Betty's (Little Basement) Garden

by Laurel Dewey

  Peyton carefully disposed of the dead leaves in a trashcan. “The whole point was to confuse people, right down to the name of the plant. Medical doctors were used to requesting Cannabis Indica from the pharmacy to add into their formulas, not ‘marijuana.’ So when doctors heard about the dangers of ‘marijuana,’ they had no idea these jokers were really taking about cannabis, which they all knew was pretty tame.” Peyton continued his history lesson, mentioning that when the Marijuana Tax Law was introduced in the spring of 1937 to outlaw cannabis, none of the medical experts fought it because they didn’t understand that “marijuana” was cannabis. The Bill was introduced to the House floor by a Dupont supporter, who was eager to make sure his investment in the plastics industry was protected and that hemp would be banned in all forms, including medicine.

  Once it was banned, the herb stayed under the radar until the 1960s when it resurfaced and became connected to the hippie culture. Times were changing and so, as Peyton referenced, “they couldn’t tie the plant to blacks and lazy Mexicans anymore.” Instead, they created new propaganda, claiming that marijuana made you unproductive and a burden on society. A few years later, they spun an unproven story that cannabis killed brain cells. “The irony,” Peyton said, “is that some of the cannabinoids actually stimulate new nerve growth in the brain. They proved it on rats.”

  Peyton’s concise history lesson continued. By 1970, with pressure from special interests and hysteria from parents who bought into the media’s hype against the alleged dangers of cannabis, the Federal government changed the classification of ‘marijuana’ to a Schedule I drug – the worst possible category to put it in. That label meant it had zero medicinal benefits, was highly addictive and could kill. The only problem was that there had never been a single case of anyone dying from using cannabis. Other Schedule I drugs, Peyton noted, include heroin and LSD. “So, you have these harder drugs like cocaine, meth and morphine that are Schedule II,” Peyton said with a knowing smile. “And yet they say cannabis, a Schedule I drug, is a ‘gateway drug’ to these harder drugs. Don’t you just love it? It’s all backwards! In this scenario, shouldn’t the abuse of cocaine, meth and morphine lead to cannabis and not the other way around?”

  “Why don’t they just change the classification of cannabis to a different Schedule that fits its use?”

  Peyton leaned against the wall. “Aw, Betty. Now you’re starting to sound like an activist.”

  “It’s an obvious question, don’t you think?”

  “If they wanted to keep their whole gateway gig going, they’d have to make cannabis Schedule III. But catch this: Getting it out of Schedule I would make it available for Federal research funding. And that would quickly uncover all the proven medical and health benefits of the herb that the privately funded foreign studies have already shown. Then the government would have to explain why they demonized the plant for over seventy years, lied to the public and put people in prison for something that was pretty tame in comparison to all the other shit out there.”

  He paused and let out a disparaging snort. “The more you dig into this, the more you’ll realize that everything you’ve been taught is based on disinformation. The whole thing is a game and a joke, Betty. The government has known since 1974 that cannabis can cure cancer in lab rats. You hear that? Nineteen seventy-four. But Nixon, who started the inane ‘War on Drugs’ wasn’t thrilled when he was told that. So he chose to bury the report and continue the ridiculous propaganda campaign against the herb. Don’t take my word for it. Look it up.” He shook his head. “As if it’s the government’s job to protect you from a little plant! Like they actually care about your health! If you think the government gives a rat’s ass about your health, then you must be smoking chemically grown weed,” Peyton argued. “It’s not their responsibility to tell me how to take care of myself. Why would I want a bunch of strangers whom I’ve never hung out with, never talked to and who only know me by my social security number, dictate anything to me about my well-being? If I wanted to put up with that, I’d go back and live with my parents. They couldn’t take care of me and the egg donor doesn’t care about the welfare of her own father. That’s why I live with him and watch over him.”

  He examined several colas on a nearby plant. “So now you want to hear the real hypocrisy, Betty?”

  “Sure.”

  “Since 1968, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has contracted with a lab on the University of Mississippi campus to grow and harvest cannabis. They literally have hundreds of pounds of cannabis in temperature-controlled barrels. It’s dried, cured and shipped to the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, where it’s rolled into three hundred government-approved cigarettes and sent every single month to the last remaining medical cannabis patients the government quietly takes of. There used to be eight people in the program, but I think it’s down to four people now. The patients suffer from different problems, like glaucoma, AIDS and MS. So, you tell me? How can the government hand out three hundred joints a month with one hand and use the other hand to write legislation that claims there’s no medical benefit to the plant?”

  Betty attempted to come up with a reason but failed. “I can’t answer that.”

  “That’s because the whole thing is insane! It’s like sitting down to a meal with the characters in Alice in Wonderland. One person’s comment conflicts with the guy across the table, but they both claim they’re right. And meanwhile, we’re all playing Alice, wondering if we’re stuck in some sort of weird dream, and when we wake up everything will be right again.” He looked at Betty with a serious expression. “They’re all nuts, but they’re also serious control freaks. Even now, they’re quietly putting all their weight behind billion dollar drugs made from cannabis. They know they can’t keep up the lies forever, because people are getting smarter. So, now the bastards are gonna cash in on the plant they’ve been telling us is dangerous and deadly for decades. You watch, Betty. They’ll reschedule cannabis down to II or III and then launch one of their big drugs made from cannabis. It’ll be for PTSD, anxiety, MS, chronic pain…maybe even the Big ‘C.’ But before they do that, they’ll pull a reverse propaganda campaign and tell the public that cannabis, as a pill or some drug spray, is safe and effective, even though there will be dozens of side effects from whatever they create. There are always side effects from Big Pharma’s lab creations. You can’t patent any plant, Betty. So they’ll lie and tell you nature is imperfect, that God made a mistake, and their Frankenstein pills are the ticket to whatever ails you. And I guess that takes us right back to the beginning of this history lesson. Right back to the lies, that plastics were better than anything industrialized cannabis hemp could offer. They’re gonna want us to choose the synthetic again over the real deal. And they are gonna do whatever it takes to manipulate and coerce the public into agreeing to that. And you know what? The public might just be dumb enough to fall for it…again.”

  As if on cue, the lights in the bloom room suddenly snapped off. They stood there in complete darkness until Peyton spoke up.

  “I’ve got my green headlamp around here somewhere. Don’t move.”

  Betty heard him stumbling around the room. “Why green?”

  “See how light tight this room is? There’s not a sliver of light coming in. That’s the way it’s gotta be for twelve solid hours. The only light that doesn’t alter their dark cycle is a green lamp. Humph, it might be out by my bed. I pop it on when I want to read after midnight when the veg ladies go to sleep. That way, I don’t interfere with their natural resting cycle.”

  “Your world really does revolve around this completely, doesn’t it? Do you know what ‘myopic,’ is?

  He continued to fumble around in the dark. “Betty, how could I know what your ‘opic’ is when I don’t know what my ‘opic’ is?”

  Betty explained the definition.

  Peyton weighed this new information. “Yeah, I can see how that’s dangerous. People who are too consumed by politics, religion,
alternative health…I know people like this. They can turn into raging psychopaths. I know a psychopathic, raw-food freak that I keep on a long leash.”

  “Peyton, you do this 24/7. You work at a dispensary and a grow store and come home to tend your plants. That’s myopic.”

  “Well, I’m just glad the lights are out so the plants can’t hear all this,” he said with strange sincerity. “These are my ladies. They need me.”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  He stopped fumbling. There was a slight hesitation. “Why?”

  “A boy your age should have a girlfriend,” Betty motherly suggested.

  There was silence and then he spoke with measured caution. “Betty….how can I say this delicately? I like you and you’re pretty hot for someone as old as you are, but I think the age difference between us would cause problems down the road.”

  “Not me! I’m talking about a girl your own age!”

  There was another pause. “Oh. Sorry about that. Uh, well, I dated a girl at the dispensary. I thought she was okay, but then I found out she was pretty much a whore. So that was a buzz-kill for our relationship.”

  Peyton finally gave up trying to find his headlamp. Working their way carefully to the door, they finally exited the blackened bloom room and emerged back into the glaring light and vegetative plants who were now rocking out to The Allman Brothers’ “Ramblin’ Man.” He led her to a smaller area just outside the main vegetative grow area where a smaller, T5 light illuminated nine clones in various stages of development.

  “I thought you were only allowed eighteen plants total in a vegetative state?” Betty asked.

  “You are. But the law gets kinda grey when the ladies are this small. Some will tell you it’s not a true plant until it has four sets of good leaves and a developed root system. Others claim it’s not a viable plant until it’s a little bigger than that.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense.”

  “I know. That’s what happens when you have people making laws about cannabis who have never worked with it. What can I say? When you try to regulate a plant, there’s a lot that’s not gonna make much sense. Sometimes, I think the state kinda makes it all up as they go along.” He pointed to three fairly developed plants with medium wide leaves. “That’s a new one I’m working with. Her name is Kushberry. I grew her from seed. She’s a cross between OG Kush and True Blueberry, and she’s supposed to be one of those strains that’s rich in CBD. That means she’s great for pain and anxiety but doesn’t have a lot of the THC effects on the mind.”

  He wouldn’t take any money for the clones. Ducking behind a curtained area where his unmade bed was hidden, he returned with a stack of magazines. “Here are some High Times magazines. People like to say they read them for the in-depth interviews, but I read them for the bud porn.” He said tongue-in-cheek, opening up the centerfold. “Check out Miss February!” There on the center fold out was an extreme close-up of a very resinous bud, with a kaleidoscope of red and orange hairs. “Isn’t she magnificent?”

  Yes, Betty silently admitted. The boy really did need a girlfriend.

  Peyton gave Betty a piece of paper with Dottie’s information on it, along with the required paperwork from the state she’d need to give her. “She’s looking forward to meeting you on Sunday. She said one o’clock works for her.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be there five minutes early as usual.”

  “Cool. You guys are gonna get along real well. Oh, hey, a couple things. First, technically you’re not supposed to charge your patients for anything you make or grow for them. According to some people you talk to, you can charge them for the electricity it takes to grow and the cost of nutrients. But the rest is on a donation only basis. But don’t worry about Dottie. She’s a rich rancher. The second thing is, when you go there on Sunday, you’re there to buy a horse.”

  Betty furrowed her brow. “I’m what?”

  “That’s what she told me to tell you. Like I said, she wants to keep this on the down low.”

  Betty had a quiet aversion to horses ever since one bit into her bouffant back in Texas, but she’d play along. “I thought this was all above board, Peyton.”

  “It is. However, you can’t change the perception some people have. Even the people who want to use it. My medical cannabis doc told me she sees hardcore Baptists in her office after hours, who show up in disguise and hang their heads, because they can’t believe the plant’s working for them, and they’re terrified someone’s gonna find out!” He shook his head. “It’s the stigma, Betty, I’m tellin’ ya. It’s the stigma that we got to change!”

  “That we have to change.”

  He rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so glad you agree!”

  He offered to come over the following day around noon to help her set up the grow operation. “Buy several buckets of white paint,” he told her. “Everything’s gotta be white to reflect the light. Have you figured out the location?”

  Betty had given it a lot of thought, and while it was a predictable location, she settled on refurbishing her large basement. Except for the washer and dryer area, she never spent any time down there. It was Frank’s domain, but it was built like a bunker. Frank’s large gunroom could work for the veg area, while his separate office could be renovated to accommodate the blooming plants. Best of all, the south-facing, sliding glass door that led out to the backyard offered plenty of fresh air for the plants. “It’s perfect and discreet,” Betty told Peyton. “Oh, and you might want to wear a shirt tomorrow that plays down anything having to do with the herb. My neighbors aren’t very tolerant.”

  Peyton nodded as his cell phone rang, emitting a harsh ring tone of an electric guitar. “That’s a Jimi Hendrix riff,” he told Betty as he answered it.

  Betty wasn’t sure who was on the other end of the line, but she could tell by his repetitive use of the word “Dude” in increasing volume and irritation, that whatever he was hearing was not great news. When he hung up, he turned to Betty with a look of frustration. “Well, the sons of bitches are at it again!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They closed Nature’s Bud dispensary today. Kevin got set up by some woman.”

  Betty’s mouth went dry. “What? Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know. That was how my friend just laid it out. Kevin fucked up and sold herb to a lady without a red card, and then when she asked for some magic mushrooms, he told her he could help her out. Shit. I hate it when people don’t follow the rules. The rest of us always get lumped in with these guys, and it ruins our credibility.”

  “Well, that’s one bad apple gone, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Kevin’s heart is in the right place but he should have known better.” He gave the wall a good pound in frustration. “You know, people have this idea that if they close enough dispensaries, it’s going to stop crime. That’s only a theory. Out in California, three dispensaries shut down in this one neighborhood and everybody thought it was great. One month later, crime increased in the same area over fifty percent. So, you tell me?”

  Betty considered his words. “I think that some individuals have a strong desire to save others from what they think might be harmful. I don’t know you can blame them for that.”

  “If they’re ignorant I can,” he stated unflinchingly. “If they spout outdated and unproven information to scare people, I can blame them.” He took a deep breath and centered himself. “Hey, do you know anything about that bullshit letter to the editor? It was in the paper this past Monday? My buddy thinks the people behind it might have set up Kevin.”

  Betty tried not to look like a deer in the headlights, standing there clutching her three new cannabis clones and the stack of High Times. “No idea.”

  ~~~

  She arrived back home safely, after stopping at the hardware store to buy six gallons of the glossiest white paint she could find. The sun was just setting over the farthest hill in Paradox. As she removed the paint from the trunk, Je
rry called over to her from across the street. He was standing next to his brother’s motorhome, smoking a cigarette and downing a beer. Arnold lay nearby, tethered to a long leash.

  “Need any help, Betty?” he slurred.

  “No thank you, Jerry. I’m good to go!”

  “Home improvements?” he yelled, as his question echoed down the street.

  Betty turned, quickly concocting a good lie. “Yes. I’m hiring a young man to help me clean up the attic and give it a fresh splash of paint.”

  “More power to ya!” he hollered back in an indistinct cadence, as he held his beer can in the air and toasted her with it. “You gotta do what you gotta do to keep your property value up in this economy!”

  Between the oncoming darkness and Jerry’s muddled senses, Betty was easily able to remove the three new Kushberry clones from the backseat, along with the stack of High Times, without her neighbor being any wiser.

  She was feeling pretty damn good about her sly maneuver, as she walked upstairs with the three clones and the magazines. “I’m home, girls!” she called out to the three plants secured in her closet. “And I brought you three new sisters!”

  Betty rounded the corner, set down the plants and turned to the closet. She dropped the magazines and stifled a shocked scream. There, rolled onto his back under the warm T5 light, was ol’ Ronald. And there, protruding out of his partially toothless mouth and slacking jaw was the saliva-drenched, chewed up top stem and leaves from one of the Centennial Blueberry clones.

  “Ronald?” Betty fell to the floor in her closet and rested her head on his matted stomach, checking for a heartbeat. His breathing was shallow, but it had been like that for about two years so she wasn’t sure if it was anything to worry about.