oxytocin and endorphins that only partially explains the mood-elevating, community-building buzz of loving a cat could be bottled! The FDA would never go for it—but you could be sure that some clever marketer would be calling it Purrfume.

Jennifer Parker WHEN PLAYDATES GO TO POT

I’ll never forget the first time I dropped my daughter at a playdate that wasn’t one masquerading as a friend-with-benefits date for me—no, not those kinds of benefits. Being the mom of a toddler can be isolating. Even the most verbal, precocious snowflakes have a witching hour (coincides with happy hour) and in my house, lunch started about ten minutes after breakfast and ended ten minutes before dinner. I craved adult company. Spending time with other mothers under the guise of a playdate was like two hours of bliss. Most of my daughter’s preschool classmates in Washington DC came with mommies as desperate for adult daycare as me, so we’d just hang out, drink coffee, maybe break out the wine and make bad jokes about it being seven o’clock at night somewhere. It didn’t matter if the kids liked each other. For the uninitiated, kids under the age of three don’t really play together, they play in parallel. I just had to pick the other mommies carefully.

Right before Zoë turned four, we moved to Seattle and I thought I would continue to make friends through my thirty-six-pound social lubricant. It didn’t surprise me the first time my outgoing kiddo was invited to a playdate. What was clear was that I was no longer included. Now I was faced with the question that I’d been rehearsing for about a year: No guns, no drugs, right?” I was met with a bemused half-smile on the other mother’s face like I was asking her if she didn’t allow organic vegetables in the house. She assured me that there weren’t any firearms. Non-confrontational by nature, I didn’t press any further, left my daughter at the house and went to my happy

place, Whole Foods. About $175.00 later I picked Zoë up and drove home. I had been downgraded from plus one to “driving Miss Zoë.” Sometimes I would be invited in towards the end of the playdate and more often than not, there were the remnants of a joint in an ashtray on the deck.

I have a confession to make: I have never smoked pot. The reasons are crazy long and boring, but one is that I can’t parse the difference between the smell of marijuana and the odor of skunk. Another—In 1978 at the age of ten, I read the memoir, Midnight Express because I wasn’t allowed to see the movie. I was obsessed with the soundtrack. For years I was sure that any drug use meant inevitable incarceration in a Turkish prison, severe beatings and being forced to eat my own feces. My father shouldn’t have left the book out. Mostly, I’m a rule follower.

In 2012, I voted to legalize recreational marijuana in Washington State; now a resident of Manhattan, I would do it again. By keeping a drug that is technically no more harmful than alcohol illegal, there’s a risk putting an unknown substance from a dubious source that has changed hands God only knows how many times that may be none too clean into one’s body. Some of my friends who smoke don’t think twice about who has touched what is going into their bodies but can’t handle the idea of sharing a fork at dessert. After several legal hiccups, pot became kosher in people’s homes, backyards, and at certain public events where it had already been ubiquitous. I didn’t vote for legalization so I could start experimenting with drugs at the age of forty-four with a clear conscience.

I was tired of the mixed message that my daughter was receiving when she went to friends’ houses. Otherwise law-abiding adults were purchasing a drug on the black market and contributing to a shadow economy that had far greater implications than a parent wanting to take the edge off after a long day.

It was disheartening that doctors, lawyers, software engineers and teachers could casually break, if not ignore, laws in front of their children. I was just looking for parents who thought it was important to set an example of following laws in front of their kids even if they disagreed with them. I’m not talking

Illustrations by Gea

about civil disobedience like unjust laws about segregation, I’m talking about grown-ups behaving like adults.

Prohibition didn’t work with alcohol and it has caused our penal system to implode. Prior to legalization, getting caught possessing pot was among the lowest priority of the King County Prosecutor’s Office, which is the jurisdiction of Seattle. What wasn’t a minor offense was dealing marijuana. Washington State is one of seven states in the US without an income tax. By legalizing recreational pot, the state has been able to collect revenue that would otherwise fuel an already robust underground economy and criminal justice system that seems to be a housing solution for people of color. Over the next two years, Washington is expected to collect $730 million dollars in tax revenue from recreational cannabis. Some of the money goes to Medicaid, schools and roads. Jobs are created, the nuisance crime of possession of pot isn’t choking the legal system. Illegality creates mystique and the juvenile thrill of breaking the rules.

New York Cannabis advocate Jerry Szycer and owner of the companies H3MP and JustGetHigh.com said, “We don’t let twelve-year-olds drive 6000-pound cars. There’s a process. We don’t just throw keys at them and say, here. We teach them about safety and using good judgment but not before they’re ready. Legalization is all about harm reduction.” Szycer went from cannabis prohibitionist to evangelist and can make a great case for why the pharmaceutical industry is terrified of the legalization of pot. His ninety-three-year-old father died in agony. He believes that people who could just take the edge off their pain would not turn to opiates. He’s also the parent of two children and believes in science. He’s in no hurry for his thirteen-year-old daughter to experience marijuana. Szycer thinks her brain needs to be fully formed first, which is technically around the age of twenty-five. Then, it will be her decision. For the record: Szycer prefers edibles.

IN BED WITH PANAMA RED: A SEX ON CESS MANIFESTO

The energy of memory infusing the musing is of a fyah angel whose interior angles were once mine to roam and wander. When I finally got a pot to piss in and after copping pot, copping a squat and lighting up, after getting lit, I’d hit her up. I lit her up until bliss had her pissing. Still not cer tain if it was squirting caused by vigorous insertions as purple powered my person. I transcended dimensions, growling while dispersing…

Lion and lioness lying sprawled across a futon. Clear as day I see our foreplay. Roll ing a Backwoods with thoughts of back shots and making the coochie pop. Panting with a Penonome, Panama dawta. She’s truly a commando. Never wore any panties. Looking longingly in her lustrous eyes, hik ing up her long, Bob Marley printed skirt to poke punani. Smearing guava jelly on an eagle spread while elevated by lamb’s bread. Ital jockey in the saddle. No brush. No stone. Just stoned. Just sensi. Seen?

Panama Red I called her. Pun intended because she gave my head the good med itation. Toe-curling, fury unfurling, ethereal essence sucking combustion when we were joined at the joy junction. Drawing on a joint to anoint the function. Sexing was moving from black and white to tech nicolor then taking a quantum leap into Real 3-D. Steady pumping but not losing a breath, for she was my prana; my Lil’ Kim and sexy mama.

After a pull ‘pon de spliff, a kiss was a paradigm shift, enhancing the dancing, no matter which set of lips the big stick I carried was betwixt. I was bewitched from first stroke, no joke, to final twitch. Fall ing into chasms of the spasms of orgasms; sinking teeth into her shoulder as I am the exploder.

I see her.

She’s in her birthday best and I am enjoy ing the press of her humid flesh against my bare body as she lies beside me. With skilled fingers, she surrounds the silver haze with cigar skin as I run my hand over hers. Dolly my baby. Dolly dagger with the swagger. She has the twinkle, twinkle of little stars turning supernovas in her pupils. She purposefully, slowly and deliberately, licks the jagged edge of the roll-up. Looking me dead in my eyes with a promise of what is to come to a tune of Big Pun, she teases the tobacco wrapper with the tip of her tongue.

She mounts my hips. I feel a tingle in my tent-pole as I am caressed by the heat egressed between her thighs. She leans over and gives me a deep kiss, bitter from the bite of the blunt. Light ignites and amidst nag champa incense, we puff in insight and then I enter her entrails. A Warrior King sings of the Empress so divine and the woman’s vir tuosity. I rise in elation; the melodies mentally magnified. The bass intensifies and rivets my vibration. The sound intertwines with my mind as me and naughty shorty’s essence combines. We are a trinity. She, the sympho ny and me are one.

Soon I reminisce, set adrift on memory bliss. Fantasizing getting the inner tension in my innards rising. I time travel as thoughts unravel enthused with the music, the mellow miasma of marijuana and many muses…

I am now the energizer bunny in a freaky frenzy steady beating on a Bahamian drum with the hum of sour diesel fueling the en gine within. Thinking of how I’d crumble the herb, roll up and then slide up in her guts as she bent over baring her big, beautiful, bodacious butt providing her back as a back drop for a hot creamy nut. Chain-smoking high-grade like menthols, damn near demented in the dimensions my spirit circumvented propelled by pulls on the pungent. I’d get Technologic as I would Touch It, busting it out as Busta Rhymes would bust it. My love frog, she had handy jays that blew other’s blow jobs out the skies like dismayed blue jays. Thinking of that sweetness sweeps through my sensual outer reaches.

I’m back in the nineties when names had no need. It was just “a nickel bag of weed.” My byline’s first shine was of a Brownsville chick who changed my chapters from Phil

Illustration by Arielle Toelke

lies and White Owl to serving Dutch Masters. Never ran. Never will. Thinking of the thrill of being inside her after some skunk rolled in Bambu or EZ Wider. Old soul. I loved the way she rocked and rolled. Puff ing an “L” but never took an “L.” A shorty who took shorts of no sort. Under pictures of bitches with Too Short, or Uncle Luke, she’d puff her Newports. Her voice was raspy. Coming and going she had me with the kung-fu grip of that needle-eye poompoom contracting during our action; it just heightened the marijuana magnified sat isfaction. Bootcampian champions blast through a Kenwood via compact disc. We gave each other heaven and hell, listening to Wu-Tang’s “Heaven & Hell.”

But now I’m in bed with Panama Red. She brings me back to the present with the per sistent pressure of the press of her potent pleasure chest. She rides, rotating a cowgirl that could never cow-tow, watching the flow of her camel toe and how far up in I go.

I enter a haze seeing white noise, blacking out while I come to. I rise as I arrive, lifting her; cradling her bumper and thighs.

I’m reaching the apex of great sex with this miniature T-Rex of a Cocle Empress.

My growls turn to pants into sighs. I curl up, wrapped around her so tight. A tangle of torsos and limbs.

I close my eyes.

Tremble with the aftershocks of our tremors.

And all I can think about is… …what the fuck is in the kitchen to eat?