In the mid-1930s, anti-immigration groups sprung up around the American Southwest. Looking for any excuse to slam the door on immigration from Mexico, they began spreading rumors about sex-crazed brown-skinned maniacs running amok on “loco weed.”
Typical of this kind of fear mongering was a letter published in the New York Times on September 15, 1935, from C. M. Goethe, a member of a group called the “American Coalition” whose stated goal was to “Keep America American.”
“Marihuana, perhaps now the most insidious of our narcotics, is a direct by-product of unrestricted Mexican immigration.” The angry Sacramento resident then called for a quota on Mexican immigrants, stating, “Our nation has more than enough laborers.”
Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a man with a keen nose for the sensational, picked up the beat and began running articles warning the populace of the new drug menace perpetrated by, as Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, called them, “our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents.”
Anslinger refined his Chicken Little act over time, amplifying the fear-mongering of Hearst and other “Keep America American” types in his testimony to Congress in 1935: “The deleterious, even vicious, qualities of the drug render it highly dangerous to the mind and body upon which it operates to destroy the will, cause one to lose the power of connected thought, producing imaginary delectable situations and gradually weakening the physical powers. Its use frequently leads to insanity.”
You’d think he was talking about some kind of heroin/meth/LSD cocktail.
I don’t know what was in the air on September 15, 1935—maybe a radioactive sunspot erupted and sent a burst of white-hot microwaves to fry people’s brains, or perhaps it was simply Satan’s birthday—but it’s interesting to note that the same day the New York Times was printing letters from American crackpots denouncing Mexicans, in Nuremberg, Germany, at a Nazi Party rally, the Hitler government announced the enactment of the Nuremberg Race Laws. One of these was called “the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor”—sounding like a formal order for frauleins to strap on chastity belts—that outlawed marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans. The Nazis cited “the provocative behavior of Jews” as the motivation.
Jack Herer and other cannabis historians have found evidence of collusion between large chemical companies such as DuPont and lobbyists for cotton growers that helped push anti-cannabis legislation forward. Eventually, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed. The law required farmers to have a tax stamp to grow cannabis and, with the exception of a few rare cases during World War II, the stamps were never issued. Much like what happened when the Volstead Act outlawed alcohol—enriching Al Capone and other bootleggers—the war on drugs allowed vicious drug cartels to get filthy rich.
The war on cannabis may have its roots in racism, but when pot smoking moved from the jazz clubs of New Orleans to the beatnik coffee shops of Greenwich Village and college campuses across the country, the government used the law as a form of social control. The beat generation, hippies, and Black Panthers threatened the established social order, and drug laws were used as a cudgel to keep rebellious youth and dangerous radicals on the run and under arrest. Former president Richard M. Nixon echoed the political hysteria of the time in a conversation with his aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in the Oval Office on May 13, 1971: “You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general. These are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff. They’re trying to destroy us.” (Of course, Haldeman and Ehrlichman knew a lot about immorality. They later were indicted and sent to prison for their involvement in the Watergate scandal.)
But Nixon wasn’t the last president to fear the cannabis plant. Ronald Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign in the early 1980s, sending his wife around to schools to encourage students to abstain from experimenting with drugs and from having premarital sex. I can only guess that Ron and Nancy somehow thought that sex and drugs were both “bad,” but the “Just Say No” campaign had the unintentional effect of making drug use sexy and sexuality druggy.
In keeping with the fine tradition of idiotic fear-mongering bombast, Reagan is quoted as saying: “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.”
If that’s true, he was getting some seriously dank weed.
But it’s not just Republicans who stand resolute in the war on drugs. President William Jefferson Clinton, a man famous for not knowing how to smoke a joint, was tough on drugs and in 1998 signed an amendment of the Higher Education Act of 1965—Section 484, subsection R—that took federal financial aid away from college students who’d been arrested for smoking pot. Even President Obama, a man who once said “I inhaled; that was the point,” has instructed his Justice Department to get tough on cannabis users, even in states where medical marijuana is legal.
On the walk back to the farmhouse, with the dog leading the way, his farts trumpeting our return like a medieval herald, I chatted with Slim about his upcoming trip to Amsterdam. It was going to be the first time he’d been out of the country and, for Natasha, her first trip on an airplane.
Crockett walked ahead of us, and I could see him running through a mental checklist of all the things he had to take care of. The carefree days of summer were past, the harvest was in, and he had dozens of employees to keep track of. The different strains had to be separated and properly cured, he had to keep track of how much bud they were getting off each plant, he had dispensaries to call and deliveries to make, and he was working on getting his Private Reserve seed business off the ground—trying to figure out how to make his strain a brand name. He was simultaneously production manager, administrator, salesman, marketing executive, and scientist. In other words, being a pot farmer can turn out to be way more stressful than you’d think.
It reminded me of something that happened on the return flight from my first trip to Amsterdam. Crockett and I were standing in the back galley chatting. He’d dropped the pretense that he was “in construction,” and we were joined by a young Asian man who’d also just been to his first Cannabis Cup. He was young and scrawny, looking like a skateboarder with a high SAT score. Crockett and I both raised our eyebrows when we heard that his grandmother had accompanied him to the Cup, but he didn’t seem embarrassed or bothered by it at all, treating the whole trip to Amsterdam like a high school student on a college tour. He said he wasn’t much of a smoker; he was just checking it out to see if it might be a good career move. But when he told Crockett that growing marijuana looked “easy,” I saw a shudder run through his body. To his credit, he could’ve been sarcastic or dismissive, but instead, a look of sympathy crossed Crockett’s face.
“Have you ever grown anything before?”
The young man blinked and shook his head.
“A tomato in your backyard?”
“No.”
Crockett nodded. “Do you have any houseplants?”
The young man swallowed. He obviously didn’t like where this conversation was heading. “Not really.”
Crockett leaned forward, his body dwarfing the young man’s, his voice dropping low so no one would overhear. “So you’ve never had to think about germination, light cycles, watering times, air temperature, CO2 levels, fertilizer, pests, molds, anything like that?”
Crockett wasn’t trying to be mean. He was giving the kid a glimpse into what it takes to grow high-quality cannabis. The young man gulped. “No.”
Crockett smiled. “Well … good luck with it.”
Jerry had returned—his dogs swirling around him in a canine cyclone—and he sauntered over to see what the verdict was on the plants still out in the field. Crockett’s cell phone rang and he answered it, drifting away from us to have his conversation in private. He had been waiting for a call from the Humboldt trimmers and was now making arrangements to get th
em to come down for the weekend. Slim went into the farmhouse to check on his wife.
I can’t remember exactly how we got on the topic—but Jerry started telling a story about being one of the founding members of the Peace and Freedom Party.
“Back in the day you had to smoke dope to be a member.” He stroked his beard. “Maybe you still do.”
Jerry looked up at me, his eyes magnified by his glasses so that they seemed to have a life of their own. “Of course, I joined for the pussy. The Peace and Freedom Party was all about the pussy.”
Crockett hung up his call and lit a cigarette, and Jerry went over to join him. I watched as they walked off toward the trim room, engaged in a private conversation.
Red came skipping out of the farmhouse. He was carrying a pair of knee pads and giggling fiercely, his face flushing in glee, as he entered the trim room to pull some kind of pterodactyl-related prank. I was left standing in front of the farmhouse.
It was suddenly very quiet in the mountains, the chatter of conversation, the inane chuckles of Beavis and Butt-Head, the flinty snip of the scissors all faded away. I stood alone in a golden meadow and listened to the plaintive cries of a raven echoing in the tall pines and the gentle sound of the wind whistling out of the dog’s ass.
Chapter Seventeen
The Green Rush
“Welcome to Oaksterdam!”
With that, the young woman flashed me a big toothy smile and handed me my Oaksterdam University student ID card. I thanked her and joined a long line of students shuffling up the stairs for the start of the “Basic Seminar”—a two-day intensive that’s the prerequisite for all other classes at the university. Maybe it was because it was the first day of school, but there was a hint of apprehension in the air, a kind of free-floating anxiety among the students. No one was talking, really. Perhaps because none of us knew what we were getting into.
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have effective medical marijuana laws on their books while many more recognize marijuana’s medicinal value. This sea change in state laws has created what Oakland’s East Bay Express calls the new “Green Rush.” Just like in the Gold Rush of 1849, Northern California has become the place to go.
At the epicenter of this mad dash for the cannabis dollar is Oaksterdam University, a logical starting point for entrepreneurs and risk takers set on striking it rich in the brave new world of medical marijuana. It’s an entire university devoted to giving aspiring growers, dispensary owners, edible bakers, and budtenders a thorough education in all aspects of the medical marijuana industry. Can you imagine a university devoted to, say, tulips?
Oaksterdam University offers “Quality Training for the Cannabis Industry” and is just one of founder Richard Lee’s audacious cannabis fantasies turned into reality. In addition to Oaksterdam University, Richard owns a medical marijuana dispensary called Coffeeshop Blue Sky, a cannabis nursery, a hemp products store, and a gift shop. He’s single-handedly turned a near derelict downtown into a mash-up of Oakland and Amsterdam that’s now known as “Oaksterdam.”
Despite being confined to a wheelchair—he was paralyzed in a freak accident while working on the lighting rig for an Aerosmith concert—Richard projects a soft-spoken confidence and vitality. He’s in his late forties but looks like he should be in an indie rock band instead of running a cannabis empire. Perhaps it’s because he grew up in Texas, but he seems to have an innate ability to surprise the opposition, to choose the bold and audacious move over the safe and politically calibrated positioning preferred by most politicians. It’s a kind of stand-and-fight, “Remember the Alamo,” instinct. And it’s made him a force to be reckoned with in the medical marijuana industry in California.
Richard moved to Oakland in 1997 and began growing medical cannabis in a warehouse. When the state started cracking down on dispensaries and growers, instead of going low-profile, he jumped into local politics and succeeded in getting the Oakland City Council to approve an initiative to make marijuana the police department’s lowest enforcement priority. Over time, cannabis has become quasi-legal in downtown Oakland, helping to rejuvenate the city by creating jobs and providing a healthy cash flow from taxes paid by cannabis-based businesses.
Unlike many cannabis activists, Richard eschews the nonprofit hippie credo that’s been the guiding force behind the movement since the 1960s. He favors a more capitalist approach. He understands that weed is big business and he’s not afraid to admit it.
Riding a wave of marijuana-friendly legislation and the success of Oaksterdam, Richard took the next logical step and wrote and financed Proposition 19—the Regulate, Tax, and Control Cannabis Act of 2010—getting it on the ballot in California and thrusting the legalization debate into the center of the political conversation.
According to news reports, he sunk $1.5 million of his own money into the project. That seems like a big roll of the dice, but compared to the $160 million that failed gubernatorial candidate and eBay bazillionaire Meg Whitman spent, Richard got considerably more bang for his buck.
Not many politicians or pundits gave Prop 19 much thought. It was considered just another crackpot proposal in an already screwy slate of legislative initiatives. But then something changed. The response from the public surprised everyone, including the public themselves. Early polling showed Prop 19 leading, with more than 50 percent of Californians saying that the time had come for marijuana to be legalized. Those numbers were bolstered by a surprising number of endorsements: former police chiefs from Seattle, San Diego, and San Jose came out in favor of ending the war on drugs; Dr. Joycelyn Elders, a former U.S. surgeon general, supported it; as did the ACLU, NAACP, and a mishmash of retired politicians, pop stars, actors, and progressive religious leaders. The New York Times even ran a supportive editorial by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas D. Kristof.
But despite leading in the polls and having a raft of impressive endorsements—even counting an eleventh hour donation of $1 million from liberal philanthropist George Soros—Prop 19 remained the most underfunded and misunderstood initiative on the 2010 ballot and ultimately lost by just 7 points. That meant that in an election with record low voter turnout, California came within seven hundred thousand votes of ending its war on cannabis.
I was joined on the stairs by Joe, a retiree from Long Island, New York, who looked like an older, rumpled version of George Clooney and spoke with the thick accent of a native New Yorker. In front of Joe was a smartly dressed young woman from Austin who could have been on her way to some sort of corporate presentation. She was friendly, like a lot of Texans, and said she was “stationed” in Texas but was currently “deployed” to Arizona. Joe and I exchanged a look. Her choice of words struck me as a little peculiar. Aren’t soldiers and federal agents “stationed” and “deployed”? I can’t imagine an assistant regional manager for Pepsi being deployed anywhere. Was I being paranoid or was someone from law enforcement infiltrating the class?
The university is in a converted office building. It’s maybe six or seven stories tall, with large and small classrooms, administrative offices, and horticulture labs. The walls are painted white, either to simulate a scientific institution or to save money, and the Oaksterdam logo is splashed around in the garish green and gold of the Oakland A’s baseball team. The official “Oaksterdam crest” is a cheeky pun on the famous crest adorning Harvard University, only instead of “veritas” spelled out on top of a background of open books, the word “cannabis” is substituted. One person’s truth is another’s medicinal herb.
After a second check of our IDs we were herded into a large open room. I found a seat, placed my notebook and number two pencils at the ready, and then checked out my fellow students. Ruth, a thin woman in her fifties with oversized eyeglasses and a stylish beret perched rakishly on her head, turned to me and said, “Look at all the seniors.”
She wasn’t kidding. There were about 150 people attending the seminar, and more than half of them appeared to be over sixty-five. Does
the AARP offer a discount on Oaksterdam classes? Or is this what politicians mean when they talk about privatizing Social Security?
The remaining students represented diverse ages, styles, and interests, ranging from skatepunk stoners looking for grow tips to sport coat–clad businessmen on the hunt for a good investment. Surprisingly, not all of the students were smokers. I spoke to one man, a muscle-bound forty-year-old, who said, “I don’t use it. I’m just looking for something to get into.” This struck me as a weird thing to admit at a cannabis university. If I was investing in a restaurant I might want to taste the food.
Yet despite these differences, the student body was predominantly male and Caucasian, collegial and attentive.
And there was a lot to pay attention to. The lectures came fast and furious. Day one began with the “Politics and History of Cannabis” taught by Chris Conrad, a “court-qualified expert witness” on cannabis and the publisher of the West Coast Leaf newspaper. Chris looked a lot like a classic version of the affable, ponytailed college professor—the one the female grad students always seemed to have an affair with—and somehow managed to cover eight thousand years of cannabis history—including prohibition and the new activism—in ninety minutes.
There was a break and students mingled. I met a couple of guys from Florida, a woman and her husband from San Diego, someone from Rhode Island, and three guys who came together from Colorado. People were flying in from all over the country to take the classes, and there was excitement in the air, like something bigger than ourselves was happening.
I got a cup of coffee and wondered briefly if the invention of powdered dairy-free “creamer” could qualify as a crime against humanity. I surveyed the platters of pastries laid out for the students and ultimately decided that my sedentary lifestyle and buttery croissants were incompatible.
The next lecture, “Legal 101,” was taught by James Silva, a criminal defense lawyer who specialized in cannabis and medical marijuana law. Silva could’ve easily won the Best Dressed Award for his fashionable mocha-colored suit, lavender shirt, and yellow tie. With his suit, swarthy good looks, and Mephistopheles-style goatee he reminded me of Dr. Orpheus from The Venture Brothers cartoon. Silva’s eyes flashed with intensity as he spoke. He was, not surprising for a trial lawyer, extremely articulate and intelligent. Unfortunately, the information he was so eloquently declaiming was not what any of the students wanted to hear. Whatever hopes and dreams, good vibes, and excitement they might’ve started the day with were quickly crushed by Silva’s reality check.
Heart of Dankness Page 21