Tucson Weekly, July 8, 2021

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Tucson Weekly

The 710 Issue!

JULY 8 - 14, 2021 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE

Does Cannabis Help With PTSD?

By David Abbott

Plus: What Is This Weed Oil, Anyway?

CINEMA: Marvel Is Back with Black Widow

CURRENTS: Your Midyear COVID Update

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JULY 8, 2021

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JULY 8, 2021

JULY 8, 2021 | VOL. 36, NO. 27

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The Tucson Weekly is available free of charge in Pima County, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue of the Tucson Weekly may be purchased for $1, payable at the Tucson Weekly office in advance. To find out where you can pick up a free copy of the Tucson Weekly, please visit TucsonWeekly.com

STAFF

CONTENTS

CURRENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE

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CITY WEEK

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Everything from yoga to art to coding to permaculture

CINEMA

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Marvel has another winner with Black Widow

TUCSON WEEDLY

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Jaime Hood, General Manager, jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com

A 710 Celebration

WITH RECREATIONAL CANNABIS NOW

County falls just short of mid-year COVID vaccination goals

ADMINISTRATION Steve T. Strickbine, Publisher Michael Hiatt, Vice President

legal in Arizona, there are a lot more people who can celebrate 710, the second-biggest holiday marijuana holiday. (In case you’re wondering why the cannabis community landed on July 10: If you turn 710 upside down, it spells “oil,” a reference to extracts produced when you process marijuana plants.) Sure, like 420, the other cannabis holiday, it seems a little silly and made up, but aren’t all holidays made up? July 10 is now a big deal in the cannabis community and most of our local dispensaries are featuring all kinds of deals, so celebrate as you see fit.

This week, our Tucson Weedly columnist David Abbott bring us two stories. One explains exactly what this oil stuff is—marijuana concentrate, produced by squeezing the leaves and bud and using a solvent to extract an oil loaded with THC. The other looks at how Dr. Sue Sisley, who was stymied in her efforts to study whether cannabis was helpful for the treatment of PTSD in veterans, has continued her research in Maricopa County, but not without facing a lot of hurdles.

Elsewhere in the book this week: Staff writer Christina Duran finds good news

Tyler Vondrak, Associate Publisher, tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com

about COVID (the number of infections remain low) and the bad news about COVID (it’s still here and it’s getting harder to get people vaccinated); former state lawmaker and current CEO of the Humane Society of Southern Arizona Steve Farley tells you how to help the organization improve the lives of animals in Cochise County; columnist Tom Danehy reflects on the challenges facing our democracy; movie critic Bob Grimm gets more of that fine Marvel venom in his veins after watching Black Widow; calendar editor Emily Dieckman brings us a list of fun things to do this week; and there’s plenty more, including Tucson’s best horoscope, sex column, crossword puzzle and comics.

Speaking of the best: Voting in the first round of this year’s Best of Tucson® competition ends on July 12, so get over to TucsonWeekly.com and cast your ballot!

Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about cool events and much more at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday mornings during the World Famous Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

Cannabis extracts target treatment, and the benefits of cannabis on PTSD

Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Managing Editor, jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Christina Duran, Staff Reporter, christinad@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ireland Stevenson, Staff Reporter, istevenson@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: David Abbott, Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Clay Jones, Dan Savage PRODUCTION Courtney Oldham, Production Manager, tucsonproduction@timespublications.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com Emily Filener, Graphic Designer, emilyf@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING TLMSales@TucsonLocalMedia.com Kristin Chester, Account Executive, kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive, lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by Times Media Group at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. First Class subscriptions, mailed in an envelope, cost $112 yearly/53 issues. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN).

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MUSIC

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Soda Sun find a home in the heat on their debut album

Cover image courtesy Bigstock

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CURRENTS

COURTESY PHOTO

The Humane Society of Southern Arizona is embarking on a new collaboration with the Cochise County government, the City of Douglas and the City of Bisbee to improve animal shelters.

CREATURE COMFORT Saving lives in Cochise County

By Steve Farley tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com

services there—including a 24/7 low-cost pet emergency hospital.

And right now, we at HSSA are embarking on an exciting new collaboration THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF with Cochise County government, the Southern Arizona has been serving pets City of Douglas, the City of Bisbee, and and the people who love them in the Tuc- the University of Arizona College of son metro area for more than 77 years.

Veterinary Medicine to save hundreds of Starting this month we are finally living pets’ lives every year. into the last two words of our name as Working with little funding and space, we extend our mission—both within and animal shelters in Cochise County have beyond Pima County. been struggling to save as many pets as We currently operate a full-service they can in cramped, small spaces that shelter, clinic and humane education fa- are inadequate for the pets they serve. cility at 635 W. Roger Road in Tucson. As With a yearly intake of more than 1,000 of Saturday, July 17, we will be opening a animals, this lack of room and resourclong-anticipated Eastside branch at 1010 es has forced some of these shelters to S. Wilmot (just north of 22nd Street) that make heartbreaking choices. In Douglas will start up with an expanded thrift store alone, 30% of dogs and 70% of cats are (featuring deeply discounted Sam Levitz euthanized annually. furniture!) and twice-weekly vaccination We can save those lives. That’s why clinics and adoption events. In the next starting this July, HSSA is taking urgent few years we will be offering full-time action with your help. Working with a adoption, admissions, and veterinary wide variety of engaged partners and

committed volunteers, we will begin transporting an average of 10 animals per week—every week—from the Douglas shelter to our main campus in Tucson to save their lives, provide for their health and behavioral needs, and find them loving homes.

Simultaneously working with the UA College of Veterinary Medicine, we plan to provide weekly veterinary service to shelter and public pets in Douglas, including spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, wellness exams, and more, starting later this year. We are also looking to institute innovative OneHealth programs that improve the well-being of pets and their human families during the same office visit.

This broad-ranging coalition of partners is simultaneously seeking $2 million in funds to convert a former juvenile detention facility in Bisbee into a stateof-the-art full-service high-quality HSSA animal shelter and clinic which we hope to open to the public by early 2024 to

SORENSEN

COURTESY PHOTO

serve all of southern Cochise County.

In all, this project has the potential to help 10,000 homeless pets in its first five years of operation.

This innovative collaboration for homeless and at-risk pets in Southern Arizona will become an inspiration for rural shelters and urban partners across the country, saving thousands and thousands of lives in the process. ■ If you would like to join us in making this lifesaving vision a reality, please visit HSSAZ.org/Cochise today.

JULY 8, 2021

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ness of the COVID-19 vaccine at preventing breakthrough infections, as well as lessening the severity, length and viral load for those infected.

According to Jeff Burgess, principal investigator of AZ HEROES, they found that two doses of the mRNA vaccines, either Pfizer or Moderna, were 91% effective in County falls just short of mid-year COVID vaccination goals preventing COVID-19. For breakthrough cases, those who got COVID days after their first dose or had gotten both doses, “the infection was much shorter, much less severe than if you hadn’t been vaccinated and furthermore, there was less virus there and for a shorter period of time than if

By Christina Duran The Arizona Prevention Research Center (AzPRC) at you had not been vaccinated.” christinad@tucsonlocalmedia.com University of Arizona’s College of Public Health received For Burgess, these findings showcase how remarkable a one-year supplemental grant award of $500,000 from the vaccines are and how lucky we have been. the CDC to increase vaccinations among rural, border and “We’re really fortunate that we have these messenger AS 2021 REACHES ITS MIDPOINT, PIMA COUNTY underserved Arizona communities and identify barriers to RNA vaccines and they’re as effective as they are,” said continues to push for more people to get vaccinated. increase confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.

Burgess.

“These are not brand-new vaccines. The histoAt the start of June, the Biden administration anTomas Nuño, the lead and co-investigator for the effort, ry of messenger RNA vaccines goes back 10 years and nounced their “all-of-America” sprint to have 70% of adults said AzPRC will use its existing network to conduct the they’ve been improved over time, and I think that we vaccinated with at least one dose by July 4. However, as research, partnering with the university’s mobile health benefited, when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, from the holiday weekend grew close last week, Biden conceded units, which have been administering COVID-19 vaccines all that previous development.

But we’re also fortunate, at that the country would not reach the goal. to rural, uninsured and farmworker populations in Southleast to this time, that so far it’s been effective against the The state of Arizona and Pima County hadn’t hit the ern Arizona since February. variants, maybe not quite as effective, but still been effecgoal at the start of the holiday weekend last week, either.

The funding would be used to conduct listening tive against all the COVID-19 variants that have occurred.”

As of July 4, the U.S. falls just short at 66.7% of the U.S. sessions with AzPRC’s Community Action Board memBurgess said there’s reasonable evidence to support total adult population vaccinated with at least one shot. bers and other key stakeholders to identify barriers to that the Delta variant, which is becoming the dominant According to County Administrator Chuck Huckelberincreased vaccinations and identify solutions. It would strain across the U.S., is more infectious and more severe. ry’s July 1 COVID-19 update memo, 62.1% of adults have also support the Mobile Health Units to increase vaccine Since January, Translational Genomics Research Institute received at least one dose in Arizona and 69.6% in Pima confidence and conduct surveys to understand barriers to (TGen) in Flagstaff has reported 122 cases of the Delta County. getting vaccinated.

Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Nuño said they hope to learn what factors lead to “con- variant. The county reported seven cases of the variant Cullen had hoped the county could reach the goal, but fidence or no confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine.” They in the last two months, according to Huckelberry’s July 1 memo. said last week it would fall short of hitting the number by would be asking what people consider their concerns “We are worried about it, but it’s one reason why we Independence Day. about the COVID-19 vaccine, how they get their informamonitor our daily cases so much and why they seem to be “We’re not going to meet it,” said Cullen. “But we’re tion and who might have influenced their decision, like pretty stable right now,” said Cullen. “The vaccine seems close, hopefully we’ll be at 69%.” their provider or family and friends. From the work conto be as protective, so we’re not worried about that. What Reaching the elusive herd immunity has proven difficult ducted by the Mobile Health Units, Nuño said practical we’re worried about is it getting in the unprotected, unvacas vaccine administration steadily decreased beginning in issues play the biggest role in the vaccination effort for the cinated community because it will spread quicker.”

April. While some people remain hesitant to get a shot or Hispanic community. simply are refusing to do so, health officials attribute the “For the Hispanic community it’s not about hesitancy so CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 struggle to vaccinate to a lack of access. much, it’s more about access and availability and fear of “One thing we hear repeatedly from people that are what are the requirements to get vaccinated, fear of giving working hourly jobs is that they’re really fearful about get- personal information or work requirements, not being able ting vaccinated because they’re not salaried and they may to get off work,” said Nuño. or may not have any kind of medical leave,” said Cullen.

Nuño is aware a lot could change over the course of the “Almost everybody knows somebody who got a little sick year. He said they have already discussed the possibility and if they get sick, they’re going to miss work and they of addressing the need for a booster shot or a surge in the can’t afford to miss work especially with the economy.” winter, or even a decline in need with high vaccination The county has shifted to provide mobile vaccinations rates. sites, partnering with local organizations to administer “Hopefully we can increase the confidence and increase vaccines at a church, school, or cultural center. In April, the access,” said Nuño. “So it starts with the ease of access the county partnered with FEMA to administer vaccines in providing it and then confidence and then actually through two mobile sites that changed to several different getting vaccinated.” locations where they hoped to make it easy for those most at risk and vulnerable to get their shot.

VACCINE EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING AND As of June 26, the FEMA mobile unit vaccinations have LESSENING COVID SYMPTOMS ended and large vaccination sites shut down, with Gila River Arena in Glendale administering final doses on WITH MONTHS OF REAL-WORLD DATA SUPPORTING at Green Things Nursery June 28. the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines reported by the However, the vaccination effort continues and the CDC CDC, Arizona Healthcare, Emergency Response, and has funded several initiatives across Arizona to address Other Essential Workers Surveillance (AZ HEROES) health disparities due to COVID-19 and the barriers to conducted their own real-world study of mostly vaccinated vaccination. frontline essential workers, which showed the effectiveLOCALLY OWNED AND CHEERFULLY OPERATED!

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JULY 8, 2021

COVID

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

MORE LOCAL COVID CASES IN AREAS WITH LOWER VACCINATION RATES COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR CHUCK Huckelberry’s June 8 memo shows 160 cases of COVID-19 between May 30 and June 5 plotted across a map of Pima County, highlighting areas with vaccination rates 75% or higher or 40% or less. The majority of cases fall within areas with lower vaccination rates. While the data may support the efficacy of vaccines, Cullen has not seen what they would have liked in the targeted areas.

“Ideally what I would be showing is that we target a census tract, which we’ve done, we go in, we offer vaccine, people get completely vaccinated, which might be two shots, maybe one shot, and then we see the rate go down,” said Cullen. “That’s what we want to see. We have not seen that yet.”

According to Cullen, it may be because they have only begun targeting areas by census tract about two months ago or because they have not targeted smaller

census tracts, which could show significant differences versus ones that may have higher populations, requiring more vaccinations.

In order to target those areas, Cullen hopes people will request a mobile vaccination clinic for their community. The county health department also received a small grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The COVID-19 Community Champions mini-grants will provide eight awards of $2,500 each to community-based organizations in Pima County, serving racial and minority, rural and highly impacted communities in order to increase access to COVID-19 vaccination information and resources through trusted community members, leaders and messengers. Applicants have until July 12 to apply.

The Pima County Health Department also received $6.5 million from the CDC to address COVID-19 health disparities among high-risk and underserved populations, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities, but with a focus on testing.

In order to increase and improve testing for those communities, the county will provide home testing for the first time. Cullen said the county currently tests people who

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have had contact with COVID-positive patients, such as people who are quarantining because they’ve been named as a contact. The county asks those people to test on day five of their quarantine, but are unsure of how many people actually get tested.

“For almost all of them, they have to go somewhere,” Cullen said. “We don’t know how many people test. We believe it’s a high number. We do follow up with them, and people self-reveal that they’ve tested.

This is to accelerate the ability for people to make it easier for people to be able to take home tests for COVID.” Further, Cullen hopes to facilitate the access of care after testing positive.

“It’s really up to us to say, ‘If you test positive, here’s the phone number, we’re going to make it really easy for you to get care and to get follow-up,’ and that’s the point,” said Cullen. “We want to remind people that case investigation and contact tracing is the way we really can stop the pandemic right now.”

The county has remained at below 50 cases per 100,000 individuals, fluctuating between 20 to 50 positive cases for more than a month.

“That’s a number that we can handle with case investigation, contact tracing with no problem,” Cullen said.

The county also plans to work with community-based organizations to offer home testing in place of their mobile testing sites. The funds would be used to improve the data collection and accessibility.

“We’ve been able to use data to identify at-risk communities and so our plan is to just make that more easily accessible,” said Cullen. “Work with the community to see what it would take for them to have a better understanding and ability to use the data that’s out there, because while it seems intuitive, I think it’s not intuitive and I think for some people, they don’t understand yet or don’t even know that it exists.”

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In order to address disparities created by COVID-19, the county will hire six community health workers, trained in public health, according to Cullen. They would provide referrals to community-based services, including eviction prevention, food security, transportation and outreach in the community and at mobile testing and vaccine events.

A part of the plan also looks to build on the need for trauma-informed care, especially following the pandemic, not only for public health workers, but also for the community at large.

In CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a little more than half of the 26,174 surveyed state, tribal, local and territorial public health workers reported symptoms of at least one mental health condition in the past two weeks.

According to the report, symptoms were more prevalent among those who were unable to take time off or worked 41 hours or more per week.

“The goal is to develop a way to identify and address the needs of people that have had trauma secondary to COVID, and while the focus will be on public health workers, it won’t be limited to public health workers, it’s really to work with the community,” said Cullen.

The county also plans on partnering with local legal organizations focused on providing legal services to communities with low socioeconomic status to create a dedicated public health legal team. The team would provide expedited referrals and legal support focusing on eviction prevention, domestic violence, child abuse and public benefits.

While the majority of the funding focuses on testing, the county would distribute $925,000 to community-based groups disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 to help people access COVID testing, contact tracing and vaccinations, while also embedding a community health worker. ■

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DANEHY

AMERICA HAS A DARK AND VIOLENT POLITICAL HISTORY. LET’S HOPE IT’S NOT THE FUTURE.

By Tom Danehy, tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com AS WE CELEBRATE THE FIRST Fourth of July after pulling back from the brink, we should be in a celebratory mood.

The economy is good-going-on-great, the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror of those who have chosen to embrace science, and things are returning to a semblance of normalcy. However, bitter political winds are blowing as one party has embarked on a mission to cling to minority political power through whatever nefarious means necessary while the party that is actually in power fiddles while believing that there is no way that Rome could actually burn.

Sadly, America has seen it all before. In the incredibly depressing new book, The Age of Acrimony, author Jon Grinspan recounts a period in American history that even history buffs tend to skim past—the final third of the 19th century, that time between the end of the Civil War and the dawn of the new “American Century.”

While most historians (and school history classes), when glancing at that period, will focus on the effects of the Industrial Revolution, the mass migration into the American West, the attempted genocide of the Native populations, the failure of Reconstruction and the attendant rise of Jim Crow, and the amassing of enormous

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

wealth by a handful of robber barons, we ignore at our own peril the vile and violent politics of that era.

Three of America’s four presidential assassinations occurred in that time. Between the early 1870s and the mid-1890s, only one presidential contender actually won a majority of the popular votes cast, and that man—Samuel J. Tilden—was denied the presidency by a bogus commission set up

by Congress to settle a fight over electoral votes. (Echoes of that commission reverberated through Washington just a few months ago.) Racist political leaders openly spoke of the need for a minority government, one that could be built and maintained through the systematic exclusion of votes by freed slaves and naturalized immigrants.

Meanwhile, there were unscrupulous political bosses who advocated for ever-more suffrage, the promise of the American dream being utilized to amass power (which, for some, is the true American dream). America after the Civil War (and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) was a giant open wound. It was a political tinderbox and there were far too many people out there with matches.

And while the specter of political vio-

lence hangs over America today like a dull ache that can’t be ignored, in that other ugly period, it was very real—in fact, an expected part of the political fabric.

There was perhaps the most-vulgar and deadly of all of the outrages of the time, the official savagery that has come to be known as Wilmington’s Lie. In 1898, the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, served as an example of what the South could become.

Blacks and whites served together in what was called a fusion government. There were Black judges and alderman, and a healthy percentage of the police force consisted of African-American men. There was also a substantial Black middle-class and a vibrant economy based around the work done on Wilmington’s bustling docks.

That was too much for former Confederate officers to take. They conspired to “take their state back.” They first stole the statewide election of 1898 through ballot stuffing and widespread concerted voter intimidation. Blacks throughout the state were prevented from voting through threats of and then actual violence. Two days after the “election,” an army of 2,000 Red Shirts rode into Wilmington. They torched Black-owned businesses, terrorized women and children, and shot dead at least 60 Black men in the streets. Entire neighborhoods of Black people were chased out into the swamps surrounding Wilmington and told not to return. And Black elected officials were forced to resign at gunpoint.

North Carolina would later refer to what happened as a “race riot,” when, in fact, it was a coup, a violent overthrow of a duly

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elected government on American soil.

That wasn’t an isolated incident. Political violence was the norm, not the exception.

Throughout the South, political control was seized through violence and election chicanery. After racists grabbed control in Louisiana and quickly rewrote the state’s constitution, the number of Blacks registered to vote went from 130,000 to 1,300 in less than a decade. Up North, political bosses with names like Pig Iron Kelley, Bathhouse John, Bill The Butcher and Boss Tweed wielded the power of brute-force majority rule. Things got very, very ugly.

Philadelphia newspapers reported deadly gunfire on every Election Day of the final 30 years of the 19th century. Riots at political rallies were so commonplace as to be completely expected. People in the emerging middle class claimed they were being victimized and marginalized by an unholy coalition of “the dangerously rich and the dangerously poor.” There was a well-known term called “awling,” in which (ahem) poll watchers would stab people with awls (an icepick-like tool used by leather workers to punch holes) if the voter asked for the “wrong,” color-coded ballot. Thousands and thousands of people died in political violence in those 30-plus years.

It’s all so familiar. We’re intelligent people; we should be doing all that we can to avoid repeating history. But instead, we’re rushing headlong toward that very thing. I’m generally very optimistic, but I’m dreading what July 4, 2025, is going to look like. ■

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by Emily Dieckman Yogas with Aja. Oh, you think you’re trendy because you do yoga? You know nothing of trendiness until you’ve taken a yoga class at the local contemporary art museum. On the autonomous space rug, no less. The rug, part of the current exhibition Pia Camil: Three Works, is a patchwork of carpet painted with a diagram of social distancing parameters, and which covers the entire floor of the museum’s great hall. Your instructor Aja is trained in Yoga Hour, a playful type of yoga that is both accessible and rigorous (but still with the glorious three-minute savasana at the end to cool down). Sessions will focus on themes like reuse and repurposing. Masks are required. 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, July 10 (but try to arrive 10 minutes early). Tucson MOCA, 265 S. Church Ave. Free.

Immigration Ain’t Easy. Also over at MOCA this weekend is this talk by Tucson immigration attorney Mo Goldman.

Mo will be dispelling misinformation about the U.S. immigration system. How does applying for visas work? What about sponsoring family members, or DACA/ Dreamers? Or the deportation process, or common roadblocks to winning deportation cases? All this and more will be covered. The event is part of the Autonomous Space Rug Programming series, offered in conjunction with Pia Camil’s ongoing exhibit. 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, July 10. Tucson MOCA, 265 S. Church Ave. Free.

HUB Restaurant Rooftop Dinner Summer Series. Are you ready for the second installment of this summer series?

You should probably sit down for this, so you don’t fall down when you read it and your socks get knocked off. The Agave Four-Course Pairing Experience includes shrimp and sea bass ceviche paired with an OJ & pomegranate cocktail; bacon and pear fritters with goat cheese dip paired with a mezcal vago drink; chili duck confit paired with a herradura reposado drink; and a sorbet margarita for dessert.

Featuring an array of local ingredients, and served on the HUB’s beautiful rooftop patio. Treat yourself! 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 15. Playground Bar & Lounge Rooftop Patio, 266 Congress St. Space is limited, call 207-8201 to make a reservation. $85 per person.

CoderDojo Summer Robotics Workshop. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we should probably all learn how to code, but it’s too late for many of us adults to find the time or initiative. The hope for our future lies with the youth!

If you know a STEM-loving kid between the ages of 7 and 17, they might love this in-person workshop about how to code, develop programs and more. And after all, what more fun way to learn coding than via building and programming robotics? 1 to 5 p.m. Thursday, July 8.

Virtual. Email Tucson.us@coderdojo.com with questions.

A Photographer Discloses. Invisible Theatre’s latest offering is this one-woman show by playwright, director and longtime photographer Gretchen Wirges.

When she took a break from posed and paid-for photos recently, she explored the medium of film, and using it to capture raw emotion and vulnerability. What she found were connections between photographer and subject deeper than any she’d ever experienced. Come hear the stories, see the photos and get to know the photographer, as she steps out from behind the camera to disclose some of

her own truths. 7 p.m. Thursday, July 8, and Friday, July 9. 2 p.m. Saturday, July 10. Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave. $40.

Reid Park Zoo Summer Safari Nights.

Thank goodness for this summer tradition at the zoo. Lord knows taking your kids to see the animals sounds like an idyllic summer day, but Lord also knows that it’s too hot to go outside during the day. So doing it at night is perfect. This week’s theme is weird science! You get to learn about some of the most bizarre and unique animals the zoo has to offer.

Meerkats, squirrel monkeys, giant anteaters African goats and aldabra tortoises will abound! OnesAll Band will provide a soundtrack of funk and rock music; Ready, Set, Rec will supply the games; and the zoo will provide the food and drink specials. 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 10. Reid Park Zoo, 3400 Zoo Court. $10.50 adults, $8.50 seniors, $6.50 kids ages 2 to 14.

Tucson Saguaros vs. Roswell Invaders. If these two teams were competing for the title of which team name best embodies the team’s hometown, it would definitely be a close game. But alas, they are competing in a baseball game, which will, at least, be much more entertaining to watch. When the teams faced off on the Invaders’ field earlier this month, the Saguaros claimed a victory. Let’s hope our beloved Saguaros can keep it up on their home turf. 7 p.m. Monday, July 12; Tuesday, July 13; and Wednesday, July 14. Amphitheater High School, 125 W. Yavapai Road.

Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Laser Light Show. Wow, I didn’t realize it until I came across this event, but a Pink

Floyd laser light show in an air-conditioned room is exactly what I need right now. It might just be what we all need right now. It’s been a long hiatus, but this show is back at Flandrau for just one day until further notice. Get your tickets ASAP! I’m telling you! This is the sort of thing that can cure your ills. 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 10. Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium, 1601 E. University Blvd. $9 adults, $8 senior/military, $7 kids 4 to 17 and college ID holders.

Tamborcito. Going out with friends on a Friday night no longer sounds like an outlandish dream that happened so long ago we can’t be sure we didn’t imagine it. In that spirit, Club Congress invites you over for some Friday night jamming on the Tap patio with DJ Humblelianess and Tamborcito. Grab a friend, grab a cocktail, and try to remember how to dance when you’re out in public, then hit the dancefloor.10 p.m. Friday, July 9. Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St. Free entry.

Mesquite & Permaculture in Food Systems. Do you know much about mesquite? Gerardo Ruiz Smith, a farm planner and regenerative agriculture consultant and trainer based in central Mexico, sure does. He researches the propagation of drought tolerant crops and the design of agroforestry to restore ecosystems. He co-founded a mesquite nursery and food business that works with women from rural Guanajuato communities to harvest mesquite pods for mesquite flour. Extremely cool stuff! In this lecture hosted by the UA Southwest Center, you’ll learn about the ecology, history and processing of mesquite. 3:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 13. ENR2 Haury Lecture Hall, 1064 E. Lowell St. Free.

JULY 8, 2021

CINEMA

COURTESY PHOTO

WIDOW’S BITE

Marvel has another winner with the long-delayed sendoff for an original Avenger

By Bob Grimm tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com

WHILE THE MARVEL TRAIN KEPT A-ROLLIN’ during the pandemic with home offerings like Wandavision and Loki (A thousand thank yous, Disney+!), the blockbuster movies have been on ice for a couple of years (Screw you, Pandemic!).

The drought ends with the long-delayed Black Widow, a fine sendoff for Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, and an even finer intro for Florence Pugh’s new Marvel entry, Yelena Belova, Natasha’s little sister. It’s the film Natasha deserves, and the Marvel movie universe returns to the big screen in typically solid fashion.

Say this for Marvel: They do a nice job of telling origin stories in a mode that always feels new. This time, they go with director Cate Shortland, who delivers a heartfelt, gritty ode to the beloved Natasha while not skimping on the face-melting action. There are sequences (including an air battle late in the film) that account for some of Marvel’s best. You won’t be disappointed if you choose to view this on the local big screen rather than at home (the film is available on Disney+ as a premium rental during its theatrical run). Black Widow delivers the cinematic adrenaline, and Marvel canon, you’ve been waiting for.

The story goes back to Natasha’s early years and, no surprise, her childhood truly sucked. Her dad is Alexei, played by the always fun David Harbour. Harbour’s

Alexei is an exiled former Russian superhero dying to put his suit back on. When he does, there’s some extra pounds around the waist…and on the butt, and in the upper thighs, etc. Harbour’s character is a flawed man with a terrible dark side, but the actor also finds the humor and humanity in him.

Rachel Weisz is Melina, Natasha’s mother, a renowned Russian scientist who teaches pigs to do human things.

Natasha and Yolanda are given a strange upbringing by Alexei and Melina, followed by time with the film’s main villain, Dreykov (Ray Winstone). Dreykov raises the girls in his Red Room (no relation to Twin Peaks), where they both learn the ways of the assassin by means of abuse and mind control.

Natasha has always been the most “human” of the Avengers, and it makes sense that the bad guys and action in Black Widow are a little more down to earth. No time travel, no exaggerated superpowers, no multiverse.

This chapter deals primarily in more realistic adversarial battles. Well, realistic is an exaggeration, but it’s absent of the mostly supernatural stuff. Doctor Strange doesn’t show up with the Infinity Stones and Thor isn’t throwing hammers. This one has car chases and fist fights!

Black Widow is, of course, a prequel, which deals primarily in the time before Natasha dying her hair blonde and heading into the events of Infinity War and Endgame. Credit the writers, and Johannson, for making Natasha’s time on screen enjoyable and exciting despite knowing her eventual fate. As always…STAY FOR THE END CREDITS. It always amazes me when everybody gets up and leaves during Marvel credits. Will they ever learn?

Johannson and Pugh are an atomic duo, convincing ass kickers with good senses of humor. Their initial meeting is one for the ages, lacking hello hugs and leaning more towards guns in the face and knives at the ribs. The transfer from actresses to stunt people during this sequence is seamless. Again, Marvel has its shit together.

This is Shortland’s first foray into blockbusters, and she aces it. Many things in this movie whirl around your head and explode, and Shortland keeps the visuals realistic and the editing assured. The film is high and tight on all tech counts. The performers do a fine job with those other, more introspective parts of your brain that don’t need to see things blowing up all of the time. The film is well balanced.

Johannson, more than likely, moves beyond Marvel to other adventures from Black Widow. Pugh on the other hand has just begun in the universe, her Yelena playing a prominent part in the upcoming Disney+ series Hawkeye. (Yes, Jeremy Renner will soon be shooting those arrows again.) It’s a fitting, exciting, and heartwarming pass of the baton, and a reminder that while a bunch of books have closed in Marvel world, the entertainment future is firmly in hand. ■

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OIL BOOM

Cannabis extracts target treatment, eliminate waste in the industry

By David Abbott tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE WEEKLY IS HAPPY TO BRING the third annual OIL edition to its readers, celebrating July 10—710, which is OIL upside-down—and the cannabis extractions that have created a vibrant marketplace both for medical patients and adult-users of legal weed in Arizona.

Broadly defined, oil is any product derived from cannabis flower processed into a concentrated form that can be used for a variety of purposes, including shatter, wax, crumble, hash and other distillates.

There are similar CBD oils that are non-intoxicating and used to treat a variety of medical conditions, generally sold as tinctures, lotions or in capsule form or in smokable cartridges.

THC oils are intoxicating oils used medically or recreationally for their euphoric effects. THC-infused oils are found in solids that can be vaporized (dabs), smokable cartridges, tinctures, various edibles and capsules.

Vaporizer cartridges are a popular use of oils and are similar to e-cigs, but with pot instead.

With further processing (called Decarboxylation, which essentially allows the THC and other compounds to be ab-

sorbed into your liver—you can also create ingestible oils to infuse food and drinks, or simply place in capsules for those who don’t want to eat infused products.

Dispensary owner Moe Asnani predicted on a recent afternoon as a monsoon brewed above his Tucson facility. “Our product are becoming more sophisticated every day.”

Asnani is also co-founder of iLava, a product line that draws heavily on processed cannabis and is driven by stateof-the-art research and development so he stays on the cutting edge of the latest developments in the industry.

Claire Levenberg, R&D manager for iLAVA and iLAVAHEMP and also the director of science operations for the Downtown and D2, has strong beliefs about the ability of science to drive future markets and create more options for the consumer—and make the world a better place.

“What we’re going to see is product with more cannabinoids and the ‘entourage effect,’” Levenberg said.

The entourage effect is a theory that various cannabis compounds work together to create unique effects and benefits.

There are more than 550 identified chemical compounds in cannabis, with more than 100 phytocannabinoids identified, including Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). There are also more than 100 aromatic terpenes that work in concert with other compounds

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 11

to create therapeutic compounds for numerous medical conditions, such as pain, anxiety, epilepsy, nausea and vomiting, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Not only does the combination of cannabinoids and phytocompounds allow the consumer’s metabolic processes to function based on metabolites present, the combination of multiple cannabinoids will synergistically interact to provide more benefits,” Levenberg said, adding that different combinations can create specific reactions to treat a wider array of people, as cannabis affects everyone differently.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT THE DISTILLATION PROCESS creates concentrates or extracts from plant matter. All extracts are concentrates, but not all concentrates are extracts. Extracts are made using solvents like alcohol or butane, while concentrates are made without solvents and include rosin, dry sift or kief.

“We’re highly in tune with the extraction process,” Levenberg said. “It’s an absolute science, so consumers should leave it to the manufacturers who know what they’re doing, so don’t do this at home.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

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Downtown Dispensary’s racks of gummies at their industrial kitchen facility.

As the science behind the processes improves, more options are coming onto the market that can treat specific medical symptoms or provide various types of highs for the adult recreational user.

“In the future, we’ll see more condition-specific product,” Downtown and D2

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OIL BOOM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

One of the most popular uses of extracts is in the manufacture of edibles. Your runof-the-mill gummy can either have cannabis oil added to the recipe or sprayed on, a much cheaper process that does not infuse cannabis throughout the product.

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Edibles infusion process at Copia.

Copia, an Arizona-based edibles manufacturer, uses the former method to ensure accurate dosage and create a better tasting product for its OGeez brand gummies that are infused and made from scratch.

“Infusion creates better taste and evenly distributes THC in the product to create accurately dosed gummies,” Copia’s director of operations Aron Ruben said.

“Some companies buy gummies and spray distillate on them. It’s cost effective—read: cheap—but you don’t know how much that product has been dosed.”

Ruben added that sprayed-on distillate can also sweat off the gummies in transit, further reducing the accuracy of the dose, so “you might as well lick the inside of the packaging.”

“Everyone has a horror story about being misdosed,” he said. “Cannabis is not a one-size-fits-all proposition: We all receive THC differently, so it’s important to have consistency.”

Besides targeted treatment and dosage control, another advantage to the industry is reducing waste, as processing the cannabis leftovers—stems, shake and cuttings that are not sellable as flower—into usable components can add value to every crop, a phenomenon known as “garbage to gold.”

“The whole industry found a way to use the trim and found you could extract THC and terpenes,” Ruben said. “The days of throwing an ounce of weed in a stick of butter are over.”

Transporting product is easier too, as processing weed into distillates creates higher potency in a smaller package, as most flower available in the local pot shop has a potency between 10% to 30%, while concentrates can have as much as 90% potency.

Ruben said Copia is set to expand the OGeez line to include “RSO,” or Rick Simpson’s Oil, a full-spectrum crude oil used to treat debilitating conditions such as cancer, Parkinson’s and severe body pains that is 75% to 80% THC. “I’m excited for the future,” Ruben said.

“There are a fair amount of distillate products in the state and cultivators are selling better quality weed to extraction labs, for better distillates.”

WHY WE CELEBRATE OIL IN JULY 2019, THE WEEKLY recognized the Arizona Supreme Court case that clarified the definition of “marijuana” in legislation to include all parts of, and resins extracted from, the plant.

The May 2019 decision came as a result of the case of Rodney Jones, who was arrested in 2013 at a Prescott hotel and charged with possession of cannabis and

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A tray of freshly made OGeez! infused gummies from the Copia kitchen.

drug paraphernalia. Police alleged that Jones also had 1.4 grams of hashish in his possession, according to contemporaneous reports.

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, who led an effort to defeat marijuana legalization efforts in 2016, argued that 2010 voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act rules did not apply to extracts.

The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed with Polk and ruled in the summer of 2018 that the law did not specifically mention hashish, and if that was the intent of the law, it should have been written that way.

But in a unanimous decision the following year, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the ruling, concluding that patient protections in the AMMA covered products made with resins extracted from the plant.

“It is implausible that voters intended to allow patients with these conditions to use marijuana only if they could consume it in

COURTESY PHOTO

dried-leaf/flower form,” the Court wrote.

“Such an interpretation would preclude the use of marijuana as an option for those for whom smoking or consuming those parts of the marijuana plants would be ineffective or impossible.”

The court stated that its interpretation of the law would allow medical patients to treat their conditions with whatever form of pot served their needs the best.

Jones, a medical marijuana card holder whose conviction and sentence were dropped and sealed in the wake of the lawsuit, spent more than two years in jail that he will not get back. His case served as an important milestone in cannabis legislation though, forcing lawmakers to more fully recognize the will of the people.

While we appreciate the legal processes and celebrate the exoneration of Jones, cannabis oil in its various forms has become a boon to consumers and producers alike. ■

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JULY 8, 2021

“that the groups will be similar and that the effects of the treatments they receive can be compared more fairly.”

In order for researchers to study marijuana, they must jump through a number of hoops and bureaucratic red tape just to get lousy weed to study. No distillates or edibles are available either, only flower.

For SRI to apply to get product for the study, it first had to have the approval of an institutional review board connected to Health and Human Services, and then revise its study proposal for submission to both the state of Arizona and the Federal Drug Administration.

Once those applications were reviewed and approved, the proposal went to the Drug Enforcement Agency for a final approval. Only after the DEA bestowed its blessings, SRI was able to order cannabis COURTESY PHOTO through the National Institute on Drug Dr. Sue Sisley, founder of the Scottsdale Research Institute.

Abuse to acquire quantities of low-grade weed, grown in the only federally sanctioned source in the US: the University Mississippi. That is due to the “Single Study shines light on need to end cannabis prohibition as researchers seek alternatives for of Convention,” a policy put in place in 1961 lousy research weed to limit the manufacture and distribution of marijuana for medical and research though many political corners (including

By David Abbott purposes. the Veterans Administration) are still tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com Often referred to as “lawnmower skeptical and often downright hostile to clippings,” UOM weed has been derided the use of weed as medicine.

A CLINICAL STUDY ON THE But Sisley, through the auspices of the for years as sub-standard, as it contains effects of cannabis as a treatment for Scottsdale Research Institute she found- stems and seeds and oftentimes mold. veterans suffering from post-traumatTHC content caps out at about 9% potened in the wake of her dismissal from the ic stress disorder was finally released cy compared to the 20% to 30% pot found UA in 2014, is working to change the in March, after more than a decade of in the local dispensary. The stock used dynamics and determine how effective work—slowed by frustrating delays—by at UOM was first acquired more than cannabis is as a treatment for PTSD as former UA assistant professor Dr. Sue 30 years ago and pales in comparison well as other afflictions.

Sisley and a network of organizations to modern weed as far as potency and advocating for veterans’ access to medicsmokeability.

LAWNMOWER CLIPPINGS inal cannabis.

The cannabis Sisley used for the SRI While the study was likely adversely study was “moldy and diluted,” after THE BACKDROP TO THE SISLEY affected by the low-grade weed that is spending an “unknown number of years” legally available for research in the Unit- saga is the federal prohibition on canin a freezer at the grow facility. nabis that has led to a lot of bad policy ed States, Sisley and her network have While Sisley cannot posit that the for weed aficionados and a headache for helped spur an easing of government poor-quality weed undermined her study, researchers seeking scientifically sound restrictions that have been in place for there were plenty of indicators pointdata on the plant. decades.

Given marijuana’s status as a Schedule ing to that, not the least of which was “I’ve been taking care of military vetthe return of unsmoked pot from study I narcotic on the same level as heroin, erans for about 20 years in my medical subjects. the U.S. government has spent decades practice, and I was super anti-cannabis “I’m not allowed to explicitly make doing its best to squash any research my whole life,” Sisley said. “I couldn’t studies that do not include those geared that [statement] because, as a scientist, believe these veterans were claiming I’m only allowed to report the data, and they were getting benefit from this and I toward connecting cannabis use to viowas really skeptical. … But I became very lent behavior, crime, addiction potential not really editorialize,” she said. “You’ll notice in some of the commentary we did or various psychoses. Many of the studsympathetic with them when I saw the shitty meds that were available. The FDA ies that do get approved are anecdotal in mention things like how many veterans return the majority of the cannabis nature and not “randomized clinical trihas not approved a single new med for als.” According to the National Institutes because it was very ineffective. ... It was PTSD in 19 years now. So that sucks.” just so diluted, it wasn’t worth putting the of Health, an RCT is “a study in which The approved medications are Zoloft energy into.” and Paxil, but many veterans who tired of the participants are divided by chance That dynamic is changing, though, as into separate groups that compare differbeing dosed with pharmaceuticals have ent treatments or other interventions” so in May, the DEA announced it has finalopted to self-treat with cannabis, even

POT AND PTSD

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 15

ized new regulations and is in the process of certifying a number of growers to produce cannabis for research in the U.S. Sisley’s Scottsdale Research Institute has been able to get approval to grow its own marijuana for study—the next cannabis-related work SRI plans is for cancer patients and Phase 2 of the PTSD trials coming sometime in 2022—but until Sisley’s group gets its own strains up and running, she is using a more expensive alternative, importing cannabis from Canada, a legal alternative that not many people take due to the complexity and amount of time it takes for approval.

NEGATIVE STUDY SISLEY’S RESEARCH, PUBLISHED in a peer-reviewed paper titled “The short-term impact of 3 smoked cannabis preparations versus placebo on PTSD symptoms: A randomized cross-over clinical trial,” took a decade to complete: seven years to navigate the bureaucracy, including a delay of at least three years due to the intransigence of the UA. The actual study took an additional three years and included 80 veterans being treated for PTSD, coming at a cost of $2.2 million acquired in a grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment through the California-based nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies.

Participants were broken into four groups, one group using weed with 9% THC; one with 11% CBD; one group using an 8% THC/8% CBD hybrid, and a group that was administered a placebo.

The results were considered negative because there was insufficient statistical variance to confirm the efficacy of the drug for treatment. However, there were sufficient positive returns that further studies are justified and Sisley hopes to initiate Phase 2 in the near future. She also hopes to do that with marijuana that is more reflective of what’s available for consumers in the Arizona marketplace.

“Even though I can’t say it explicitly, I can say we think there were enough positive signals in the study, enough promising elements that we think that we are on the right track,” Sisley said. “If we had a level playing field to actually study real-world cannabis, we wonder if the results would be different. So that’s why we want to keep pursuing this path.”

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POT AND PTSD

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UA BLUES LONGTIME READERS OF THE Weekly may remember the trials and tribulations of Sisley, when back in 2014 the UA unceremoniously released her when she was on the cusp of getting the study underway.

Sisley is a dedicated Wildcat and holds no grudges against the university, despite the institution’s rough handling of her over the cannabis study she has devoted the past 12 years of her life completing.

“It took us seven years to get all the regulatory approvals to conduct the trial, but part of the delay was being terminated from the UA,” she said. “The IRB at the university approved the study, so the UA had said the study was safe, ethical and OK to do there.”

But then-president of UA Ann Weaver Hart, whose motto that year was “Never Settle,” apparently buckled to alleged political pressure from then state Sen. Andy Biggs (who now serves in the U.S. Congress) and refused to renew Sisley’s contract, thus driving a stake through the heart of the study.

At the time, the university was trying to raise its national profile as a “grant-producing super-research center of higher learning ready to grow economies and minds,” according to a Weekly report in the wake of Sisley’s termination.

“They kept saying there was no room on campus to do the trial, no labs available,” Sisley said. “Meanwhile, I was working at the UA College of Medicine campus in Phoenix where we had miles of unused, empty labs and offices sitting there perfect for us, so we knew that they were just bluffing and just trying to block this as long as possible.”

It took a year for her to find a place in the private sector to conduct the research, and eventually she was able to continue her work in an environment where she could pursue “scientific freedom” outside the bounds of academia.

SHELL SHOCK PTSD AND WAR GO HAND IN HAND. Throughout history, war-scarred veterans have suffered the effects of the brutality foisted on them or that they foist on others in service to the alleged interests of their countries.

From the 18th century through the Civil

War, what we now know as PTSD was called “nostalgia,” which became “soldier’s heart” and “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” in later wars, according to the National Center for PTSD. In classic literature, consider Shakespeare’s Henry IV, where Lady Percy describes her husband Hotspur’s behavior upon his return from war to include everything from isolation to unwarranted rage and sexual frustration, classic symptoms of PTSD. Then there is Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, where protagonist Henry Fleming runs from the field of battle in the heat of the Civil War, thus sealing his fate.

Yet despite its long existence as a human condition, PTSD has only recently been afforded status as a treatable condition.

It was not until 1980, in the wake of the Vietnam War, that PTSD made its way into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). Until WWI, wartime PTSD sufferers were accused of cowardice that often ended with a fatal “fragging” from fellow soldiers. In subsequent American wars though, soldiers became too valuable a commodity and a burgeoning recognition of the disorder allowed affected soldiers to take alternative duty behind the lines in non-combat roles.

That has not reduced the suffering though, as attested by veteran suicides in the wake of the Bush wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While a popularly accepted number of 22 veterans a day, about 8,000 a year, is used as a baseline to illustrate the problem, the Department of Veterans Affairs released its 2020 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report last November reporting that from 2017 to 2018, veteran suicides per day rose from 17.5 to 17.6 with 6,435 suicides reported in 2018.

Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic though, the Department of Defense reported a 25% increase in the number of deaths by suicide in the last quarter of 2020, after the year 2019 had a record number of suicides, according to a report on military.com.

A press release from SRI estimated that 6% to 10% of the general population and 13% to 31% of U.S. veterans experience PTSD, which can lead to substance abuse, depression and suicidality. Oftentimes veterans who receive traditional drugs regimens still qualify for a diagnosis by the end of treatment.

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VETERAN SUPPORT WHEN WORD WENT OUT IN 2014 that Sisley was let go, the extensive veteran community in Tucson and the UA rallied to her support and still stick by her side to this day.

“I’ve been advocating for veterans’ access to cannabis since 2013, when I teamed up with Dr. Sisley upon completion of my classes and induction as a fellow in the Flinn-Brown Arizona Center for Civic Leadership,” Army veteran Ricardo Pereyda said. “Once I graduated into that program, she and I started working together, and that’s when I came out of my [cannabis] closet. I was on campus at the University of Arizona, running the vets center, so I was already advocating for services or resources for our veteran community, doing a bunch of community service work.”

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Ricardo Pereyda, cannabis advocate for veterans and member of Veterans Action Council.

Pereyda, a Tucson native and die-hard Wildcat, was attending UA after a six-year stint in the military left him much the worse for wear after multiple blasts he survived in Iraq left him 100% disabled in the eyes of the DoD. Pereyda began secretly using cannabis after rejecting the cocktail of drugs he was given by the VA and a bout of self-medicating with alcohol.

“A lot of veterans on campus were using it, but again, it was taboo so you didn’t talk about it,” he said. “These are people trying to get professional degrees and consideration for employment after college, and that’s the case with a lot of people that are still serving either in the military or as contractors. They use it on some really iffy terms because they don’t want to put

COURTESY PHOTO

A chart of the process researchers have to go through to get cannabis from the FDA.

themselves on the record. But what are you gonna do when the pills don’t work? The booze makes it worse. Right?”

Sisley’s work and mentorship helped give Pereyda direction and the confidence he needed to go public about his cannabis use. In the wake of her firing, he tried to convince UA leadership that they had made a mistake getting rid of a preeminent research professor. But it came to no avail and Pereyda said he was “blackballed” by people at the university.

In the years since then, he has increased his advocacy work to get the VA to provide medical cannabis for suffering veterans and has done what he can to help SRI studies move forward.

He now works with the Veterans Action Council, an advocacy organization that works with legislators and fellow veterans, and plans to return to UA to finish his educational aspirations someday.

“When you go into college, you figure out during your undergraduate years what your passion is, what you’re interested in,” he said. “And then you find a mentor: In this case Dr. Sisley was my mentor, a doctor in an amazing field, doing something that’s interesting to me, something I’m passionate about.”

A month later in a Senate committee hearing, VA officials declined to discuss the bill, but offered written testimony in opposition, stating that the Biden Administration is against the reform.

VAC member Tony Landry does not suffer from PTSD but has chronic pain from his years of service. He eventually had to detox from the pills the VA was giving him and the alcohol he was using as a coping mechanism. Living in Louisiana, he did not have access to medical cannabis so he moved to Arizona, where he still fights for access both here and

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 19

for his fellow vets in Louisiana.

“It’s a lifesaver for me, because I went through the pharmaceutical cycle with the VA for 20 years,” he said. “You build up tolerance to the opiates and then it really takes a humongous dose for you to accomplish the same pain relief.”

As to Sisley, in the ensuing years since she left UA, she’s seen a dearth of legitimate research and, if anything, many academic institutions are shying away from it during a crucial time. She will always be grateful to UA. She spent four years there as a medical student and another eight as a faculty member and is proud of her deep ties there. In hindsight, she sees her firing as a “huge gift” that has helped forward her research.

“We have over 300,000 patients that have cards, and they have serious questions about how cannabis works, how it doesn’t, and none of that is getting addressed by our universities,” she said.

“Many of them have dropped the ball on this, but others are happily collecting the ball and running with it.” ■ For more information on the Scottsdale Research Institute, visit fieldtohealed.com.

For more information on the Veterans Action Council, visit veteransactioncouncil.com

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MUSIC

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Stay Here by Soda Sun Released Friday, July 2 fortlowell.bandcamp.com/album/stay-here

COURTESY PHOTO

CAUGHT ON TAPE

Soda Sun find a home in the heat on their debut Stay Here

By Jeff Gardner jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE STORY OF THE BAND SODA SUN begins with guitarist and vocalist John Goraj moving to Tucson from Los Angeles in 2017. But the story of the band’s debut release begins with a return trip to California to pick up a vintage tape machine. Though there is room for all four band members on the mellow debut, the tape machine almost serves as a fifth member, maintaining a warm pleasance throughout Stay Here’s runtime.

Goraj originally left “the Los Angeles hustle for Tucson’s contemplative desert beauty,” and both of these cities hold an influence on the album, which sees a combination of folk and rock. Though the lyrics range from personal reflections to observations, the consistently tight performances and guitar tones maintain a style throughout.

“There was an ethos that came out of being in Tucson. Even though there’s not a Western thing going on in the music, or any major clues about the Southwest, I think you can feel the desert’s influence,”

Goraj said. “There’s a way the music talks about the desert, but not necessarily with words.”

Although the album is titled Stay Here and was recorded throughout 2020, there are few references to the pandemic.

The album title instead refers to Goraj finding a kind of home in Tucson after years of travels. The sentiment makes for a pensive and beautiful title track based around a calm wall of guitar and quiet drums with grateful lyrics: “Let’s stay here awhile / Just naked and laughing / the world’s gone to hell / So I’m holding your brave hands / Let’s always stay wild / In this ocean of creosote.”

“I spent a lot of time taking it all in and reflecting, especially the first two years that I lived in Tucson,” Goraj said.

“I was jotting down a lot of thoughts and writing what I was experiencing. It’s a pretty unique place, with a lot of special and hard aspects. To me, one of the most interesting things is how Tucson has this dynamic culture of half-hippie-art and half people driving around with Trump flags. You don’t find that much… But beyond that, I was taking in the culture and celebrating that we have venues like

the Rialto and Club Congress. There are really high quality places to perform and record music.”

These observations are clear on “Junkies,” which Goraj explains is one of the most political songs he’s ever written, although it comments on the occasional pointlessness of political conversations.

Reflecting on sights around town, the lead guitar has a fitting twang and warmth to celebrate Tucson.

In contrast, Goraj explains the track “Gitchie” is about the boredom and need for imagination while growing up in South Dakota. The song is a clear standout, with an energetic central rhythm and mildly psychedelic guitar paired with Goraj’s hushed yet passionate singing.

“The tape machine was a huge part of how the album turned out,” Goraj said.

“There were maybe four or six things that we had to add after. But if you were to look at it statistically, maybe 98% of it is analog. There were just some things we ran out of space to be able to do. There are only eight tracks, so we had some limitations and couldn’t get super surgical.

Everyone had to play their part and play it well until it was filled up.”

Aside from Goraj, Soda Sun includes Johny Vargas on guitar, Derek Cerretani on bass and vocals, and David Foley on drums. For a standard rock band lineup, Soda Sun’s music contains ample space for reflection: guitar tones linger, the drums just balance on being submerged, and even acoustic passages feel atmospheric.

“The fuzzy guitar tones really have to do with how wonderful of a player and how good of an ear Johny has,” Goraj said. “He’s such a great guitarist, and we were so happy when he joined. Me, Dave and Derek started the band as a threepiece, and Johny came on about a year later, and we were so pumped.”

The band started recording in December 2019, but soon had to adapt their recording sessions to often be isolated.

By summer 2020 most of the music was ready to mix. All of the songs were recorded in their own studio in Tucson, but mixed and mastered in other states.

“A lot of it had to be recorded in the middle of when everything was going on, so it was a little bit tricky,” Goraj said.

“But we were motivated to get it done.”

The performances work well filtered through their 35-year-old reel-to-reel Tascam 388. Although the band rarely strays far from standard folk/rock structures, the production gives the music a nice sun-bleached feel perfect for listening in both the desert and the beach.

“I don’t think there’s an overarching theme. They go across huge time spans of when I wrote them. So some of them were written as a solo artist and then were transmuted for Soda Sun,” Goraj said. “I’m a huge fan of allusion, like bringing in references from across time periods and putting them in the same song, so you can make up fantasies about what these people might be doing.”

This style is best exemplified on the track “Hildegard,” named after the medieval Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen.

Despite the concept, it’s a carefree ballad and arguably the closest to country Soda Sun gets, with sharp guitar and Goraj delivering “Where’s everyone? Where’s Hildegard?” with a slight drawl. But of course, the whole song is browned at the edges like only analog tape can do.

“To me, it was never about being puritanical,” Goraj said. “It was more about it being the main instrument we were using to record the album. It was really cool to make a record that had almost no screens involved. It was just us and this hundred-pound machine.” ■

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JULY 8, 2021

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Poet Joshua Jennifer Espinoza writes, “i name my body girl of my dreams / i name my body proximity / i name my body full of hope despite everything.” I love her idea that we might give playful names and titles and descriptors to our bodies. In alignment with current astrological omens, I propose that you do just that. It’s time to take your relationship with your beautiful organism to a higher level.

How about if you call it “Exciting Love River” or “Perfectly Imperfect Thrill” or “Amazing Maze”?

Have fun dreaming up further possibilities!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The English language, my native tongue, doesn’t ascribe genders to its nouns. But many languages do. In Spanish, the word for “bridge” is puente, which is masculine.

In German, “bridge” is Brücke, which is feminine.

A blogger named Tickettome says this is why Spanish speakers may describe a bridge as strong or sturdy, while German speakers refer to it as elegant or beautiful. I encourage you to meditate on bridges that possess the entire range of qualities, including the Spanish and German notions.

In the coming weeks, you’ll be wise to build new metaphorical bridges, fix bridges that are in disrepair, and extinguish fires on any bridges that are burning.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Académie Française is an organization devoted to preserving the purity and integrity of the French language. One of its ongoing missions is to resist the casual incorporation of English words, which the younger generation of French people is inclined to do. Among anglicisms that don’t have the Académie’s approval: podcast, clickbait, chick-lit, deadline, hashtag, marketing, timelapse and showrunner. The ban doesn’t stop anyone from using the words, of course, but simply avoids giving them official recognition. I appreciate the noble intentions of the Académie, but regard its crusade as a losing battle

that has minimal impact. In the coming weeks, I advise you to refrain from behavior that resembles the Académie’s. Resist the temptation of quixotic idealism. Be realistic and pragmatic. You Geminis often thrive in environments that welcome idiosyncrasies, improvisation, informality, and experimentation—especially now.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian author Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote a poem about how one morning he went half-mad and conversed with the sun. At first he called the supreme radiance a “lazy clown,” complaining that it just floated through the sky for hours while he, Mayakovsky, toiled diligently at his day job painting posters.

Then he dared the sun to come down and have tea with him, which, to his shock, the sun did. The poet was agitated and worried—what if the close approach of the bright deity would prove dangerous? But the visitor turned out to be friendly. They had a pleasant dialog, and in the end the sun promised to provide extra inspiration for Mayakovsky’s future poetry. I invite you to try something equally lyrical and daring, dear Cancerian.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A blogger named Bunny-Gal writes, “I almost completely forgot who I was there for a while. But then I dug a hole and smelled the fresh dirt and now I remember everything and am okay.” I recommend you follow her lead, Leo—even if you haven’t totally lost touch with your essence.

Communing with Mother Earth in the most direct and graphic way to remind you of everything you need to remember: of the wisdom you’ve lost track of and the secrets you’ve hidden too well and the urgent intuitions that are simmering just below the surface of your awareness.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I can’t understand the self-help gurus who advise us to relentlessly live in the present moment—to shed all awareness of past and future so as to focus on the eternal NOW. I

SAVAGE LOVE SACK LUNCH

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

On the first Thursday of every month I host “Sack Lunch,” an online hangout exclusively for Magnum subscribers to the Savage Lovecast. I take questions, invite listeners to answer them with me, and we have a blast. I’m giving this week’s column over to some of the questions we didn’t get to during this month’s Savage Lovecast Sack Lunch…

My son is straight, cute, accomplished, 25, and has friends. He’s never been kissed. I suspect he’s terrified. I can’t talk to him about it. Should his dad talk to him? Should he go to a sex worker?

Would this undermine his confidence?

mean, I appreciate the value of doing such an exercise on occasion for a few moments. I’ve tried it, and it’s often rejuvenating. But it can also be downright foolish to have no thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow. We need to evaluate how circumstances will evolve, based on our previous experience and future projections. It can be a deadening, depleting act to try to strip ourselves of the rich history we are always embedded in. In any case, Virgo, I advise you to be thoroughly aware of your past and future in the coming days. To do so will enhance your intelligence and soulfulness in just the right ways to make good decisions.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Psychotherapist and author Clarissa Pinkola Estés poetically refers to the source of our creativity as “the river under the river.” It’s the deep primal energy that “nourishes everything we make”—our “writing, painting, thinking, healing, doing, cooking, talking, smiling.” This river beneath the river doesn’t belong to any of us—is potentially available to all—but if harnessed correctly it works in very personal ways, fueling our unique talents. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because you’re close to gaining abundant new access to the power of the river beneath the river.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In formulating personal goals, Scorpio author Brené Brown urges us to emphasize growth rather than perfection. Trying to improve is a healthier objective than seeking flawless mastery. Bonus perk: This practical approach makes us far less susceptible to shame. We’re not as likely to feel like a failure or give up prematurely on our projects. I heartily endorse this strategy for you right now, Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In a letter to Jean Paul Sartre, author Simone de Beauvoir described how she was dealing with a batch of challenging memories: “I’m reliving it street by street, hour by hour, with the mission of neutralizing it, and transforming it into an inoffensive past that I can keep in my heart without either disowning it or suffering from it.” I LOVE this approach! It’s replete with emotional intelligence. I recommend

ready to tell you about. If he’s happy, let him be.

Is there a safe way to enlarge a clitoris?

Your son has friends and that’s a good sign. Not only does it mean your son has social skills, mom, it means he has people in his life that he can confide in about his sex life and ask for advice.

You can and should ask him if there’s anything he would like to talk about— keep those lines of communication open—but it’s entirely possible that your son has no interest in sex (he could be asexual) or that he has an active love and/or sex life that he doesn’t wanna talk with mom and dad about for reasons, e.g. he’s someone’s rubber gimp or he can only get it up in a fursuit or he’s in a polyamorous triad that he’s not

Allow me to Google that for you. Hey, turns out there’s a Wikipedia entry for that (“Clitoral Enlargement Methods”), as I suspected there might be, and it lists three methods to grow a clitoris: the use of creams containing testosterone (applied directly to the clit); testosterone supplements (administered by injection); and the use of clitoral pumps, i.e. suction cups. Testosterone injections is the most effective way to enlarge a clit—as any trans man can tell you—but it has other “masculinizing effects” that you may not want. Clitoral pumps, much like penis pumps, can

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 23

it to you now, since it’s high time to wrangle and finagle with parts of your life story that need to be alchemically transformed and redeemed by your love and wisdom.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In one of his poems, Capricorn-born Kenneth Rexroth complains about having “a crooked guide on the twisted path of love.” But in my view, a crooked guide is the best kind. It’s unwise to engage the services of a love accomplice who’s always looking for the simplest, straightest route, or who imagines that intimate togetherness can be nourished with easy, obvious solutions. To cultivate the most interesting intimacy, we need influences that appreciate nuance and complexity—that thrive on navigating the tricky riddles and unpredictable answers. The next eight weeks will be an excellent time for you Capricorns to heed this advice.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian singer Etta James (1938–2012) won six Grammy Awards and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grammy Hall of Fame, and Blues Hall of Fame. She testified, “Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don’t know what I’m sorry about.” Wow! I’m surprised to hear this. Most singers draw on their personal life experience to infuse their singing with authentic emotion. In any case, I urge you to do the opposite of Etta James in the coming weeks. It’s important for the future of your healing that you identify exactly what you’re sorry about.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn,” writes Piscean self-help author John C. Maxwell. His statement is useful, but it harbors a problematic implication. It suggests that you can experience either winning or learning, but not both—that the only time you learn is when you lose. I disagree with this presumption.

In fact, I think you’re now in a phase when it’s possible and even likely for you to both win and learn.

Homework. Send word of your most important lesson of the year so far. Newsletter @freewillastrology.com

enlarge the clitoris temporarily but overuse or too-enthusiastic use of a pump—on a dick or a clit—can damage erectile tissues.

I am familiar with demisexuality—the idea that some people cannot develop a sexual relationship without an emotional or a romantic bond first—but what about the opposite phenomenon?

I lose interest in people who get to know me and my desire to hook up is quickly replaced by a desire to just be acquaintances.

Not only is there a term for people like you—people who lose desire after getting to know someone—there’s also a pride flag because there can never be CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

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JULY 8, 2021

SAVAGE LOVE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

too many pride flags: “Fraysexual, also known as ignotasexual, is a sexual orientation on the asexual spectrum,” says LGBTA Wiki, “[describing] someone who only experiences sexual attraction towards those that they are not deeply connected with and lose that attraction as they get to know the person.” Your pride colors are blue, cyan, white, and gray. (There are so many pride flags out there these days—and they come out so damn fast—that I suspected someone created an online pride flag generator.

And I was right: myflag.lgbt.)

What would you say to someone in a poly relationship who had their heart broken as a third?

It gets better.

My husband (gay, age 29) has continually accused me of cheating and other similar activities over the course of our six years together. It wasn’t too bad at the start but it got worse. I now feel so much resentment toward him that it’s destroying us. I feel like a prisoner in the relationship. He’s tracked my phone to make sure I’m not going anywhere “unapproved” and if I don’t tell him everything I’m doing he gets upset. At this point I hate being intimate with him.

I don’t even want to touch him. We’ve started seeing a couples counselor but it’s not helping with my resentment. How do I get over this resentment? Or do I do what my brain is telling me and divorce him?

DTMFA—divorce the motherfucker already—and you’ll not only be doing yourself a favor you’ll most likely be doing your ex a favor as well. Because the pain of getting dumped is the only thing that motivates jealous and controlling assholes like your husband to get the help they need.

What does “being in good working order” mean in practice? I’m struggling with depression (got diagnosed 18 months ago) and I still don’t have a handle on things. I feel like I can’t date because I can’t even tell potential partners what brand of chaos to expect with me because I don’t know myself. My friends say I’m being too hard on myself.

What do you think?

I don’t have a handle on things. Not all the things. I have my own struggles and I bring my own particular brand of chaos to the table, the bedroom, the play party, etc. But I like to think I’m in good working order—or good enough working order. I realize this is circular logic but one of the ways I know I’m in good enough working order to sustain a relationship is that I’m in relationships I’ve somehow managed to sustain. So if someone decides they wanna be with you—someone who has a choice about staying or going—then that person believes you’re in good enough working order. That’s a “yes” you can and should take for an answer but it’s not a “yes” you’re ever gonna get if you never allow yourself to date. At some point you have to take a chance—probably more than one chance—to find out whether or not you’re in good enough working order. I think it’s a good sign that your friends— people who know and love you—feel like you’re in good enough working order to get out there and start dating.

(I realize that the ability to sustain a relationship isn’t, in and of itself, proof that a person is in good working order.

Some relationships are toxic, abusive, codependent, etc. Getting out of a bad relationship, staying in a good one—either can be evidence that a person is in good working order.)

Long distance relationships.... how do you choose between moving overseas to another country, uprooting your life for a relationship, and staying close to family and friends and the familiar? I moved to the U.K. before the pandemic hit and I’m trying not to blame the relationship for a shit year where I wasn’t able to leave home or make new friends in a new country. We were together for one year before I moved here. I miss home and friends, I lost my dad, and I’m terrified that this relationship might fail at some point after we’ve started a family. And then I’ll be stuck in this country to be near my children. Yes, I’m in therapy. But think I need a Dan Savage reality check.

I’m so sorry for the loss of your father.

I would advise you to take a deep breath—several dozen a day—and give it another year. Once you’re able to get a job and make some new friends, you’ll gain some clarity. If things are still good and you’re feeling more at home,

great. Stay in the U.K. But if you’re still miserable and full of doubt, well, then you might want to end the relationship and head home. In the meantime you’re going to wanna stay in therapy and make sure you’re using the most effective possible form of birth control method you can get your hands on— which is available free from the U.K’s National Health Service. (And I don’t want to be a downer here or tip the scales… but there’s no way to eliminate the risk of a relationship ending or failing after you’ve started a family. Or before you’ve started a family.)

Magnum subscribers to the Savage Lovecast enjoy ad-free versions of the show with more guests and more questions, access to the full archive of shows, the monthly Sack Lunch virtual hangout—where my listeners get to give sex advice—and other bonus content.

To subscribe to the Savage Lovecast go to www.savagelovecast.com and click subscribe. mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. savagelovecast.com

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MOTORCYCLES/ SCOOTERS

2

1 Stirs in 4 Signature Obama legislation, briefly 7 It’s no free ride 10 British trunk 13 Leavened flatbread 14 High pitch 15 Quite green 17 Furniture also called hassocks 19 Low-cal pub offering 20 Tractor maker 21 Tired and bored 23 Literally, “earth” 24 Member of an ancient Jewish sect 26 Dings on a record 28 Exhaust one’s funds for betting 30 Niña companion 34 Catchphrase on “The Simpsons” 37 Gobble (up) 38 “Are you sure about that?”

39 Inits. for a trip 41 ___ pals 42 Word with gender or age 43 Pub offering 45 State with more than half of Mexico’s Indigenous language speakers 48 “I can be of service!”

51 Like bad apples and sour grapes?

53 Pound-bound hound, say 54 Seen a lot 55 Fixes, as a hem

Edited by Will Shortz

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57 Peace in Saudi Arabia

20

61 Top story 64 Currently airing

69 Some asylum seekers 71 Come out again 72 Material in some

vaccines 73 Rest stops 74 Supply center?

75 Alternative to the euro: Abbr.

76 Pay stub inits.

77 Profession for Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde”: Abbr.

25

22

1 One end of a cell 2 Candlelit dinners for four, say 3 [How boring] 4 In the style of 5 If, and or but: Abbr.

6 Biblical name repeated in a Faulkner title 7 Relatives of glockenspiels 8 Things that are far from basic?

9 Phony internet persona, often 10 Honey 11 React to a gut punch, perhaps 12 TV host Banks 16 Takes effect 18 Kind of health 22 Strengthen one’s commitment … and a hint to four answers in this puzzle

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31

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33

59

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37 39

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43 49

50

40

44 51

53

45

41 46

47

52

54 55

74

12

27

29

62

56

63

57

64 68

71

DOWN

11

23

26

38

67

10 16

36

48

9

15

21

35

8

19

28

61

7

18

24

34

6

14

66 Grown-up pupper 67 Hauls into court

5

75

25 Title on “Downton

Abbey” 27 Mini-albums, for short 29 Curry made with hoof meat 31 Pester constantly 32 ___ Paige Johnson, co-creator of TV’s “Blue’s Clues” 33 Company advertised by a quack?

34 Mythical giant with 100 50-Downs 35 Brewery supply 36 Bit of high jinks 40 Bad fortune 44 Able to practice, in a way 46 Singer Tori 47 Legendary home of Kubla Khan

65 69

58 66

70

72

73

76

77

49 “Peanuts” character

with glasses

50 See 34-Down 52 “My bad” 56 Bops or hits, say 58 Sayings attributed to

Jesus

59 Spy with questionable

loyalty

60 Covered in some green

growth

61 Influential D.C. lobby 62 Hotel chain operated by

Hilton

63 Alpo competitor 65 Took a turn 68 “Despicable Me”

antihero

70 Silly Bandz or Webkinz,

once

Worship Guide 520.797.4384

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