Tucson Weekly September 10, 2020

TUCSON SALVAGE: AN APOLOGY

SEPTEMBER 10 - 16, 2020 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE

Six Months Later

We’ve been living in a pandemic for six months.

Here’s where we stand now.

CANNABIS 520: Prime Leaf’s New Dispensary

SAVAGE LOVE: What’s With All the Choking in Bed?

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SEPT. 10, 2020 | VOL. 35, NO. 37 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 TUCSON SALVAGE

Safe American Home

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CURRENTS

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The state of Pima County as COVID-19 hits the six-month mark

MMJ

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Prime Leaf opens a new shop as part of a mission to change attitudes about cannabis

ADMINISTRATION Jason Joseph, President/Publisher jjoseph@azlocalmedia.com

EDITOR’S NOTE

Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com

It’s Been A While

Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com

YOU HAVEN’T SEEN AN EDITOR’S NOTE in this space in recent months. With our pandemic diet, the paper has been thinner and I turned the column inches over to our COVID-19 weekly roundup. But with us reaching the six-month mark in the pandemic and cases on the decline, I’ve decided the time has come to bring back the Editor’s Note and retire the print version of the roundup.

That doesn’t mean we’re not going to have plenty of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. This week, for example, staff reporter Kathleen Kunz, managing editor Austin Counts, associate editor Jeff Gardner and I collaborated on an in-depth article surveying where we now stand with COVID in Pima County. The good news: COVID’s spread is in decline. The bad news: It could come roaring back just as it did this summer, if we let our guard down. Stay masked up, avoid big parties, remain patient and we can maybe get our kids back to school soon. The virus isn’t going away, but we can learn to live with it until a vaccine comes along.

This week, we’re also saying goodbye to web editor Tara Foulkrod, who joined the staff back in March—just in time for COVID to hit.

Within weeks of her hire, Tara was among the Tucson Weekly employees doing her job from home. While I didn’t get to see Tara all

that much, she was instrumental in helping us get more stories online faster than ever as we pivoted to providing all the online news we couldn’t fit in our print publication. We’re still doing plenty of that, so be sure to check out TucsonWeekly.com for the latest news on the pandemic, the November election and much more. Tara is moving to Colorado with her family and while we’ve adopted a workfrom-home ethos over the last year, a home in Colorado is a bit too far for us. Best of luck with your adventure, Tara! We’ll miss you!

Stepping into Tara’s role is Mike Truelsen, who spent 15 years working at the Tucson Citizen before that shop closed down. Since then, Mike helped launch the Tucson Sentinel and has worked for a couple of local TV stations, as well as spending some time with a few Tucson communication firms. We’re excited to welcome him onboard to help continue bringing you news online as it breaks.

Stay masked up!

-- Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about the latest COVID news and other developments around town at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday mornings on The Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

SAVAGE LOVE

Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Managing Editor, Ext. 37 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, Ext. 35 mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Kathleen Kunz, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Clay Jones, Andy Mosier, Xavier Omar Otero, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, Will Shortz, Brian Smith, Jen Sorensen, Eric Swedlund, Tom Tomorrow PRODUCTION David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Louie Armendariz, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 louie@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, Ext. 17, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING Kristin Chester, Account Executive, Ext. 25 kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, Ext. 24 candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive Ext. 39 lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tyler Vondrak, Account Executive, Ext. 27 tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by 13 Street Media 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.

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Why is choking becoming more common?

Cover design by Ryan Dyson

Copyright: The entire contents of Tucson Weekly are Copyright © 2019 by Thirteenth Street Media.

No portion may be reproduced in whole or part by any means without the express written permission of the Publisher, Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, AZ 85741.

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SEPT. 10, 2020

Story & photos by Brian Smith

SAFE AMERICAN HOME IN MY LAST TUCSON SALVAGE column (Aug. 22), I used multiple times the uncensored n-word in a voice not my own to quote hatred directed at a woman I was profiling. In the wake of protest and support of that, I am truly sorry to have triggered trauma in some Black readers. I must thank those people kindly for well-argued protests and the kneecapping. It will teach me to be a better, more effective writer and to use extreme caution and a careful consideration of the wording. As a close friend, a Colombia doctoral candidate and expert in African Diaspora Education reminded me after reading the piece, “words matter.”

In hindsight would I have neutered the language before filing the column to the Weekly? Yes, at the very least including a trigger warning at the top.

Because it was heavy-handed, its usage completely overshadowed the story of Goodwill, the overcome-the-odds tale of African-American Tawana Brown, her story, which is beautiful. If one reads the entire thing, not just the first few paragraphs, the column’s overriding context is love and acceptance, and Brown’s own—toward her family, toward Tucson and her hometown Detroit, toward the world at large. How she landed at a place of peace and ended her circle of poverty.

I now realize a trigger warning is essential when enlisting politicized or hateful language to that effect so readers can choose to confront ugly words.

That said, an element of “checking other white people on their shit” goes on, white folks versed in the art of taking offense, which, to me, harms the greater advancement of unity and is even accidentally pejorative and counterproductive to the minority group they are “speaking on behalf of.” To those persons who anonymously wrote hate mail in response to “hateful language,” what is the point? Sparking unkindness in the “real world,” in the name of promoting abstract equality furthers Trump and racist agendas of generating derision

and in-fighting.

Also, one person, who hid behind the pseudonym “Sundowntown,” said in an email I should be “lynched with the rest of them.” Nice.

Overall, in the context I was penning, many other readers, Black and white, deemed the use of the word acceptable.

Look, I was born white as a Finnish winter and no matter how much I kick and scream and work at it, there shall always be a “white lens” in my work, like anyone born white. I miscalculated the powder keg explosiveness of the n-word and how it can circle back in hate, toward me and even my family.

In the decades I’ve lived, I’ve seen the definition and impact of that word change and morph, in song, in literature, in pop culture, in Black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods, in different American cities.

MY WHITE PRIVILEGE? HERE’S A couple of interminable examples: Back in the late 1990s I lived in one of the most impoverished Phoenix neighborhoods, then, the Garfield. It was mostly brown folks, some Black, the number of whites I could count on one hand. Low-slung dark adobes with bare bulb porchlights, tin lean-tos and few streetlights. Lovely Mary of Guadalupe altars observed nightly cop lights and gunfire. Many of my neighbors on Polk street were undocumented laborers, regaling the street with nightly Bud Light-fueled choruses shouting along to booming waltz-time ditties on porches.

The occasional quinceañera celebrations, the harmless laughing at my hair and gait. I was the white boy methhead alcoholic scarecrow.

Spun out on a multi-day jag, I had counted out my last $20 and some change, enough for a meth bag and a 40 of Mickey’s Big Mouth. Didn’t own a car so I bicycled to score the meth and hit Circle K for the 40. No easy tasks when you are spun the fuck out, the shakes

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Brian Smith’s former Detroit home.

and the psychic-catastrophes, dry-mouth tooth scum and fetid body odor make it about impossible to face anyone, an effusive dealer, much less a brightly lit store.

I was a frightened insecure singer in a rock ’n’ roll band and that earned me a few nickels. I had just begun writing and porn magazine work kept other nickels rolling in, was only beginning with the above-ground outlet scribbling.

Peddling home from Circle K with one hand, the 40 in the other, I got pulled over by a cop car, flashing lights and all.

It was the second time this happened in those days on my bike, but the first time a cop pulled a gun. It was dark, black hair, black clothes, they likely thought me brown. I stopped, my worn heart pounding straight out of my temples.

One cop pointed his gun at me from behind his squad car door while the other walked over and shone his flashlight in my face. He saw panic, speed pupils expanded to full dark moons, and he knew what was up. He said, and I’ll never forget, “What the fuck are you doing in this neighborhood?”

The other cop holstered his sidearm.

I said, “I live here,” and gave him my address.

He stepped back, conversed a moment with the other cop, returned, said, “Go home. This isn’t a neighborhood you should be in.” I mouthed kudos to Phoenix’s finest in some grossly fawning way, and he replied, “You shouldn’t drink that shit, it’ll kill you.” I made it home and thanked my lucky stars and all the Mary altars in the neighborhood the cops didn’t search me, I’d been tossed in jail before. The meth stashed in my sock would continue jacking my heart for days.

I remember thinking later that if I was brown or black I would’ve been searched and at least tossed in jail, or shot. But I am a white boy in North America.

Brown and Black folks were getting shot by cops in that hood with alarming regularity.

BY 2002, I’D SOMEHOW managed a career in journalism and moved to Detroit for an editor gig at Metro Times, a white dude in the center of a city 93 percent Black. I sobered up a year later and afforded a house, put 9K down on a 30-year mortgage. Area stores

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and markets and gas stations featured bullet-proof glass to protect cashiers, few streetlights worked, boarded up houses on either side of beautiful kept Victorians, an intermingle of poverty and some archaic version of middle-class. I was elated I bought in Detroit, not the sparkly white suburbs or in Detroit’s mighty-gentrified ivory enclaves like Corktown.

The city is still deeply segregated. My neighborhood near 6 Mile and Livernois was hardly diverse. I was the only white guy in many square miles of Black folk.

Never had I felt more vanilla in that culture. I never once felt threatened, on latenight walks, in the ill-kept liquor stores or even the few times I scored drugs, before I got truly sober.

I’m no religious dude but I made gods of the old ladies in AA meetings, and I’ve written about this stuff before. How these women’s experiences saved me in ways when drink had me yellow. When I detoxed the booze and hit the allblack meetings in local churches, these women, all this grace and acumen and life-affirming cackles, this generation that suffered through wars against them, ruin brought on by ideologies of exclusion and hatred, progeny of ex-slaves on the Great Migration who landed in Detroit for work. So many of my neighbors were old enough to remember days long before the Detroit riots of ‘67, the segregation, could tell stories passed down from generations. Some had sons CLAYTOONZ by Clay Jones

and daughters murdered, even by cops.

My longest-running Metro Times editor was W.K. Heron, first cousin to Gil-Scott Heron, a fiercely intelligent gentleman who taught me much about compassion, and journalism, and he reeled me in often. I sought and hired some really great Black writers, each one a wildly different voice, from street to academic, much more diverse than the white writers. Ones I worked with taught me much more about Black culture, especially in Detroit, its music and arts, the linguistics and humanity. I met brave radicals, and white and Black academics who left the classroom and engaged in true community. I wrote stories of Black people and their worlds.

Fell in love with all of it. The city, its people. My plan was to never leave Detroit. After 13 years on staff at the paper I got laid off. Lost my house. There was no other work in Detroit for me. Couldn’t teach because I don’t have diplomas, not even high school.

But when I bought my house in Detroit, Black neighbors brought over welcome-to-the-neighborhood gifts, plants, baked goods etc. Never happened in any white neighborhood I lived in. I figured out later the kindness was in the name of unity, in the name of experience, in the name of community and inclusion. Gestures of hope itself. How these folks welcomed a different race and background into their world soothed.

This was privilege, to be accepted. That was my neighborhood for more than a decade and that alone taught me more about humanity than anything else I’ve experienced.

MY POINT IN THIS IS NOT to say I understand the Black experience, or what it means to be a Black person in America. How could I? (If anything, in truth, any racism I can actually feel in my gut is toward white nationalists and like-minded ilk; I fall left of Bernie but will vote for Biden.) My experience is hardly academically inclined, no sensitivity training inside a university classroom, more from living. What I am saying is my grasp of the understanding of the ideological weight of the n-word, it’s ugliness and hate is why I used it uncensored, even in this zeitgeist, in this mad territory of Trump race-bait and attendant murder, caught in the rising insanity between anarchy and lunacy, in this “woke” call-out culture. I knew it insensitive, and I understand the job of the white ally is to listen. I knew white writers can no longer spell out the n-word, even quoting voices of hatred. But in my heart I didn’t want those dehumanizing pricks to get a pass by somehow sweetening their insults with asterisks and dashes. I wanted the impact of the language leveled at Tawana Brown left at full volume, and it didn’t work.

For the record, Tawana Brown did not

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object to my representation of her life nor the hateful words levied against her.

My point, however hopeful, of the on-going Tucson Salvage column is for readers to learn of folks of all classes, races and sexual orientations and discover an underlying humanity and maybe celebrate their triumph over whatever suffering. I strive for observation without judgment, and I make mistakes.

I recommend all folks step out of their class and ethnicity and meet others who are radically different from them. Hear their stories. I do, and I listen hard. I see only people, and the stories are remarkably consistent. I’m lucky to be able to write about some of these people I meet.

It is an honor. There’s wonder in the bleakness in the beauty.

Black lives matter. We, as a family, me, my wife Maggie, young Reece and baby Rickie Rose contribute where we can. We are all just improvising now, adjusting, hunting for some forever elusive endgame of inclusion, unity, and respect for diversity. I came up on punk rock, and Joe Strummer said, “Punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human beings.” It sort of calls on the Zen Buddhists, “instructive to find your needs in front of you by rejecting the negative.”

I do my best and it ain’t perfect. I do know we are not getting anywhere tearing down one another. The inhumane Trump wants division on our side. ■

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CURRENTS

SIX MONTHS LATER

We’ve Lived with the Pandemic for Half a Year. Here’s Where We Stand.

IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE March 9, when local officials including Tucson Mayor Regina Romero held a press conference, warning that the virus had arrived and residents of Pima County should prepare for a bad flu season and frequently wash their hands.

Within days, Romero had a much more urgent message: Something very bad was in the air. She said the City Council would no longer meet in person and advised people to limit their gatherings.

More would follow days later, when Romero ordered the shutdown of bars, gyms and other places where more than 10 people congregate. Restaurants were limited to take out and delivery.

With authors concerned about traveling, the Tucson Festival of Books was canceled, starting an avalanche of announcements: concerts, festivals, plays, performances—everything went dark.

By the end of March, following Romero’s lead, Gov. Doug Ducey shut down “non-essential” businesses and told Arizonans to stay home unless they had urgent business. Schools were closed, with teachers scrambling to adapt their lessons to the internet. College students finished the remainder of the University of Arizona’s spring semester online.

The statewide stay-at-home order kept the virus from spreading too quickly and overwhelming the health care system.

But in mid-May, Ducey lifted the order, telling Arizonans at a press conference that “we are clearly on the other side of this pandemic.”

Ducey couldn’t have been more wrong.

Just as public-health experts feared, many Arizonans threw big Memorial Day parties, filled up nightclubs, headed down the Salt River on tubing adventures and otherwise returned to their pre-pandemic lifestyles.

By mid-June, Arizona emerged as a global hotspot as labs began reporting thousands of new cases daily and COVID

patients overwhelmed emergency rooms, hospital beds and ICUs. In late June, Ducey shuttered nightclubs, movie theaters, gyms, water parks and tubing operations. While he didn’t enact a statewide mask mandate, he gave local authorities the power to do so. Metro areas such as Pima and Maricopa counties and many other jurisdictions across the state did so almost immediately.

In the weeks that followed, Arizona’s numbers began to decline. Here’s where we stand now.

THINGS ARE BETTER, BUT A SECOND WAVE REMAINS A DANGER. This is a message that Ducey has repeated as case counts have come down, saying that while the situation in Arizona is improving, this is no time for “victory laps.” He now frequently urges Arizonans This report was produced by Austin Counts, to avoid large gatherings, wash their Kathleen Kunz, Jeff Gardner and Jim Nintzel hands and mask up.

The number of new cases has sharply dropped from the peak of mid-July. In recent weeks, the state has hit health benchmarks that are allowing many of the shuttered businesses to reopen, with limited capacity, strict cleaning standards and other mitigation measures.

Dr. Joe Gerald, an epidemiologist with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman School of Public Health who has been closely tracking the virus since it first hit, says

returning to a huge explosion of cases that we saw in June and July.”

But Gerald says it’s important to consider mitigation measures that limit contact between people and reduce the opportunities for the virus to spread. He points to pictures of a crowded Georgia high school as the wrong approach. “If that’s what we mean by going back to school, that’s a bad idea.”

Health officials are closely watching what’s happening at UA, where President Robert C. Robbins has put together a testing program so comprehensive that a potential outbreak in a dorm was nipped in the bud when COVID was detected in the sewage.

Another big concern: Flu season is right around the corner and it’s possible that a second wave of COVID could coincide with the usual flu that fills hospital beds.

To head that off, Ducey last week announced a new program providing free flu shots. Gerald said that if Pima County residents continue to mask up, avoid crowds and practice physical distancing, COVID may be held at bay and the flu season might even be less infectious than normal.

“It’s really dependent on what we do as individuals and how we adhere to the recommendations that have been laid out,” Gerald said. “We just don’t know.”

THE STATS: As of Labor Day, a total of 205,964 people in Arizona have tested COURTESY PIMA COUNTY positive for COVID-19, including 22,000 people in Pima County. A total of 5,219 Arizonans had died after contracting the virus, including 596 in Pima County. community spread has dropped low Zooming in on Pima County: On enough to try to reopen businesses and a week-by-week basis, the number of schools, mainly thanks to face masks. positive COVID tests peaked the week “I think we are in a better place to try ending July 4 with 2,398 cases, according to reopen things today than we were in to a Sept. 4 report from the Pima CounMay, mainly because I think there’s a ty Health Department. While a vocal lot more policy and community support minority continues to insist that masks for wearing a face mask,” says Gerald. “I do no good, the spread of the virus began think they are going to turn out to be a very important component of our public to decline within weeks of Pima County’s mask mandate as more people began health response, along with testing and wearing them in public. For the week contact tracing, that will allow us to return to some sense of normalcy without ending Aug. 22, the number of new cases

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dropped to 495 and for the week ending Aug. 29, 455 new cases were reported.

Deaths in Pima County are down from a peak of 54 in the week ending July 4 to 20 for the week ending Aug. 15 and 13 for the week ending Aug. 22. (Note that these numbers are subject to revision as recent cases and deaths may not have been reported.)

Here’s a look at Pima County’s COVID demographics as of Sept. 4: • The disease has spread the most among working-age residents, with 62 percent of those infected between the ages of 20 and 54. Here’s how the numbers break down: Nearly half of those who tested positive, or 47 percent, were between the ages of 20-44; 15 percent were between the ages of 45-54; 12 percent were between the ages of ages 55-64; 13 percent were 65 and older; and about 12 percent were younger than 20.

• Females were slightly more likely to test positive, with women accounting for 52 percent of cases.

• Race was unknown in 31 percent of cases but among those for whom race was known, 35 percent were Hispanic, 23 percent were non-Hispanic white, 3 percent were Native American, 3 percent were Black and 1 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander. Many of those cases were asymptomatic or mild. But among the 2,024 serious cases that required hospitalization, about 39 percent of those hospitalized were 65 and older. Just under one in four—24 percent—of those hospitalized were between 20-44 years old; 19 percent were between 55-64; 14 percent were between the ages of 45-54; and just 3 percent were younger than 20.

The death toll hit seniors harder than anyone, with those 65 and older accounting for 77 percent of deaths. Nearly 15 percent of those who died were 55 to 64 years old; roughly 5 percent of those who died were 45 to 54; and 3 percent were 20 to 44.

TESTING IS FREE AND EASY. In addition to testing at private labs through pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS, Pima County has three free testing centers with easyto-schedule appointments, often with same-day availability and next-day results. You’ll have a nasal swab test at the Kino Event Center, 2805 E. Ajo Way, and the Udall Center, 7200 E. Tanque Verde Road. The center at the northside Ellie Towne Flowing Wells Community Center, 1660 W. Ruthrauff Road, involves

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a saliva test designed by Arizona State University. Schedule an appointment at pima.gov/covid19testing.

The centers are also tied into Pima County’s developing contact tracing operation, which aims to be able to identify potential clusters and warn people if they have been in contact with someone who is COVID-positive. While Pima County has developed a tracing team, they are only getting about 40 percent of the people they call to participate, according to county spokesperson Mark Evans. The low response rate makes tracking hotspots and identifying asymptomatic carriers challenging.

If you’re interested in a test to determine if you’ve already had COVID-19, the UA has expanded a free COVID-19 antibody testing program to anyone in the state. More information and registration for the test is available at covid19antibodytesting.arizona.edu.

THE PRESSURE IS OFF HOSPITALS. At the peak of the crisis, Pima County’s hospitals were so jammed that COVID patients were being transferred to Phoenix or neighboring states. Hospitalization peaked the week ending July 18 with 247 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals. For the

week ending Aug. 29, that number was down by roughly 88 percent, with just 30 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals.

SCHOOLS MAY REOPEN SOON. When schools let out for spring break back in March, few people imagined that in-person instruction would be on hold through Labor Day. But that’s where we stand as public health officials and educators strive to find a balance between keeping the community safe and providing a quality education to students.

Pima County’s school districts have pivoted to distance learning via online platforms and instruction over Zoom.

Districts have limited the number of students on campus to those who absolutely need the service.

Last week, Pima County met the health benchmarks to indicate “moderate” community spread of COVID and allow for a hybrid learning model of mixed in-person and online instruction. (The benchmarks include a decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the region, a decrease in the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests and a decrease in the percentage of hospital visits for COVIDlike symptoms.)

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Pima County School Superintendent Dustin Williams said Arizona’s decreasing trends in COVID-19 data are promising, but schools cannot let their guard down yet. He warned against the process of closing and reopening schools repeatedly, but said there are small opportunities for supplementing online learning with in-person interaction.

“What I think you might be able to see is some small cohorts of groups that follow the social distancing rules, you might see it in your younger grades to start with, and then you’ll have a blend of also remote learners that are still going to school in that fashion,” Williams said. “But for full-blown opening, at this time it’s still too high of a risk.”

Williams noted that public school districts, charter schools and private schools all have full autonomy over whether to bring students back to campus. As of last week, Pima County public school districts were holding off on traditional in-person classroom learning, but expect those conversations to develop in upcoming weeks.

Since opening their campuses as learning centers, the Tucson Unified School District has already temporarily closed two schools and another school’s classrooms since the beginning of the school year due to COVID-19 exposure.

In addition, a Rincon High School staff member working in two special education classrooms tested positive for COVID-19. The district decided to shut down those classrooms but did not close down the rest of the school, with students moving to remote learning.

The Arizona Department of Health Services is requiring schools, child care centers and shelters to report outbreaks of COVID-19 to their county health departments. State health officials say this measure provides schools, child care providers and shelters with a format for reporting COVID-19 cases within 24 hours of identification.

A LOT OF PEOPLE REMAIN OUT OF WORK AND THE PANDEMIC UNEMPLOYMENT PAYMENT BOOST IS NEARLY OVER. Arizona’s job losses during the pandemic have been massive. The state has lost an estimated 135,000 non-farm jobs from the February 2020 peak of 2,968,000, according to the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity; as of July, that number of jobs had dropped to 2,833,000, or about CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

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COURTESY PHOTO

SIX MONTHS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

where Arizona’s job numbers were in winter 2018. Still, the state has recovered 141,000 jobs from April 2020, when the total number of jobs dropped to 2,692,000 during Ducey’s initial stay-athome order.

Arizona’s unemployment numbers in July were at 10.6 percent, more than double what they were in March.

To make matters worse, many out-ofwork Arizonans will be trying to scrape by on just $240 per week once a federal program aimed at helping those who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits runs out of money unless Congress can break a stalemate on new relief measures.

State officials are unclear on when the Lost Wage Assistance program—which adds an extra $300 of federal money to the state’s unemployment maximum— will end. They anticipate it will be soon.

Arizona Department of Economic Security Director Michael Wisehart was unable to give an exact date on when LWA would be exhausted during a recent Zoom meeting with reporters. The director could only confirm DES would have little notice when it happens and the program will end “abruptly.”

Wisehart was able to give advice to those potentially affected by the program’s commencement.

“Getting the word out that individuals need to continue to plan, need to con-

tinue to work with their congressional delegation to express the need that is going to continue to exist in Arizona as we move forward,” Wisehart said.

LWA is funded through an emergency FEMA grant President Trump approved after the White House and congressional Democrats were unable to make a deal on a new coronavirus relief package to extend the previous $600 given as a part of CARES Act’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which ended on July 31. Essentially, LWA funding allows the PUA program to continue and those funds are distributed by DES. Federal officials expected LWA funds to be depleted in five weeks, depending on how many states took advantage of the program. Arizona was the first state to use the supplemental unemployment funds in early August. Now, nearly every state is using the $44 billion program and the funding is retroactive to Aug.1.

A sixth week of funding was approved to cover Arizonans who lost wages between the week of Aug. 30 and Sept.

5, however Wisehart said he thinks it would be a “challenge” for the state to continue receiving funds moving forward.

Once the extra $300 in LWA benefits run dry, Arizona’s unemployed will be left to survive on the state’s unemployment maximum payment—$240 a week or less and that is if you qualify.

Those who are self-employed, gig workers or underemployed typically don’t qualify for the state’s unemploy-

ment insurance program, said Grand Canyon Institute Research Director Dave Wells. PUA has been a life-saver for many Arizonans, said Wells.

“The key thing to remember about Arizona is unemployment benefits are inadequate,” Wells said. “A lot of people in Arizona would not be able to survive without that $600 supplement that ended in July. Pandemic assistance filled a big-time gap in the state.”

The researcher tells an anecdotal story of a substitute teacher he knows to illustrate how detrimental PUA has been for a considerable amount of Arizona’s workforce. Since the teacher is a substitute, he is currently unemployed after many school districts moved to online schooling due to the pandemic, said Wells.

“The teacher fell $600 over the amount needed to qualify for unemployment benefits, but he got Pandemic Unemployment Assistance,” Wells said. “(PUA) allows people with sporadic work histories, gig workers and the self-employed who don’t usually receive unemployment the extra help they need.”

JEN SORENSEN

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If you are able to receive unemployment in the Grand Canyon state, don’t expect too much. While the state comes in as the second lowest in offering unemployment benefits to its constituents, Arizona’s benefits are actually the lowest in the country when adjusted for cost of living, according to Wells.

Wells said he expects the president will allocate additional funding to LWA on a week-to-week basis until the federal—or state—government takes action.

On a state level, benefit disbursement is being slowed down by a wave of suspected fraudulent PUA claims, leaving scores of Arizonans waiting on relief.

More than 90,000 PUA claims were put on hold until they were able to be verified and then paid out the first week of September.

“A lot of people have gone weeks waiting to get benefits. Even though you might get a big check, somehow a person is expected to survive that time without income,” Wells said. “I’m sure it’s not a pleasant mental or financial experience.”

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Aug. 25 email to faculty, students and staff, UA Provost Liesl Folks said the administration decided to continue Stage 1 of the BARS AND RESTAURANTS HAVE reopening (essential in-person classes only) BEEN HIT HARD, BUT THE OVERALL during the second week of instruction. That ECONOMY HAS REMAINED has been extended into this week.

RESILIENT. Despite the job losses, people Stage 2 was originally set to begin on are spending money. Compared to July Aug. 31 and would have allowed small class2019, retail sales were up 13.4 percent, es to resume in person, bringing another according to the most recent monthly 9,000 people to campus. report from the Joint Legislative Budget Ahead of Labor Day weekend, Robbins Committee. A lot of the increase was in announced the university would be partcar sales (15.3 percent growth); building nering with the Tucson Police Department material and gardening supplies (23.8 to crack down on big parties and other percent growth at home improvement COVID-19 safety violations occurring stores); and food and liquor sales, including off-campus. takeout food (27.7 percent growth). In In partnership with the city and county, UA HAS PAUSED REOPENING PLANS. addition, contracting sales taxes were the police will be responding to residential As of this week, the University of Arizoup 25 percent over July 2019. The report complaints in neighborhoods surrounding na paused its phased reopening of the notes the boost came from both residential the university. Businesses in the University campus. UA President Dr. Robert Robbins construction and commercial construction, Boulevard/Fourth Avenue corridor have said the university is monitoring public as well as road construction.

COURTESY PIMA COUNTY health conditions and will continue to make also been asked to reinforce public health The sector that remains the hardest hit: directives. adjustments to the plans as necessary.

Restaurants and bars, where collections in parks and bars that serve food were allowed “We encourage everyone: Please do not Robbins’ plan has had blowback from July were down 11.1 percent compared to to reopen two weeks ago in Pima, Maricopa some university faculty, staff and students, have large gatherings,” Robbins said at the last year. Still, that’s an improvement over and six other counties after those regions press conference. “We know that it’s ripe for who worry bringing so many students the low point of April of this year, where the hit certain benchmarks that indicated transmission of this deadly virus.” back will result in widespread COVID year-to-year decline was 42 percent. “moderate” COVID-19 transmission last As of Sept. 3, the UA has tested 15,695 transmission. week. Businesses were required to fill out people in the university community and Just one day after reopening the camBARS, GYMS, THEATERS ARE a form indicating they would abide by pus, the UA administration announced the found 480 positive cases of COVID-19. On REOPENING. Gyms, movie theaters, water state regulations, which include enhanced Sept. 3, 79 people tested positive. delay of the staged reopening plan. In an

SIX MONTHS

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cleaning requirements, masks for patrons and staff and symptom screening.

Gyms are limited to 25 percent capacity and indoor theaters, water parks, tubing operations and bars and nightclubs that provide dine-in service are limited to 50 percent capacity. Bars and nightclubs that do not offer food service still must remain closed.

In Tucson, two theaters in the Arizona-based Harkins Theater chain reopened.

The Loft Cinema remains available for private rental to parties of 10 or fewer and has begun showing outdoor movies on the side of the theater with limited seating.

SEPT. 10, 2020

NURSING HOME VISITATIONS CAN RESUME. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the virus has been how it has hammered nursing homes where it was able to spread. Out of caution, the state shut down visitation in most nursing homes and kept patients isolated in their rooms, with communal areas closed. But the state has now hit benchmarks that will allow outdoor visitation to resume, provided all parties wear face masks and maintain a physical distance of six feet. Indoor visitation is still off limits.

EVICTIONS REMAIN ON HOLD. Last week, the CDC announced it would put evictions across the country on hold through the end of the year.

The federal action comes on top of Ducey’s executive orders putting a stop to evictions through Oct. 31 if a tenant can prove a COVID-related hardship.

The governor’s executive action directed courts and county constables to temporarily delay eviction orders if a tenant is required to quarantine because they or someone living in their home are diagnosed with COVID-19; they have a CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

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AIMING HIGH

Medical Marijuana

Prime Leaf’s new Park Avenue shop is part of a mission to transform attitudes about cannabis

By David Abbott david@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE PEOPLE BEHIND Tucson’s Prime Leaf dispensary believe it’s time to change the way people think about cannabis.

“When we say we want to change the world, we fucking mean it,” said Brian Warde, co-owner and CEO of Prime Leaf.

“We have our brand, but we really want to educate.”

The dispensary, which has been open at 4220 E. Speedway since 2017, recently opened its second location on Park Avenue near the University of Arizona

campus.

Education and community service is at the heart of the business. Warde has been focused on building community relationships and destigmatizing marijuana.

“We’re a company built on trust and founded on community relationships,” Warde said. “We were slow to start, but we’ve built a lot of relationships by being honest and trustworthy.”

The Prime Leaf vision aligns with first impressions, as the new location is designed with the customer in mind. Open, airy and inviting, the dispensary has the vibe of a chic clinic with plenty of space for patients and a waiting area where

DAVID ABBOTT

Prime Leaf CEO Brian Warde wants to provide Tucsonans with prime leaf, but also wants to change the conversation about cannabis.

family members can feel comfortable.

In the interest of public health during the pandemic, plexiglass shields have been installed and all patients and staff

members are required to wear masks and maintain social distancing. Additionally, staff members clean and disinfect the CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

SEPT. 10, 2020

TUCSON AREA DISPENSARIES Bloom Tucson 4695 N. Oracle Road, Ste. 117 293-3315; bloomdispensary.com Open: Sunday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

520-281-1587; facebook.com/GreenMedWellnessCenter Open: Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Botanica 6205 N. Travel Center Drive 395-0230; botanica.us Open: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily

Hana Green Valley 1732 W. Duval Commerce Point Place 289-8030 Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center 8060 E. 22nd St., Ste. 108 886-1760; dbloomtucson.com Open: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily Offering delivery Downtown Dispensary 221 E. 6th St., Ste. 105 838-0492; thedowntowndispensary.com Open: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., daily D2 Dispensary 7105 E 22nd St. 214-3232; d2dispensary.com Open: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., daily Earth’s Healing Two locations: North: 78 W. River Road 395-1432 South: 2075 E. Benson Highway 373-5779 earthshealing.org Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sundays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Offering delivery The Green Halo 7710 S. Wilmot Road 664-2251; thegreenhalo.org Open: Sunday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Green Med Wellness Center 6464 E. Tanque Verde Road

Harvest of Tucson 2734 East Grant Road 314-9420; askme@harvestinc.com; Harvestofaz. com Open: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily Nature Med 5390 W. Ina Road 620-9123; naturemedinc.com Open: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily The Prime Leaf Two locations: 4220 E. Speedway Blvd.

1525 N. Park Ave. 44-PRIME; theprimeleaf.com Open: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Speedway location closed Wednesday; Park Ave. location closed Tuesday.

Purple Med Healing Center 1010 S. Freeway, Ste. 130 398-7338; www.facebook.com/PurpleMedHealingCenter Open: Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Southern Arizona Integrated Therapies 112 S. Kolb Road 886-1003; medicalmarijuanaoftucson.com Open: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily

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AIMING HIGH

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facility every three hours to ensure a safer environment.

The store carries the company’s Grown4 harvested at Rita Ranch as well as the usual concentrates, cartridges and lotions. The edible selection includes Prime Leaf’s house brand, OGeez gummies, and a wide range of suppliers, including Sublime, Aunt Ellie’s, Baked Bros and Huxton.

Beyond the sales counter, Warde and his partners—all longtime Tucson residents or Tucson natives—have a deeper mission to encourage a cultural shift surrounding cannabis and change the Reefer Madness perception of the plant as “the Devil’s lettuce.”

Warde first became involved in the business in 2014 and started reaching out to unlikely partners, such as the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

“We work with the symphony because we found a lot of our customers, particularly the elderly and veterans, care about it,” Warde said. “They were nervous at first and we received a few tickets for patients and they’d only let us put a small poster up in our shop that first year.”

DAVID ABBOTT

The staff at Prime Leaf is there to help, following stringent pandemic protocols.

But everyone involved received such positive feedback from the program that within three years, it expanded as Prime Leaf became a trusted corporate partner

to the Symphony.

Prime Leaf is also a big supporter of other nonprofits, including the Therapeutic Ranch for Animals and Kids ,

the Crohns and Colitis Foundation and several other music and festival nonprofits. Warde is also president of the board of directors for the Tucson Heirloom Farmers Markets.

Warde has spent his career as an advocate for underserved communities and people. Before he entered the cannabis industry, he worked for the Department of Justice as a victim’s advocate for southern Arizona Native American tribes and worked with the federal government to prosecute perpetrators of sexual assault. He has also worked with people dealing with opiate addiction, which has led to his mission to advance the conversation about cannabis.

“I see customers in their 50s and 60s trying to kick opiates,” he said. “There was a time where I didn’t believe in it, but I’ve seen people spend three to four times [on medical marijuana] what they’d spend on opiates at CVS to avoid using them.”

So opening the new dispensary gives Prime Leaf the opportunity to expand the reach of its message and continue the trajectory of the mission to get the word out about the positive aspects of cannabis.

“Part of our mission is to get out and

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touch people. We’re normalizing cannabis and changing minds,” Warde said.

“Working with vets is a big motivation.”

The road has been tough for Prime Leaf, given the fallout from COVID-19 and dealing with zoning issues that delayed the opening of Prime Leaf 2 for more than a year.

But Warde wants to put all that behind him and move forward in an industry that has essentially thrived during the pandemic.

“We work from a place of good intentions and have bigger things to deal with than petty squabbles,” Warde said. “Our

business model is employee and community driven.”

To celebrate the grand opening, Prime Leaf on Park Avenue will have daily, grand opening BOGO specials from Sept. 14 through Oct. 11.

The new Prime Leaf dispensary is located at 1525 N. Park Ave. Hours are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. They are closed on Tuesday.

For information about specials or to order in advance, call the Prime Leaf at 520-447-7463, or go to theprimeleaf.com. ■

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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): “It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t,” observes author James S. Gordon. “Rather, it’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.”

Lucky for you, Aries! Your willpower is even more potent than usual right now, and your willingness to change is growing stronger. And so very soon now, I expect you will reach the threshold that enables you to act crisply and forcefully. You will become so convinced that it’s wise to instigate transformation that you will just naturally instigate transformation. Adjust, adapt, improvise, improve!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is an expert on the mental state known as being in the flow. He defines it as what happens when you’re completely absorbed in what you are doing: “immersed in a feeling of energized focus,” with “full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, you are extra likely to enjoy such graceful interludes in the coming weeks. But I hope you will be discerning about how you use them. I mean, you could get into a flow playing video games or doing sudoku puzzles. But God and Life and I would prefer it if you’ll devote those times to working on a sublime labor of love or a highly worthy quest.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): According to researcher Rosalind Cartwright, “Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original. It is a continuing act of creation.” Neurologist Oliver Sacks agrees, telling us, “Memories are not fixed or frozen, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection.” Reams of additional evidence also suggest that our experience of the past is always being transformed. In accordance with astrological potentials, I invite you to take advantage of this truth. Re-imagine your life story so it has more positive spins. Re-envision the plot threads so that redemption and rebirth are

major features. Engage in a playful reworking of your memories so that the epic myth of your destiny serves your future happiness and success.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): All of us are susceptible to fooling ourselves and lying to ourselves. And all of us are susceptible to the cowardice that such self-sabotage generates. But the good news is that you Cancerians will have an expansive capacity to dissolve and rise above self-deception in the coming weeks—and will therefore be able to call on a great deal of courage. As Cancerian author and Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön says, “The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): If you like, I will give you the waning crescent moon and the dawn breeze. Do you want them? How about sudden bursts of joy for no apparent reasons and a warm greeting from a person you thought had a problem with you?

Would you be interested in having those experiences? And what about an unexpected insight into how to improve your financial situation and a message from the future about how to acquire more stability and security? Are those blessings you might enjoy? Everything I just named will be possible in the coming weeks—especially if you formulate a desire to receive them and ask life to provide them.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo poet Mary Oliver was renowned for giving herself permission.

Permission to do what? To become a different person from the self she had been. To shed her familiar beliefs and adopt new ones. To treat every experience as an opportunity to experiment. To be at peace with uncertainty. I think you’ll be wise to give yourself all those permissions in the coming weeks—as well as others that would enhance your freedom to be and do whatever you want to be and do. Here’s another favorite Mary Oliver permission that I hope you’ll

SAVAGE LOVE NO CHOKE

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

I’m a 29-year-old straight woman in Pennsylvania. My question is to do with choking and consent. I’ve had two experiences in the past six months or so where someone has tried to choke me without my consent. The first time this happened, I coughed immediately but he tried multiple times during sex. I was caught so off-guard that I didn’t say anything until the next morning. I told him I wasn’t OK with that and that it was too much. The second time, I shook my head as soon as he put his hand on my throat and he stopped immediately. I told him, “That scared the shit out of me.” He apologized for startling me and said he wouldn’t

do it again. My question is, why is this a thing? The fact that this has happened to me more than once in a short period of time kind of shocked me. And what is the appropriate thing to do when this happens? What should I do with the person who does this?

—Concerned Hetero Over Kinky Entitled Dumbasses “I would also love to know why choking has become a thing,” said Dr. Debby Herbenick. “And it is a thing, especially among young adults.”

Dr. Herbenick is a professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health

offer yourself: “And I say to my heart: rave on.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “The more unintelligent people are, the less mysterious existence seems to them,” wrote philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. I agree with that idea, as well as the converse: The more intelligent people are, the more mysterious existence seems to them. Since I expect you to be at the peak of your soulful intelligence in the coming weeks, I am quite sure that life will be exquisitely mysterious to you. It’s true that some of its enigmatic qualities may be murky and frustrating, but I suspect that many of them will be magical and delightful. If you ever wanted your life to resemble a poetic art film, you’re going to get your wish.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Comedian and actor Aubrey Plaza bragged about the deal she made.

“I sold my soul to the devil,” she said. “I’d like to thank the devil.” Plaza is quite popular and successful, so who knows? Maybe the Prince of Darkness did indeed give her a boost. But I really hope you don’t regard her as a role model in the coming weeks—not even in jest. What worked for Plaza won’t work for you. Diabolical influences that may seem tempting will not, in the long run, serve your interests—and may even sabotage them.

Besides, more benevolent forces will be available to you, and at a better price.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Many of you Sagittarians specialize in generous breakthroughs and invigorating leaps of truth. Often, you make them look easy and natural—so much so that people may not realize how talented you are in generating them. I hope you adjust for that by giving yourself the proper acknowledgment and credit. If this phenomenon shows up in the coming weeks— and I suspect it might—please take strenuous measures to ensure that you register the fullness of your own accomplishments. To do so will be crucial in enabling those accomplishments to ripen to their highest potential.

go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, ‘why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? why didn’t you become the Messiah?’ The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is ‘why didn’t you become you?’” I hope that serves as a stimulating challenge for you, Capricorn. The fact is that you are in an extended phase when it’s easier than usual to summon the audacity and ingenuity necessary to become more fully yourself than you have ever been before.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Years ago, comedian Lenny Bruce observed, “Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” His statement is even truer today than it was then. Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, has gathered the concrete evidence. Church attendance was way down even before the pandemic struck. Now it’s even lower. What does this have to do with you? In my astrological opinion, the coming months will be prime time for you to build your intimate and unique relationship with God rather than with institutions that have formulaic notions about who and what God is. A similar principle will be active in other ways, as well. You’ll thrive by drawing energy from actual sources and firsthand experiences rather than from systems and ideologies that supposedly represent those sources and experiences.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Psychologist Carl Jung wrote, “The function of dreams is to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes the total psychic equilibrium.”

According to my reading of the astrological omens, you especially need this kind of action right now.

To expedite your healing process, meditate on what aspects of your life might have become too extreme or one-sided. Where could you apply compensatory energy to establish better equipoise?

What top-heavy or lopsided or wobbly situations could benefit from bold, imaginative strokes of counterbalance? ■

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel wrote, “When you die and

Homework: What’s the best possible commotion you could stir up—a healing commotion that would help heal and liberate you? FreeWillAstrology.com.

and the author of numerous books on sexuality and sexual pleasure. She’s also the lead author of a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, CHOKED, a study that looked at the sort of behavior you’ve been encountering recently: people engaging in spanking, choking, face fucking, etc.

Though some of this is no doubt consensual, much of it is not.

“We found that 21% of women had been choked during sex as had 11% of men,” said Dr. Herbenick. “We also found that 20% of men and 12% of women had choked a partner. But choking during sex was much more common among 18-29 year olds—almost 40% of whom had choked or been choked—leading us to believe that choking has really changed in the U.S., over probably the

last 10-20 years.”

Men who choked women were the biggest single group of chokers, CHOKED, followed by men choking men, women choking women, and trans and gender non-binary individuals choking and being choked. Straight cisgender men, perhaps unsurprisingly, were the least likely to report that partners choked them during sex. Trans and gender non-binary participants in Dr. Herbenick’s research more often reported that their partners established consent prior to choking, but across the board there was still a great deal of nonconsensual choking going on.

How did we get here?

“Probably porn,” said Dr. Herbenick.

“We found that many people into choking remember growing up and watching

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TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 17

porn with choking in it—and in a country where porn stands in for sex education and family conversations about sex, some young people do what they see in porn.”

And some people—mostly male people—do it because they think the other person wants or expects it. This was dramatized in an episode of Euphoria, the terrific HBO show about a group of high school students, when a boy suddenly starts choking a girl during their first hookup at a party. The girl is scared and confused—she thought the boy liked her—and the boy tells her he does like her; he grabbed her throat because he thought she would like it, not to harm or scare her. Although shaken, she makes it clear she expects him to ask first.

It is scary to be suddenly choked by a sex partner. When asked if something scary had ever happened to them during sex, numerous women Herbenick surveyed for a different study cited someone choking them without asking. Even if you were into being choked, CHOKED, which you’re not, suddenly being choked by a new sex partner would still be scary. Because if someone chokes you without asking first, they’re essentially saying—they’re clearly saying—that they have extremely shitty judgment (and didn’t think to obtain your consent) or that they’re an extremely shitty person (and didn’t care to obtain your consent).

“Now I’m not one of those people who says explicit verbal consent is needed for every hug or kiss or breast/chest touch,” said Dr. Herbenick. “I’m well aware that sex often involves verbal, non-verbal, and other shades of asking

for something. But no one should choke another person without their explicit verbal consent.”

That goes double/triple/infinity for aggressive and/or high-risk kinks, not just choking.

“And choking is really risky,” added Dr. Herbenick. “Even though people call it choking, external pressure on the neck—like from hands or a cord or necktie—is technically strangulation. In rare cases, choking/strangulation causes people to pass out, leading to probable mild traumatic brain injury. And choking/strangulation sometimes kills people. Even if the person who was choked consented to it, even if they asked to be choked, the person who did the choking is often legally responsible in the event of injury or death.”

I’ve interviewed professional Dominants who will literally stick needles through men’s testicles—sterilized needles, consenting testicles—but who refuse to choke clients or engage in other forms of breath play. These professionals aren’t refusing to choke clients because it’s too extreme (remember the needles?), but because it’s too dangerous.

“There is truly no safe way to choke someone,” said Dr. Herbenick. “As part of my research, I’ve sought advice from several kink-positive physician colleagues, none of whom feels confident in a ‘safe’ way of choking as there is too much that can go wrong—from seizures to neck injury to death.”

So what do you do the next time some dude grabs your throat? (And there will, sadly, most likely be a next time.) You immediately tell them to stop. Don’t cough, don’t deflect, don’t prioritize their

feelings in the moment or worry about ruining the mood and derailing the sex.

Use your words: “Don’t choke me, I don’t like that, it’s not sexy to me and it’s not safe, and you should’ve asked.” If they apologize and don’t try it again, great.

Maybe you can keep fucking. But if they pout or act annoyed or insist you might like it after you’ve just finished telling them you definitely don’t like it, get up and leave. And if someone tried to choke you during sex and you shut it down and they pivoted to mutually enjoyable sex acts, CHOKED, be sure to raise the subject up after sex. Make sure they understand you don’t want that to happen again and that you expect them to be more conscientious about consent the next time—if there is a next time.

And considering that this has happened to you twice recently, CHOKED, and considering how popular busting this particular move seems to have become, you might wanna consider saying something about choking to a new sex partner before you have sex for the first time.

“I would be very up front about it from the get-go,” said Dr. Herbenick. “When you’re first talking with someone or moving things forward, say something like, ‘I’m not into choking, so don’t try it,’ or, ‘Whatever you do, don’t choke me.’

If you can both share your hard limits, you’ll be better prepped for good, fun, exciting, pleasurable sex—not scary stuff like non-consensual choking.

“And for everyone reading this, seriously: stop choking people without first talking or asking about it. Just stop.”

Follow Dr. Debby Herbenick on Twitter @DebbyHerbenick.

I hope you’re getting a lot of mail from people uncomfortable with your response to DISCORD, the woman whose cheating husband blew up when a man she was merely chatting with forwarded their correspondence to her husband. My first question was whether the sadistic creep who baited her into telling him she had an affair wasn’t actually her POS husband playing some sick game. I mean, 30 minutes is awfully quick turnaround from her messages being forwarded to his blow-up. And seeing as DISCORD’s husband has already established that she will put up with his tantrums, withholding of sexual intimacy, strangulation, lying and affairs, it’s also possible that he’s engineered her financial dependence.

I would advise her to at least talk to a professional who could paint an objective picture of her financial options. She might also benefit from the advice of an advocate for domestic violence survivors.

Strangulation is usually not an isolated violent act.

—Rarely Disappointed Reader

SIX MONTHS

from the state is complicated, time-consuming and isn’t meeting the needs of tenants across Arizona.

On Aug. 31, the Arizona Department of Housing reported that only 12,621 of 23,876 total submitted rental assistance applications have been processed and about $3 million has been dispersed.

Last month, housing agencies indicated they are lacking staff to process the high volume of applications and tenants are facing difficulties providing the specific paperwork to meet the state’s eligibility requirements.

Others who work with tenants on a daily basis agree that DHS needs to simplify its application process. Pima County Constable Kristen Randall of

Precinct 8 called the process “dreadful,” and even after a tenant is approved for financial assistance, the time it takes for them to actually receive the money to put toward rent is lengthy.

“You can give us the time, but if we don’t have the money, then the time is just slapping a Band-Aid on it,” she said.

“If you give us the time and the money, but there’s still all that red tape, it just doesn’t work. So we need all three.”

On Aug. 17, the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved a new partnership with the Community Investment Corporation to distribute more than $3.6 million to local residents facing evictions.

Financial assistance will go toward unpaid rent from as far back as March

1, 2020—if landlords agree to waive late fees, withdraw the eviction and enter into a payment plan with their tenant.

Legal and court fees incurred since March are also eligible for reimbursement through this program, according to a county press release.

Pima County has hired additional workers to expedite rental assistance applications, which can be accessed through the Arizona Department of Housing’s website. The county constables will also be integral for working with tenants and landlords to generate direct referrals for the program and distribute the funds quickly to those most in need, the release states. ■

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

health condition that puts them at greater risk of COVID-19; and/or they have suffered a substantial loss of income due to COVID-19 for reasons such as job loss or closure, reduction in pay, having to stay home to care for children, or “other pertinent circumstances.”

If a tenant falls into one of these categories, they are required to notify their landlord or property owner in writing with any supporting documents.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, tenants, public officials and nonprofit organizations have pointed out that the process of applying for rental assistance

Thank you for writing, RDR—thank to everyone who wrote. I’ve reached out to DISCORD privately and will forward your emails on to her. I should’ve pushed back when DISCORD ruled out divorce as an option. Here’s hoping DISCORD takes your advice over mine. ■ mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

Meet the author of The Vagina Bible on this week’s Savage Lovecast. savagelovecast.com

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