Pot Stories for the Soul, page 2
When this book was originally published in 1999, one pop-culture sign of a changing climate concerning marijuana was the movie Half Baked, a sort of Dumb and Dumber for potheads, cowritten by and starring stand-up comic Dave Chappelle. In the process of promoting Half Baked, he was a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Letterman asked him outright if he smoked marijuana. Chappelle hesitated, milking the silent tension. Then he said, “Yes,” pausing for effect before adding, “but only for medicinal purposes.” Laughter and applause ensued, although that joke is a truism according to the gospel of Dennis Peron, coauthor of Proposition 215, who has stated seriously that “All marijuana use is medicinal.”
In Details magazine, John Brodie wrote,Half Baked’s journey from Chappelle’s head to theatrical release shows that weed—after a fifteen-year absence wrought by Nancy Reagan and the timidity of studio execs—may no longer be anathema in Hollywood. Tommy Chong believes a cultural shift is already at hand. “I could not even get a meeting during the Reagan years,” he says. “One of the reasons that Cheech and I broke up is that Universal offered him a movie without me based on the fact that it wouldn’t be a pot movie. That was Born in East L.A.”
Chong, who is bullish enough on pot comedies to be self-financing his own, Tommy Chong’s Best Buds, maintains that things are about to change because a silent stoner majority, who do not subscribe to the “pot will rot your brain” theory, have come of age, and those kids who grew up watching his movies are now in positions of power in Hollywood. “There are,” he says in a conspiratorial tone, which suggests he may be keeping a list, “potheads in charge of the studios and the networks.”
In December 2011, Matt Diehl wrote in the Los Angeles Times,The Discovery Channel’s series Weed Wars offers unprecedented access into the medicinal-cannabis universe. Though groundbreaking, Weed Wars may be just an opening salvo in what is shaping up to be a growing reality subgenre devoted to illicit substances. The show has scored well with key demographics, averaging just under a million viewers a week . . . And later this spring, National Geographic Channel will present the new series American Weed, focusing specifically on the marijuana-legalization movement of Colorado.
Chuck Braverman, the executive producer of Weed Wars, admits that it’s taken a while for television to catch up. “The irony is, two years ago I had a marijuana-related project, and every network passed on it.”
And Shirley Halperin, coauthor of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life, says that the wave of pot-based programming jump-started with the surprise success of CNBC’s 2009 documentary special Marijuana Inc.: Inside America’s Pot Industry. “The ratings are there, advertisers are there. Weed’s place in pop culture is at critical mass.”
I’ll smoke to that.
When sitcom cancer patient Murphy Brown smoked medical marijuana to relieve her chemotherapy-induced nausea, Thomas Constantine, then head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced that he was checking to see “if any laws were broken.”
Well, not the First Amendment, anyway.
Back in real life, in November 2011, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles denied a liver transplant to a patient with inoperable liver cancer because he used medical marijuana, which had been approved by his oncologist at the same hospital despite the fact the facility had a “substance abuse” contract.
Studies have concluded that marijuana use does not affect liver transplants adversely, but the patient, scheduled for a transplant in two months, was delisted. He was to abstain from marijuana for six months while attending weekly substance-abuse counseling sessions in order to be reinstated at the bottom of the list.
In October 2011, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs died after a seven-year battle with pancreatic cancer. In 2009, he did have a liver transplant, but cannabis activist Steve Kubby, who is chief officer of the “Regulate Marijuana Like Wine” initiative campaign in California and a cancer survivor, told CelebStoner,One of Jobs’ closest friends, Daniel Kottke, talked with Jobs about using our medical marijuana lozenges to treat his illness. We provided Jobs with a peer-reviewed study on the cancer-fighting properties of cannabis, for which I am, literally, living proof. Unfortunately, Jobs was told if it didn’t work and he tested positive for cannabis, he would be denied a liver transplant, which his physicians told him was his only other option.
Steve Jobs decided against using medical cannabis to treat his cancer, not based on science or medicine, but upon the consequences for him if he used this legal medicine, because of prohibition and a federal government that puts policy above lives. The loss of this visionary pioneer is a loss for the entire planet. Tragically, it appears it might have been prevented.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the nation’s catastrophic economy and in the face of government crackdown, the medical marijuana industry has blossomed. By 1999, voters in six states and Washington, D.C., had opted for medical marijuana in the previous election. Now there are more than 1,500 growing operations and dispensaries across the country. So far, sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have accepted medical marijuana, and more than a dozen other states are also considering that possibility.
However, between January 2010 and May 2011, federal agents staged more than ninety raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers. In November 2011, the Drug War Chronicle reported that the governors of two medical-marijuana states—Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Christine Gregoire of Washington—“called on the federal government to reschedule marijuana. In a joint 106-page petition to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, they said marijuana needs to be classified as a drug with accepted medical uses so that states that have passed medical marijuana laws can regulate its distribution without fear of federal prosecution.”
In December 2011, according to AlterNet, “Less than two months after California’s U.S. Attorneys announced plans to initiate a federal crackdown on the state’s medical marijuana distributors and patients, hundreds of California’s medical marijuana dispensaries have been forced to close their doors.”
That same month in San Diego, a federal judge turned down a request from medical marijuana advocates that sought to halt the government crackdown against dispensaries and collectives. Almost two-thirds of the roughly 220 dispensaries in San Diego have closed voluntarily under threats of federal property seizures and city lawsuits.
And The Sacramento Bee reported,Only eight of ninety-nine dispensaries remain open in Sacramento County, and twenty-five of thirty-eight have closed in Sacramento city. Even more have closed out of fear of federal prosecution against business operators and their landlords . . .
The United Food and Commercials Workers Union, which launched a drive to unionize pot workers during the California dispensary boom, estimates 20 percent of marijuana stores statewide have gone out of business in less than a month. Dan Rush, who directs the union’s medical cannabis division, said letters from four U.S. Attorneys threatening dispensary landlords with loss of their buildings put a chill on the trade. “There is a high rate of people closing voluntarily,” Rush said. “They didn’t want to cause trouble for their landlords or they’re closing to get a chance to figure out how to come back in compliance.”
California’s Proposition 19, which would have legalized pot, failed to pass in November 2010, but a year later, Time magazine ran a cover story with this headline: “Legalization Went Up in Smoke, but ‘Medicinal’ Pot has Gone Mainstream.” And, on the inside pages, Time noted: “In some parts of California—where marijuana is the biggest cash crop, with total sales of $14 billion annually—medical pot has become such an established part of the commercial base that cities are moving toward taxing it.”
Even the DEA is in favor of such a plan—but only to benefit big pharmaceutical companies—which explains why drug czar Gil Kerlikowske stated that “the federal government is the largest source of funding for research into the potential therapeutic benefits of marijuana, and every valid request for the use of marijuana for research has been approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Awareness of medical marijuana has also wiggled its way into the syndicated comic strips. In Pardon My Planet by Vic Lee, a doctor tells his patient, “I recommend you work up to the medical marijuana—so I’m going to start you on medical nachos with cheese and then on to a quart of medical Chunky Monkey ice cream with Doritos sprinkles.” In Candorville by Darrin Bell, one character says to another, in reference to why he doesn’t want to take his prescription for an antipsychotic drug, “Is it ’cause it’s all a scam perpetrated by big pharmaceutical companies who don’t want you to know you could get antipsychotic effects for free if only WEED were legalized?” And a cartoon by David Sipress depicts a doctor instructing his patient, “This marijuana is for medical purposes only. Call me immediately if you start having fun.”
Meanwhile, it’s been anything but fun for the medical marijuana movement. In April 2012, the DEA and IRS raided Oaksterdam University, the first pot trade school in the country. According to Americans for Safe Access, more than 170 raids of dispensaries nationwide have been conducted by federal agents since 2009.
A letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times once stated, “I go to a Marijuana Anonymous meeting twice a week . . . Those rooms are full of young people, many in their teens and already struggling with an addiction just as real as alcoholism.”
“Wrong,” I responded. “Many of these so-called addicts are going to such rehab places only because it’s an alternative to prison. Faking addiction is a viable option to spending time behind bars for a victimless crime that is unconstitutional. ‘An addiction just as real as alcoholism’? Hey, it was beer drinkers, not pot smokers, who were so viciously violent at the Dodgers–Giants game.”
Over 37 percent of the estimated 288,000 people who entered rehab in 2007 for marijuana “addiction” had not reported using it in the entire thirty days previous to their admission. Another 16 percent said that they had used marijuana only three times or less in the month prior to their admission.
And so it has come to pass that progressive organizations have been launched, including the following:
Students for Sensible Drug Policy: A network with more than 150 chapters in universities, colleges, and high schools around the world, SSDP promotes student and teacher activism and has been officially recognized by the United Nations as a drug policy consultant.
Moms for Marijuana: Launched by single mother Serra Frank in 2006, Moms for Marijuana’s purpose is to reach out to mothers who seek cannabis relegalization, not just for medical use, but also as a safer recreational substance than alcohol, which kills 37,000 Americans every year, not including alcohol-related auto accidents.
Law Enforcement against Prohibition: With a membership of thirteen thousand—including police officers, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens, and others—LEAP’s mission is to legalize and regulate all drugs. It’s a cause LEAP’s members believe in after having witnessed and participated in the horrors and injustices resulting from prohibition.
The FBI’s Crime in the United States report shows that in 2008 there were 1,702,537 drug arrests, or one every eighteen seconds. Jack Cole, a retired undercover narcotics detective who heads LEAP, said, “If we legalized and taxed drug sales, we could actually create new revenue in addition to the money we’d save from ending the cruel policy of arresting users.”
Namely, we could generate $77 billion a year.
At the fortieth annual National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Conference in April 2011, Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) told an overflow crowd in his keynote speech,I am optimistic that we will reach a day when America has the smart, sensible marijuana policy that we deserve. But it could go either way. We could return to the dark ages of repression, or we could be on the eve of a new era of marijuana legalization.
Your efforts will help determine which route this country takes and the legacy of this generation of activists on what marijuana policy looks like. Together, we can accomplish this. Marijuana policy is really coming of age. In my last two elections, even my Republican opponents were for legalization. It’s become a very mainstream value.
In the June 2011 issue of High Times, associate publisher Rick Cusick wrote, “It is no longer a question of whether marijuana will be legalized, but rather of how and when.” Colorado and Washington State and national drug-reform groups have announced that they plan to put a legalization initiative on the ballot for 2012.
A family in the syndicated comic strip Pardon My Planet by Vic Lee explains why legalization has been taking so long. The father says, “Marijuana is very dangerous because you could get hooked on it.” The young son sitting on his lap asks, “Why’s that dangerous?” And his mother responds, “Because it leaves fewer people to get hooked on alcohol and tobacco.”
More than a dozen years have passed since Pot Stories for the Soul was first published. Things change. In 1999, over ten million Americans enjoyed smoking marijuana. Now, according to government statistics, there are twenty-five million annual pot smokers in the United States. That includes an ever-increasing number of baby boomers as well as young people who have been toking away on their favorite weed.
In the following pages of this updated edition of Pot Stories, there’s a section of my latest writing entitled “One Toke over the Century: Krassner’s New Stuff,” all of which appeared in High Times, except for “Lenny’s Last Laugh,” a shorter version of which was published in Playboy. Also, several new pieces that have been written by others in the interim are scattered throughout. (Wherever there’s a story with no byline, it means that the writer requested to remain anonymous.)
However, there’s one particular story that’s missing, written by my friend John Cochran, who is currently in prison. I had invited him to contribute a piece to this book, and he was delighted that he would be included. But a prison form (the “Notice of Rejection/Disposition of Mail”) rejected his “attempt to send contraband out of any DOC [Department of Corrections] operated or contract facility,” and the handwritten disposition stated: “Homemade bookmark (wooden)—Envelope rejected in TOTAL.”
“Well,” Cochran wrote to me, “I sent you my story—last Saturday. I sent that and a really cool Xmas gift I made you out of a piece of the stump that was the old hanging tree here back in the mid-1800s—the territorial days. They didn’t like that—not a bit. Declared it contraband, the gift, the story, the letter, the package & postage—all—and destroyed it. Anyway, I’m so disgusted I can’t even bring myself to sit down & write the motherfuckin’ thing again. I wrote it, rewrote it, and then wrote it a third time legibly—eight pages. Piss on it.”
So that’s his story.
“Sorry,” he continued, “you had a very unique gift coming your way. I imagine it is now on some Jack’s [a guard’s] desk at home. And you would’ve liked the pot story. Selah [a Hunter-Thompsonism, meaning ‘So there it is’]. I’ve always had difficulty with mail between me & you since way back at the very beginning in 2001. You sent me a copy of The Realist where you had perverted a Rockwellian scene to such a degree that they ‘investigated’ you & placed your name on a watch list. Ha!”
Norman Rockwell’s paintings on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post were always synonymous with saccharine wholesomeness. But then his son Peter, speaking at the National Press Club, mentioned that his father’s long-standing ambition was to visit an opium den. Ultimately, he was dissuaded from taking any such trip by the advertisers in the magazine.
When I learned that on C-Span, I immediately assigned versatile illustrator Kalynn Campbell to capture the venerated artist’s secret vision. (You can see that cover by Googling “The Realist Archive Project.”) I thought that such an under-the-surface image of American culture would serve as an appropriate metaphor for the final issue of The Realist.
And that’s my story.
Here come the rest of’em now . . .
One Toke over the Century:
Krassner’s New Stuff
Remembering Scott Kelman
Scott Kelman had seen me perform stand-up at Town Hall in New York in 1962, and again twenty years later at the L.A. Stage Company in Hollywood. He moved to Los Angeles and in 1984 launched an alternative theater in the grungy, old, industrial skid-row area of downtown. He named it the Wallenboyd (at the corner of Wall and Boyd) Theater and invited me to open there as soon as it was completed. In fact, on the first night of my performances, the crew was still banging in the final nails.
At the time, I was living in San Francisco, so Scott slept at his office and I stayed at his apartment in Venice Beach. A year later, I moved to an apartment on that same block. Scott became my producer and my close friend. We never had any need for a signed contract. As my producer, he would occasionally give me suggestions and I would follow those that I felt worked for me.
“It doesn’t matter if you fuck up,” he’d say in his distinctive gravelly voice—he was addicted to cigarettes—“it’s how you recover.” That was theatrical advice, but it also applied to life. And it was a two-way street. For Scott, whatever happened in life automatically became grist for his theatrical mill. And he was an exemplary explorer.
Knowing I was an unbeliever, he once asked me, “What do atheists say during sex when they come?”
“Oh, no-God!” I responded, interspersing those words with moans and groans. “Oh, no-God! Oh, no-God! Oh, no-God!”
He suggested that I expand that concept into a stage piece, and it evolved into a ten-minute meditation on the relationship between religion and orgasms.
