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." 

Hollywood, Mexico and Marijuana in "The Day of the Locust" and "The Last Tycoon"

Hollywood has a remarkable history with Mexican marijuana, played out in two seminal Hollywood novels: Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. The two authors knew and admired each other, and their fates became intertwined.

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST
Nathanael West began writing  The Day of the Locust in 1937, the year the Marijuana Tax Act passed Congress, effectively making the plant illegal in the U.S. Discussing the book’s title with his editor Bennett Cerf, he wrote, “I rather like ‘THE GRASS EATERS.’ Quite a few intelligent people agree on that one."

West's autobiographical character Tod Hackett is a painter working at a film studio and on a painting titled "The Burning of Los Angeles." He calls himself an unwilling prophet of doom, a Jeremiah. In the bible, Jeremiah is chosen by God to portend disaster for Jerusalem because its people were burning incense to the pagan god Baal, or Bel. 

Jeremiah 6:20 says, "For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba, and the kaneh bosm from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me." Some scholars think kaneh bosm, the fragrant cane, is mistranslated in modern Bibles as calamus instead of cannabis.

Mentioned throughout Jeremiah is Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king and "grass eater" from the bible. (The Arabic word for "grass" is the same as "hashish.") Nebuchadnezzar re-named the Jewish captive Daniel “Belteshazzar,” meaning “worshipper of Bel” and his co-captives, renamed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were saved from a firey death by their faith in God.

In Locust, the central, widely desired female character Faye Greener (not Redder, or Bluer) sleeps with a Mexican named Miguel just after she sings five verses of the Stuff Smith tune "If You're a Viper" (best known from Fats Waller's 1934 recording "Viper's Drag"):

I'm the queen of everything
Got to get high before I can swing…
Sky is high and so am I
If you’re a Viper.

A "viper" was slang for a pot smoker in the 1920s. 

Vivian Cash Harassed Over Race After Johnny's Drug Arrest

Vivian Liberto was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, where she and her siblings grew up in Sicilian-American Catholic culture and attended white schools in the segregated state. At age 17 the young beauty met 18-year-old Johnny Cash while he was stationed in San Antonio as an Air Force radio operator. Johnny was soon sent to Germany, where the young soldier began a long and loving correspondence with Vivian. 

The couple married in 1954 and had four daughters. Cash's signature song "I Walk the Line" was inspired by the rhythm of the Morse-code messages from the Germans and the Soviets his job was to intercept, and his intention to stay true to Vivian once he became a touring musician. 

In 1965 Johnny Cash was arrested in Texas for bringing amphetamine pills into the United States across the Mexican border, and Vivian flew to El Paso for his court hearing. A widely circulated photograph of them leaving the courthouse in which Vivian appeared to be Black brought her to public notice. 

The Thunderbolt, a newsletter published in Alabama by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader J.B. Stoner and distributed by the White supremacist National States' Rights Party, ran an inflammatory article titled, "Arrest Exposes Johnny Cash's Negro Wife." The paper warned, "Money from the sale of (Cash's) records goes to scum like Johnny Cash to keep them supplied with dope and negro women." 

Emile Bernard's "Fumeuse de Haschisch"

Émile Bernard. Fumeuse de Haschisch, 1900

French post-impressionist painter and writer Emile Bernard (1868-1941) was part of the Cloisonnism and Synthetism movements, and had artistic friendships with Paul Gaugin, Paul Cézanne, and in particular, Vincent Van Gogh. Bernard's literary work comprised plays, poetry, and art criticism as well as first-hand art historical information on the period of modern art to which he contributed. He was a great admirer of the poems of Baudelaire. 

After the death of Van Gogh, Bernard became despondent and moved to Egypt in 1893, where he would remain for eight years. He returned to Paris on the heels of successful showings of the paintings he completed there, including Fumeuse de Haschisch (1900), depicting a female hashish smoker. 

According to the article "Fumeuse de Haschisch: Emile Bernard in Egypt" by Paige A. Conley, "The power of this simple composition lies within its evocative and ambiguous elements: the androgynous qualities of Bernard's female subject and her direct gaze that solemnly invites the viewer to engage with her sizable nose ring and her narghile, a pipe designed for the consumption of hashish or other disorienting substances."  The article questions "whether the gender-ambiguous subject and the strong association of the Fumeuse with hashish were deliberate artistic references to two distinct cultural trends found within France at the end of the nineteenth century: a fascination with androgyny and the idea of extase or creative ecstasy." 

On Pentecost: Why Was the Holy Ghost Ghosted?

Stained Glass in the Basilica of Vysehrad in Prague, Czech Republic,
depicting the Descent of the Holy Spirit as a Dove over Mary and the Disciples.

Today is the feast of the Pentecost, marking 50 days since Easter and the resurrection of Jesus in Christian doctrine. Based on a Jewish harvest festival, it's the day when Jesus's disciples were imbued with the spirit of their faith's evangelism. "The three most important Solemnities on the Church’s calendar (and the three most important mysteries in her life) are Easter, Christmas and Pentecost," says the National Catholic Register (giving the Church a feminine pronoun, although its gods are all male).

On the Pentecost, it is written in the Bible (Acts 2), that Jesus's apostles were all gathered together to pray, along with "the women" and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Suddenly, there came "a mighty rushing wind," a common symbol for the Holy Spirit—the third godly member of the divine trinity of Christianity, along with the God the Father and the Son (Jesus).

Brittney Griner's "Coming Home"

WNBA star Brittney Griner has released a book, "Coming Home," about her ordeal of imprisonment in Russia after being caught with two cannabis vape pens while entering the country in February 2022. 

The book, co-written by celebrity biographer Michelle Burford, starts with a description of Griner hastily packing to travel to Russia, where she played basketball for seven years, earning much more than she did in the US and—as revealed in the book and her interviews about it—being treated like a star. In her haste to pack her luggage, Griner neglected to remove two nearly empty vape pens containing cannabis, for which she had a doctor's recommendation in Arizona. 

As she tells it, at the airport, a screener gestured to her to unzip her bags. She writes.

"I'd worked my way through the backpack when I opened one last zip. I slid in my hand and felt something inside. The agent stared as I slowly lifted out a cartridge with cannabis oil. Fuck. I'm a licensed cannabis user in the United States, with a medical marijuana card issued by my doctor. He prescribed [sic] cannabis years ago, to help me cope with my debilitating sports injuries. In Arizona cannabis is legal. In Russia it's forbidden. I knew that. Honest to God, I just totally forgot the pen was in my bag. The moment I felt it in that pocket, my stomach sank." 

Griner doesn't write about her use of cannabis or how it helps her, but she does give some insight into how she was treated as an "addict" in Russia, where she was sent to be interviewed by a psychiatrist, who asked her, "When did your drug problem begin?" The book continues:

Was Charles Manson Part of a CIA MK-ULTRA Experiment with LSD?

I've wondered of late if the bizarre Charles Manson murders were somehow encouraged or orchestrated by forces—perhaps in the US government—aimed at discrediting the peaceful hippie movement and the drugs it favored, such as LSD. 

The gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders on August 9&10, 1969 are often cited as the death knell of the 60s, and this point is made in the 2018 documentary by Jakob Dylan, "Echo in the Canyon," which celebrates the musical culture of Laurel Canyon near Los Angeles, and also documents the grave effect the murders had on the scene there. 

A little Googling on the topic lead me to the 2019 book, CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by investigative journalist Tom O'Neill. While it doesn't provide a direct link between Manson and the CIA, there's a great preponderance of evidence to connect, in horrifying way, the CIA's secretive MK-ULTRA program, which may have recruited Manson while he was serving time in federal prisons. 

The book takes the reader on a journey through 20 years of O'Neill's research and hundreds of interviews with movie industry players, police, surviving Manson Family members, relatives of their murder victims, and others, including LA DA Vince Bugliosi, who made his name prosecuting the murders, followed by writing the bestselling book Helter Skelter about them. 

O'Neill begins the book poking huge holes in the official record and prosecutorial procedure around the Manson family. Chaos details how a huge raid by the LA County Sheriff's office on the Manson family ranch in the weeks following the Tate-LaBianca murders lead to no arrests, despite stolen property and guns being found. Manson was also freed later that August after being caught with a stash of marijuana joints while in bed with an underage, 17-year-old girl, despite being on federal parole. O'Neill began to wonder if Manson was somehow being used as an informant by police, and thus kept getting a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. 

Elke Sommer and Sharon Tate in The Wrecking Crew

The author interviewed friends of Sharon Tate, including actress Elke Sommer, who appeared with Tate in her last movie, The Wrecking Crew. Sommer said Roman Polanski was a controlling, abusive husband. A tape of Tate having sex with other men staged by Polanski, who forced her to do it, was found in their home after the murders, but dismissed as evidence by Bugliosi. At the time of the murders, Polanski—who is now living in exile from the US after being prosecuted in 1977 for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl—was working in London, reportedly having affairs, and leaving his pregnant wife in their California house with cast of characters including drug dealers who cornered the market on MDA along with Wojciech Frykowski, one of the murder victims. 

O'Neill interviewed some of these characters and their associates, who bragged of connections to US intelligence that the author was able to confirm. Several times, they threatened to kill him in violent ways if he pursued his research, and they said Bugliosi was fearful of them, which is why he changed their names in Helter Skelter. Two of these men were in Jamaica at the time of the murders, giving them an alibi but leaving open the possibility that they could have enlisted Manson to commit them. 

Soon, O'Neill's research pressed him to "broader connections and social implications" of politics in California. In Chapter 7, "Neutralizing the Left," O'Neill delves into efforts to defuse the Black Panther Party and how Manson might have connected with those efforts. He focused on "two secret intelligence operations that were under way in Los Angeles in 1969: the FBI's COINTELPRO and the CIA's CHAOS. Their primary objective, according to three congressional committees that investigated them in the mid-seventies, was to discredit the left-wing movement by any means necessary—an aim that, coincidentally or not, described the effect of the Manson murders."   

100 Years of Surrealism, A Movement Inspired by Cannabis?

Remedios Varo. Harmony (Self Portrait). 1956

Surrealism, the trippy art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I, traces its roots to the publication of André Breton's essay Manifeste du surréalisme, published in October 1924. 

The movement "aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas. Its intention was, according to Breton, to 'resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality,' or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media as well." [-Wikipedia] 

Breton's manifesto states that, "hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. The best controlled sensuality partakes of it." It continues, "The realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit."

Under the heading, "SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL SURREALIST ART," Breton evokes the hashish-taking poet Charles Baudelaire: 

"Surrealism does not allow those who devote themselves to it to forsake it whenever they like. There is every reason to believe that it acts on the mind very much as drugs do; like drugs, it creates a certain state of need and can push man to frightful revolts. It also is, if you like, an artificial paradise, and the taste one has for it derives from Baudelaire’s criticism for the same reason as the others. 

"Thus the analysis of the mysterious effects and special pleasures it can produce -- in many respects Surrealism occurs as a new vice which does not necessarily seem to be restricted to the happy few; like hashish, it has the ability to satisfy all manner of tastes -- such an analysis has to be included in the present study. It is true of Surrealist images as it is of opium images that man does not evoke them; rather they 'come to him spontaneously, despotically. He cannot chase them away; for the will is powerless now and no longer controls the faculties.' (Baudelaire.)"

Mayor Breed Lights Up San Francisco's Weed Week

San Francisco Mayor London Breed stopped off before attending the Giants home opener on Friday to welcome participants in the first SF Weed Week, to be held throughout the city on April 13 – 20th.

The kickoff press conference was held in conjunction with a Cannabis Mylar Art Exhibit, showcasing over 1,000 commercial mylar product packages from the legal and illicit market, at the Mirus Gallery & Art Bar at 540 Howard Street throughout April. 

One of the Mylar Art pieces at Mirus

The event was organized by cannabis journalist David Downs and attended by about 100 supporters from the Bay Area and beyond. Downs said he got the idea for a “Weed Week” after hearing about Beer Week in the city, and by Amoeba Records in-store events. “Cannabis growers are rock stars. Strains are celebrities. We’re treating them accordingly,” he said.  SF Week Week events will be held on 7 consecutive nights at 7 different cannabis lounges, showcasing 7 new cannabis strains.

Wearing a Giants jersey and bright orange suit, Breed said she was grateful to be part of, “an opportunity that is so San Francisco.” She added, “When you think about San Francisco, you think about fun, you think about excitement, you think about joy. And the cannabis community, even before it was legalized in California, has been such an important part of that.” 

Mentioning the Beat poets in North Beach and the Summer of Love in the Haight as examples of San Francisco culture that have spread across the world, Breed said today’s efforts would help “transform the conversation and open up opportunities for people to experience joy through cannabis.” She joked that SF Weed Week should be held at the same time as Restaurant Week (because, the munchies).

Cannabis businesses are projected to bring in $789 million to the city in 2024/25 Breed said, mentioning that SF has approved 52 business permits through their equity program, and has given out $11 million in grants for equity programs in cannabis. She said SF Weed Week was an opportunity to “support our dispensaries and small business, and use this as a way to bring tourists and other people back to our city for an experience that only San Francisco can provide.” 

On His 100th Birthday: Marlon Brando and Marijuana

  

Marlon Brando, born on April 3, 1924, was an actor with an intensity like no other. He made his name after Tokin' Woman Tallulah Bankhead, who turned down the role of Blanche DuBois written for her in A Streetcar Named Desire, suggested "the cad" should play Stanley Kowalski. Brando went on to make motorcycle rebels cool in The Wild One (1953), and won his first Best Actor Oscar for On the Waterfront (1954).

In his book Songs My Mother Taught Me, he wrote, "So many things happened during the sixties and seventies that now a lot of those years are a blur. I was still trying to give my life some meaning and enlisted in almost any campaign I thought would help end poverty, racial discrimination and social injustice. But that wasn't all I did in those years; there was a lot of partying, getting drunk, having fun, jumping into swimming pools, smoking grass, lying on beaches and watching the sun go down. During the sixties in Hollywood, everybody was sleeping with everybody."

Blanche, The Original Calloway

One more Women's History Month post: 

I was surprised to learn of late that Cab "Reefer Man" Calloway had an older sister Blanche, who was also a musician and a big influence on him. 

"Before swing-era singer, actor, and bandleader Cab Calloway was a household name, he wasn’t even the biggest name in his household. That distinction went to Blanche Calloway, his vocalist older sister and the first woman to lead an all-male jazz orchestra," begins a 2022 article Harvard Magazine. 

"Blanche was known to be an incredible, charismatic performer, with a big personality. Her style and flair onstage was a huge inspiration for her younger brother, Cab Calloway, and she paved the way in show business for Cab," says an article in Opera Baltimore about the Baltimore-raised performer.  

Women's Herstory Month: Equity and Inclusion

This year, both Women's History Month and International Women's Day (March 8) have chosen equity, diversity and inclusion as their themes. It's a good time to look at equity in the cannabis industry, and honor those women who are a part of it. 

Kim Cargile of A Therapeutic Alternative in Sacramento, who is a leader in empowering women to run cannabis businesses, recently posted a list on Facebook of, "Women who have gone to great lengths to push this industry forward, who have sacrificed everything while working on the front lines of the War on Cannabis. Women that are often overlooked by the corporate takeover of our industry and we should all know there names and if we know them, thank them."

PHOTO: Larry Utley

Inviting others to add names to the list, Cargile included on her list Elvy Musikka, a Columbian-American who was the first woman in the federal IND medical marijuana program, which sends monthly tins of 300 joints to participants. Musikka stumped for our rights (in both English and Spanish) for over a decade with the Cannabis Action Network, which toured the country raising awareness. 

Another inclusion is Yamileth Bolanos, who hails from Costa Rica and founded the Los Angeles cannabis dispensary Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center. Bolanos was instrumental in the passage of California's law protecting organ transplant patients from discrimination over their use of medical marijuana. 

A Valentine for Valentina Wasson

Those in the know about the discovery of psilocybin mushrooms by Western civilization are hip to the 1957 Life magazine article written by banking executive and author R. Gordon Wasson about his experience taking mushrooms with curandera Maria Sabina in Mexico. 

What is not commonly known or appreciated is that Gordon's wife Valentina Pavlovna Wasson lead him to become interested in mushrooms, and that she published an account of her own experience with psychedelic mushrooms six days after Gordon's article. Valentina's account of her psychedelic journey appeared on May 19, 1957 in This Week magazine, a nationally syndicated Sunday magazine supplement that was included in American newspapers between 1935 and 1969.

"The walls suddenly receded and I was carried out—out and away—on undulating waves of translucent turquoise green," she wrote. "My mind was floating blissfully. It was as if my very soul had been scooped out and moved to a point in heavenly space, leaving my empty physical husk behind in the mud hut. Yet I was perfectly conscious. I knew now what the shamans meant when they said, 'The mushroom takes you to a place where God is.'" She traveled in her mind to the Caves of Lascaux and to 18th century Versailles, where, "I was struck again by the magnificence and intensity of the colors. Everything was resplendently rich. I had never imagined such beauty."

Anslinger Censors 1946 Canadian Film "Drug Addict"

Having occasion to look up a list of films banned in the US, I noticed that the 1946 Canadian film Drug Addict was banned by then-drug "czar" and head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics Harry Anslinger due to its depiction or drug addiction as a medical problem, and of addicts and traffickers as white people. 

According to a 1998 article published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, "The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) attempted to intimidate sociologist Alfred Lindesmith, a long-time advocate of medical treatment of drug addiction, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. In addition, the US banning of the 1946 Canadian film "Drug Addict" may have been a pivotal event in a pattern of censorship and disinformation carried on by the FBN under the leadership of Harry Anslinger."

Mexico’s weed "nuns" aim to take the plant back from the narcos

PHOTO: Raquel Cunha/Reuters 

As reported by Al Jazeera, a group of Mexican women have joined a worldwide movement of activists dressing as nuns to reclaim the holy herb. 

“We want to take the plant back from the narcos,” said one of the "nuns," who uses the moniker “Sister Bernardet” online and asked not to give her name for fear of reprisal. "In a country ravaged by drug war and embedded in Christianity, the image of a marijuana-smoking nun is an act of rebellion," writes Al Jazeera. The nuns argue that "the fight against drugs in Latin America has been a failure, leading to widespread violence and mass incarceration."

The Sisters of the Valley started in 2014 in California's Central Valley, and media attention followed. According to the article, the Sisters "fashion themselves after a lay religious movement, the Beguines, that dates back to the Middle Ages. The group, made up of single women, devoted itself to spirituality, scholarship and charity, but took no formal vows."