Freedom Leaf Magazine - May 2015

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Editor’s Note

I’m proud to present Freedom Leaf Issue 6, featuring Willie Nelson on the cover and an excerpt from his new autobiogra-phy, It’s a Long Story: My Life.

Nelson’s support for marijuana legal-ization is legendary. But you may not know that he came to marijuana later in his life after realizing how beneficial it was for him compared to alcohol and tobacco. Read all about it in the excerpt that begins on page 32.

My friendship with Willie Nelson dates back to when I worked at High Times. In 1990, he campaigned in Kentucky for pro-marijuana gubernatorial candidate Gatewood Galbraith. A team of us drove from New York to catch Nelson touring

the state with Galbraith, and I conducted an interview with the pair that became a cover story.

Several years later, I produced benefit albums for NORML—Hempilation: Freedom Is NORML and Hempilation 2: Free the Weed. Willie was kind enough to donate a live version of his stoner song “Me and Paul” to the latter.

In 2009, after he got arrested for mari-juana possession in Texas, Willie sent me the following email:

“Hey Steve: There’s the Tea Party. How about the Teapot Party? Our motto: We lean a little to the left. Tax it, regulate it and legalize it. And stop the border wars over drugs. Why should the drug lords

Willie Nelson and Marijuana: A Beautiful Relationship

Me and Willie: Steve Bloom on the bus with Nelson.


make all the money? Thousands of lives will be saved.”

With Willie’s blessing, I started the Teapot Party page on Facebook (we have nearly 120,000 likes). Willie says our mission “is to vote in people who believe the way we do and vote out the ones who don’t.”

Cut to 2014: Freedom Leaf was just getting started and Senior Editor Chris Goldstein wanted to interview Willie for the premiere issue. Willie gave us the go-ahead, and Chris and I were off to Hur-rah’s in Atlantic City in September.

Tour Manager John Selman met us at the backstage door and escorted us to the famous tour bus. Willie greeted us warmly and took his seat in a booth.

I came with my Cloud Penz hash oil vaporizer and offered it immediately to Willie, who took several hits. The inter-view lasted 15 minutes (see “On the Bus with Willie Nelson” in Issue 1). After the interview, Willie pulled out a thick joint rolled without a filter, and no hump in the middle. He lit it, took a nice hit and passed it to me, saying, “Try this.” After all the years of knowing Nelson, this was my first chance to smoke the notorious “Willie Weed” on his bus. I took several pulls, as seen in the photo. It was deli-cious.

NORML founder Keith Stroup has been smoking with Willie since the late ’70s. He explains how valuable Willie has been to NORML on page 38.

Now, the news is that Nelson is plan-ning to go into the marijuana business this year with his line of Willie’s Reserve products. In addition to the new book, he also has a new album with Merle Haggard coming out soon. At 82, there’s no stop-ping Willie Nelson.

Steve BloomEditor-in-Chief

Please send Letters to the Editor to [email protected].

FOUNDERS Richard C. Cowan &

Clifford J. Perry PUBLISHER & CEO

Clifford J. PerryEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Steve BloomSENIOR EDITOR Chris Goldstein

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Dave Azimi

EDITORIAL DESIGN Jean Crow

COPY EDITOR G. Moses

SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR Paul ArmentanoSCIENCE EDITOR Dr. Jahan Marcu

FASHION COORDINATOR Lillian Taylor

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Ron Dennis

MARKETING DIRECTOR Carolann Bass

LEGAL COUNSEL Keith Stroup

CHIEF ACCOUNTING OFFICER Patrick Rhea

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Felipe Menezes

CONTRIBUTORS Erik Altieri, Russ Belville, Mike Crawford, Dan Gibson, Ellen Komp, Martin A. Lee, Beth Mann, Alec Pearce, Rick Pfrommer, N.A. Poe, Natalie Shmuel, Cheri Sicard,

Allen St. Pierre, Drew Stromberg

Content and advertisements in this magazine are for information purposes only and are not represen-tative, in any way, as a recommendation, endorse-ment or verification of legitimacy of the aforemen-tioned herein. The opinions expressed here are those of the individual writers and may not be those of the publisher or staff of Freedom Leaf Inc. Adver-tisers and/or their agencies assume responsibility and liability for content within their advertisement. Freedom Leaf Inc. assumes no liability for any claims or representations contained in this maga-zine. Reproduction, in whole or in part, without written consent is prohibited. Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2014-2015 Freedom Leaf Inc. All Rights Reserved


Contents

CHAPTERS STUDENTS WILLIE

10 24 39

4. Editor’s Note Steve Bloom

8. News

9. Events Calendar

13. Lawsuits vs. Colorado Allen St. Pierre

16. NORML Chapters: Maryland and Pittsburgh Erik Altieri

19. College Informants Alicia Porter

22. Hemp History Week Preview Lillian Taylor

26. Industry Spotlight: Cannabis Science, Inc.

28. The Great Divide: Cannabis Gender Gap Paul Armentano

32. Book Excerpt: It’s a Long Story: My Life Willie Nelson


44 50 69

INTERVIEW BUSINESS FOOD

38. Willie Nelson and NORML Keith Stroup

40. CBD: Cannabis’ Misunderstood Chemical Martin A. Lee

44. The Freedom Leaf Interview: Gary Johnson Chris Goldstein

50. Pot on the Rez Russ Belville

54. Terpenes 101 Rick Pfrommer

60. Prague Rocks Dr. Jahan Marcu

64. Forever Jung Beth Mann

69. Cooking with Bud Cheri Sicard

72. Reviews

Cover illustrationby Barry Anderson

The Good News in Marijuana Reform


NEWS

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) believes that it’s time for federal lawmakers to “right decades of wrongs.” Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference in March, he stated: “Our federal government has long overstepped the boundaries of common sense, fiscal prudence and com-passion… Today we join together to say enough is enough.”

Joining Booker were fellow Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who together announced the introduction of legislation to amend the classifica-tion and regulation of cannabis for thera-peutic purposes. The measure—Senate Bill 683, the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) Act—marks the first time that the U.S. Senate has taken up the issue of legalizing marijuana for medical use. (Congress enacted spending legislation in December similarly limiting the Justice Department from interfering in state-sanc-tioned medical marijuana operations, but it expires in September.)

The 10-page Senate bill seeks to per-manently bar the U.S. government from

prosecuting qualified patients, doctors and businesses that engage in state-sanctioned behavior involving the produc-tion, sale and use of medical cannabis. Separate provisions in the bill reschedule marijuana at the federal level, and remove the compound cannabidiol (CBD) from the Controlled Substances Act altogether. Additional provisions allow for financial institutions to legally provide services to medical marijuana businesses; permit doctors affiliated with the Veterans Administration to authorize medical can-nabis; and remove existing bureaucratic barriers that limit investigators from clini-cally studying the plant’s safety and thera-peutic efficacy.

Sen. Gillibrand said she’s “hopeful” the measure will “gain significant support in the Senate,” while other proponents, including the Drug Policy Alliance, have speculated that the bill may successfully pressure the Obama administration to implement specific provisions, such as reclassifying cannabis and/or removing existing banking restrictions, via execu-tive action.

Nevada Republican Dean Heller

Senators Introduce Landmark Medical Marijuana Legislation


May 2: Global Marijuana March—taking place in more than 100 cities around the world (also on May 9) facebook.com/Global-MarihuanaMarch

May 14: Mother’s High Tea, History of Colorado Center, Denver, CO facebook.com-pages/Mothers-High Tea/413934048765797

May 15-16: Blaze & Glory Festival, San Manuel Amphitheater Grounds, San Bernardino, CA blazenglory.com

May 19-21: Marijuana Business Confer-ence & Expo, The Hilton, Chicago, IL mmjbusinessdaily.com/conference

May 21-22: NORML Legislative Fly-In, Washington, DC norml.org/conference

June 11-14: Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, Manchester, TN bonnaroo.com

June 18-19: Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo, Javits Con-vention Center, New York, NY internationalcannabisasso-ciation.com/new-york-2015

June 20-21: THC Expo, Los Angeles Coli-seum, Los Angeles, CA facebook.com/thethcexpo

June 27-28: High Times Northern Califor-nia Medical Cannabis Cup, Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, CA cannabiscup.com/san-francisco

EVENTSMay

June

(Pictured left to right) Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kirsten Gillbrand, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Dean Heller, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Steve Cohen.

subsequently signed on as a co-sponsor, acknowledging, “The time has come for the federal government to stop impeding the doctor-patient relationship in states that have decided their own medical marijuana policies.” California Democrat Barbara Boxer is also co-sponsoring the bill.

House Representatives are also showing their support, with companion legislation, HR 1538, introduced by Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Don Young (R-AK).

Would passage of the CARERS Act sufficiently address the litany of federal roadblocks presently in place for medical cannabis patients and providers? As presently written—no. In particular, the reclassification of THC to Schedule II under federal law is unlikely to signifi-cantly improve patient access, and might inadvertently lead to even more regula-tory restrictions. Still, the CARERS Act is a necessary and long-overdue first step by Congress to align federal policy with available science and public opinion.

Contact your members of Congress in support of the CARERS Act here: norml.org/act — Paul Armentano


Ballot Initiatives ArizonaA controversy erupted in April when the Marijuana Policy Project threatened action against dispensary owner Gina Berman, who disagrees with the MPP’s plan to tax and regulate marijuana in the Grand Canyon State. Berman, who previously worked with MPP’s campaign committee and is now Chairwoman of Arizonans for Responsible Legalization (ARL), favors a more conservative approach (no home growing), and says she’ll file a competing measure for 2016. In a letter to Berman, MPP Executive Director Rob Kampia said they’d spend $10,000 to “harm” her businesses.

CaliforniaThe first state to approve medical marijuana will try again for full legalization in 2016. In 2010, voters rejected Prop 19 in a close election (53%–47%). Contentiousness within the medical cannabis community led some longtime advocates to campaign against the measure. This time, organizers are making a concerted effort to be more inclusive.

MississippiA major effort is underway in the Magnolia State to get full legalization on the ballot in 2016. Organizers need to collect 110,000 valid signatures by December to qualify. The campaign was recently given a boost when Jeremy Bufford, President of Medical Marijuana United, based in Florida, pledged $2 per each certified signature collected.

OhioTwo groups have proposed different plans for a legalization ballot initiative in the Buckeye State. Ohioans to End Prohibition want a broad retail structure and home cultivation, while allowing higher limits for medical patients. ResponsibleOhio offers a more limited plan with just 10 retail producers and stricter limits on home cultivation. Both groups are gathering signatures to get their dueling measures on the 2016 ballot.

NevadaHome of the nation’s most robust gambling industry, the only state with legal brothels is looking to add recreational marijuana to the mix of tax revenue, and a ballot initiative will go before voters in the 2016 general election. The Nevada legislature had the option to pass the bill, but declined. Now the citizens will decide. Under the proposal, the state’s Division of Taxation would oversee the cannabis industry, with a flat 15% excise tax on wholesale supply.

State Legislation

MaineRep. Diane Russell has championed the effort to legalize marijuana in the Pine Tree State. Her bills have steadily gained support over the last five years. The current version of the proposed legislation entails a retail scheme that follows tax models in other states by directing revenue toward schools and education.

More States in Line for Legal MarijuanaThe next two years will be pivotal for marijuana legalization in the U.S., with reform bills and ballot initiatives in the works across the nation. Here’s what’s happening in 11 states.


MassachusettsAdvocates are promising to put full legalization on the ballot in 2016, but state lawmakers are trying to beat them to it with House Bill 1561, which would allow for home cultivation and create a retail industry. A flat excise tax would begin at $10 per ounce in the first year and eventually rise to $50 per ounce in the fourth. There’s also an escalating tax on edibles and oil products, starting at $2.50 per 10 milligrams of THC. However, Gov. Charlie Baker opposes legalization, leaving any legislative effort vulnerable to a veto.

PennsylvaniaPending medical cannabis legislation, Senate Bill 3, has gained the most traction in Harrisburg, but it’s been significantly watered down since last year. What started as a whole-plant, broadly worded safe access bill turned into a very limited cannabis products bill that excludes smoking. A proposed Industrial Hemp Farming Act has also gained a lot of support and could see passage in 2015. The full legalization bill, SB 538, proposes selling cannabis in state-operated wine and spirits stores.

Rhode IslandBills for full legalization are now active in both houses of the General Assembly. They would allow home cultivation of just two plants, but create a statewide system of retail stores. Rhode Island has the highest per-capita rate of marijuana consumption in the country.

VermontAccording to the Rand Corporation, “During 2014, Vermont residents likely consumed between 15 metric tons and 25 metric tons of marijuana, and spent between $125 million and $225 million on marijuana.” Legislators filed bills on the heels of this report and have promised swift and serious discussions on the issue in 2015. Many

are hinting that Vermont could be the first state in the country to fully legalize through legislation.

TexasThe Lone Star State has become a hot-bed of activism, thanks to the work of many NORML chapters working there. Bills for decriminalization, medical marijuana, industrial hemp and full legalization have garnered support among lawmakers. There’s no ballot initiative process in Texas, so any changes will have to be made by legislators in Austin.

For a full list of active legislation, visit NORML’s Action Center at norml.org/act.

— Chris Goldstein

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By Allen St. Pierre

While not entirely unexpected by legal scholars and activists in the cannabis law reform community, it was still vexing and disappointing to see red states Nebraska and Oklahoma file a lawsuit in Decem-ber against the federal government to enforce federal anti-cannabis laws in the neighboring state of Colorado—the first state to effectively tax and regulate can-nabis.

At press time, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) had not ruled on whether it will hear the lawsuit in the 2015 session. With a degree of caution and fear, free-dom-loving adults who enjoy cannabis in Colorado, along with hundreds of canna-bis-related businesses there, and their estimated 16,000 registered employees, wait with great anticipation to see if the issue of a state’s ability to legalize can-nabis finds its way before a reliably con-servative SCOTUS this year.

The implications of a negative ruling from SCOTUS are obvious and manifest:

■ A negative legal precedent set in the case will affect legalization laws and cannabis commerce in other states beyond Colorado.

■ The hundreds of millions of dollars that have been already invested into thousands of cannabis-related com-panies nationwide will become, in a word, distressed.

■ A negative precedent could stymie

What If the Supreme Court Rules Against Colorado?

Bordering conservative states would like nothing better than to send Colorado back to the Dark Ages.

efforts by cannabis law reformers to pass legalization initiatives in 2016, notably in the country’s most popu-lous state, California.

On the bright side, if the high court takes the case—regardless of the ruling—the issues of cannabis legaliza-tion, the failure of prohibition and states’ rights will be catapulted into the national limelight in a manner never seen before in the mainstream media and American con-sciousness. Also, this lawsuit has added to the growing fissure between “moral conservatives” and libertarian-leaning conservatives, many of whom have pub-licly derided the Nebraska and Oklahoma state attorneys general for launching a lawsuit against a state for simply imple-menting the will of its voters.

Numerous liberal and conservative legal scholars have opined that they don’t think the Supremes will take the case—be it for lack of standing, or because the justices may recognize that if the court were to rule in favor of these states’ com-plaint against Colorado, it would 1) set a bad precedent for states suing each other; and 2) if the states prevail before SCOTUS, then the policy outcome would very likely be characterized as “political and legal chaos” (because the Feds can’t force a state to have and enforce canna-bis prohibition laws).

If Nebraska and Oklahoma were to


win their lawsuit, then Colorado would go back to a prohibition condition where there are no identification cards checked, no regulations or social controls on cul-tivation and distribution, no law enforce-ment re-prioritizing toward crimes citizens deem important—and none of the mil-lions in tax revenues coming into state coffers. Criminal syndicates would once again control the marketplace.

Knowing they’ve lost the “hearts and minds” campaign, along with the popular vote on cannabis legalization state after state, and desperate to keep cannabis prohibition in place for the seeable future, an amalgam of county sheriffs in Colo-rado and the surrounding states have also filed a separate federal lawsuit to try to get a judge to overturn the will of the majority of Colorado voters.

Not to be outdone, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., the Safe Streets Alliance (SSA)—which misspelled “marijuana” in a recent press release—has filed a series of

harassment lawsuits against individual business owners who are licensed by the state of Colorado to either cultivate or sell cannabis at retail. In one case, SSA claims that a pair of anti-cannabis landowners across the street from a licensed cannabis cultivation center is caused “mental anguish” when they look out their window and see a business they don’t like and don’t think should be legal; regardless of what Coloradoans voted for in 2012, SSA believes the federal gov-ernment is negligent in not arresting and prosecuting the lawful, peaceful, tax-pay-ing cannabis cultivation plot owners and their employees next door.

Regrettably, in the short run, if Nebraska and Oklahoma—or the sher-iffs and legal gadflies from D.C.—were to prevail with the Feds against neighboring Colorado, the whole politico-legal affair might just be characterized as “careful what you wish for, you might get it.”

Allen St. Pierre is Executive Director of NORML.

MAKE REFORM A REALITYIt’s California’s time to legalize cannabis.

For legalization to win on the ballot in 2016, we need 6 million votes. We’re

building the majority one vote at a time.Join us and let’s Reform California.

REFORMCA.COM /REFORMCAEndorsed by:



By Erik Altieri

Across the country, NORML chapters are leading the charge in state legislatures in the fight for marijuana law reform. While there has been a flurry of activity lately with federal bills, the most substantive moves to roll back prohibition are still taking place at the state and local level.

Maryland NORML

In Maryland, the statewide NORML chapter has been hard at work building an expansive network of citizen advo-cates and equipping them with the neces-sary knowledge and skills required to be a potent force in the state capitol, Annap-olis. These efforts started in earnest last year during the debate over decriminal-izing marijuana possession in the state.

Utilizing national NORML’s legislative action tools, Maryland NORML helped generate more than 10,000 emails to state lawmakers in support of the

decriminalization measure, Senate Bill 364, and also Senate Bill 963, to greatly expand the state’s medical marijuana program, both of which were ultimately approved and signed into law by former Gov. Martin O’Malley. Decrim went into effect last October 1.

Knowing that 2015 would be an even more active year, MD NORML has sought to strengthen its outreach ability. The group maintains a popular Facebook page that has over 4,000 followers, and has launched an official website, mary-landnorml.org. They have also refined their materials, writing and producing a brochure advising the public of current Maryland marijuana laws for both medical and recreational use, as well as the dif-ference between decriminalization and legalization.

With these in place, MD NORML has stepped up their efforts in forming

NORML Chapter Reports: Maryland and Pittsburgh

Freedom is


numerous local satellite groups in coun-ties across the state, recruiting and engaging new members from nearly every region. To keep all the moving parts coordinated, MD NORML holds quarterly statewide meetings and monthly local chapter get-togethers.

MD NORML has also joined the Mari-juana Policy Coalition of Maryland (MPC) as a prominent member. The group con-sists of over 20 organizations (includ-ing LEAP, the ACLU, MPP, the Libertar-ian Party of Maryland and the League of Women Voters) that are pooling their resources to advance key legislation.

In December, in preparation for this year’s legislative session, MD NORML held a lobbyist-training seminar featur-ing such speakers as Sara Love (ACLU), Leigh Maddox (LEAP), Rachelle Yeung (MPP) and MD NORML Executive Direc-tor Judy Pentz and Deputy Director Kevin Cranford. These opportunities are used to rally, empower and encourage constitu-ents to engage their elected officials in Annapolis, and to help train and prepare them for testimony before Maryland’s House Judiciary Committee and Senate

Judicial Proceedings Committee. With a well-trained team of advocates,

Maryland NORML has been a noticeable presence this legislative session, testify-ing in favor of full legalization and other pieces of pertinent legislation.

“Maryland NORML is in high spirits as it looks to continue bettering our decrimi-nalization and medical laws,” says Cran-ford. “We’re gaining support faster than ever as we’re getting closer to realizing full legalization in the state.”

Pittsburgh NORML

Last year provided a number of opportu-nities for Pittsburgh NORML to build and expand the cannabis reform community further across Pennsylvania. In August, the Pittsburgh chapter hosted the legend-ary Further Bus, as it made its way across the country. To round out an active year of outreach events, Pittsburgh NORML cel-ebrated the change of seasons with an outdoor Harvest Fest in November, and hosted a December holiday party.

Twice, state Sen. Daylin Leach spoke to the group about Pennsylvania’s medici-nal cannabis bill; he brought the message


of reform to a rapt audience in August, and was joined by state Rep. Ed Gainey in November. In addition, they joined con-servative state Sen. Mike Folmer as he took his message to a number of town hall meetings in and around Pittsburgh.

In September, Pittsburgh NORML and the Pittsburgh NORML Women’s Alli-ance chartered a bus to Harrisburg, and brought 35 supporters to the biggest rally to date in support of cannabis reform on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol. While they were disappointed that the Senate Appropriations Com-mittee gutted key provisions of Leach’s measure—including the removal of over 35 qualifying conditions—they saw an opportunity to come back stronger than ever in 2015 when the House refused to take up the Senate’s bill.

During his election campaign, Gov. Tom Wolf promised to sign a medicinal marijuana bill. With that in mind, spon-sors have reintroduced medical marijuana legislation, and personally promised to

make it even more comprehensive. Pittsburgh NORML’s efforts in this

legislative session are not restricted to medicinal cannabis. They’re working with Rep. Gainey to introduce a decrim bill that would reduce penalties for possessing a small amount of marijuana; and they have also begun meeting with Public Safety officials and Pittsburgh’s new Police Chief Cameron McLay to discuss priorities, and hope to find a way to join Philadelphia, which decriminalized marijuana last year, in making Pittsburgh a safe haven for can-nabis consumers.

“We could not be more excited about the momentum for reform both here in the Commonwealth and across the United States,” Executive Director Patrick Night-ingale states. “Cannabis prohibition is in its death throes, and we are privileged to be a part of its demise.”

Erik Altieri is NORML’s former Communica-tions Director. He now works at the advo-cacy group The Agenda Project.


By Alicia Porter

Like many college students, Andrew Sadek sometimes purchased mari-juana from fellow students. While attending North Dakota State College of Science, in Wahpeton, he ran into a problem when a student he bought from who turned out to be a confidential informant (CI) working with the Southeast Multi-County Agency Drug Task Force (SEMCA). After Sadek was busted for buying an $80 bag in 2013, he did the same as his dealer had done; facing a possible 20-year-sentence for buying weed in a school zone, he agreed to become a CI.

Students arrested for possession on campus may find themselves ensnared in one of the ugliest aspects of the drug war.

Deaths Plague Student Narc Programs


It didn’t go well for Sadek. After making several deals, he dropped out of the task force. Last May, Sadek was charged with two felonies, and fled. Six weeks later, his body turned up in the Red River in Minne-sota. Sadek had been shot in the head.

In a report issued in March by the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investi-gation, SEMCA was exonerated. “Sadek needed to conduct one more controlled buy from the individual from the January 2014 buy, and also needed to purchase from a new suspect,” the report notes. No flags were raised about the practice of coercing students into becoming infor-mants.

“He was murdered,” Andrew’s mother Tammy Sadek told KFGO radio, in Fargo. “SEMCA is alive and well on campus. They’re still using kids,” she warned.

After the similar death of another college CI, Eric Sinacori, University of Massachusetts Amherst officials called off the UMass Police Department (UMPD) program that had students ratting out each other. In his review of the case on behalf of UMass, Boston attorney Gerard Leone wrote in January, “Our strong present and ultimate conclusion and rec-ommendation is that UMass Amherst dis-continue the present practice of [UMPD] officers handling and using students as confidential informants.”

This news did not come soon enough for Sinacori, a junior at UMass Amherst, who died of a heroin overdose in October 2013, 10 months after he started working with campus police as an informant. Sinacori, like Sadek, became a CI after he sold LSD and Molly (ecstasy/MDMA) to an undercover campus cop; the police promised to keep Sinacori’s bust a secret if he cooperated as an informant.

Sinacori confessed to his friends that he felt intense guilt over being a “snitch,” and that he struggled with addiction prior to his fatal OD. Police found a hypoder-mic needle in Sinacori’s apartment, but they claimed to have no knowledge of his heroin use. Sinacori’s mother has initi-ated an effort to hold UMass Amherst accountable for Eric’s death.

Andrew Sadek, Eric Sinacori and Rachel Hoffman were all manipulated by local and

campus police, and lost their lives.

Andrew Sadek's mother, Tammy.


Rachel Hoffman is another victim who died violently after being coerced into informing on drug dealers. A gradu-ate of Florida State University and an active SSDP member, Hoffman was pressured into becoming an informant after the Tallahassee Police Department discovered four ecstasy tabs and a few ounces of marijuana in her home in 2008. In exchange for leniency, Hoffman agreed to make a huge buy of 1,500 ecstasy pills, two ounces of cocaine and a handgun. But when the deal went bad, Hoffman was killed by one of the dealers with the gun she was expected to buy.

Sadek, Sinacori and Hoffman were all manipulated by local and campus police, and lost their lives. It’s shocking that campus police are given this much power; neither Sadek’s nor Sinacori’s parents were notified about their status as college informants, and it wasn’t until

the students were found dead that they were told of their police-sponsored drug buys.

Students arrested for drugs face serious consequences, such as loss of financial aid, prison sentences and permanent criminal records. The police exploit students’ desperation in such circumstances, and knowingly put their lives in jeopardy, with potential fatal out-comes. The deaths of Andrew Sadek, Eric Sinacori and Rachel Hoffman ago-nizingly illustrate the ways in which drug prohibition results in the creation of a war zone between the police and the communities they’re supposed to serve and protect—a war zone in which nonvio-lent drug users are demonized and per-secuted, while the police are permitted to endanger young lives.

Alicia Porter is an SSDP intern.


Once a year, the hemp industry encourages eco-friendly companies and consumers to celebrate the multifaceted plant.

By Lillian Taylor

What’s a more fitting way to celebrate the sixth month of 2015 than with the 6th Annual Hemp History Week, which coincides with the U.N.’s World Environment Day on June 5?

Organized by the Hemp Industry Association (HIA), the week of hemp events runs from June 1–7. “Participation has grown dramatically over the years,” says HIA spokesperson Lauren Stansbury. “We now have over triple the number of events and participants compared to initial years of the campaign.”

Celebrity endorsers include Ziggy Marley, Michael Franti, Jason Mraz, Dar Williams, John Trudell, Alicia Silverstone and Dr. Andrew Weil. Corporate sponsors include Dr. Bronner’s, Manitoba Harvest, Nutiva and Nature’s Path.

Hemp History Week started as an education and marketing cam-paign in support of hemp farming, and to raise awareness of the many benefits of industrial hemp. Everyone with a passion for bringing hemp back as an integral and important part of the American economic and environmental landscape is free to join in on the festivities. Histori-cally, hemp history in the U.S. has evolved from legislation requiring

All Hail Hemp History Week!




every farmer to grow hemp for economic stability in the 1700s, to the Hemp for Victory-inspired harvest of 150,000 acres of hemp for ropes and sails during World War II, to early last decade when federal agents raided Lakota hemp crops just before harvest, to the Congressional Farm Bill (the Agricultural Act of 2014) signed into law last year that allows for cultiva-tion of hemp in the U.S. for research pur-poses.

Thanks to the Farm Bill, and other legislation in 18 states, Kentucky, Colo-rado and Vermont should have success-ful hemp crops in 2015. (For a full list of states that have legalized hemp farming, see the map below.) Statewide legislation has been the focus of Vote Hemp, which lobbies for a free market for industrial hemp, low-THC oil and fiber varieties of cannabis.

This year, Hemp History Week will feature more than 300 events in all 50 states. Here are some highlights:

✱ June 1–7: Discounts on all items at the Hemptations stores in Cincinnati and Sharon, Ohio. They use hemp pressboard for store shelving.

✱ June 2–6: Daily events at Back to Basics in Knox, Ind.

✱ June 4: The Oneida Tribe of Wiscon-sin educates about hemp and offers prizes in Oneida.

✱ June 5–6: Celebrate the grand opening of the New Mexico Hemp Company in Albuquerque.

✱ June 6: The Farmer’s Market in Ston-ington, Conn. will show off hemp prod-ucts and food.

✱ June 6: Food tastings, products, lectures, music and belly dancing at the “Hemp Revolution” in Port Charlotte, Fla.

✱ June 6: Watch how hempcrete is made at Mexicali Blues restaurant in Raymond, Maine.

✱ June 7: Organic moms take up the cause on Cape Cod during Viva-palooza, a healthy living expo held in Hyannis, Mass.

✱ Bringing It Home, a 52-minute 2013 documentary about the making of a house constructed with hemp materi-als, will be screened in numerous loca-tions, including Tucker, W.Va. (June 1); Raymond, Maine (June 6); and Rich-mond, Va. (June 7). (Check out “How to Build a Hemp Home” in Issue 5.)

The seeds of legalization are sown. The consciousness of the nation has awakened. Hemp for victory!

For updated info, go to: hemphistory-week.com/events.

Lillian Taylor is Freedom Leaf’s Fashion Coordinator and resident hemp expert.

Hemp States in the U.S.A.: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington.


Five Facts About Hemp

1. Hemp is cultivated legally in 30 countries around the world, including the U.S. (only for research).

2. Hemp/cannabis first grew wild in China some 10,000 years ago.

3. American Presidents Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp. Washington famously said: “Make the most of the hemp plant. Sow it everywhere.”

4. Hemp is a biomass. It doesn’t harm the soil, like cotton does, and requires few if any pesticides.

5. The fibers inside the stalk of the plant are used to make clothing, rope, paper and hundreds of other products. The seeds are used to make cosmetics and food products.

Five Books About Hemp

1. The Emperor Wears No Clothes, by Jack Herer: A raging and educational manifesto that points fingers at the culprits who conspired to make and keep hemp illegal.

2. Hemp Bound, by Doug Fine: This travelogue about hemp, one of the oldest agricultural products, traverses the continent, from Manitoba to North Carolina.

3. The Great Book of Hemp, by Rowan Robinson: An illustrated guide that covers all the bases: history, medicine, nutrition and the environmental benefits of this wonder plant.

4. Hemp: Lifeline to the Future, by Chris Conrad: A comprehensive look at the many uses of hemp, its history and cannabis controversies dating back to Prohibition in 1937.

5. The Hemp Cookbook, by Todd Dalotto: Includes more than 50 recipes for the vegetarian hempster.


Robert Kane was working at a top Wall Street firm in 2009 when he first heard about the emerging cannabis industry.

“One of my financial clients asked me if I would process the stock certifica-tion of Medical Marijuana, Inc.,” he tells Freedom Leaf. “I called the company and asked who handles their investor rela-tions. The response was, ‘What is inves-tor relations?’ At that moment, a lightbulb turned on quite brightly in my mind.” Kane left the firm and started his own company, Cannabis Consulting, which he describes as “a company with the mission of estab-lishing the legal cannabis industry as a viable investment option available to all.

“After writing a few hundred business plans, I took the next step and crafted a vertical plan to integrate all of these cannabis businesses into a hedge fund,” he explains. “My firm also created one of the industry’s first tracking indexes to measure performance in the medical marijuana space. It was at that time that my operation was purchased by Cannabis Science, Inc.”

Kane now serves as Chief Financial Officer for the company.

Because they have strategic partners and the management team is located around the globe, his workday starts early. “Working for a global company with opera-tions in Europe and North America, and plans for expansion to South America, Africa and Australasia, we deal with a lot of time zones,” he notes. “I’m on Skype much of the day. As appropriate, we check in each morning to look at the latest proj-ects and to see the market activity in

New York. In addition to working on exist-ing projects, we network and brainstorm for new opportunities of all kinds, such as our relatively new partnerships and ventures involving cultivation, research and products in Spain. We keep a pulse on strategic partners that are at different stages of development, and think about the best role we can play. Ultimately, we do our best to develop the kinds of busi-ness models that complement our exist-ing operations and expertise.”

According to their website, Cannabis Science is “developing novel cannabis-based approaches to treat the world’s most deadly illnesses. We learn from patients about the healing properties of cannabis medicines. Our immediate focus is the development of cutting-edge cancer treatments. The Company’s future endeavors include infectious illnesses, neurobehavioral disorders including atten-tion deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and an application of the anti-inflammatory activities of cannabis in the management of age-related illnesses.”

While some may think the cannabis industry is all green glitz and glamor, Kane’s job is more about the serious nuts and bolts of running the company. “My responsibility as CFO is to progress our projects and potential new ventures in an efficient, financially sound and legally transparent manner,” he adds. “The end goal involves patients, but, of course, as a publicly traded company, we must ensure that the company’s investment translates into real cash flow, leading to profits for our patients and dedicated

CannabisScienceIndustry Spotlight:


shareholders. Without our shareholders, a public company has no foundation.”

After leaving Wall Street, Kane attended a Patients Out of Time confer-ence in Rhode Island, and he is helping with their 20th annual conference May 21–23 at the West Palm Beach Conven-tion Center in Florida. “They’re focused on getting healthy, not on getting high,” he says about Patients Out of Time. “That was really profound for me. My focus has been consistent with this philosophy ever since. I’m very grateful, six years later, that I’m not only still involved with that wonderful organization, but also in a posi-tion to help people in the same spirit in which I was introduced to the medical cannabis industry.”

The conference will feature 30 speak-ers, including Dr. Andrew Weil, Raphael Mechoulam and Dr. Lester Grinspoon, and grants continuing medical education (CME) credits to nurses and doctors for their professional licenses through the University of California at San Francisco. To help and support Patients Out of Time, Cannabis Science is hosting a golf tour-nament fundraiser on May 21 at the Par 3 on Palm Beach Island, aptly titled “Putting for Patients.”

Concludes Kane: “Giving back is an experience that defies a good descrip-tion. Let’s just say I love it.”

For more info about Cannabis Science, Inc., go to cannabisscience.com. For more info about the POT conference, go to medicalcannabis.com.


By Paul Armentano

If you think that men and women think the same way about cannabis, think again.

That’s the takeaway from a study published in February in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City analyzed data provided by over 614,000 participants in the 2002–2012 National Survey on Drug Use—the nation’s largest survey assessing Americans’ use of and beliefs about licit and illicit substances. Regarding cannabis, the researchers correlated subjects’ demographic char-acteristics with their expressed beliefs regarding marijuana’s risk to health.

While the authors acknowledged that various factors, such as participants’ age, income and ethnicity, are likely to affect one’s opinions about canna-bis, no single factor is as influential as gender. For instance, women are twice as likely to perceive the regular use of marijuana as posing a “great risk” to health. The fact that men and women don’t view marijuana’s potential risks similarly explains a number of other cannabis-specific gender gaps.

For example, according to com-prehensive data provided by the Pew Research Center, men are far more likely than women (54% to 42%) to acknowl-edge that they have tried cannabis, and men are 25% more likely than women to admit they smoked pot during the past year. A 2014 study led by researchers

The GREAT DivideWhen it comes to cannabis, women are from Venus and men are from Mars. But that gender gap is starting to narrow.

at Washington State University speculated that these differences in use patterns could, in part, be because cannabinoids affect men and women differently, particu-larly in regard to drug tolerance and THC sensitivity. The authors theorized that the latter phenomenon could result in women being more prone than men to experience heightened anxiety or paranoia after con-suming cannabis.

The reality that females are less likely than males to have firsthand experience with marijuana may also explain why fewer women than men say that they feel comfort-able being in close proximity to someone using cannabis. The Pew data show that nearly six in 10 women (57%) feel uncom-fortable being around people who use mari-juana, compared with 44% of men.

Given this information, it’s hardly surpris-ing that gender differences exist in Ameri-cans’ support for legalization. Pew, which



has been tracking men and women’s views on the subject since 1969, notes that most males (57%) endorse legal-izing pot while less than half of females (48%) support the idea. In fact, in every Pew-sponsored survey going back to the late ’60s, men have expressed greater support than women by almost identical margins.

Yet despite the differences in usage patterns and comfort level, women’s attitudes toward cannabis appear to be evolving rapidly. In the Johns Hopkins/Columbia study, the percentage of female respondents who believe that using mari-juana is risky fell from 59% in 2002 to 47% in 2012. Over this same decade, there was a dramatic increase in the per-centage of women expressing support for legalizing cannabis.

So, are women simply becoming more accepting of cannabis because more states are amending their laws and nor-malizing the plant’s use? Or are women’s attitudes changing as a result of targeted messaging by reformers? The answer is arguably a bit of both.

As female voters, along with Ameri-cans in general, are becoming more toler-ant of and familiar with cannabis culture as its legal status rapidly changes, many

marijuana law-reform organizations are now tailoring their outreach efforts to directly appeal to women. For example, during Washington State’s 2012 legaliza-tion campaign (and, to a lesser extent, in Colorado), organizers developed ad cam-paigns targeted specifically at women voters aged 30 to 50. They appealed to this important demographic by arguing that cannabis law reform would a) be tightly regulated, b) allow police to target

Marijuana law-reform organizations are now tailoring their outreach

efforts to directly appeal to women.

more serious crimes and c) create new revenue streams for family-friendly causes like school construction. One TV spot for Washington’s I-502 even went so far as to feature a middle-aged female narrator who admitted that she didn’t “like marijuana personally,” but nonethe-less believed that “it’s time for a conver-sation about legalizing marijuana.”

Ultimately, the targeted media cam-paign worked. “In both Washington and Colorado, the percentage of females in support of regulated markets was greater than the national average,” British researchers concluded in a 2014 paper, Selling Cannabis Regulation: Learning from the Ballot Initiatives in the United States in 2012. “Well-crafted messages that spoke to this demographic—particu-larly emphasizing that youth access can be better controlled through legally regu-lated markets than prohibition—seem to have worked in keeping women on the yes side.”

The lessons learned in 2012 reso-nate with Dale Sky Jones, Board Chair of



The reality that females are less likely than males to have firsthand experience with marijuana may explain why fewer women say that they feel comfortable being

in close proximity to someone using cannabis.

the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (CCPR), which hopes to similarly succeed at the California ballot box in 2016. “The CCPR campaign is being led by many women in various roles,” she tells Freedom Leaf. “Finding common ground, like supporting universal preschool, is a way communities can be enhanced through cannabis policy reform. We know we’ll have safer communities if we control, tax and regulate cannabis for adults, and we know that these messages are appealing to women voters.”

The NORML Women’s Alliance, founded by Sabrina Fendrick (now Project Manager with Berkeley Patients Group), initiated one of the first nationally coordi-nated efforts to effectively target women in hopes of shifting female attitudes toward favoring legalization.

“Women have a complex and unique experience when it comes to cannabis use, as well as its prohibition,” Fendrick explains. “It’s important to frame the con-versation in a way that resonates among women both as consumers and maternal beings that want to protect their families. With the right messaging, we can educate this crucial demographic on how legal-ization will protect our children from the black market, keep our neighborhoods safe and put Americans back to work.”

In 2014, Women Grow—a group of female marijuana industry leaders—was founded to serve as “a catalyst for women to influence and succeed in the cannabis industry,” Fendrick, a member, notes. In March, the group held its first

lobby day in Washington, D.C., in which more than 70 women met with members of Congress following a morning press conference at the National Press Club.

Female leadership in the previously male-dominated marijuana-law reform hierarchy is on the rise. While NORML, MPP ands DPA have men at the top, ASA (Steph Sherer) and SSDP (Betty Aldworth) are led by women; Alison Holcomb, now National Director of the ACLU’s Campaign to End Mass Incarceration, ran the suc-cessful I-502 campaign in Washington.

“Throughout history, women have been discouraged from engaging in prac-tices that might make them question how they’re treated in society,” observes Amanda Reiman, Manager of Marijuana Law and Policy at the Drug Policy Alliance. “Substances like cannabis, experiences

like a higher education and even the choice of who governs our country have been discouraged for women in place of substances and activities that numb the mind and encourage complacency. But this is changing. Modern-day therapeutic use of cannabis is bringing women back to the plant that served their female ancestors thousands of years ago. As more women embrace mind expansion and shun mind-numbing pharmaceuti-cals, interest in the plant and its uses among this population will only continue to grow, and a sense of risk will become more in line with reality.”

Paul Armentano is Deputy Director of NORML and Freedom Leaf’s Senior Policy Advisor.



Photo by Marc D Birnbach/Shutterstock.com


By Willie Nelson

In the culture-shifting late ’60s and early ’70s, I was doing some shifting of my own. I had smoked pot for some time, but I treated weed as a sup-plement rather than a mainstay. As I moved closer to the Woodstock Nation, as I bore witness to their music-loving, life-loving, peace-loving ways, I saw the key role played by pot. Pot was a com-munal experience. Unlike cigarettes, you didn’t smoke a joint alone. You shared it. You passed it around. Pot was a plant, a natural substance whose positive uses, I would soon learn, were varied. Hemp, a form of cannabis, had been grown for centuries. As an agricultural product, many experts lauded hemp. Growing it, for instance, requires only water. The pio-neers used hemp in the canvas of their covered wagons. Thomas Jefferson used hemp paper to draft the Declaration of Independence. The first Levi’s were made from hemp.

I wasn’t yet ready to make any formal declaration of my own—the penalties for smoking pot back then were still brutal—but I did see a world of difference between the two highs: booze and weed. Liquor emboldened me when I needed to be less bold. Weed took the edge off foolish boldness and made me mellow. Liquor agitated me. Weed calmed me. Liquor sped me up. Weed slowed me down.

Liquor made me reckless. Weed made me careful. And when it came to two of life’s greatest pleasures—making music and making love—liquor made me sloppy while marijuana made those experiences rapturous. The good herb was the best aphrodisiac I’d ever encountered.

In short, I fell in love with this lovely leafy plant. As time went on, as I quit tobacco and booze entirely, my love grew. As the years went by, as the growers of the crop learned to cultivate an increas-ingly satisfying product, my apprecia-tion increased. Just as I’ve always loved robust coffee beans and the strong buzz produced by the brew, I felt the same way about cannabis. It pushed me in the right direction. It pushed me in a positive direction. It kept my head in my music. It kept my head filled with poetry.

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My love affair with pot became a long-term marriage. It was, by far, the smooth-est of all my marriages. Pot and I got along beautifully. Pot never brought me down, never busted my balls. Pot got me up and took me where I needed to go. Pot chased my blues away. When it came to calming my energy and exciting my imagi-nation, pot did the trick damn near every time I toked.

It’s a Long Story: My LifeIn this excerpt from his new autobiography, Willie Nelson explains why he switched from alcohol and cigarettes to marijuana many years ago.


“I think I can fairly make the claim that marijuana has contributed to my longevity.”

Photo by Christopher Halloran Shutterstock.com


efI’m writing my long story at a time when the tide has finally turned. The idea of legalizing marijuana, whether for medical or recreational reasons, is more popular than ever. The majority of ratio-nal people have concluded that the plant is not a menace to society, but can actu-ally do good. This has been my argument for a good half-century.

But 25 years ago, that argument was falling on deaf ears. In the early ‘90s, I campaigned for Gatewood Galbraith, a Lexington [Ky.] attorney running for gov-ernor of Kentucky on a let’s-legalize-pot platform.

He and I traveled across Kentucky in a Cadillac powered by hemp oil. Didn’t matter to me that he won only 5.3% of the vote in the Democratic primary. When he ran the second time, in ’95, I joined his campaign and was happy to play a benefit. He boosted his primary percent-age to 9%. Come ’99, he switched to the Reform Party and I was right there with him. In the general election, he garnered 15% of the vote. I saw that as progress.

I kept hearing warnings and criticisms. Folks said that I shouldn’t associate myself with pot and potheads and bogus pot-related products. I didn’t think any of it was bogus. I thought it was good. And I didn’t give a shit whether the asso-ciation hurt me or not.

I couldn’t betray marijuana any more than I could betray a family member or lifelong friend. That’s because marijuana had never betrayed me. Unlike booze, it had never made me nasty or violent. Unlike cocaine, it never sped me up or fired up my ego. Unlike acid, it never scrambled my brain. Unlike tobacco, it didn’t cause the cancer that had killed my mother and dad.

I owe marijuana a lot. As I write these words on the verge of age 82, I think I can fairly make the claim that marijuana—in

the place of booze, cocaine and tobacco—has contributed to my longevity.

Back in 1994, when the world was still looking down on weed smokers, I had spent a few days in Abbott [Texas]. It was one of those times when I went home just to relax and play poker with the boys. Saturday night I was driving back down to Austin when, somewhere around Waco, I got tired and figured, rather than risk a wreck, I’d pull over, climb in the backseat and take a little snooze. Soon I was out like a light.

Next thing I knew, a couple of highway patrolmen were banging on the window. There were flashlights pointed at my eyes.

“Good evening, officers,” I said.The flashlights probed the inside of

the car from top to bottom, stopping at the open ashtray.

“What’s in the ashtray?” asked one of the officers.

“A joint,” I answered.“Are you in possession of any more

illegal substances?” “I think so,” I said. “Look under the


passenger seat.” He did, and discovered a little more pot.

Off to the McLennan County Jail in Waco. I was charged with a class B mis-demeanor that carried a six-month jail sentence and a big fine. I got out on $500 bail.

The court hearing didn’t happen till the following March, on the same day I was supposed to sing at the Grammys in L.A. I decided to skip the Grammys and have my day in court. My lawyer pointed out that the officers had switched off their video and audio recording system during the search. They also never offered any reason for searching my vehicle.

The judge threw out the state’s case and sent me on my way. In order to avoid any hard feelings, I came back to Waco to play a dance, free of charge, for the Sher-iffs’ Association of Texas. Just wanted to let the police officers know that it wasn’t them I disliked; it was the outmoded law against pot. I make a practice not to talk much at my performances. I’ll introduce a tune and that’s it. But on this night, playing before the sheriffs, I made an exception. In short order, I simply said that it’d be better for everyone if we legal-ized marijuana, regulated it and taxed it like we tax cigarettes. There was only scattered applause.

Compared to the injustices suffered by others, I didn’t suffer at all. Ray Charles told me a story about how one of his sidemen was caught with one skinny joint in Houston back in the ’50s and, as a result, spent a year in the pen. When it comes to persecuting people for pot, there’s a long list of horror stories. The thing that gets me is, why? Why waste precious law enforcement resources on bullshit?

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My lungs aren’t what they used to be, so instead of burning joints I try to restrict

myself to inhaling vapors. These e-ciga-rettes, packed with THC, will do the trick. Hell, I even smoked one the other day on the big commercial jet flying out of Maui. No one said a word.

It’s been especially satisfying to see public opinion turn in favor of legalizing pot. The arguments advocating the many good uses of that plant have finally prevailed. For agriculture, for pain relief, for clothing—for the good of the envi-ronment and the good of the creative mind—my money’s on pot. To have lived long enough to see it being decriminal-ized from coast to coast brings me deep satisfaction.

Before I get off the marijuana band-wagon, there’s one last story I need to tell. Happened back in 2006. I’d played a benefit concert in Montgomery, Alabama, with Ray Price, celebrating the birthday of Hank Williams. I was on my bus, hurrying to get back to Texas so I could attend the funeral of Governor Ann Richards, a wonderful lady who’d been a good friend. Somewhere in Louisiana we got pulled over.

“Got anything in there?” the officers asked.

“Got lots of stuff,” I said.The officers came on the bus. Ben

Dorcy, who’d been working for me for over a half-century and was 83 years old, was sound asleep on the couch.

“It’s been especially satisfying to see public

opinion turn in favor of legalizing pot. The

arguments advocating the many good uses of that plant have finally prevailed.”


“What’s wrong with him?” one of the officers asked. “Nothing,” I said. “He’s dead.”

The officer didn’t laugh. He and his cohort did their search and found the stuff they were looking for.

“’Fraid we’re gonna have to take you in, Willie,” they said.

“Figured as much. I know you gotta do your job, but busting us is like busting an old-age home.”

They still didn’t laugh. The hassle of the arrest caused me to miss Ann’s funeral. Took us a while, but we got out of that mess—the kind of mess that today, a decade later, is less likely to happen.

Bottom line is I’ve seen some pro-gress in my time. Not long ago millions of gay folks were hiding in the closet and living in fear. Now they’re free to come out, create their own path and even

marry. That’s a beautiful thing.I’m not saying things are perfect, but I

am saying they’re better than when I was coming up. I still see the need to protest, especially on behalf of the small farmer and especially on behalf of our environ-ment. If we fuck up this planet any more, we fuck up the future of our kids and grandkids. Global warming is serious as sin. I’ll play just about any damn benefit where the money goes to protecting our earth, water and sky. I still believe in taking strong stands.

Excerpted from the book IT’S A LONG STORY by Willie Nelson with David Ritz. Copyright © 2015 by Willie Nelson. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.

Nelson's famous guitar, Trigger. Photo by Peter Ackerman


By Keith Stroup

I first met Willie Nelson in the mid-’70s. I had managed, through a mutual friend who worked at the Washington Post, to get myself invited to spend a few minutes with Willie on his bus when he was playing a concert near Washington, D.C.

Willie and I shared a joint, I told him about NORML and we discussed our shared frustration with U.S. marijuana policy. It was a pleasant visit, and one during which we established our mutual political interests.

But we didn’t get to know each other well until later, after Jimmy Carter had been elected President in 1976.

By then, I had become friends with Phil Walden, the young, hip head of Capri-corn Records, based in Macon, Ga., who also managed the Allman Brothers Band, which had supported Jimmy Carter’s pres-idential campaign. Walden was a close friend of Governor Carter and the Carter sons, and at one point he brought the President’s son Chip over to the NORML office in D.C. to meet with me. We talked about the progress we were making on the marijuana front, and after about a half hour, they left to return to the White House.

Before long I was invited to join the White House staff on a chartered bus heading to a Willie Nelson concert, where I hung out backstage with a number of the Carter White House stars—including Jodie Powell and Hamilton Jordon—along with my new friend Chip, who asked what we were doing after the concert. We were expecting to go back to the hotel with Willie and smoke a joint, so I invited Chip and his wife to join us. And they did.

We all retired to Willie’s room for a few hours of pleasant conversation and mari-juana smoking, which continued a rela-tionship with Willie that’s lasted to this day. He’s a friend whom I greatly admire

and respect. Willie serves as Co-chair of the NORML Advisory Board, lending his celebrity and credibility to NORML and the movement to legalize marijuana, and over the years he’s sponsored a NORML benefit golf tournament at his private golf course outside of Austin, held a NORML benefit concert in Austin and recorded scores of NORML public service announcements—all while serving as the most visible mari-juana smoker in America.

No American celebrity has done as much to support NORML and advance the legalization of marijuana as Willie Nelson. He’s given us the ability to make our case to millions of Americans to whom we would otherwise not have access, simply because they love and trust him. Willie’s the single most important celebrity sup-porter we’ve ever had.

An American hero who’s loved by mil-lions of Americans for his great music, his charming country style and his com-mitment to help family farmers, he’s been open and honest about his appreciation of marijuana for more than 30 years.

Keith Stroup founded NORML in 1970, and currently serves as Legal Council for NORML as well as for Freedom Leaf. This article is excerpted from “Hanging with Willie,” originally posted at marijuana.com.

Willie Nelson’s NORML Connection

Willie Nelson with Keith Stroup.



By Martin A. Lee

It doesn’t get you high, but it’s causing quite a buzz among medical scientists and patients. The past year has seen a surge of interest in cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound with significant therapeutic properties. Numer-ous commercial start-ups and Internet retailers have jumped on the CBD band-wagon, touting CBD derived from indus-trial hemp as the next big thing, a miracle oil that can shrink tumors, quell seizures and ease chronic pain—without making people feel stoned. But along with a growing awareness of cannabidiol as a potential health aide, there has also been a proliferation of misconceptions about CBD.

1. “CBD is medical. THC is recreational.”

Project CBD receives many inquiries from around the world, and oftentimes people say they are seeking “CBD, the medical part” of the plant, “not THC, the recreational part” that gets you high. Actually, THC, “The High Causer,” has awesome therapeutic properties. Scien-tists at the Scripps Research Center in San Diego have reported that THC inhib-its an enzyme implicated in the formation of beta-amyloid plaque, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s-related dementia. The federal

government recognizes single-molecule THC as an anti-nausea compound and appetite booster, deeming it a Schedule III drug, a category reserved for medici-nal substances with little abuse poten-tial. But whole-plant marijuana, the only natural source of THC, continues to be classified as a dangerous Schedule I drug with no medical value.

2. “THC is the bad cannabinoid. CBD is thegood cannabinoid.”

The drug warrior’s strategic retreat: Give ground on CBD while continuing to demonize THC. Diehard marijuana prohi-bitionists are exploiting the good news about CBD to further stigmatize high-THC cannabis, casting tetrahydrocannabinol as the bad cannabinoid, and framing CBD as the good cannabinoid. Why? Because CBD doesn’t make you high like THC does. Project CBD categorically rejects this moralistic reefer-madness dichotomy in favor of whole-plant cannabis therapeu-tics.

3. “CBD is most effective without THC.”

THC and CBD are the power couple of cannabis compounds—they work best together. Scientific studies have established that CBD and THC interact

Cannabis’MisunderstoodChemical

One of the hot-button issues in marijuana science today is cannabidiol (CBD), which has been approved by 13 states and is available in several others. But there’s major confusion over what it’s derived from, and its effects.


synergistically to enhance each other’s therapeutic effects. British researchers have shown that CBD potentiates THC’s anti-inflammatory properties in an animal model of colitis. Scientists at the Califor-nia Pacific Medical Center in San Fran-cisco have determined that a combina-tion of CBD and THC has a more potent anti-tumoral effect than either compound alone when tested on brain cancer and breast cancer cell lines. And extensive clinical research has demonstrated that CBD combined with THC is more benefi-cial for neuropathic pain than either com-pound as a single molecule.

4. “Single-molecule pharmaceuticals are superior to ‘crude’ whole-plant medici-nals.”

According to the federal government, spe-cific components of the marijuana plant (THC, CBD) have medical value, but the plant itself does not have medical value. Uncle Sam’s single-molecule blinders reflect a cultural and political bias that privileges Big Pharma products. Single-molecule medicine is the predominant corporate way, the FDA-approved way, but it’s not the only way, and it’s not neces-sarily the optimal way to benefit from can-nabis therapeutics. Cannabis contains several hundred compounds, including various flavonoids, aromatic terpenes and many minor cannabinoids in addition to THC and CBD. Each of these compounds has specific healing attributes—but when combined they create what scientists refer to as a holistic “entourage effect,” so that the therapeutic impact of the whole plant is greater than the sum of its single-molecule parts. The FDA, however, isn’t in the business of approving plants as medicine.

5. “Psychoactivity is inherently an adverse side effect.”

According to politically correct drug-war catechism, the marijuana high is an unwanted side effect. Big Pharma is

keen on synthesizing medically active marijuana-like molecules that don’t make people high—although it’s not obvious why mildly euphoric feelings are intrinsically negative for a sick person, or a healthy person, for that matter. In ancient Greece, the word euphoria meant “having health,” a state of well-being. The euphoric qualities of cannabis, far from being an unwholesome side effect, are deeply implicated in the therapeutic value of the plant. “We should be thinking of cannabis as a medicine first,” noted the late Dr. Tod Mikuriya, “that happens to have some psychoactive properties, as many medicines do, rather than as an intoxicant that happens to have a few therapeutic properties on the side.”

6. “CBD is legal in all 50 states.”

Purveyors of imported, CBD-infused hemp oil claim it’s legal to market their wares anywhere in the United States as long as the oil contains less than 0.3% THC. Actually, it’s not so simple. Federal law

Huge amounts of industrial hemp are required to

extract a small amount of CBD, thereby raising the

risk of toxic contaminants.


prohibits U.S. farmers from growing hemp as a commercial crop, but the sale of imported, low-THC industrial hemp prod-ucts is permitted in the United States as long as these products are derived from the seed or stalk of the plant, not from the leaves and flowers. Here’s the catch: Cannabidiol can’t be pressed or extracted from hempseed. CBD can only be extracted from the flower, leaf and, only to a very minor extent, from the stalk of the hemp plant. Hemp oil start-ups lack credibility when they say their CBD comes from hempseed and stalk. Congress may soon vote to exempt industrial hemp and CBD from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Such legislation would not be necessary if CBD derived from foreign-grown hemp was already legal throughout the United States.

7. “CBD-only laws adequately serve the patient population.”

Thirteen U.S. state legislatures have passed “CBD-only” (or, more accurately, low-THC) laws, and other states are poised to follow suit. Some states restrict the sources of CBD-rich products and specify the diseases for which CBD can be accessed; others do not. Ostensibly, these laws allow the use of CBD-infused oil derived from hemp or cannabis that measures less than 0.3% THC. But a CBD-rich remedy with little THC doesn’t work for everyone. Parents of epileptic children have found that adding some THC (or THCA, the raw, unheated version of THC) helps with seizure control in many instances. For some epileptics, THC-dominant strains are more effective than CBD-rich products. The vast majority of patients are not well served by CBD-only laws. They need access to a broad spec-trum of whole-plant cannabis remedies, not just the low-THC medicine. One size doesn’t fit all with respect to cannabis

therapeutics—neither one compound, one product or one strain.

8. “CBD is CBD—it doesn’t matter where it comes from.”

Yes, it does matter. The flower tops and leaves of some industrial hemp strains may be a viable source of CBD (legal issues notwithstanding), but hemp is by no means an optimal source of canna-bidiol; industrial hemp typically contains far less cannabidiol than CBD-rich can-nabis. Huge amounts of industrial hemp are required to extract a small amount of CBD, thereby raising the risk of toxic con-taminants because hemp is a bioaccu-mulator that draws heavy metals from the soil. Single-molecule CBD—synthesized in a lab or extracted and refined from industrial hemp—lacks critical medicinal terpenes and secondary cannabinoids found in cannabis strains. These com-pounds interact with CBD and THC to enhance their therapeutic benefits.

Martin A. Lee is the Director of Project CBD and the author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana—Medical, Recreational and Scientific. This article was originally posted at projectcbd.org.

Cannabidiol can’t be pressed or extracted from hempseed. CBD can only

be extracted from the flower, leaf and, only to a very minor extent, from the stalk of the hemp

plant. Hemp oil start-ups lack credibility when they say their CBD comes from

hempseed and stalk.


Berkeley Patients Group

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The former governor of New Mexico is now CEO of Cannabis Sativa, Inc.

The Freedom Leaf Interview: Gary Johnson

Photo by Christopher Halloran Shutterstock.com


By Chris Goldstein

Back in 2000, there weren’t many mainstream politicians talking about marijuana. Then New Mexico’s Repub-lican Governor, Gary Johnson, went on 60 Minutes and told Ed Bradley that the Drug War was America’s biggest and most expensive failure.

“I used marijuana,” he admitted. “I smoked marijuana for senior year in high school through college and then basically quit after college… It was something that I did. It was something that a lot of my friends did. I’m not offering an excuse for having smoked marijuana, but I will just suggest to you that from my experience, marijuana does not compare, from an impediment standpoint, at all to alcohol.”

Before running for governor, Johnson had built a large and successful construc-tion company in Albuquerque, from a one-man show to a 1,000-employee oper-ation over two decades. He served two terms as governor, from 1995 to 2003, in the Land of Enchantment. Johnson bal-anced the state budget, lowered taxes and remained popular among voters of both parties.

After leaving office, he took a break from politics, climbing Mount Everest and running marathons. But he never stopped his advocacy for legal cannabis.

In 2009, Johnson founded the Our America Initiative, a political advocacy committee that continues to promote his ideals today. In 2011, he began his campaign for President, running first as a Republican and then as the Libertarian Party nominee. In the 2012 election, he received more than one million votes, the strongest showing ever for a third-party candidate.

Since the election, Johnson has spoken at numerous marijuana events and conferences. Last July, he was named president and CEO of Cannabis Sativa, Inc.

On March 30, Freedom Leaf spoke to Gov. Johnson.

Let’s talk about Cannabis Sativa, Inc. How did you get involved?

I was asked to be the CEO and president, and saw this as a really terrific opportu-nity to make the world a better place from


the standpoint of medical—the fact that marijuana products provide an incredible relief and remedy to problems that ail, and statistically don’t kill anybody.

On the recreational side, I’ve always maintained that legalizing marijuana will lead to less overall substance abuse because people will find marijuana is a safer alternative than alcohol or harder drugs.

Can you give us a little window into what it’s like on a day-to-day basis?

I think there’s a lot of pizzazz about being CEO of a publicly traded company in the marijuana space. And always having been an entrepreneur, I’ve found this to be personally satisfying from the standpoint that I think our moving forward has a lot to do with the vision I’ve brought to this—and I find it pretty darned exciting.

You have a partner in management at the company, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. How did two politicians end up working together in the cannabis sphere?

He’s terrific, and, of course, he’s been outspoken in his support of legalizing

marijuana. I think not only the two of us, but on our board we have Jim Gray, a former superior court judge in Califor-nia—my Vice Presidential running mate on the Libertarian Party ticket—and Steve Downing, a former deputy police chief from Los Angeles. We bring a lot of credibility. It contributes to the amount of people contacting us. We can’t keep up with the amount of inquiries and requests for interviews.

What products is Cannabis Sativa selling?

First of all, we’re open to any opportu-nity that might present itself. But I think that we found a niche with branding. Our brand is called hi—with lowercase “h” and “i.” It’s cool. I think 100 years from now hi will be a survivor when it comes to branded marijuana products. The idea is to brand the best marijuana products in the world under the trademark hi. We have also publicly announced that we’ll be selling CBD in a water-soluble capsule form. It’s derived from hemp.

Where are the source farms for your hemp?


It’s from Eastern European farms. The key is that it’s U.S. ownership of product from seeds to processing.

Is this more of a health supplement than a curative?

The FDA has said you can’t make any claims at all regarding CBD. CBD is CBD whether it’s marijuana-extracted or hemp-extracted. Is CBD the best product that can be offered to the country? In this case, it’s the best product that can be offered to the country legally. Is it the best CBD product that could be offered to the country? No. The best product that could be sold to the country would be whole-plant CBD, with everything working together to provide a cure. But that’s illegal because of the presence of THC in what would be whole-plant CBD. On the other hand, you have all these state legis-latures saying CBD is OK.

Switching subjects: Are you gearing up for another presidential run in 2016?

I would like to. I don’t know if it will end up happening, but it is something I would like to do. I think the things I’m saying are reflective of most Americans and what they believe, and the fact that with the current two-party system, there’s just not that representation taking place. There’s not a voice for what I think is most of America.

Senator Rand Paul recently introduced medical marijuana legislation in Congress. He has announced that he’s running for the Republican presidential nomination. Do you consider him a Libertarian?

I appreciate the fact that he’s bringing attention to what it means to be Liber-tarian. But I disagree with Senator Paul on marriage equality, women’s right to choose and immigration. I don’t want to build a fence across the border. I think there are differences too when it comes to military intervention, and great

differences when it comes to drug policy. Senator Paul would say, “Leave it to the states.” Let’s not leave it to the states. Let’s all get on board with the fact that you don’t have to condone marijuana use by legalizing marijuana. But understand that putting people in jail just isn’t the answer.

Right now, when it comes to marijuana policy, the majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana. When the minority is projecting its will against the majority, that’s tyranny. And that’s what we’ve got right now.

What do you think of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz coming out and talking about their youthful marijuana use?

I don’t find it funny. I find it extremely hyp-ocritical. Wink wink, nod nod, “I did it and was OK, but if you do it you’re going to jail.” That’s what these guys are saying. These guys are not striving to change those laws they broke themselves.

Do you support removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act [CSA], essentially de-scheduling it?

Certainly from a federal standpoint, that would be the easiest and biggest step. It’s something that could be done immedi-ately. I predict that before Obama leaves office, he will reschedule marijuana. I just wish he would do it now, rather than pro-longing this further.

Is moving it around in the CSA enough?

No. We need to get it off the list. Alcohol and tobacco are not in the Controlled Substances Act.

“I predict that before Obama leaves office he will

reschedule marijuana.”


Do you really expect the Obama administration will do something about this?

Obama used marijuana, and by luck, like me, didn’t get arrested for it. It’s extremely hypocritical to say, “I got away with this, but I was never arrested and put in jail—but if you do it, you will go to jail.” I’ve never hid my own use. I’m one of the majority of Americans—100 million Americans—who have used marijuana. We have tens of millions of Americans who are convicted felons because of our drug laws. And I maintain that they would otherwise be hardworking, law-abiding cit-izens, were it not for the drug laws. I just have to believe that Obama will do the right thing going out the door, and there are some signs of that.

You mentioned the trend of CBD-only laws at the state level. This points toward the wide patchwork of medical marijuana laws across the country. Some states have robust programs, others are very restric-tive and some are extremely narrow.

I’m not surprised by it. I am outraged by it. Outraged by the spineless politicians. You have the majority of American support-ing fully legalized marijuana, but among politicians there isn’t a lot of support. Now, as you get to the local level, you find

more support for legalizing marijuana. But not when you get to the Congres-sional level and Senate level. This is the minority putting the majority in jail!

Regarding the lack of support among federal legislators, will it take a strong President to change this for the whole country?

It’s going to take people standing up and saying, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore—and I’m not voting for politicians who don’t understand this and embrace it.” I really think that politicians are going to suffer in a really big way on this very specific issue, starting now.

How can regular citizens have the most impact on this issue?

I do think it’s at the voting booth. But it goes beyond the voting booth. It’s about getting involved politically and not allow-ing people to bash marijuana users as the scourge of the Earth. Don’t let these conversations take place where lies are being promulgated. Get involved and become vocal.

Find out more about Gary Johnson at ouramericainitiative.com and cannabissa-tivainc.com.

“You don’t have to condone marijuana use by legalizing marijuana.

But understand that putting people in jail just isn’t the answer.”



By Russ Belville

There are 566 federally recognized Indian nations located within two-thirds of U.S. states, and they’re all subject to their own tribal laws and gov-ernments. Alaska is home to the most native people, with 229 nations within its great expanse; the remaining 337 nations are located in 33 other states, according to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).

Nearly nine months after Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana in 2012, the federal government responded with a memo that laid out eight priorities to U.S. Attorneys regarding the enforcement of federal drug laws in those states. Known as the Cole Memorandum, its main concerns are distribution of marijuana to minors and the diversion of marijuana from states where it’s legal to ones where it’s not.

This brought up the question about tribal sovereignty: If states are given the leeway to legalize marijuana, why not sovereign Native Ameri-can nations? In response to this question, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued another memo, this time from Monty Wilkinson, Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. “The eight priorities in the Cole Memorandum will guide United States Attorneys’ marijuana enforcement efforts in Indian Country,” he wrote, “including in the event that sovereign Indian Nations seek to legalize the cultivation or use of marijuana in Indian Country.”

The first tribe to seize the opportunity is the 250-member Pinoleville Pomo Nation in Northern California near Ukiah, long known as a center of the famed Emerald Triangle marijuana cultivation economy. A 10,000-square-foot state-of-the art greenhouse is being constructed in cooperation with FoxBarry Farms of Kansas and United Cannabis Corp (UCANN) of Colorado. “We have a history of using plants for medicine,” Pomo Tribal Council Vice Chairwoman Angela James told Reuters. “The tribe is seeking economic development, and we’re comfortable with these partners and this product.”

More than 100 tribes are following the Pinoleville Pomo Nation’s lead. The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians of California will begin growing and selling medical marijuana this summer. The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of Montana and the Red Lake Band of Chippewa of Minnesota have begun studying the feasibility of legalizing marijuana. The Suquamish Tribe in Washington last year notified authorities it was considering the production and sale of marijuana. In Maine, three of the state’s four recog-nized tribes are considering a move into the marijuana business.

At the end of February, 75 tribal leaders from across America gathered at the Tulalip Resort Casino on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington State

Pot on the RezNative American tribes across the nation are transitioning into the marijuana business.



Photo by Meunierd/Shutterstock.com

52 www.freedomleaf.com52 www.freedomleaf.com

to form the Tribal Cannabis Association. At the end of March, San Diego hosted a symposium, “Marijuana: The Next Big Thing in Native American Economic Devel-opment?” The Green Rush that’s con-sumed Colorado and Washington indeed seems primed to hit Indian Country.

From Casinos to Cannabis

In 1976, a Supreme Court ruling in a Minnesota case (Bryan v. Itasca County) found that while states had jurisdiction over criminal laws on tribal lands—a tribe can’t make assault or bribery legal, for instance—the states had no jurisdic-tion over civil regulatory laws. From that point, many tribes began offering gaming on their reservations in the form of bingo parlors and card clubs.

One of these tribes, the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians in Southern California, had their gaming operations shut down by the state. The Cabazon sued, and in 1987, the Supreme Court sided with them, ruling that California gaming laws weren’t criminal laws, but civil regula-tions. This opened the floodgates for any tribe that wanted to start building large gaming operations, and by 1988, the Indian gaming industry was grossing over $110 million annually.

Congress responded with a law signed by President Reagan in 1988, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). It codified gaming into three classes: tra-ditional Indian gaming not subject to the law; bingo and card games permitted in states that allow any kind of gaming (all but Hawaii and Utah); and casino gaming

subject to state law and federal approval. According to the NCAI, since passage of the IGRA, Indian gaming has expanded to “nearly 240 tribes across 28 states [that] operated 420 gaming establishments representing a $27 billion industry.”

Despite the infusion of jobs and money provided by gaming, nearly two out of five Native people on reservations live in poverty and nearly one out of five are unemployed. Almost one out of five tribal homes lack a telephone, and 7% to 8% don’t have plumbing or kitchens. However, before significant investment in Indian gaming, those statistics were twice as bad, or worse. Could hemp fields, cannabis gardens and marijuana shops become the next economic engine to help pull Native Americans out of poverty?

How Native Is Marijuana?

The Native American tradition and history of using plants as medicine are clear to anyone who thinks of the “peace pipe.” But in actuality, the peace pipe wasn’t used by all tribes, and was ceremonial for most that did. Some tribes used tobacco as a sacrament, and numerous tribes used many herbs and flowers including sage, mint, salvia, peyote, mullein—and cannabis.

Native people also have a long history with hemp as an industrial crop. British colonists learned hemp cultivation tech-niques from Native Americans in the early 17th century. In the previous century, French explorer Jacques Cartier wrote that the land was “frill of hempe which groweth of itselfe, which is as good as


possibly may be scene, and as strong.”The Lakota Sioux Nation has been bat-

tling the federal government over rights to cultivate any crop they wish, rights recog-nized by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. In 1998, the tribe passed laws allowing the cultivation of non-psychoactive canna-bis hemp. Alex White Plume planted 300 acres in 2000, which the DEA then raided and eradicated. In 2001, the president of the Oglala Lakota Nation argued that the treaty was not superseded by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, as the gov-ernment maintained. The federal courts disagreed, and, lacking the funds to take an appeal to the Supreme Court, White Plume stopped growing hemp. The DEA kept raiding the land, though, because the hemp kept coming back naturally, proving itself to be the perfect crop for the Badlands of South Dakota.

Now, thanks to Wilkinson’s memo, Native Americans everywhere may choose to allow for hemp cultivation, even on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reserva-tion in South Dakota, where alcohol is banned. (However, Alex White Plume told Indian Country Today, “I won’t be growing it because I have a lifetime restraining order.”)

Not all tribes are as sanguine about marijuana, with many citing the dev-astation alcohol and drug abuse has wrought on Native communities. The Navajo Nation, which bans alcohol, and whose lands would make it the 44th-largest state, passed resolutions against Arizona’s bill to legalize marijuana as well as the Wilkinson memo, stating:

“Legalization of marijuana fails to align with the Navajo Nation’s values and tradi-tions.” The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, representing nearly 50 tribes, passed a resolution last year opposing legalization of marijuana, citing its “threat to the health and safety of all tribes, especially our youth.” Washington State’s Yakama tribe has outlawed marijuana on its 1.2 million acres and wants to ban it on their ancestral lands, too, nullifying Washington’s 2012 legalization in about one-fifth of the state.

The Game Changer

Having grown up in Idaho, the time for having a statewide conversation on the legalization of marijuana has always hovered between “later” and “never.” But as a young man, I remember visits to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation for pur-chases you couldn’t make in the rest of Idaho—cheaper gasoline and cigarettes, functional glass art (what you call a pot pipe in Idaho), casino gambling and fire-works.

Now imagine Fort Hall, or any Indian reservation in places like Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas and other pot-hating red states, farming hemp and cultivating can-nabis, and selling those products. The resulting flood of in-state and out-of-state traffic from people seeking cheap, raw hemp or legal pot highs will overwhelm these mostly rural local jurisdictions forced to arrest people for marijuana pos-session, much like Colorado legalization is already overwhelming small towns on its borders with Nebraska, Kansas and


Oklahoma. Red states that are already struggling with decreased revenues and unfunded budgets will watch tribes rake in the money that the states can’t tax. Those states with tribal-legal marijuana will be dragged kicking and screaming into a dis-cussion of pot legalization in an economic if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em scenario.

The Poarch Band of Creek Indians—the only recognized tribe in Alabama—are currently engaged in a lawsuit with the state over their existing gaming operations. The Poarch Band Creek tribe own land on the Florida Panhandle near Alabama upon which they wish to build a casino, but Florida has stymied their

efforts over the issue of whether the tribe is recognized in Florida. To both states, the Creek have issued an ultimatum: Let us proceed with our casinos or we’ll start growing pot.

That’s what I call a game changer. Marijuana legalization has gone from a political non-starter to a political bargain-ing chip. Indian casinos opened the door for all manner of increased state gaming expansion. Expect Indian marijuana to do the same for state weed legalization.

Russ Belville is the Executive Director of Portland NORML, CEO of the 420RADIO Network and Host of The Russ Belville Show.

Could hemp fields, cannabis gardens and marijuana shops become the next economic engine to help pull Native Americans out of poverty?



Terpenes 101That piney or lemony aroma from a cannabis plant is a tip-off that it’s full of intoxicating terpenes.


By Rick Pfrommer

Smell is our most primitive sense. Think back to your scent memories of child-hood, your mother’s cooking or the smell of freshly mowed grass. Terpenes are the source of these aromas.

Terps, for short, are organic com-pounds responsible for many of the aromas in nature—in foods, flowers and trees. The smell of a fresh pine forest is due to pinene, and the aroma of a lemon comes from limonene, while hops plants exhibit strong aromas of myrcene.

All of these terps and many others are included in the cannabis plant, as well. The strong piney essence of Jack Herer comes from pinene. The charac-teristic lemony sourness of OG Kush is


due to the presence of both limonene and pinene. Beta caryophyllene, which is found in purple strains, Afghanis and Thais, is also found in black pepper and leafy greens.

Sour Diesel, a perennial favorite from coast to coast, is high in limonene and pinene, and also contains myrcene. Girl Scout Cookies, one of the new classics, is high in beta caryophyllene, myrcene and linalool, which contribute to its calming effects. The Bay Area classic Granddaddy Purple, still one of the top-selling Oakland strains, is also high in linalool and myrcene.

Terps not only smell good, they have distinct effects on the human nervous system. For example, linalool creates the scent of lavender, and is known to produce a relaxing effect. Whole Foods is even purported to use a lavender-scented spray in their stores, apparently in the hope of inducing a feeling of calm-ness that makes buying a $30 raspberry galette seem like a reasonable idea.

Pinene is a well-documented broncho-dilator—think of a pine forest and the

feeling you get when you breathe deeply, and the sensation it creates. Limonene is a proven mood elevator, which is why it’s found in everything from household cleaners to aromatherapy sprays. Beta caryophyllene has been shown to be an antidepressant, and is commonly found in food as well as cannabis. Myrcene, the dominant terpene in mangos, has a seda-tive effect; myrcene is also found in many cannabis strains, such as Trainwreck. An interesting experiment is to eat a mango before smoking cannabis, a combination reported to enhance marijuana’s effects. (See “Mangos, Marijuana and Myrcene” in Issue 5.)

The synergistic effects of cannabis and food are just beginning to be studied. Six years ago, when Harborside Health Center and Steep Hill Labs began testing cannabis for potency and molds, terpene testing was still a fantasy. The technol-ogy was there, but no one in the canna-bis industry had yet trained their sights on terps. About three years ago, Chief Research Officer Dr. Kymron deCesare and Chief Scientific Consultant Dr. Don Land of Steep Hill began to do terpene testing. Steep Hill Halent, as it is now known since merging with Halent Scien-tific in 2013, has become the leader in the field, and reports from the lab now come with a color-coded wheel showing the dominant terps, as well as the terpene percentages present in each sample. The total percentage of terpenes in marijuana flowers is usually less than 5%, so the amount of any specific terpene is rela-tively small. Dispensaries like Harborside are now beginning to incorporate terpene profiles of different cannabis strains, or at least some information about the main terpenes and their effects.

When testing first began, it was all about the cannabinoids, or active compo-nents of cannabis, the two most common of which are THC and CBD; canna-science was primarily concerned with THC and


its effects. CBD came into the picture about five years ago, and since then, a much more complex interaction of can-nabinoids and terpenes has been discov-ered. Many patients will smell different flowers until they hit upon one they like the best; it may not even look so nice, but if it excites their sense of smell, that’s usually the choice they’ll make.

The science of cannabis has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last five years. Patients in medical-marijuana states, and adults in the four states that have legalized recreational cannabis, have access to a wealth of information that was not available just a few short years ago. Most people never heard the word “terpene” until quite recently, and those who did might not have had any clue what it meant. Now, patients come into dispensaries often asking for strains that are high in limonene or pinene.

The interaction of cannabinoids, ter-penes and the human endocannabinoid

system is just beginning to be studied by mainstream science. The effects of ter-penes are powerful and real: Multibillion-dollar industries, from perfume to clean-ing agents, are all built around our sense of smell. As science continues to unravel the mysteries of the cannabis plant, we’ll see more custom blends of terpenes designed to create specific effects. The future smells good, indeed.

Rick Pfrommer is Director of Education and Outreach at Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif.

Most people never heard the word “terpene” until quite recently, and those who did might not

have had any clue what it meant.



globally. It was a little surreal to meet peo-ple who have studied ASA’s online content and applied that knowledge to take steps toward providing safe access to cannabis in places like Estonia, Slovakia and Poland.

During the second panel on day one, ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer com-mented: “Patient advocacy has been key in gaining rights for individuals to use canna-bis under the care of a physician, worldwide. We are coming together not only to share our knowledge, experience and resources, but also to unite the patients’ voices world-wide behind a declaration of patients’ rights. While we may speak different languages and live under varying governmental structures, compassion, science and human health are the same in every language, in every coun-try and in every doctor’s office.”

I was invited to speak at the conference; my first presentation was on a panel about regulating cannabis. The talk focused on au-diting cannabis operations for ASA’s Patient Focused Certification program, which certi-fies cannabis cultivation sites, manufactur-

By Dr. Jahan Marcu

The Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Policy, Science and Medical Practice Confer-ence in Prague March 4–7 was an amazing mix of science, policy and medical practice. It featured a wide range of experts and lead-ers in their respective fields: Israel’s Ra-phael Mechoulam (founder of THC), French Professor Michel Kazatchkine (member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in Eastern Europe and Cen-tral Asia), Ethan Russo, MD from the U.S., and many other cannabinoid scientists and representatives from around the world rep-resenting over 15 medical cannabis organi-zations.

The conference started with Czech Pro-fessor of Addictology Dr. Tomáš Zábran-ský and Conference President Pavel Bém addressing the crowd. “Without the sup-port of the [Czech] Ministry of Health, this would have never happened,” Zábranský ex-plained. He also thanked Americans for Safe Access (ASA) for their help in organizing the conference, and for training activists

Prague Rocks! Freedom Leaf attends the Medical Cannabis Research Conference in the Czech Republic.



nabis, but producing a medicinal cannabis product that’s nearly flawless each time is something quite different.

The conference also featured an in-depth lecture on neurology and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). I gave an hour pre-sentation on cannabis and neurodegenera-tive disorders (with a translator) to a packed room, and talked about how THC has been shown to slow the progression of diseases like ALS in mammals. My collaborators and I are gearing up for a research study aiming to generate data on the endocannabinoid system in human neurological disorders such as ALS. The study will look at endo-cannabinoid levels in cerebral spinal fluid samples from patients who have neurologi-cal disorders. Such research would help lay the foundation for identifying diseases based upon diagnostic markers of the en-docannabinoid system.

Ethan Russo, perhaps the leading ex-pert in the world on cannabis as a medicine, gave a gem of a presentation. The talk in-cluded data on scary heavy metal from vape

ers, dispensaries and laboratories under ba-sic safety and handling criteria established for botanical medicines. Former University of Arizona professor Dr. Sue Sisley agreed that this certification program would identify standardized sources of cannabis for use in clinical trials. Sisley is currently organiz-ing a clinical trial using cannabis for post-traumatic stress disorder, with a $2 million grant from the State of Colorado.

Interest in the AHP (American Herbal Pharmacopoeia) cannabis monograph was very high. Farms across Europe and Israel have expressed interest in adopting these standards that would qualify their products under botanical safety guidelines. After speaking with Sisley, it became obvious that researchers are becoming extremely reluc-tant to work with any producer who isn’t cer-tified by a third-party organization; research-ers don’t want to invest the majority of their research grant into a cannabis product if there’s no guarantee that the medicine will be consistent for the duration of the study. It’s one thing to do a good job growing can-



pens and hemp products. It seems that industrial hemp products are sometimes packaged for human consumption with un-substantiated labels claiming the product is non-GMO, pesticide-free or organic; some purveyors apparently receive processed hemp from Eastern Europe, and have no proof of their “natural” claims. Dr. Russo shared data demonstrating that most vape pens don’t actually “vaporize” products, but rather burn them. Burning is extremely wasteful and destroys far more of the ma-terial than is delivered into the lungs. He commented that if the heating element gets “red hot,” then vaping it is not.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, who solved the structure of THC in the 1960s, was honored at the conference, and presented with the prestigious gold medal from Charles Univer-sity for his work in the field of cannabinoids. Mechoulam stated his belief that further re-search will create treatments that “not only moderate the symptoms, but in the future also cure diseases with cannabis.”

During the Prague conference, the In-ternational Medical Cannabis Patients Co-alition (IMCPC.org) was founded by advo-cacy groups from around the world. Michael Krawitz (Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access), Steph Sherer and I signed on as representatives from the U.S. Many national cannabis groups also joined, bringing the to-tal to over 15 countries. IMCPC is the first

international medical cannabis patients’ or-ganization to have a presence at the U.N., thanks largely to Krawitz introducing IMCPC to global leaders during his recent presenta-tion at the U.N. Later in March, Pavel Bém represented IMCPC at the U.N. in Vienna during the 58th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

In the evenings in Prague, a skyline of castles beckoned me to explore. It wasn’t too hard to find subtle signs of a thriving cannabis culture. At one restaurant, Ak-ropolis, there’s a dish on the menu called “Hindu Kush.” As I gazed around the room, I noticed a small group of middle-aged peo-ple rolling cannabis and tobacco cigarettes.

Prague definitely has a culture that sup-ports a cannabis lifestyle, with a seemingly tolerant drug policy—plus there’s no short-age of ancient cellars blasting electronic dance music. However, the gray market in Prague cannot address the needs of patients. A new medical market is being created in Prague, as international clinical trials are underway. The medical cannabis industry being created in Eastern Europe is looking to reward innovation, produce mean-ingful research and provide safe access to medical cannabis to as many people as possible.

Dr. Jahan Marcu is the Director of R&D for Green Standard Diagnostics, and Freedom Leaf’s Science Editor.

ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer speaks on a panel at the cannabis conference in Prague. Photo by Dr. Jahan Marcu



By Beth Mann

Most of us have either heard or said something along the lines of the fol-lowing: “If the world leaders just got together and smoked some pot, we’d have world peace.”

Other than sounding overly simplis-tic with this statement, why do we think this way? Because we inherently under-stand the effects of marijuana, and they tend to be peaceful. When we’re in this open-minded state, growth and healing can occur—which is why our world leaders might get their act together after smoking a bowl.

Marijuana tends to enhance traits that are often considered feminine: receptivity, understanding, compassion.

If famous psychologist Carl Jung were still alive, he’d probably view cannabis as an “anima-friendly” plant.

Jung coined the psychological terms “anima” (feminine tendencies in a man) and “animus” (masculine tendencies in a woman) to describe the hybrid of feminine and masculine traits we all possess. Opti-mally, both the anima and animus are bal-anced and work in unison. But with most of us, there is a struggle to find that balance.

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”

—Jung

Our society could easily be categorized as animus-heavy and in a state of imbal-ance. When the animus scales are tipped too heavily, war, violence, destruction of nature (a symbol of the feminine) and aggression toward women prevail. Because (according to Jung) we share a collective

Forever JungThe feminine side of the marijuana plant is what we should all aspire to.


unconscious, we all feel the effects of this imbalance. More than simply feel it, we create it, in part because of our own inner imbalance. We haven’t recti-fied the anima and animus imbalance in ourselves, so it’s played out on the world stage.

But back to getting high: The effects of marijuana might arguably be viewed as anima-friendly (female), whereas the effects of alcohol would lean toward being animus-heavy (male). As many in the activist community have pointed out, smoking pot doesn’t cause the aggres-sion and violence that alcohol tends to produce; and marijuana is known for its ability to “mellow out” and make the smoker more relaxed and acceptant.

Growing up, I remember our posse of stoner friends sitting in a circle in the woods, smoking a joint. The act of sitting in a circle holds its own historic powers of healing and unifying. I also remember a lot of laughter, talking and bonding. Nobody fought or acted aggressively. The anima-inspired experience bonded us.

“A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can

only have good results in respect for our

neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict

upon our own natures.”—Jung

Some purists argue that growing a plant indoors is a corruption: Its natural home is disregarded and the plant is industrially grown, with no regard for the

feminine life or energy of the plant—a decidedly animus-leaning approach

And then there’s cannabis itself. The most powerful and medicinal aspects come from the female plant. But, like many other feminine aspects of our society, marijuana is often co-opted. This is dem-onstrated in magazine ads that are geared towards male users. There’s a beer- commercial vapidity to it, with little appeal to women. This “boobs and babes” approach contributes to that pervasive societal imbalance.

Just as male-dominated governments attempt to exert control over women, they impose their will on a plant with powerfully



feminine traits. This imbalanced animus recognizes the power of the female can-nabis plant, and attempts to regulate and control it, just as it does with a woman’s right to choose.

“Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the

shadow of the other.” —Jung

Such societal acts force a plant asso-ciated with the feminine to undergo a constant animus-heavy assault, contribut-ing to an increasingly fragmented society. But if we do share a consciousness, as Jung suggested, then, “as within, so without.” This means that the way that we, as individuals, interact with the plant defines its meaning in a broader sense.

If we smoke in a manner that’s aware and appreciative of the plant, then we contribute to the respect of its innate feminine power. If we abuse it, then once again, the scales are tipped in favor of unhealthy animus.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing

with the darknesses of other people.”

—Jung

So can our relationship with marijuana regain its initial feminine “flower power”? Perhaps by routinely honoring the healing essence of the plant, instead of using it for more shallow needs, we begin to return it to its anima heritage. If we enjoy our time getting high with others, if it enriches our communication, if it opens our mind to the splendors of the world, then its anima effects are being felt regardless of the constant assault it endures.

Beth Mann is President of Hot Buttered Media and a regular contributor to Freedom Leaf.

Psychologist Carl Jung




By Cheri Sicard

Cannabis cooking has come a long way since Alice B. Toklas ground up some marijuana buds and mixed them into her “Haschich Fudge” for the enjoyment of Paris’ literary and artistic elite in the early 1900s. Today’s cooks rarely use flowers in their concoctions, preferring instead to infuse the marijuana into oils and butter, or to use concentrates. But there are times when cooking with bud makes perfect sense.

Steer away from recipes featuring “cannabis flour,” which is nothing more than smokeable buds that have been ground into a fine flour-like substance. My cooking experience with cannabis flours yielded foods with a more pronounced herbal flavor that often had the unwanted “bonus” of a funky texture.

In order to cook successfully with bud, use recipes for foods that call for a lot of herbs as seasoning, such as sauces, soups and stews. In the presence of basil, oregano and other Italian herbs, the flavor and texture of marijuana blend right in. Using bud in your recipes is one of the easiest and most accessible methods

Cooking with BudInstead of butter or oil infused with cannabis, these old-school recipes call for fresh marijuana.

of cooking with marijuana, especially for beginners.

Best Bud Cooking Tips

✿ Simply grind or break up the flowers the same way you would if you were rolling a joint. A food processor is not necessary.

✿ If you’re making a slow-simmering recipe, such as a stew or long-cooking sauce, you can simply stir the ground flowers into the simmering liquid and allow the extended cooking time to infuse the THC into the food. Other-wise, see the next tip.

✿ Decarboxylation is the chemical pro-cess that changes the THCA—tetra-hydrocannabinolic acid—in the raw cannabis plant into THC. Place the plant material in an ovenproof dish and bake at 275 degrees F for about 20 minutes. The heat of cooking should decarboxylate the cannabis, but depending on cooking time and temperature, it may not be enough. This extra step ensures you’ll get maximum potency from the weed.




Sausage and Sativa Stuffed Mushrooms

Potstickers

This versatile recipe puts the weed in potstickers. Using store-bought wonton wrappers, these small medicated dump-lings are quick and easy to make. You

can serve them pan-fried with soy sauce for dipping, or drop them into simmering chicken or vegetable stock for a wonton soup that packs a punch.

Cannabis cooks can have a lot of creative freedom when choosing the ingredients for this sausage and cheese stuffed-mushroom recipe. I prefer spicy chorizo sausage, but you can use whatever kind of sausage you like best. Try it with mild or hot Italian sausage. The recipe even works well with breakfast sausage. You can also play with the types of cheeses. I like Romano mixed in with the filling, but any type of flavorful hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Asiago, will do. On top, use a softer cheese that melts well, like moz-zarella, provolone or Havarti.

8 extra-large white mushrooms 1/2 lb. sausage1 gm. decarboxylated and ground

marijuana bud1 tsp. cooking oil3 tbsp. dry breadcrumbs3 oz. hard cheese, shredded8 thin slices soft melting cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Take a spoon and carefully remove the stems of the mushroom caps, leaving the caps intact. Discard stems and set aside. In a small bowl, mix sausage meat with ground bud until evenly combined. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add sausage and cook, stirring, until just cooked through, about 10 minutes. In order to avoid overheating the THC, cook only on medium heat. Keep stirring while cooking. Cook just until meat is no longer raw. Remove from heat and stir in breadcrumbs and shredded hard cheese until well combined. Divide filling among the eight large mushroom caps. Top each stuffed mushroom with a thin slice of soft cheese. Bake until mushrooms and filling are heated through, and the top cheese has melted and started to brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Yield: 8 large stuffed mushroomsServing Size: 2 stuffed mushrooms

Photo by Mitch Mandell

www.freedomleaf.com 71 www.freedomleaf.com 71

3/4 cup finely chopped napa cabbage1/4 cup finely chopped green onions1 tsp. minced fresh ginger1 tsp. minced garlic1/2 lb. ground pork1/2 tsp. Chinese 5 spice powder1/4 tsp. pepper2.25 gm. decarboxylated and ground

marijuana flowers1 tsp. sesame oil2 tsp. soy sauce (more for dipping)36 small square wonton

wrappers

Finely chop the napa cabbage, green onions, ginger and garlic—use a food processor if you have one. Place the chopped veggies in a bowl with the remaining ingredients and mix until every-thing is evenly combined. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper. On a clean work surface, lightly brush the outer four edges of each wonton wrapper with water. Place one teaspoon of filling in the center of the wrapper and fold in half to make a trian-gle. Carefully press out the air surround-ing the filling and pinch the edges closed to seal. Fold the bottom two corners inward and use a drop of water to seal them in place. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling. Pan fry dumplings or use in a soup.

Yield: 36 potstickers.Serving Size: 4 potstickers

To Pan Fry:

Heat a small amount of vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a skillet large enough to hold the amount you want to cook in a single layer with little room to spare. Add potstickers to skillet, taking care to avoid splattering oil, and cook without moving for about three minutes or until bottoms are browned. Add 1/2 cup of water to the hot skillet and immediately cover. Reduce heat to medium-low and let dumplings steam for about four minutes or until cooked through. Remove from pan and serve with soy sauce for dipping.

To Use in a Soup:

Bring chicken or vegetable stock to a simmer. Add desired number of dump-lings to simmering stock and cook for about five minutes. Keep stock at a low simmer as opposed to a rolling boil in order to avoid the wontons coming apart. Optional wonton soup add-ins include cooked chicken, shrimp, bok choy and shitake mushrooms. A half-teaspoon or so of sesame oil stirred into the soup adds a nice flavor, as well.

Cheri Sicard is the author of The Canna-bis Gourmet Cookbook and Mary Jane: The Complete Marijuana Handbook for Women, and is on the board of directors of Orange County NORML.

Photo by Mitch Mandell


By Ellen Komp

Popular travel writer and PBS host Rick Steves, whose advocacy of “smart, inde-pendent travel” extends to the inner journeys one experiences when smoking marijuana, has broadened and deepened his message with the update of his book Travel as a Political Act (Avalon Travel).

Steves, who has authored more than 50 travel guides, is a NORML board member, and stumped for the success-ful legalization measures in Washington and Oregon, even donating a significant amount of money to Washington’s 1-502.

In the book, Steves draws a distinc-tion between hedonistic “cruise vaca-tions” and his brand of travel. “We travel to have enlightening experiences, to meet inspirational people, to be stimulated, to learn, to grow,” he enthuses. Sections with titles like “Travel Like a Medieval Jester” and “Overcome Fear” offer tips on how to connect with people in foreign lands and stay open to new experiences.

Travel as a Political Act includes fas-cinating insights into the former Yugo-slavia, El Salvador, Denmark, Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Israel/Palestine and, of course, the Netherlands. In one chapter, “Europe: Not ‘Hard on Drugs’ or ‘Soft on Drugs,’” Steves relates: “I’ve traveled with an appetite for learning why Europe has fewer drug-related deaths, less drug-related violence, less drug-related incar-ceration and less drug consumption per capita than we do here in America.” He notes that while the U.S. spends largely on police, courts and prisons, Europe spends mainly on doctors, counselors and clinics.

REVIEWSBOOKTravel as a Political Act

Author and NORML supporter Rick Steves.


By Alec Pearce

Many sources are reporting that Colo-rado’s Bruce Banner #3 may be the strongest strain on the planet. Is it true? Freedom Leaf decided to find out.

Banner #3 from Haven, a branch of StrainWise, took first place at last year’s Cannabis Cup in Denver. The tested THC level was 28.3%, the highest ever recorded at a High Times Cup event. The strain also garnered a second award, with Banner #3 grown by Artisanal Medicinals placing sixth at the Denver Cup.

Banner #3 is a cross between Straw-berry Cough, New York City Diesel and OG Kush. What makes Banner so special? Elevated levels of caryophyllene as found in Banner reduce inflammation, with actions mimicking CBDs at the endo- cannibinoid level. This special terpene

Steves discusses the Dutch approach to marijuana, the Swiss approach to heroin and the Portuguese model, which allows legal consumption of both hard and soft drugs. The Dutch, he notes, are not necessarily pro-marijuana; they just practice gedogen (a policy of tolerance); and while it’s not technically legal there, police rarely enforce laws against canna-bis, while remaining tough on hard drugs.

During a visit to the Netherlands, Steves advises readers to beware of joints that also contain tobacco, and observes that the country’s indoor-smoking ban pertains only to tobacco smoke and not pot smoke. It’s bad form there, he adds, to smoke marijuana openly on the street. For tourists who overindulge and get too stoned, Steves recommends a dose of a

sugary drink, or one of the sugar tablets coffeeshops have on hand to counteract the effect of too much cannabis.

A section of the book is dedicated to the Washington State legalization experiment, which—along with similar measures in Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C.—is having world-wide ramifications.

Noting that in this global age, the world’s problems are everyone’s prob-lems, Steves makes a strong case, with his life and his writing, for his declaration that “people-to-people travel experiences can be a powerful force for peace.” Drug peace, too.

Steves is donating all royalties from the sale of Travel as a Political Act to Bread for the World (bread.org).

STRAINBruce Banner #3

Photo by Alec Pearce


By Steve Bloom

Cypress Hill fans awaiting their next album should download B-Real’s mixtape The Prescription free of charge. It’s pre-dictably weed-drenched, with a special focus on dabbing. He’s gone from “Hits from the Bong” to hits off a nail.

For the first five tracks it’s B-Real with assorted guests. On the second side, he morphs into his stony alter ego Dr. Green-thumb. “Take one hit of this dab, uh, uh,” he repeats on “Dabs,” with help from Dizzy Wright and the Futuristiks.

Other pot-centric tracks include “Mile High,” “Sacks,” “Start a Fire” and “Kush Conversation” featuring Demrick.

may also help with depression and anxiety. Another terp present in significant levels in this strain is myrcene, which can have a couchlock effect.

I tested two different Banners for this review. Here are my notes:

A. From StrainWise’s Haven: A peppery note on the top of the tongue, and a slight cough and expectorant effect. Chemical residue taste with black ash, indicat-ing not enough flush time. Combining a subtle cross of piney and peppery with basil notes. Thumb-sized, tight buds with milky white trichomes and pronounced red hairs. Testing at a nominal 21.6% THC and .43% CBD, this sample made me dance.

B. From Artisanal Medicinals: Similar to Sample A, with piney notes and subtle tones of cloves, and a flavorful last note—followed by couchlock. Not as harsh as Sample A, but still producing an expecto-rant effect. Tested at a 23.8% THC and .22% CBD.

Is it the strongest weed on the planet? No, Australia can possibly claim that honor with a strain known as Timber that has registered close to 40% THC. Stron-gest I’ve ever smoked? No, not even close to Green House Seed Company’s Hawai-ian Snow strain, which has tested at 21% THC. While Bruce Banner #3 might not be the most potent weed I’ve ever sampled, it does have a certain special “up” vibe brought forth by a unique combination of terps and cannabinoids.

With cannabis legal in Colorado, demand for Bruce Banner #3 is high, which makes it a hard but cherished find. While none of the samples tested were as potent as purported, THC and CBD levels and terpene profiles can vary greatly from grower to grower, each achieving different results. Cup entries are not always similar to stock normally sold to the masses. Banner #3 in Denver is no different.

Alec Pearce is a writer and photographer based in the Mile High City.

The bonus 11th track, “Anybody,” fea-tures Snoop Dogg, KingFly and producer Architracks. “Always keep that Philly lit,” Snoop advises in his brief cameo. Go to cypresshill.com.

B-Real: The PrescriptionMIXTAPE

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