Otis
Footballguy
A jazz guitar player I respect and am friends with on Facebook posted the below today. Thought it was an interesting, well informed read. I'm not a major pot guy or anything -- but I can appreciate it and it makes too much sense. When are we just going to get on with it, legalize it nationally, and move on to our real problems?
-Oats
**
Now that it's actually 4:20pm on 4/20, I'm gonna double dip and repost what I put up this morning.
One of the most common questions I get from Facebook friends and people I meet on the road is, "what's the deal with you and the pot posts?" "You seem like a nice guy, a middle aged father of three teenagers..." Here's the story:
Even though I'm a professional musician, I was actually agnostic, if not slightly negative, on pot until I was almost forty five years old. I mean, like just about everybody my age, I experimented a little bit around nineteen or twenty years old, but it made me a little nervous, and I didn't really like it. Then, about six years ago, when my sister and I were the primary caregivers for our mother in her last two years of battling metastatic breast cancer, I thought, "hey, I should try making her some magic brownies or something.” And then yup, my mom, a Reagan Republican, for the first time, got a little high. She also became just a little more okay with dying, she got a bit more physically comfortable, and most important of all, she got an appetite. All of which unquestionably prolonged and improved the quality of her remaining life. This was a mind blower to me. What the heck was happening?
I’m a pretty objective guy. I love nerding out on research and finding quality information. I quickly developed something of an obsession with the history, science, and politics of this little plant. Clearly the Government of yesteryear did not foresee Google. For example, I had no idea cannabis was legal, available, and very common up until World War Two all over the country. Every doctor carried tincture of cannabis in his bag. It was very routinly given to fussy babies, women with menstrual pain, people with asthma, arthritis… and of course, insomnia. The old pre-prohibition cannabis tincture glass bottles, with recognizable brands such as Parke Davis and Eli Lilly, are now very collectable on Ebay. And I was again blown away to learn that even though the official US policy is that cannabis has no medical value, the US government actually has held several patents for decades for medical use. The plot thickens.
And it was incredible and sad to learn the racist and financially opportunistic history of it’s prohibition. Harry Anslinger, the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner, no doubt needed to do something quick, lest losing many US jobs. With the country having recently ended alcohol prohibition, and with an economy still reeling from the Great Depression, he made cannabis illegal, seemingly overnight in 1937, with less than two hours of debate in congress. He did this by presenting the plant as something new and unknown, though our great grandparents were very familiar with it. Even our country’s founding fathers, Washington and Jefferson, wrote enthusiastically about growing it themselves. Anslinger misled an unsuspecting public with a new made-up, and intentionally ethnic sounding name, “marijuana". Blatantly racist newspaper articles, posters, and news reels, often depicted crazed, knife wielding men of color swooping in to take helpless white women in the night. It’s comical to see that stuff now, but at that time it was very effective. He received support from yellow journalism mogul Randolph Hearst, who was heavily invested in wood pulp paper, and DuPont, who had just invented nylon. Both parties clearly had a big interest in doing away with hemp, the non-intoxicating species of the plant that was used for almost all paper, rope, flags, sails, etc, prior to prohibition.
But wait, it’s dangerous! While even aspirin, taken as directed, kills over seven hundred people a year, there’s never been a single reported death in five thousand years of human cannabis consumption. There is no known toxicity level, and there are no secondary causes of death. For example, while smoking the tobacco plant clearly causes lung cancer and heart disease, cannabis does not. In fact, there’s actually very promising new evidence that compounds in cannabis may slow tumor growth. The New York Times reported that moderate cannabis smokers actually have lower lung cancer rates and better lung function overall than people that don’t smoke at all -whoa! New studies show cannabis may increase brain cell formation, making it the center of very promising new research on Alzheimer's, parkinson's, dementia, and turmeric brain injury. When we hear the prohibitionists say marijuana is “dangerous” we should always remember to ask loud and clear, “where are the bodies?” If we just found this in the Amazon today, it would on the front page of news papers everywhere.
But it’s addicting! I think we need to be careful when using word "addictive." Let's reserve it for substances that actually are physiologically and pharmacologically addictive, like opiates and alcohol. It is not possible to be physiologically dependent on Cannabis. Obviously, there are people whose life gets taken over by the use of cannabis as an escape, and it’s a serious problem to be sure. But this is a psychological problem, like people who are "addicted" to gambling, pornography, food, etc. The unbelievably sad thing is how scores of people, mostly young, get insnared in the multi-billion dollar private drug treatment industry, entirely via plea agreements for low-level possession charges. The real addiction happening is the DEA’s addiction to it’s own annual multi-billion dollar budget -are we really still financing a Nixon institution? And to then learn it was the alcohol industry and big pharma that funded infamous propaganda machines as DARE and Partnership For A Drug Free America, that forms public perception for a generation. Oy. Rounding out the list of the big lobbyists for keeping cannabis illegal are police unions, prison guard unions, and drug testing companies… its really just greed.
But what about the children? We have spent hundreds of billions of US tax payer dollars since Nixon started the “War On Drugs.” We’ve put millions of our own citizens in jail, militarized local police, and even invaded other countries…. And yet, your kids and mine can still get a little pot much easier than they can tobacco or alcohol. We can’t even keep pot out of our prisons, let alone free society. On the other hand it’s actually very difficult for a sixth grader to get a tattoo, go skydiving, vote… because we have serious regulations and check points in place for those things. And the message we have given our children failed miserably. For decades they lumped marijuana in with crack and heroin. The fact is that the majority of kids will try pot in high school, and they quickly figure out we lied to them about it. Unfortunately some of them will conclude that if we lied about pot we must be lying about meth or perception drugs too… And, did you know that, still, in some states, if your teenager tries one puff, one time, perhaps at a concert or dance, and gets caught (up until recently, over 800,000 are arrested for simple possession each year in the US), they could no longer be eligible for collage loans, housing, or employment? How is that good for the teenager or society? Needless to say, as a father of three, of course I don’t want my teens to use cannabis -though to be honest, my biggest fear for them by far is excessive alcohol consumption.
But it’s the gateway drug! According to the governments own numbers, one hundred and two million people, or 41% of the population, have tried marijuana in the United States. The government estimates only a little less than three hundred and fifty thousand people each year try heroin in the US. So clearly as a “gateway drug” it’s 0.3% rate of leading to heroin isn’t very compelling, to say the very least. On the other hand, cannabis is more and more being recognized today as an “exit drug” to successfully treat people with alcohol and opiate dependence.
But those people just want to get high! Of course most people do enjoy cannabis in order to get a little high. But isn’t that okay? As soon as children learn to walk, they will spin until they fall down, and do it over and over again. People will stand in line for an hour in the hot sun to ride a roller coaster for less than two minutes. We pray, we meditate, go online, we go to the movies, have sex... Seeking euphoria and temporarily altering consciousness are an intrinsic part of life. We are all seeking it in one way or another every day. Doesn’t it make sense to try the least harmful way of of achieving this? What if responsible adults could replace at least some alcohol use, some over-the-counter pain medication use, Viagra, Ambien, Xanax, Prozac….
Really, it’s wellness product.
In Portland Oregon, where we live, stores are now available to all people over twenty one. They’re often beautiful little shops that are clean, well-lit, friendly, and feel like a boutiquey little wine or tea shop. There are usually a dozen or more different strains of cannabis displayed that one can choose from based on quality and desired effect -some are more sleep inducing, some more upbeat… There’s also a lot of packaged foods, sodas, candies, baked goods. It’s all local, often organic, professionally grown and cured… This is closer to buying heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods. Sure, you see the occasional twenty-something “burnout dude” there, and that’s fine too, but in my neighborhood it’s mostly middle aged soccer moms and dads that chuckle when they bump into each other there. It’s just all very okay.
In retrospect this was an amazing time to get interested in this subject. So much good information is available today. And the change has been head spinning. Polls have skyrocketed for the public acceptance of cannabis. We now have twenty three states, plus the District of Columbia, with some form of legalization. And now, stunningly, we’ve have four US states, and the District of Columbia, with full legalization for all adults over twenty one years of age. This would have been impossible to imagine even five years ago. So as with other social issues of our time -gay marriage for example- things are changing very quickly. We’ve clearly passed the tipping point, and the tooth paste is not going back in the tube.
So happy 420, but let’s also be mindful that we still have a ways to go. We still have thousands of our own citizens sitting in jails in some states, or in forced drug treatment programs, or on probation, for non-violent offences. We have thousands of good kids being denied collage loans, jobs, and getting permanent stains on their record that will haunt them for decades. Some states even require drug testing for food stamps… All for simple possession, of a little plant, that has never taken a single human life.
PS if anyone wants the recipe for my mother's favorite magic mini muffins, just message me ?
-Oats
**
Now that it's actually 4:20pm on 4/20, I'm gonna double dip and repost what I put up this morning.
One of the most common questions I get from Facebook friends and people I meet on the road is, "what's the deal with you and the pot posts?" "You seem like a nice guy, a middle aged father of three teenagers..." Here's the story:
Even though I'm a professional musician, I was actually agnostic, if not slightly negative, on pot until I was almost forty five years old. I mean, like just about everybody my age, I experimented a little bit around nineteen or twenty years old, but it made me a little nervous, and I didn't really like it. Then, about six years ago, when my sister and I were the primary caregivers for our mother in her last two years of battling metastatic breast cancer, I thought, "hey, I should try making her some magic brownies or something.” And then yup, my mom, a Reagan Republican, for the first time, got a little high. She also became just a little more okay with dying, she got a bit more physically comfortable, and most important of all, she got an appetite. All of which unquestionably prolonged and improved the quality of her remaining life. This was a mind blower to me. What the heck was happening?
I’m a pretty objective guy. I love nerding out on research and finding quality information. I quickly developed something of an obsession with the history, science, and politics of this little plant. Clearly the Government of yesteryear did not foresee Google. For example, I had no idea cannabis was legal, available, and very common up until World War Two all over the country. Every doctor carried tincture of cannabis in his bag. It was very routinly given to fussy babies, women with menstrual pain, people with asthma, arthritis… and of course, insomnia. The old pre-prohibition cannabis tincture glass bottles, with recognizable brands such as Parke Davis and Eli Lilly, are now very collectable on Ebay. And I was again blown away to learn that even though the official US policy is that cannabis has no medical value, the US government actually has held several patents for decades for medical use. The plot thickens.
And it was incredible and sad to learn the racist and financially opportunistic history of it’s prohibition. Harry Anslinger, the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner, no doubt needed to do something quick, lest losing many US jobs. With the country having recently ended alcohol prohibition, and with an economy still reeling from the Great Depression, he made cannabis illegal, seemingly overnight in 1937, with less than two hours of debate in congress. He did this by presenting the plant as something new and unknown, though our great grandparents were very familiar with it. Even our country’s founding fathers, Washington and Jefferson, wrote enthusiastically about growing it themselves. Anslinger misled an unsuspecting public with a new made-up, and intentionally ethnic sounding name, “marijuana". Blatantly racist newspaper articles, posters, and news reels, often depicted crazed, knife wielding men of color swooping in to take helpless white women in the night. It’s comical to see that stuff now, but at that time it was very effective. He received support from yellow journalism mogul Randolph Hearst, who was heavily invested in wood pulp paper, and DuPont, who had just invented nylon. Both parties clearly had a big interest in doing away with hemp, the non-intoxicating species of the plant that was used for almost all paper, rope, flags, sails, etc, prior to prohibition.
But wait, it’s dangerous! While even aspirin, taken as directed, kills over seven hundred people a year, there’s never been a single reported death in five thousand years of human cannabis consumption. There is no known toxicity level, and there are no secondary causes of death. For example, while smoking the tobacco plant clearly causes lung cancer and heart disease, cannabis does not. In fact, there’s actually very promising new evidence that compounds in cannabis may slow tumor growth. The New York Times reported that moderate cannabis smokers actually have lower lung cancer rates and better lung function overall than people that don’t smoke at all -whoa! New studies show cannabis may increase brain cell formation, making it the center of very promising new research on Alzheimer's, parkinson's, dementia, and turmeric brain injury. When we hear the prohibitionists say marijuana is “dangerous” we should always remember to ask loud and clear, “where are the bodies?” If we just found this in the Amazon today, it would on the front page of news papers everywhere.
But it’s addicting! I think we need to be careful when using word "addictive." Let's reserve it for substances that actually are physiologically and pharmacologically addictive, like opiates and alcohol. It is not possible to be physiologically dependent on Cannabis. Obviously, there are people whose life gets taken over by the use of cannabis as an escape, and it’s a serious problem to be sure. But this is a psychological problem, like people who are "addicted" to gambling, pornography, food, etc. The unbelievably sad thing is how scores of people, mostly young, get insnared in the multi-billion dollar private drug treatment industry, entirely via plea agreements for low-level possession charges. The real addiction happening is the DEA’s addiction to it’s own annual multi-billion dollar budget -are we really still financing a Nixon institution? And to then learn it was the alcohol industry and big pharma that funded infamous propaganda machines as DARE and Partnership For A Drug Free America, that forms public perception for a generation. Oy. Rounding out the list of the big lobbyists for keeping cannabis illegal are police unions, prison guard unions, and drug testing companies… its really just greed.
But what about the children? We have spent hundreds of billions of US tax payer dollars since Nixon started the “War On Drugs.” We’ve put millions of our own citizens in jail, militarized local police, and even invaded other countries…. And yet, your kids and mine can still get a little pot much easier than they can tobacco or alcohol. We can’t even keep pot out of our prisons, let alone free society. On the other hand it’s actually very difficult for a sixth grader to get a tattoo, go skydiving, vote… because we have serious regulations and check points in place for those things. And the message we have given our children failed miserably. For decades they lumped marijuana in with crack and heroin. The fact is that the majority of kids will try pot in high school, and they quickly figure out we lied to them about it. Unfortunately some of them will conclude that if we lied about pot we must be lying about meth or perception drugs too… And, did you know that, still, in some states, if your teenager tries one puff, one time, perhaps at a concert or dance, and gets caught (up until recently, over 800,000 are arrested for simple possession each year in the US), they could no longer be eligible for collage loans, housing, or employment? How is that good for the teenager or society? Needless to say, as a father of three, of course I don’t want my teens to use cannabis -though to be honest, my biggest fear for them by far is excessive alcohol consumption.
But it’s the gateway drug! According to the governments own numbers, one hundred and two million people, or 41% of the population, have tried marijuana in the United States. The government estimates only a little less than three hundred and fifty thousand people each year try heroin in the US. So clearly as a “gateway drug” it’s 0.3% rate of leading to heroin isn’t very compelling, to say the very least. On the other hand, cannabis is more and more being recognized today as an “exit drug” to successfully treat people with alcohol and opiate dependence.
But those people just want to get high! Of course most people do enjoy cannabis in order to get a little high. But isn’t that okay? As soon as children learn to walk, they will spin until they fall down, and do it over and over again. People will stand in line for an hour in the hot sun to ride a roller coaster for less than two minutes. We pray, we meditate, go online, we go to the movies, have sex... Seeking euphoria and temporarily altering consciousness are an intrinsic part of life. We are all seeking it in one way or another every day. Doesn’t it make sense to try the least harmful way of of achieving this? What if responsible adults could replace at least some alcohol use, some over-the-counter pain medication use, Viagra, Ambien, Xanax, Prozac….
Really, it’s wellness product.
In Portland Oregon, where we live, stores are now available to all people over twenty one. They’re often beautiful little shops that are clean, well-lit, friendly, and feel like a boutiquey little wine or tea shop. There are usually a dozen or more different strains of cannabis displayed that one can choose from based on quality and desired effect -some are more sleep inducing, some more upbeat… There’s also a lot of packaged foods, sodas, candies, baked goods. It’s all local, often organic, professionally grown and cured… This is closer to buying heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods. Sure, you see the occasional twenty-something “burnout dude” there, and that’s fine too, but in my neighborhood it’s mostly middle aged soccer moms and dads that chuckle when they bump into each other there. It’s just all very okay.
In retrospect this was an amazing time to get interested in this subject. So much good information is available today. And the change has been head spinning. Polls have skyrocketed for the public acceptance of cannabis. We now have twenty three states, plus the District of Columbia, with some form of legalization. And now, stunningly, we’ve have four US states, and the District of Columbia, with full legalization for all adults over twenty one years of age. This would have been impossible to imagine even five years ago. So as with other social issues of our time -gay marriage for example- things are changing very quickly. We’ve clearly passed the tipping point, and the tooth paste is not going back in the tube.
So happy 420, but let’s also be mindful that we still have a ways to go. We still have thousands of our own citizens sitting in jails in some states, or in forced drug treatment programs, or on probation, for non-violent offences. We have thousands of good kids being denied collage loans, jobs, and getting permanent stains on their record that will haunt them for decades. Some states even require drug testing for food stamps… All for simple possession, of a little plant, that has never taken a single human life.
PS if anyone wants the recipe for my mother's favorite magic mini muffins, just message me ?
