Tucson Weekly, Dec. 31, 2020

PATERNITY PROBLEMS: LAWSUIT CLAIMS FERTILITY DOC FATHERED HIS PATIENTS’ KIDS

DEC. 31, 2020 - JAN. 6, 2021 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE

One Sick Year Looking back at the lunacy of 2020

By Leo W. Banks

DANEHY: The Year in TV

CANNABIS 520: The Year in Weed

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DEC. 31, 2020

DEC. 31, 2020 | VOL. 35, NO. 53

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STAFF

CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE

Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Wrapping Up the Year From Hell

CURRENTS

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A lawsuit alleges a former fertility doctor fathered some of his patients’ children

DANEHY

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Tom’s favorite television shows of the year

FEATURE

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The many questionable accomplishments of 2020

CANNABIS 520

The year in weed

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

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IF YOU’RE A MAJOR ONLINE retailer, this has been a great year (except for all those complaints from employees about PPE, ventilation in the warehouses and the generally crappy working conditions). But most of us have had a really lousy 2020. Too many people remain out of work, too many kids are doing their schoolwork online and too many businesses are struggling to keep their doors open.

At this point, we could all use a laugh—and as we traditionally do in our final issue of the year, Leo W. Banks returns with a subversive look back at 2020 that’s guaranteed to bring a smile or two to your face. Leo has been doing this for us (with various co-conspirators) for the better part of three decades and we’re delighted to present his list of questionable accomplishments. And a salute to the gang at Esquire for pioneering this kind of thing with their annual Dubious Achievements awards.

We have some other year-in-review stuff this week: Columnist Tom Danehy looks

Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com

back at his favorite TV shows in 2020, while Cannabis 520 columnist David Abbott looks back at 2020’s major weed stories, including the decision by Arizona voters to legalize recreational weed use for adults 21 and over.

Meanwhile, staff reporter Nicole Ludden brings us the truly bizarre story of a former Tucson fertility doctor who is being sued for fathering some of his patients’ children.

And of course, we bring you the usual Savage Love and astrology columns, the best cartoons in town and other diversions to keep you busy.

Here’s to a better 2021 for all us!

— Jim Nintzel Executive Editor

EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Managing Editor, Ext. 36 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, Ext. 35 mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Nicole Ludden, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 nicolel@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: 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 David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com Emily Filener, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 emilyf@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

Hear Nintz talk about the latest on the outbreak and other news at 8:30 Wednesday mornings on The Frank Show on KLPX, 91.1 FM.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

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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SAVAGE LOVE

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Plenty of drama in the bedroom, as always

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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I questioned him and I said, ‘How come my kids don’t look like Mexicans?’ And he says, ‘Well, you have two more kids for them to look like Mexicans.’ I believed him, but that’s not true,” Guilmette said.

Having believed she was of 50% Hispanic descent her whole life, the DNA test told Finlayson she’s 87% Irish.

“In high school, because my dad didn’t teach me Spanish, I went all the way up to AP Spanish...I was pretty fluent in Spanish because I wanted to connect more with my dad’s family,” she said. “I’m sad, but I’m more pissed than anything.

It’s happening all the time, and there are so many cases out now. These doctors thought they were going to get away with it. I’m never going to understand why. It’s hard, especially with my dad being dead.”

Guilmette received three total fertility treatments from Blute resulting in two pregnancies carried to term. Each time, she handed him $50 in cash to pay the sperm donors.

“I do not remember a receptionist.

Nobody ever came into the room with you like is required now,” Guilmette said.

“But it was $50 a shot and I did it three times.”

COURTESY OF DEBRA GUILMETTE According to Finlayson, the half-brother who advised her to look at her birth Kristen Finlayson as a child, with her brother Aaron Salgado. Both discovered as adults that their mother’s fertility doctor was also their father. certificate shared a similar story. His mother had sought fertility treatments with sperm from European Jewish descent, but the half-brother’s DNA tests revealed the sperm was likely Blute’s own.

Popular DNA testing kits such as Lawsuit: Fertility doc fathered his patient’s children Ancestry and 23andMe only show their users’ familial relations with others who lieving her Hispanic dad, Phil Salgado Nicole Ludden have taken the same test. Out of those SEEDS OF A SCANDAL (who passed away when she was 27), was nicolel@tucsonlocalmedia.com who have taken the DNA tests, Finlayson her biological father, Finlayson’s mother has found 10 half-siblings, the latest In 1982, Guilmette decided to receive LAST DECEMBER, KRISTEN admitted she was conceived through being a half-sister born in 1975. artifi cial insemination treatments, desirFinlayson purchased an Ancestry DNA artificial fertility treatments.

She says one of the half-siblings ing children with her then-husband who kit in a half-off holiday special.

Finlayson’s DNA tests revealed the includes Randall Blute, James Blute’s had a vasectomy in the past.

Curious about her familial roots, she doctor who administered the treatments, biological son.

She went to Blute for the treatments, spit into a test tube and patiently awaited James Blute III, is also her biological When Blute’s sons, who were conwho promised her she would be insemithe results. But what she found out would father. irrevocably change her sense of self and After taking both Ancestry and 23and- nated with sperm from a Hispanic donor ceived from his past marriage, heard foster a heinous knowledge of betrayal Me DNA tests, she found 10 half-siblings to replicate the ethnicity of her husband. Finlayson and Guilmette’s story first reported by Lupita Murillo of KVOA News In 1983, she had her first son, Aaron. throughout her family. who share DNA with her and with Blute.

4 Tucson, their attorney provided the She sought fertility treatments from The online results of her familial rela“I started shaking...I didn’t know what following statement to the news station: Blute again a year later and gave birth to tions echoed the same surname over and to do. I just felt like my whole identity “I represent the estranged biologiFinlayson in 1985. over: Blute. was just taken,” Finlayson said. cal children of Dr. James Blute from a Guilmette said she initially canceled Finlayson received a message on Finlayson’s brother Aaron Salgado previous marriage. My clients have had the appointment that resulted in Finthe Ancestry site from a reported half took a DNA test to find the same results. no meaningful contact with Dr. Blute brother. He told her to look at her birth His father was also Blute, the doctor who layson’s conception because she had to in approximately 30 years - since he work, but Blute called her with news he certificate. gave his mother fertility treatments in and their mother were divorced. They had sperm from a Hispanic donor, and She found the worn piece of paper the ’80s. have just become aware of the appalling she went in to receive the treatment. documenting her birth and fell devastat“I was just sick, I really was. I just could allegations being made against Dr. Blute.

Finlayson was born with pale skin, ed when she saw the name of her delivery not believe it,” Finlayson’s mother, Debra They want to express their support for all blonde hair and blue eyes. doctor: Dr. James Blute III. Guilmette, said. “Especially now that of the victims who have been impacted “When I went in six weeks postpartum, Having gone 34 years of her life beI’ve been an RN for 40 years, I know the

CURRENTS

PATERNITY PROBLEMS

medical profession, and the first thing is do no harm. I just was blown away, completely.”

Blute has two civil court cases pending against him in Pima County for artificially inseminating women with his own sperm under the guise of a separate sperm donor. He denies the charges against him.

But Blute can only be civilly charged with the alleged misconduct, as fertility fraud isn’t a criminal offense in Arizona as it is in California, Indiana and Texas.

Finlayson and Guilmette are the plaintiffs in one of the civil cases against Blute. In his response filed in the case, Blute says he was the chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Tucson Medical Center from 1983-1985 and the chief of staff from 1988-1989.

However, he denies that he was an employee of TMC “during the relevant time period,” and that “he operated his own private practice and had privileges to provide care and treatment to patients at Tucson Medical Center,” according to his response.

Finlayson and Guilmette’s attorney, Dev Sethi, said Blute’s practice often involved delivering the children resulting from his fertility treatments himself.

“It is a gross betrayal of the trust that a patient puts in her doctor. It is an absolute perversion of the practice of medicine,” Sethi said. “The hubris of a doctor to impregnate his own patient, in some effort to either save money, or populate the world with his offspring, is striking.”

DEC. 31, 2020

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEBRA GUILMETTE

Dr. James Blute III holds Aaron Salgado after delivering him at birth.

by Dr. Blute’s alleged actions. They have asked that the media please respect their privacy at this time.”

THE CASE Finlayson and Guilmette filed formal civil charges against Blute and Tucson Medical Center on September 9, 2020, for medical malpractice, negligence, gross negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, medical battery, sexual battery, fraud, consumer fraud and breach of fiduciary duty.

“It took a while for my mom to find a lawyer because this was unheard of in Arizona,” Finlayson said. “I mean, it took probably a month after calling, and finally Dev, thank God, he took it without knowing what’s going to happen. I mean, it’s all up in the air.”

Guilmette said, “People just wanted to stay 10 feet away from it, and I don’t blame them. But he’s got to be held accountable.”

Their attorney, Dev Sethi, says once Blute enters in appearance, they’ll push for a jury trial.

“The reality is this is cutting edge stuff, the law has not caught up with the science in this area. When Blute was doing this in the 1980s, nobody could have conceived that you could go to a drugstore and pick up an over-the-

counter DNA test,” Sethi said. “Blute, I’m sure, never feared being caught. And now technology has allowed people to learn so much about their lives, just with a kind of do-it-at-home test. And that’s what’s revealed this horror show.”

Blute filed a response on Dec. 9. He said he provided artificial insemination services from “anonymously sourced, third party donors.” He denied the allegation that the sperm artificially inseminated into Guilmette was not from an anonymous Hispanic donor.

Blute also denied it was his practice to use his own sperm in administering fertility treatments.

In the response to the claims against him, Blute’s attorney Michele Thompson wrote, “Dr. Blute himself was a semen donor through the University Medical Center’s Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and he followed their protocols in existence at the time.”

Finlayson says that Blute’s “deceitfulness knows no bounds. It’s narcissistic, something needs to happen to him. For him to deny this at all, it’s just inconceivable.”

On Dec. 1, Finlayson and Guilmette won a motion filed by the defendants’ to remove Finlayson from the case on the grounds that she wasn’t alive at the time of the alleged acts.

“Blute denies it, of course he’s going to. But we’re trying to get to a jury trial,” Finlayson said. “TMC and Blute all have

to file these motions for dismissal before we can even get there. So it’s a blessing that we won that case, but Dev said that it’s still an uphill battle.”

TMC Communication Specialist Angela Pittenger wrote in an emailed statement that the hospital could not comment on the merits of the lawsuit.

“As this is an active lawsuit, TMC cannot comment other than to confirm that Dr. James Blute III was not an employee of TMC, rather a member of TMC’s independent medical staff,” Pittenger said.

“Dr. Blute was last part of our medical staff in 2000.”

Blute still holds medical licenses in Arizona, New York and Pennsylvania.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Blute worked at UnitedHealthcare as the medical director of appeals and grievances and the medical director and chair of clinical quality of care beginning Dec. 2012.

Lisa Contreras, the regional communications director for UnitedHealthcare, said in an email, “Dr. James Blute is no longer employed with UnitedHealthcare.

His role during his employment with us was purely administrative and did not involve patient care.”

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Guilmette and Finlayson may be on the horizon. After seeing Lupita Murillo of KVOA News 4 Tucson’s reporting on the story, Victoria Steele, a state senator representing Legislative District 9 in Tucson, is drafting legislation to criminalize fertility fraud when the state legislature reconvenes in 2021.

“There’s a deal with this kind of deception. In Arizona, it’s difficult to hold doctors who do this legally responsible,” Steele said. “This is a disgusting breach of trust. But unfortunately, these cases fall through the gaps in existing civil and criminal laws that are in statute in Arizona.”

LEGISLATION As the mother and daughter continue their civil litigation against Blute, they’re relentlessly seeking justice in a state that doesn’t criminally prosecute fertility fraud claims.

“What I want most is just accountability. You did this, take responsibility for it,” Guilmette said. “It was a bad thing to do. But we’ll never get that. Nobody who ever inseminates their sperm in this many women—there’s no way. I mean, he’s got to have an ego unbelievably big.”

But hope of justice for victims like

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEBRA GUILMETTE

Kristen Finlayson, Aaron Salgado and their father Phil Salgado in 1994.

Motivated by the egregious acts detailed in Finlayson and Guilmette’s story, Steele began drafting legislation in early November. Although she says the bill isn’t yet ready for “prime time,” she hopes victims will be willing to testify if CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

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DANEHY THE YEAR MAY HAVE BEEN AWFUL BUT AT LEAST WE HAD SOME GREAT TELEVISION TO WATCH

By Tom Danehy, tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com

WE CAN PROBABLY AGREE THAT 2020 was the worst year for a lot of things, including movies. I usually go to a couple movies per month, but this year, the last two movies I saw were this horrible Ben Affleck movie that I thought was going to be about basketball but instead turned out to be about alcoholism, and Sonic The Hedgehog.

To the rescue comes television, which continues its infuriating trend of having too many great things available to be able to watch them all. I really like the Australian black comedy Mr. In-Between, about a doting dad/hit man. I understand (and join in) the hoopla around The Queen’s Gambit and I’m really hoping that the final season of The Crown turns out to be as good as the first three.

SORENSEN

In 2020, these three series stood out for me: The Good Place (NBC): It’s simplistic (but also so very human) to judge a TV series by the way it is brought to a conclusion. An ending can be perfect (Friday Night Lights), spectacular (Breaking Bad), awful (Seinfeld), or God-awful (Dexter).

It seems like ages ago, but The Good Place actually wrapped up its amazing four-year run early this year. And while I’ve gone over the ending in my head a number of times, I still can’t decide if it was perfect (probably) or awful (in a heartbreaking, really depressing way).

I am pretty sure that the series will be studied by college film students and its ending debated by philosophy and theol-

ogy majors for a long time to come.

For those of you who missed it, The Good Place screams to be binge-watched.

It involves four mismatched people who end up in an afterlife that none of them could have envisioned nor even felt that they deserved. Their genial host (played

by Ted Danson) offers all smiles and free frozen yogurt, but he definitely has a hidden agenda.

The show is hilarious, but it also poses BIG questions, among them is whether doing good is the same as being good.

The Plot Against America (HBO): This mini-series came along at a grim time and only served to make these even grimmer. It’s 1940 and FDR and his New Deal are finally lifting America out of the Great Depression. Nazi Germany is laying waste to Europe, but in America, Charles Lindbergh is leading a movement to keep the U.S. out of the coming war. (All of that is true.)

But in this nightmare scenario, Lindbergh decides to run for President. In a tragicomic montage, we see that Lindy’s entire campaign strategy is to fly his plane from one city to the next, get out on the tarmac and deliver the EXACT SAME SPEECH about how he’ll keep the U.S. out of the war.

Lindbergh wins and darkness begins to fall. There are small, subtle shifts that

make what’s coming all the more sinister.

Powerful anti-Semites (including Henry Ford) hatch a plan to relocate all of America’s Jews away from the coasts and then…?

Airing when the pandemic was first raging and Trump was raving, this miniseries kept showing one scene after another of “This can’t happen in America, except it actually is.” Scary stuff.

The Good Lord Bird (Showtime): This is a rip-roaring depiction of the last years in the life of true American hero, John Brown. The seven-episode mini-series starts in Bloody Kansas and ends with his failed attempt at starting a slave rebellion by seizing the military arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. He was captured by forces led by (then-Union) Colonel Robert E. Lee and his subsequent hanging was attended by Walt Whitman, Stonewall Jackson, and John Wilkes Booth.

Frederick Douglass said that Brown “(began) the war that ended slavery.” A century later, Malcolm X said that while no white people were allowed to join his movement, “if John Brown were alive today, we might accept him.”

Brown is often portrayed as maniacal and while star Ethan Hawke’s performance occasionally tiptoes up to that point, it never crosses it. This is a riveting American history lesson. ■

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COURTESY OF DEBRA GUILMETTE

Kristen Finlayson as a child.

PATERNITY PROBLEMS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

her bill receives a hearing.

“It is a huge shock for unsuspecting

families who trusted their doctors to help them conceive, and then they go through these fertility treatments only to find out that their own doctor is the father of their children, and that it was done without

their consent,” Steele said. “This is illicit physician inseminations, and I want to prevent this from happening in the future. That’s why I’m doing this.”

Sethi commends the drafted legislation and hopes Arizona will be added to the list of states criminalizing fertility fraud.

“I think that is something that needs to be done and will hold these bad actors accountable going forward,” he said. “I suspect Blute is not the only one who’s done this. Around the country, we read about these stories, and I think Arizona, which has a long history of protecting its citizens and has a long history of taking proactive steps to regulate our professions with public safety in mind, Arizona should and will be a leader in this area.”

Finlayson hopes Steele’s legislation will bring justice to past victims, as well as those to come.

“I don’t care about money, I don’t care about anything, I just want something to be done,” she said. “I was so excited when I heard [Steele] took an interest in our case, and I actually felt like I’m doing something that’s gonna last. It’s gonna help a lot of people in the future, and people that already are victims.”

As she fights for justice for victims of

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fertility fraud through legislation, Steele hopes those finding out their biological fathers are the very doctors their mothers’ entrusted can find peace in their identities beyond the deceit they experienced.

“This comes from my history as a mental health counselor, but who you are as a human being in this world is more about your lived experiences and what you know, and who you love than the bad things that might have been done to you,” Steele said. “I would give that same advice to a rape victim. You get to define who you are, not the person who has done bad things to you.”

As part of a growing group of victims absentmindedly taking DNA tests to find out the unthinkable, Finlayson says her best advice is to join a group of those experiencing the same thing.

“My advice is to get into a group... and you will be surprised at how many people are finding out about their real biological parents,” she says. “It’s nice to talk to somebody who has been going through this longer than I have...

Get into a support group, into therapy.

Don’t try to let it rob you. When I found out I wasn’t Hispanic, as hard as it was, I’m the same person as I am. Nothing’s changed.” ■

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ONE SICK YEAR

It takes more than a pandemic to get people to stop acting like idiots

B y L e o W. B a n k s

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ure, COVID-19 captured the headlines, but that didn’t stop the Weekly from clipping so many other stories just so we could once again bring the achievements of so many dubious actors. With a salute to the gang at Esquire, we bring you our own year-end wrap-up.

WE’RE NEAR THE TOP IN DUST, POTHOLES AND BOOGER SUGAR A survey by the Online Betting Guide ranked Tucson the 10th wildest city in the U.S. Using factors like nightlife, casinos, strip clubs and alcohol and drug consumption, Las Vegas finished first. Tucson was fourth in casinos and 13th in the percentage who’ve taken marijuana. But the Old Pueblo roared back when it came to cocaine use, finishing fifth.

five names over the years. She told the Republic her troubles were caused by an allegedly abusive, con-man ex-husband.

CAT FROM HELL A North Carolina animal shelter waived adoption fees hoping someone would take Perdita, the world’s worst cat, off their hands. The foul furball dislikes dogs, children, the Dixie Chicks, Disney movies and Christmas. On its Facebook page, the shelter wrote: “We thought she was sick. Turns out she’s just a jerk.”

BUT THEY TOOK A BUS TO THE PROTESTS. GET IT? As a member of a White House effort to reopen the country after coronavirus quarantines, Trump advisor Stephen Moore actually, no-fooling compared protesters demanding a reopening to a genuine Civil Rights hero. “I think there’s a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded,” said Moore. “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks—they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”

YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT LOBOTOMY? A hopefully tongue-incheek group called Christians Against Dinosaurs said the iconic Tyrannosaurus Rex outside the McDonald’s at Tanque Verde and Grant should be removed unless they compromise with a plaque “stating that it’s a fictional character.” The main complainer believes dinosaur displays further “the myth that the Earth is much older the Bible says it is.”

I’LL BE ANYBODY YOU WANT ME TO BE The Arizona Republic reported on the sketchy past of U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Peoria Republican and vocal Trump backer on Fox News. In addition to a bankruptcy and lawsuits for unpaid bills, in 1988, under the name Debra Kay Lorenz, she was charged with tampering with government records. Lesko has been known by at least

HAIL TO THE RELIEF Narcissist-in-Chief Donald Trump reportedly suggested to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem that his bust be added to Mount Rushmore. She chuckled when he told the governor it was his dream to be the fifth president on the famous sculpture.

IS THAT A BUMP IN THE ROAD OR ARE YOU GLAD TO SEE ME? With Tucson’s reputation as the pothole capital of the world standing unchallenged, Janet Miller and Elizabeth Garber, residents of Armory Park, did something about it by filling potholes in their neighborhood with patches of fake grass, according to The Arizona Daily Star.

The paper noted that residents of Middlesex, England, had a racier solution to the problem: They spray-painted the pavement around the holes with giant penises.

HIS BALD HEAD SHINES BRIGHTER THAN A THOUSAND SUNS Among the Tucson businesses shuttered by the COVID plague was the Meet Rack, a bar run by two-time mayoral candidate and professional egomaniac Jim Anderson.

The 79-year-old who calls himself God has operated six bars in the city since the 1970s and could often be seen jogging through town carrying a staff decorated with a bust of himself.

HE FOUND THE MONEY IN A BOX OUTSIDE HIS DOOR THE NEXT MORNING A 15-minute January stock surge added $13.2 billion to the fortune of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, according to Bloomberg News. His new net worth was estimated at $128.9 billion, second in the world to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

LEARJET. ADD TO CART Next time you go to Costco to pick up a box of wine and a case of Cheetos for that special night alone, throw in a Learjet for $17,500. With fear of flying crowded commercial airlines at an all-time high, Costco is offering one-year memberships to Wheels Up, a charter company that can fly you just about anywhere in a cushy private jet.

THEY DON’T CALL IT THE NAKED PUEBLO FOR NOTHING After her election to the Tucson City Council, Lane Santa Cruz’s campaign website—SantaCruzForTucson.com—was taken over by pornographers.

KNOBS GET POLISHED REGULARLY To deal with the coronavirus, Nevada brothels changed their operating rules to require customers to undergo temperature checks, use hand sanitizer, and wear masks when walking around the joint and even during sex.

JUDGMENT DAY After being pulled over in Scottsdale for suspected DUI, Samantha Bracksieck, girlfriend of New York Yankee’s superstar Aaron Judge, asked the cop: “Do you know who my boyfriend is?” She reportedly blew a .12 and was cuffed, after which she said, “Do you understand what you’re doing right now?”

TONS OF FUN Jeremy Clementson, owner of East of Chicago Pizza in Barberton, Ohio, agreed to remove a billboard at his store that read, “Fat People are Harder to Kidnap.”

The message was displayed during Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

NOT SO HAPPY MEAL A man got trampled to the ground by a sprinting deer in a McDonald’s parking lot in Locust, North Carolina. Ken Worthy was walking to his car when it happened. “It was absolutely nuts,” he said. “It was just a bit of brown, and then I saw his face. I was down on the ground—that quick.” The retired police detective noted that despite it all, he “didn’t spill my Coke.”

NO NOOSE IS GOOD NOOSE The headline of the year appeared in the Sierra Vista Herald, above a story on one of Tombstone’s popular annual events: “Vigilante Days Offers Gunfights, Hangings and Dancing.” The hangings are staged, dangit, so the dancers are the only ones who swing.

MONSTER BREW To cash in on the name of her mass-murdering father, Chapo Guzman, the imprisoned leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, Alejandrina Guzman introduced a tasty craft beer cleverly called El Chapo. It is the latest in a line of products, including clothes, being sold by the capo’s daughter.

PICKING UP A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR DINNER ON THE WAY HOME The Arizona House of Representatives approved a bill allowing anyone who encounters a roadkill animal to keep it.

Current law says only the individual who hit the animal can keep it, subject to law enforcement approval. The list includes elk, bear and javelina, but also tasty snack treats like tree squirrels.

DON’T DANGLE THAT PARTICIPLE AROUND ME Using periods to end sentences in social media messages can intimidate teens and young adults who see full stops as a sign of anger, according to a study at State University of New York, Binghamton.

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DEC. 31, 2020

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ONE SICK YEAR

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

They’re also seen as abrupt and unfriendly.

Questions: Does comma come too close to coma? Does semi-colon sound like a painful surgical procedure? Doesn’t split infinitive sound violent? As for the ever-popular colon, well, never mind.

SPEAKING OF DANGLING PARTICIPLES Microsoft founder Bill Gates compared people who refuse to wear masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus to nudists who refuse to wear pants in public. “What are these, like, nudists?” he said. “I mean, you know, we ask you to wear pants, and no American says, or very few Americans say, that that’s, like, some terrible thing.”

NOT ENOUGH COPS, UNDERFUNDED, HIGH CRIME RATES, PATHETIC 911 RESPONSE TIMES? LOOK THE OTHER WAY. WE’LL COVER UP THOSE PROBLEMS WITH MASKS In his continuing effort to turn the Tucson Police Department into a uniformed healing circle, Chief Chris “the Mahatma” Magnus dispatched officers to populated locations around Tucson to hand out masks and educate people about the coronavirus.

HE DRINKS PRUNE JUICE IN THE MORNING, BUG JUICE AT NIGHT Newly-hired Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa was charged with DUI following a February incident in Phoenix in which the legendary baseball skipper allegedly crashed his car into a curb, leaving one tire on his SUV smoking.

The 76-year-old reportedly refused breathalyzer and blood tests, argued with police like they were umpires, showed off a World Series ring and said things like, “I’m a Hall of Famer baseball person.”

The crusty geezer had a previous DUI in Florida in 2007.

THE PRINCE AND THE TOPPER Our favorite senator, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, showed up on the senate floor wearing a bright green sleeveless dress, a face mask and her hair colored a shiny purple. She pointed to her whacky top color for a camera before casting her vote.

She has the perfect companion alongside newly elected Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, the Bald Prince of Arizona.

OVER AND OUT Republican Senator Martha “Copy That” McSally, the first American woman to fly in combat, rode her biography as far as she could, losing to Democrat Mark Kelly in the November election. During her campaign, McSally angrily called out a CNN reporter as a “liberal hack,” and after her defeat delivered a powerful farewell on the Senate floor, on both occasions showing the kind of emotion her charisma-free campaign sorely lacked.

WHEN KILLER DEALS AREN’T ENOUGH A Tampa, Florida, woman was arrested for allegedly attempting to build a bomb inside a Walmart store. A security guard noticed Emily Stallard, 37, opening unpaid items including flammable materials, projectiles, and matches as she moved through the store, a child with her. She was reportedly about to light the wick when taken into custody.

HE PUT MOLLY IN TRUMP’S CHEERIOS, WHICH EXPLAINS A LOT Concerned about President Trump’s girth and overall health, former White House Dr. Ronny Jackson admitted hiding cauliflower in the Commander-in-Chief’s mashed potatoes. He also tried to get the big guy onto an exercise machine, but “the exercise stuff never took off as much as I wanted to.”

WHERE IS STEPHEN KING WHEN YOU NEED HIM In what sounds like a plot from a horror flick, dead minks infected with a mutant form of COVID-19 are rising from the dead in Denmark, scaring the hell out of people. It seems that gasses form in the dead critters cause them to push up out of their shallow graves.

To solve the problem, officials plan to bury the infected minks deeper, although some say that isn’t enough. Two Danish mayors, noting the proximity of the minks’

graves to rivers, fear the risen beasts will migrate zombie-like into the water supply and cause contamination. They advocate cremating the carcasses and hiding under the bed for the rest of the year.

CABBAGE FOR DINNER EVERYONE A nephew of infamous Columbian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, once the seventh-richest person in the world, found $18 million in a plastic bag in the wall of one of the capo’s houses in Medellin. Nicolas Escobar said a “vision” told him where to look for the money, some of which was rotting.

“The smell [inside] was astonishing,” he told Columbian TV. “A smell one hundred times worse than something that had died.” Pablo Escobar was killed in a shootout in 1993.

IT HAD CABLE TV AND PIZZA DELIVERY, TOO ICE agents found a cross-border drug smuggling tunnel between San Luis, Sonora, and Yuma, Arizona, that measured 3 feet wide and 4 feet high, was equipped with a ventilation system, water lines, electrical wiring, a rail system and extensive reinforcement. It was reportedly one of the most sophisticated narco tunnels ever found.

THE BAD PUDDY TAT AWARDS In recognition of the growing number of prominent Americans who don’t understand the simple wording of the First Amendment or the broader concept of free speech, we present the Bad Puddy Tat Awards, named in honor of Charlotte’s Web author E. B. White.

In 1947, the New York Herald Tribune published an editorial defending the right of Hollywood producers to fire writers who wouldn’t cooperate with the Communisthunting House Un-American Activities Committee.

White wrote to the paper, saying: “I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.”

THE WINNERS:

THEY PLAY SPIRITED GAMES OF TWISTER IN THEIR ROOMS Former UA basketball player Gilbert Arenas wondered how NBA players, accustomed to living a party lifestyle, which translates to lots of sex, could possibly handle living in the league-mandated, coronavirus-free bubble without access to women. “We’re talking about grown men, 85 percent of them single, and you have them locked up at Disney World?” he said.

DEVILS GETTING TOO MUCH SUN Sonya Duhé incoming dean of ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, learned of the school’s nonexistent commitment to free speech when, during violent summer riots, she tweeted, with a photo of black and white hands intertwined: “For the family of George Floyd, the good police officers who keep us safe, my students, faculty and staff. Praying for peace on this #BlackOutTuesday.”

Cronkite faculty responded to that innocuous remark with a letter alleging “poor judgment and a lack of understanding of what it means to be the dean of the Cronkite School.” Hysterical students

DEC. 31, 2020

NORMS AND VALUES, MARX AND LENIN, MAO AND XI – LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF AND STICK TO FREEDOM An Atlantic magazine article by two law professors, including the UA’s Andrew Keane Woods, called for censorship of the internet. Lap-dogging along with many academics nationally, who increasingly see free speech as a nuisance, the authors said “China has been largely right and the United States largely wrong” in the debate over freedom versus control of the internet when it comes to information about the coronavirus. “… Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing Internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the Internet is compatible with society’s norms and values.”

The authors didn’t say whose norms and values they favor, but we assume theirs.

CHIEF SPOUTING BULL In her best imitation of George Orwell, Massachusetts Democrat and former-presidential candidate Sen Elizabeth Warren outlined how she would crack down on political speech that she deemed dangerous disinformation, all in the name of furthering democracy.

She said, “I will push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating this kind of information, which has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote.”

IT’S THE FIRST ONE, FOR PETE’S SAKE! President Trump’s campaign went into familiar bully mode by threatening to revoke the licenses of TV stations in five battleground states unless they stopped airing critical ads by Priorities USA, which supported Joe Biden. Washington lawyer Jack Goodman said the FCC didn’t have grounds to act against the stations, and more importantly, the ad was “core political speech” protected by the First Amendment.

THE MINISTER OF FACTS WILL SEE YOU NOW In a BBC interview, former President Barack Obama called for the regulation of political speech. The one-time constitutional law professor, apparently confused by the First Amendment, said: “There are millions of people who subscribed to the notion that Joe Biden is a socialist, who subscribed to the notion that Hillary Clinton was part of an evil cabal that was involved in pedophile rings. I think at some point it’s going to require a combination of regulation and standards within industries to get us back to the point where we at least recognize a common set of facts before we start arguing about what we should do about those facts.”

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING VERITAS Students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences circulated a petition calling for the school to ban

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 11

LATER GATOR A crazy Internet video shows a man jumping into a pond to rescue his Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy, Gunner, from a hungry alligator. “It came out of the water like a missile,” said 74-year-old Richard Wilbanks. “I never thought an alligator could be that fast.”

The video shows Wilbanks going underwater, emerging with the alligator and wrestling with it to pry his puppy loose from its jaws. Gunner suffered a puncture wound and Wilbanks’ hands were “chewed up.” The best part of the video is that Wilbanks’ stogie stayed stuck in his mouth the whole time, even as he plunged his face under water.

called the tweet racist for using “police” and “Floyd” in the same sentence and citing numerous “microaggressions” Duhé had allegedly committed in the past. ASU’s leaders withdrew their deanship offer, promising the cancel monsters they’d be more “inclusive.”

Also, following vandalism and looting at Fashion Square in Scottsdale in May, Cronkite News withdrew a poll it had co-published after students screamed that it was too friendly toward cops. The brave souls at Cronkite News apologized for causing “divisiveness.”

any Trump Administration officials from attending, speaking at or working at the school. Blowback caused petitioners to reword it to say Trump officials should be held “accountable” before setting foot on campus.

Alarmed by the effort, former law professor Alan Dershowitz offered to represent any banned Trump official. “I will not kowtow to this new McCarthyism,” he said.

YOU CAN KILL A MOCKINGBIRD BUT NOT AN IDEA Citing supposedly racist content, the Burbank Unified School District in California has forbidden middle and high school teachers from including several classic novels in their curriculum. The books include: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain; Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck; and To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In response, the Los Angeles Times published the critical responses of educators, including former Burbank teacher Brian Crosby. He taught Mockingbird and Mice and Men for 31 years, saying they were favorites of his students. He called the district’s stance “anti-education, adding that the books teach “anti-racism, decency and empathy.”

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS In an effort by HBO Max and Warner Brothers to bring Looney Tunes characters into our censorious age, Elmer Fudd, known for his epic clashes with Bugs Bunny, will no longer use a rifle. Executive Producer Peter Browngardt said, “We’re not doing guns. But we can do cartoony violence -- TNT, the Acme stuff.”

Got it? Trying to dynamite Bugs to smithereens is okay, but shooting him, no. In one episode, Fudd wildly swings a scythe as he chases his longtime opponent. If successful, he’d leave dear old Bugs in bloody pieces, evidently an acceptable outcome.

IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE! NO, IT’S A GREAT WHITE SHARK! Rep. Mitzi Epstein, a Tempe Democrat, proposed legislation making it illegal to release balloons into the atmosphere for any reason. She said balloons are “the most lethal kind of pollution for birds and for every other kind of wildlife out there.” Doris Pederson of Liberty Wildlife agreed, saying waterfowl mistake what’s left of shiny mylar balloons for jellyfish.

Waterfowl have also been known to mistake the Big Dipper for Jacque Cousteau.

WILE E. COYOTE MEETS DANIEL BOONE A 37-year-old New Hampshire man hiking with his wife and small kids found himself in a life-and-death fight with a rabid coyote. After the animal pulled his 2-year-old to the ground, Ian O’Reilly kicked Cujo in the jaw, pinned it with his knees, wrapped his arm around its throat and strangled it to death. The coyote took eight minutes to die.

“How is this thing still breathing?” O’Reilly recalled thinking.

WE RECOMMEND NICK AT NITE Two writers trying to figure out why they were always tired had what they called an epiphany and concluded it was due to “hundreds of years of sleep deprivation” caused by slavery and systemic racism. Writing in Teen Vogue magazine, Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa called for sleep reparations, including more breaks and time off work.

THE OLD SOFT SHOE When ultra-marathon runner Trevor Murphy found himself amid a huge and raging desert wildfire outside Phoenix, he tried to extinguish it by kicking dirt on it. His effort had no impact, but the soles of his shoes melted.

After airing video of the episode, Ian Schwartz, a CBS 5 weatherman, said, “Firefighters use a tool, not Adidas, to try to do a fire line.… Don’t ever do this, people, if you’re jogging.”

HE WAS WEARING A GOLF SHIRT, PLAID PANTS AND FIT RIGHT IN Ali Yousif A-Nouri, a suspected al-Qaeda leader wanted for the alleged murder of two Iraqi cops in 2006, was arrested in Phoenix. He’d been admitted to the U.S. in 2008 as a refugee, and incredibly, became an American citizen.

Connections between al-Qaeda and Arizona, particularly Tucson, have been well established. The Washington Post reported that 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour studied English at UA in 1991, and Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary Wadih El-Hage worked as a janitor at the Tucson Convention Center while living here from 1987 to 1992.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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DEC. 31, 2020

ONE SICK YEAR

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

BUM DEAL Madison Bumgarner, the Arizona Diamondbacks newly signed $85-million-man, risked injury and hurting his team by secretly competing in professional rodeos under the alias, Mason Saunders.

The sneaky hurler signed the contract weeks after being photographed at a roping competition in Wickenburg. Bumgarner pulled the same stunt in 2017 when he was forced to sit out months of the season after injuring himself in a dirt biking accident.

When confronted by the Athletic about his deception, Bumgarner said he did it to “keep people from recognizing me,” and resorted to the time-honored tactic of blaming the media, saying, “… but you’re going to ruin that for me.”

DUDE Colorado State University at Pueblo is offering students a degree in cannabis. David Lehmpuhl, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, said the program would be rigorous, focusing on cannabis science and analytical chemistry. Coming soon, the school promised a minor in how to choose the best munchies to go with your fatty.

JERRY FINDS HIS BOOGALOO Jerry Falwell Jr. stepped down as head of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, after a photo surfaced of him with his arm around a woman whose pants were unzipped, as were the formerly cement britches of the longtime evangelical leader.

SOME BLOW WITH YOUR JOE Smugglers in Medellin, Colombia, shipped a load of cocaine-stuffed coffee beans to a tobacco shop in Florence, Italy. Cops became suspicious when they noticed the package was addressed to Santino D’Antonio, a fictional Mafia villain in the John Wick movie franchise.

WHAT, NO KISS GOOD NIGHT? On a first date with Christopher Castillo, whom she met on a dating app, a Massachusetts woman was forced to become his getaway driver when the hopeless romantic told her to pull over while he ran into a bank with a pistol and allegedly stole $1,000 from a teller. The woman had driven from Massachusetts to Rhode Island to pick up Castillo at his parents’ home.

HE HAD BUD LIGHT AND POTATO SALAD IN A COOLER An Idaho Falls man was fined $1,200 for attempting to cook chickens in the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park. The man hiked to the site carrying two whole birds in a burlap sack. Water in the hot springs can reach 143 degrees, enough to cause fatal burns. But the chickens come out yummy.

QUOTES OF THE YEAR CLUCK THIS “China had the worst food of any place I ever played. You’d order eggs for breakfast and there would be feathers in them.”

-Former Arizona Wildcat basketball player Bennett Davison, who played 14 seasons of pro basketball overseas.

WHOEVER YOU ARE, CAN YOU BRING ME SOME WINGS AND A BEER “Day two without sports. Found a lady sitting on my coach. Apparently she’s my wife. She seems nice.”

-Tweet by Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach, on what it’s like around his house during the corona shutdown.

BUT NOT FOR LONG “No, I’m good.”

-Convicted double murderer Lezmond Mitchell, when asked if he had any last words prior to receiving a lethal injection at an Indiana prison.

DITKA FOR PRESIDENT “These women are pretty and good-looking and want to knock the crap out of each other. We’ll see how it works.”

-Chicago Bears and NFL football legend Mike Ditka, chairman of the X League, a women’s tackle football league.

DEC. 31, 2020

THE YEAR IN WEED

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 13

Medical Marijuana

In case your memory is hazy, this was the big cannabis news in 2020 David Abbott david@tucsonlocalmedia.com YOU COULD SAY THE YEAR 2020 sucked donkey balls overall, and not many people would disagree. Between a global pandemic destroying families and small businesses, an uncaring and unorganized federal government that completely botched the response to the outbreak, and a Cheeto-colored wannabe dictator who (as of our print deadline, anyway) seems determined to remain in the White House after losing the election, there has not been a lot to celebrate as the year 2020 swirls down the toilet.

That said, at least we had weed to get us through, given you had a medical card and could buy it at a dispensary or if you still had a dealer on the black market. And in a few short months, you won’t need that dealer, as 60% of Arizona voters approved Prop 207 and have legalized a recreational weed program in the state beginning in spring 2021.

Overall, it was a great year for weed and legalization advocates, as four other states legalized cannabis in some form.

Here’s the other big weed news of the year for you to review while you spend New Year’s Eve at home, rolling up a fatty and watching balls drop around the globe.

January: The Arizona legislative session began 2020 with two recreational marijuana ballot measures and six different medical marijuana bills, none of which became law.

February: Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden announced his stance on legalizing marijuana as he campaigned for the presidency he won in November. As former head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden pushed policies that increased drug offense incarcerations since the late ’80s. In 1989, Biden openly criticized then-president George H.W. Bush’s War on Drugs battle plan, stating Bush’s plan wasn’t “tough enough, bold enough or

imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand.” Since then, Biden has also come out in support for decriminalization, federally approving medical marijuana and having arrest records expunged.

Tucson Rep. Randy Friese (D) introduced HB2657 in the Arizona Legislature to legalize cannabis. The bill—which never really had any chance of passing— would have legalized up to one ounce of cannabis and five grams of concentrate, expunged prior cannabis arrests and convictions and placed control of the program under the Department of Liquor Licenses and Control to allow liquor stores to sell cannabis.

March: Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers introduced a ballot proposition to limit the amount of THC in cannabis strains to 2%, the amount of THC in CBD strains. Typical cannabis strains have somewhere between 4 to 8% THC while THC-heavy strains usually have between 10 to 30%. Critics said the resolution would have a devastating effect on the business as concentrates would likely have become too costly to produce, and the price of flower would plummet, causing consumers to buy a whole lot more of it. Meanwhile, the global COVID pandemic set in and medical cannabis dispensaries saw a boom, as dispensaries were considered an essential service and sales went through the roof. After initial shortages, most dispensaries had their usual menu items available within a few days.

April: As 4/20 approached, Tucson dispensaries altered how they did business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some extended 4/20 deals over the entire week; others suspended walk-in service in favor of online and phone orders; others reduced the number of patients allowed in the building. Employees were required to wear facemasks and gloves and get their temperatures taken, and sneeze guards were installed. Crowds decreased, but patients increased the size of their purchases to get ahead of 4/20 crowds.

AUSTIN COUNTS

Shoppers line up outside of Prime Leaf during the weed rush. The dispensary limited the number of people allowed inside in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

May: Arizona lost one of its greatest cannabis advocates when former director for Arizona NORML Mikel Weisser died May 13 at 61 years of age. His political activity extended far beyond cannabis, and even included three runs for Congress.

Before that, he was a teacher, as was his wife Beth, who is vice president of the Kingman Unified School District board.

The Arizona Supreme Court denied an effort by a number of initiative campaigns to collect online signatures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attorney General Mark Brnovich cheered the ruling, saying: “My job is to defend the law and I’m going to continue doing so as long as I’m attorney general ... A health crisis is not an excuse to ignore the constitution.”

June: Fears of shortages during the pandemic shutdown calmed in the local market, as sales declined in April after a record March. Arizona dispensaries made nearly 85,000 transactions in April 2020, selling more than 16,000 pounds of cannabis. The busiest day during April was 4/20—the unofficial, international pot holiday—with more than 40,000 transactions statewide, resulting in nearly 1,000 pounds sold. Nearly 10,000 more transactions took place during April 2020 than the previous year, when there was no pandemic, no long lines and more generous 4/20 specials.

July: Smart and Safe Arizona filed 420,000 signatures with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on July 1 to put Prop 207 on the November ballot, far more than the 237,467 signatures needed to qualify.

Two clinical studies were in the works, evaluating CBDs for prevention and treat-

ment of the novel coronavirus. The studies were not for an anti-virus vaccine, but as therapies that could enhance primary treatment and prevention strategies. But skeptics were not convinced. “Everybody wants cannabis to be a cure-all miracle drug,” local MMJ Dr. Heather Moroso said.

“Cannabis can help people suffering from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The stress and anxiety of being in isolation; unknown job and family situations; domestic abuse and isolation?

I’m not a rocket scientist, but sensible use of the drug can help reduce the anxiety.”

Opponents of the effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona filed a legal challenge in Maricopa County Superior Court. Arizonans for Health and Public Safety took issue with what they called misleading language in Smart and Safe Arizona’s 100-word summary, claiming, among other things, the initiative redefines marijuana by including cannabis extracts along with marijuana flower.

“Cannabis THC is highly concentrated,” said Arizonans for Health and Public Safety chair Lisa James. “For example, five grams of marijuana concentrate that they allow is approximately 2,800 doses of pure THC for one person.”

“I would call their challenge bonkers,” Strategies 360’s Stacy Pearson said.

August: Maricopa Superior Court Judge James Smith ruled that Smart and Safe Arizona’s 100-word summary did not mislead voters. In his ruling, Judge Smith wrote, “Their arguments turned on what hypothetical electors would want CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

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DEC. 31, 2020

December: Reaction to the passage of Prop 207 was swift in some quarters, as several Pima County towns began passing emergency resolutions aimed at restricting recreational cannabis sales in the coming year. Since mid-October, municipalities including Sahuarita, Marana and Oro Valley acted to limit legal cannabis sales in their respective jurisdictions. But the City of Tucson opted for a more welcoming approach to its zoning ordinance in preparation for legal weed sales—and the attendant tax boon—coming in 2021. ■

Tucson’s #1 CBD Dispensary The COVID-19 lockdown led to a boom in medical cannabis sales as people settled in for months of shutdown orders.

THE YEAR IN WEED

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

to know and how the summary deviated from those predicted desires. … Electors are not likely to be confused that legalizing recreational marijuana will include [concentrates] when the medical marijuana law allows it.” The Arizona Supreme Court would later back Smith’s ruling, ensuring Prop 207 would appear on the ballot.

September: House Resolution 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (aka the MORE Act), introduced in 2019 by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), passed in the Democratic House of Representatives, but was later killed in the Senate. MORE would “decriminalize and deschedule cannabis, to provide for reinvestment in certain persons adversely impacted by the War on Drugs [and] provide for expungement of certain cannabis offenses,” paving the way to address problems caused by conflicting federal and state laws. Arizona Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Raul Grijalva and Ruben Gallego, all Democrats, supported the bill. MORE passed the House again on Dec. 4, 2020, was received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Finance.

The Arizona Department of Health Services reported that statewide sales of cannabis for the month of August reached a total of 18,516 pounds of various forms of marijuana. That followed a July sales explosion totaling 18,647 pounds sold. Those numbers are about 1,500 pounds more than the month of March, which weighed

in at 17,094 pounds, and nearly a ton and a half more than January, at 15,302 pounds.

The numbers also dwarf sales from the previous year, when in August 2019 statewide sales reached 14,745 pounds after 13,983 in July. Year-to-date sales through August 2020 were 136,493 pounds, compared to 105,241 in 2019.

November: Amid growing support for legalization, third party testing became mandatory for medicinal marijuana and its derivative products, thanks to a 2019 law that finally was coming into effect.

Testing will determine unsafe levels of microbial contamination, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth regulators and residual solvents and confirm the potency of the marijuana to be dispensed. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and because there were an insufficient number of certified testing facilities, AZDHS delayed full rollout of the testing program, requirements for 17 of 59 pesticides and testing for mycotoxins would be postponed until May 1, 2021 to avoid product shortages.

On Nov. 4, Arizonans voted in favor of the Smart and Safe Arizona, Prop 207, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana for persons over the age of 21. The initiative passed with nearly 60% of the vote. New Jersey, Montana and South Dakota also approved recreational weed, while Mississippi approved the use of medical marijuana for people with “debilitating conditions.” Expungement of low-level cannabis charges begins next July, but in the wake of the election, most Arizona counties began dialing down enforcement.

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 15

Austin Counts and Nick Meyers contributed to this roundup.

Correction: No, we were not high, but last week’s Cannabis 520 column “Cards on the Table” (Dec. 24) incorrectly stated that medical marijuana in Arizona is tax-exempt. MMJ is taxed at a 6.6% rate on the state level, with an additional 2% to 3% for local municipalities. Tucson patients pay 8.7%, according to Downtown and D2 Dispensary owner Moe Asnani.

Additionally, the possession limit for concentrates is 5 grams for those without a medical certification.

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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): Author Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) carried on a long love affair with books. He read thousands of them, wrote more than 20 of them, and further postulated the existence of numerous imaginary books that were never actually written. Of all the writers who roused his adoration, a certain Russian novelist was among the most beloved. Borges wrote, “Like the discovery of love, like the discovery of the sea, the discovery of Fyodor Dostoevsky marks an important date in one’s life.” I’m wondering if you will experience one of these pivotal discoveries in 2021. I strongly suspect so. It may not be the work of Dostoevsky, but I bet it will have an impact close to those of your original discoveries of love and the sea.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has won numerous awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize.

Here are his views about the nature of accomplishment: “We don’t succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have to do. We fail because others understand this better than we do.” I bring these thoughts to your attention, Taurus, because I think that in 2021 you will have an extraordinary potential to enhance your understanding of how the world works and what you must do to take advantage of that. This could be the year you become both smarter and wiser.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Modern civilization has not spread to every corner of the planet. There are at least 100 tribes that inhabit their own private realms, isolated from the invasive sprawl of our manic, frantic influence. Among these enclaves, many are in the Amazon rain forests, West Papua, and the Andaman Islands. I have a theory that many of us civilized people would love to nurture inner qualities akin to those expressed by indigenous people: hidden away from the mad world;

content to be free of the noise and frenzy; and living in attunement with natural rhythms. In 2021, I hope you will give special care and attention to cultivating this part of you.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Hurricane Maria struck the Caribbean island of Dominica in 2016.

Scientists studied two local species of anole lizards both before and after the natural disaster. They were amazed to find that the lizards after the hurricane had super-strong grips compared to their predecessors. The creatures were better able to hold on to rocks and perches so as to avoid being swept away by high winds. The researchers’ conclusion?

It’s an example of one of the most rapid rates of evolutionary change ever recorded. I bring this to your attention, Cancerian, because I suspect that you, too, will have the power to evolve and transform at an expedited pace in 2021—in response to positive events as much as to challenging events.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope that in 2021 you will spend a lot of time meditating on your strongest longings. Are they in harmony with your highest ideals, or not? Do they energize you or drain you?

Are they healthy and holy, or are they unhealthy or unholy—or somewhere in between those two extremes? You’ll be wise to re-evaluate all your burning, churning yearnings, Leo—and decide which ones are in most righteous service to your life goals. And as for those that are in fact noble and liberating and invigorating: Nurture them with all your tender ingenuity!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “You can’t move mountains by whispering at them,” says singer-songwriter Pink. Strictly speaking, you can’t move mountains by shouting at them, either. But in a metaphorical sense, Pink is exactly right. Mildmannered, low-key requests are not likely to precipitate movement in obstacles that resemble sold rock. And that’s my oracle for you in the coming

SAVAGE LOVE LESBIAN DRAMA

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

One of my very close friends, a lesbian, has been married for a couple of years now. It’s been nothing but drama since the day they met. My friend had a terrible home life growing up and doesn’t understand stability. She also has zero self-confidence. My friend and her wife are constantly calling the cops on each other, getting restraining orders, and then always breaking them and getting back together. I told her that if she likes this drama, that’s one thing. It’s another if my friend got dragged into it and doesn’t want to live this way! But she cannot seem to quit their relationship.

My friend tells me, “Lesbian relationships are drama,” and says I don’t get it because I’m “so damn straight.” Two questions: Are all lesbian relationships drama? And can you explain the whole “price of admission” thing again? It might help to open my friend’s eyes to how unacceptable this shit is. She says she wants out but she also wants to be loved and doesn’t think it would be any better with someone else.

—Don’t Really Accept Melodramatic Actions If that lesbian friend of yours isn’t

months, Virgo. As you carry out the project of relocating or crumbling a certain mountain, be robust and spirited—and, if necessary, very loud.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In his masterpiece the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci applied 30 layers of paint that were no thicker than a single human hair. Can you imagine the patience and concentration that required? I’m going to propose that you be inspired by his approach as you carry out your big projects in the coming year. I think you will have the potential to create at least one labor of love that’s monumentally subtle and soulful.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Climate change is proceeding with such speed in central Mexico that entire forests are in danger of perishing. In the hills near Ejido La Mesa, for instance, the weather is getting too hot for the fir trees that shelter millions of monarch butterflies every fall. In response, local people have joined with scientists to physically move the fir forest to a higher, cooler elevation.

What might be your personal equivalent, Scorpio: an ambitious plan to carry out an idealistic yet practical project? According to my analysis of your astrological potentials, you’ll have a lot of energy to work on such a scheme in 2021.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Gérard de Nerval (1808–1855) made the following observation: “I do not ask of God that he should change anything in events themselves, but that he should change me in regard to things, so that I might have the power to create my own universe, to govern my dreams, instead of enduring them.” If you have a relationship with the Divine Wow, that will be a perfect prayer for you to say on a regular basis in 2021. If you don’t have a connection to the Supreme Intelligence, I suggest you address the same prayer to your Higher Self or Future Beauty or whatever source of sublime inspiration you hold most dear.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The mathematically oriented website WaitButWhy.com says that the odds of winning a mega lottery can be compared to this scenario: You know that a certain hedgehog

willing to listen to you because you’re straight, DRAMA, she’s not going to listen to my gay ass. So I shared your email with three lesbian friends of mine—think of them of a three-member circuit court of lesbian appeals—in the hopes that your lesbian would listen to their asses.

“Are lesbian relationships drama?” asked Tracey “Peaches” Cataldo, the executive director of the HUMP! Film Festival. “No. Maybe lesbian relationships are high intensity. The shared experience of being gay, being women, communicating too much about everything—I mean, the U-Haul jokes resonate for a reason. However big feelings and big commitments don’t mean big drama. In my own experience lesbian drama involves disagreeing about how

will sneeze just one time in the next six years, and you place a big bet that this sneeze will take place at exactly the 36th second of 12:05 pm next January 20. In other words, WaitButWhy.com declares, your chances of winning that lottery are very small. But while their analysis is true in general, it may not be completely applicable to you in 2021. The likelihood of you choosing the precise moment for the hedgehog’s sneeze will be higher than usual. More realistically and importantly, your chances for generating positive financial luck through hard work and foresight will be much higher than usual.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Anais Nin was supremely adaptable, eager to keep growing, and receptive when life nudged her to leave the past behind and expand her understanding. At the same time, she was clear about what she wanted and determined to get what she wanted. Her complex attitude is summed up in the following quote: “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” I hope you will heed her counsel throughout 2021. (Here’s another quote from Nin: “Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2013, workers at a clothing manufacturing plant in Gazipur, Bangladesh staged a mass protest. Did they demand a pay raise or better health benefits?

Were they lobbying for air conditioning or longer lunch breaks? None of the above. In fact, they had just one urgent stipulation: to dispel the ghost that was haunting the factory. I’ve got a similar entreaty for you in 2021, Pisces. I request that you exorcise any and all ghosts that have been preventing you from fully welcoming in and embracing the future. These ghosts may be purely metaphorical in nature, but you still need to be forceful in banishing them. ■ Homework: Has anything in your life changed for the better during the pandemic? What?

FreeWillAstrology.com.

many coats of paint are needed on a bathroom wall or one person wanting to fuck when the other wants to watch The Crown. It’s not normal for lesbian relationship ‘drama’ to require 911 calls and it’s definitely not okay for said drama to look like a cycle of violence or result in trauma. Don’t confuse drama for passion.”

“I’m not sure lesbian relationships are any more drama than any other relationships,” said Katie Herzog, freelance dog ball journalist (really) and cohost of the Blocked and Reported podcast, “but considering the surprisingly high rates of intimate partner violence in lesbian relationships, they might actually be. Still, just because some lesbian relationships are drama doesn’t mean that all lesbian

DEC. 31, 2020

relationships are drama. Personally, I was involved in my fair share of soap operas as a young dyke, including once dating a woman who said she was possessed by a demon. (She was, the demon was coke.)

But as an adult, the biggest drama in my relationship is The Undoing on Sunday nights on HBO. Either way, DRAMA’s friend’s relationship sounds unhealthy, and that’s not a lesbian thing.”

“Drama is saying your ex looked cute the last time you saw them on your current’s birthday,” said Cameron Esposito, the comedian and host of the podcast Queery. “Lesbian drama is saying that while watching The L Word: Generation Q. Seems more like DRAMA’s pal may be in a cycle of abuse—using the clues of police, restraining orders, and a feeling that one cannot do better. From my own experience, abuse isn’t something a friend can stop and DRAMA’s best option here may be to suggest a support group—perhaps offer to attend with her—and then lovingly detach from fixing this. Not because DRAMA doesn’t care but because we cannot control the lives of the ones we love.”

Thank you for your service, lesbians, I’ll take it from here.

Okay, DRAMA, I’ll explain the “price of admission” concept: You see, there are always gonna be things about someone that get on your nerves and/or certain needs a romantic partner cannot meet— sexual or emotional—but if they’re worth it, if that person has other qualities or strengths that compensate for their inability to, say, fill the dishwasher correctly or their disinterest in butt stuff, then clearing up after dinner or going without anal is the price of admission you have to pay to be with that person. And those are reasonable prices to pay. But putting up with abuse—physical or emotional—isn’t a price that anyone should pay to be in a relationship.

And the price of admission doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships, DRAMA. So if putting up with this drama isn’t a price you’re willing to pay to be friends with this woman, you can refuse to pay it—meaning, you have every right to end this friendship if drama is all you’re getting out of it.

Ending the friendship might actually help your lesbian friend. People who confuse drama for passion often get off on having an audience, DRAMA, and always being available for a friend like that—always making yourself available for their drama—can have the opposite of its in-

tended effect. So by dropping everything and rushing your friend’s side every time the shit hits the fan could be creating a perverse incentive for your friend to stay in this shitty relationship. In cases like this, DRAMA, detaching—like Cameron suggested—isn’t just the right thing to do for yourself but the right thing to do for your friend as well. Because once she sees there’s no audience she might decide to end the show.

Follow Katie Herzog on Twitter @ KittyPurrzog and read her dog ball journalism at www.moosenuggets.substack. com. Follow Cameron Esposito on Twitter @CameronEsposito. You can’t follow Tracey “Peaches” Cataldo on Twitter—because she isn’t on Twitter—but you can make and submit a film for HUMP! (Info on submitting a film to HUMP! can be found at www.humpfilmfest.com/submit.)

I’m a 35-year-old gay cis woman in New Jersey. I’ve been in a wonderful relationship with an amazing woman since April.

In typical lesbian fashion, she moved in over the summer and we’ve been inseparable ever since. My problem is that my sister and her 9-year-old son have been living in my home for the last four years.

She has a ton of drama with her ex—her son’s father—and just this past week my girlfriend had her first interaction with the Department of Children and Family Services because of their drama. I’m used to it at this point but it freaked my girlfriend out. When I purchased my home, I invited my sister to move in to help her get on her feet. It also meant I could try for a closer relationship to my nephew. She was going to finish her nursing degree so she could support herself and her son. Four years later, she’s still an LPN and still living in my home with

her bad attitude and so much drama.

Last night, she had a huge argument with my girlfriend while I was at work—I’m an ICU nurse and I work overnight—and she told my GF that I don’t spend enough time with her or her son since we started dating and she’s sad because she has no help, no friends, no blah blah blah. I need to cut the cord! I want a family and kids of my own and I’m planning to propose in the next few months. I love my sister, I do, and for years I’ve been there to help pick up the pieces from her shitty choices, but now is my time to prioritize myself and my happiness. How do I make her see that without making her feel like I’m abandoning her and her son?

—Worried And Perplexed

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 17

Even if there was some way to ask your sister to move out that didn’t make her feel like you were abandoning her and her son, WAP, she would still do everything she in her power to make you feel like you were abandoning them.

She knows that if she can make you bad enough, and if she can sow enough discord between you and your girlfriend, she won’t have to get her own place or stand on her own two feet. So brace yourself for a lot of drama, WAP, and be unambiguous and firm: set a reasonable date for her to find her own place, offer whatever financial help you reasonably can, and make sure your nephew has your number. It sounds like he’s going to need someplace safe to run away to in a year or two—or in a month or two—and here’s hoping your girlfriend has it in her heart to be there for him the way you have.

Cameron Esposito is hosting an online party on December 31 at 6 p.m.

(PST)—Cameron Esposito’s New Year’s Steve—with special sets, guests, and an early ball drop! It’s free but donations are welcome. For more info and tickets to Cameron’s show, head over to www. dynastytypewriter.com. mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. savagelovecast.com

18

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DEC. 31, 2020

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54

55 62

56

63

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58 64

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66

67

68

69

70

71

7

37

46

52

61

13

28

41 45

47 51

27

35

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32

34

43

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23 26

31

39

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19

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50

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16

21 24

29

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