Of Usha, Kamala, and the Hindu Kush

J.D. and Usha Vance at their Hindu wedding. 

Both our Vice President (and now likely Presidential candidate) Kamala Harris and Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance, have roots in the Hindu religion, which has sacred connections to cannabis. 

"The academic study of Indic religions, and of yoga, has been intimately tied to questions regarding the role of psychoactive substances from an early stage. This is particularly with respect to soma, a sacred beverage utilized within the Vedic tradition," writes Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Philosophy at Oregon State University, in his paper "Psychoactives and Psychedelics in Yoga: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Culture."

Dr. Sarbacker continues, "The role and nature of the beverage referred to as soma in the Vedic tradition of fire sacrifice (yajña) and its purported psychoactivity has been thoroughly investigated within and outside of Indology. ... Soma is revered as a sacred beverage and as a deity, said to confer visionary experience and immortality upon the brāhmaṇa who ritually consumes it. Soma is identified as amṛta, literally the elixir of 'nondeath,' of immortality, a name resonating through the millennia of later Hindu narrative and discourse. There are various hypotheses as to the botanical identity of soma, some of the leading candidates being ephedra, peganum harmala (Syrian rue), cannabis, poppy, mead or wine, ergot, amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric mushroom), psilocybe cubensis (Magic Mushroom), and an ayahuasca analog."

Chris Bennett, Lynn Osburn & Judy Osburn write in their book Green Gold The Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion, "Descriptions of haoma, or soma, list it as yellow or gold-like in color, the color of ripe cannabis in the Middle East and India. Source material on the subject also tells us that 'the intoxicating juice of the haoma herb found on their mountain slopes' grew in the Hindu Kush mountains and valleys, a place that is still famed for its powerful ganja."

Harris (top left) wearing a sari. 

"Cannabis use is a part of mainstream Hindu practice, prevalent during Mahāśivarātri, Durgā Pūjā, and other festivals [including Diwali] in the consumption of bhaṅgā, a mixture of cannabis, milk, and spices, which augments the festival spirit," writes Sarbacker. "Routine cannabis use is extensive among renouncer (sādhu and sādhvī) communities in India as a sacramental substance and a social glue. Some Sādhus and Sādhvīs are said to follow, per Bevilacqua, the so-called 'chillumchai' diet—combining the mildly psychedelic effect of Indian cannabis with the stimulation of tea with sugar and spices. One study found that among a subset of Sādhus present at the Paśupatināth temple in Nepal, virtually all used cannabis regularly, with a high percentage reporting its use as a support for meditation."

Sarbacker writes that the terminology of cannabis in Hindu tradition is "exclusively feminine in gender" and includes a scope of conceptualizations, including as “the root of Śiva” (śivamūla), “conquerer” (vijayā), “breaker [of disease]” (bhaṅginī), “intoxicator” (gañjā), “perfected” (siddhā), and “root of perfection” (siddhamūlikā), as well as the soma-like appellation of “sweet nectar” (madhudravā)."

Perhaps one of these Hindu women now prominent in US politics will somehow bring us back to the spiritual teachings of the soma, as well as the bhangini and ganja, and the vijaya. According to the LA Times. Shyamala Gopalan (Kamala's mother) was a Tamil Brahmin, part of priest class. Usha's mother is named for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, also known as Kamala.

Hindu groups sought an apology from Harris's niece in 2020 for tweeting out an image of her aunt as the Hindu goddess Durga in her destroyer mode defeating Trump. The tweet said, "I am actually speechless, other than to say the first day of Navaratri was LIT." Navaratri, the festival of Durga, will be celebrated this year from October 3 - 12, in time for the election, and a new kind of October Surprise?

California State Fair Allows Cannabis Sales and Consumption For the First Time

California took the historic step of allowing cannabis sales and consumption at its State Fair in Sacramento over the weekend. The historic move drew a large crowd of enthusiasts and curious folks from across California for the opening weekend, with opportunities to sample and enjoy award-winning cannabis strains and products throughout the month. 

Embarc, the fair’s partner on the project, is hosting a dispensary and 30,000-square-foot outdoor consumption lounge space at Cal Expo, allowing fair-goers who are 21 and older to buy and try award-winning cannabis. The company operates several cannabis retailers in California and has hosted cannabis consumption spaces at festivals like Outside Lands in San Francisco. 

This is the third year the Fair has featured a cannabis exhibit and competition, but the first year that sales and consumption are allowed. This year, outside the CBD-only cannabis exhibit hall at the Fair is a "cannabis oasis," where cannabis flower and products can be purchased, and drinks and edibles can be consumed. At one end of the "oasis" fair-goers can purchase cannabis products from Embarc or, at the other end, from a group of cannabis equity companies from across the state (shown). Customers can then walk down a path to the consumption space and enjoy their purchases with others inside a huge tent. Shade, misters, and fans provide relief from the heat in both spaces, and the exhibit space is air-conditioned. 

Did Trump Plan to Cheat on A Pre-Debate Drug Test?

Gotta admit Trump is something of an evil genius: his ploy to call for a mutual workplace employment drug test before Thursday's Presidential Debacle (aka Debate) may well have lead to Biden trying to perform without Jacking Up, with disastrous results for the Democrats, and the country. 

In his usual Teflonic and ironic fashion, The Donald managed to skirt the issue of the long list of performance-and-other drugs given out like candy at his White House, and the persistent accusations that he's the one on drugs. That he offered to take such a test himself means nothing, considering that he has no compunction about cheating on elections, his wives, and almost everything else. The fact that his plan was backed by former White House doctor Ronny (as in Reagan) Jackson (whose name Trump got wrong while bragging about passing the cognitive tests he administered), makes me wonder if his dastardly plan was to have Dr. Johnson-Jackson administer the tests, duly bribed to provide a negative result for Trump. 

Leading up to the debate, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow laughed heartily at Chis Hayes's pronouncement that, "If performance drugs make you a better debater and president, I'm all for them." My twitter feed ruminated a bit on that, pointing out that it's "too bad the performance enhancers Trump is on make him even more delusional, narcissistic and evil." 

Then Jon Stewart, who appeared live post-debate, nailed the thought as only he can (because, Great Heads Think Alike):

Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year

A new book, Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year by Paul Alexander details the last year of the beloved singer, and is full of flashbacks to her earlier life and career that set the stage for the tragedy of a life ended too soon on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44. 

After stints performing with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, Holiday opened the Café Society, the first non-segregated nightclub in New York City, and did the two-year residency there that shot her to fame.  The surveillance of Holiday by the FBI and the BNE (Bureau of Narcotics) started not long after she began her residency there. It intensified after she began singing "Strange Fruit," a song about a lynching. Barney and Leon Josephson, who owned the club, were considered shills for the Communist Party and were later prosecuted. 

Holiday's political views, as well as her drug use, made her a target for surveillance. Talking about "Strange Fruit" and "the Jim Crow–sanctioned racism that motivated her to sing it," she publicly said, "That's what made me a communist. Everybody should be a communist—not like the communists you meet at benefits and rallies, though. Not that stuff, at all. But we should all believe in treating each other as human beings. Everybody should have the chance to eat and sleep in peace." Like others in the African-American community at the time, it was the Communist Party's stance on racial equality that won her support, writes Alexander.  

Bitter Crop recounts that Holiday "had smoked marijuana since she was a teenager" and that "she particularly enjoyed sneaking off from Café Society between sets to smoke a reefer while driving around the city in a taxi." It was mostly men who took her down into heroin, starting by smoking opium with her husband Jimmy Monroe, whom she married in 1941. When Truman Capote saw her perform at the time, he wrote of "my most beloved American singer—then, now, forever....Billie, an orchid in her hair, her drug-dimmed eyes shifting in the cheap lavender light, her mouth twitching out the words." 

Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science

I post this in honor of "Tram Day," celebrating the first woman to take LSD, Susi Ramstein.

"The history of psychedelics in the twentieth century has almost always been told as a story dominated by white American men, and above all by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass)," writes Benjamin Breen in his new book, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science. Breen's book strives to put the subject in a larger context, as it unveils the largely unknown pre-history of psychedelic science, starting in the 1930s.  

The opening chapter contains one blockbuster revelation after another. It starts with a group of interdisciplinary scientists connected over a span of two decades to study human consciousness by anthropologist Margaret Mead and her third husband and fellow anthropologist, Gregory Bateson. 

Aldous Huxley "read Mead carefully as he wrote The Doors of Perception following his mescaline experiments in the 1950s," Breen writes. Leary's earliest published work as a scientist was inspired by Bateson, and in one of his first speeches about psychedelics, he quoted Mead, while behind the scenes he tried to convince her to take psilocybin with him. Bateson was directly responsible for Allen Ginsberg's first LSD trip and played a key role in the birth of psychedelic psychiatry in the 1950s Silicon Valley, CA. 

Every chapter continues to amaze with eye-popping enlightenments both delightful and diabolical,  and each ends with a cliffhanger that draws the reader to dive into the next fascinating tale, making Tripping on Utopia almost impossible to put down. 

Bill Maher: What This Comedian Said About Marijuana Will Elate You

Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, after his monologue where he joked about Hunter Biden’s trial* for buying a gun while being a crack user ("He almost had the pipe in his hand!”), marijuana was mentioned four times, which might be a record even for Maher:

 - In the lead interview with Sen. John Fetterman, Maher said, "You've been very out front on legalizing weed." "Oh yeah, of course," Fetterman replied, adding, "I've heard that, you too." Laughter and applause ensued. 

 - On the panel, discussing the overdiagnosing and drugging of adolescents for SAD and depression with author Abigail Shrier, Maher said he was also shy and “bummed out” as an adolescent, which wouldn’t have been helped by drugs. Then he added, "I discovered pot when I was 19 and that drug helped, organically.” (Panelist Matt Welch of Reason Magazine responded something about motivation, which was lost in crosstalk. Obviously Maher doesn’t have a motivation problem.) 

 - In the “New Rules” segment under the tag line “Think Splifferent” he put up a New York Post headline about the new study saying MJ use has surpassed alcohol for the first time (actually, it’s only daily or near-daily use). He then asked, “If alcohol use is declining, why is it still not safe to work at a waffle house?” and showed footage of a recent violent brawl there. He added, “Not to always be the marijuana advocate, but do you know what the stoners are doing while the fight is going on? Eating their waffles!” 

Drug Revelations in New Carolyn Bessette Biography and Griffin Dunne Memoir

A new biography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy by Elizabeth Beller reveals that both Caroline and her husband JFK Jr. were "bohemians" who smoked pot, but carefully so. 

The book quotes a "close friend" saying, "Carolyn was very bohemian, a downtown girl, which John loved, and he himself would walk around barefoot and smoke pot. Not to excess, but he could be bohemian, too." (It's possible the friend was Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, who told author Christopher Anderson that John had a "Bohemian streak" that included the occasional joint.)

"In the eighties and nineties, recreational drugs were often part of the atmosphere, and John would occasionally smoke pot," writes Beller. "But he was always sure never to get out of control, and, as [his friend Robert R.] Littell wrote, 'John's attitude towards drugs was more cautious, perhaps because getting caught would have been wore for him. He was too committed to being healthy and fit, too conscientious, maybe afraid of the consequences.'" 

Carolyn "felt the same way, though with a different set of motivations," according to Beller. "When she was in college, the consequences of getting caught were not nearly as outsized. But there was a similar sense of caution. As her Boston friend Jonathan Soroff, who was a reporter on the club scene at the same time Carolyn was doing PR for clubs, remembered of their club days, 'She would have a glass of wine, maybe two. Maybe smoke the tiniest bit of pot once in a blue moon. But that was the extent of it.' Another friend, MJ Bettenhausen, said that the night they snuck tequila into a concert by pouring it into Ziploc bags and tucking them into their boots was "more in the spirit of fun that getting wasted."