Not long ago, we had weak weed – extremely dry marijuana from Mexico, full of seeds and containing less than 5% THC. To facilitate transport (and make the load heavier) many growers would pour a bottle of Cola Cola on their bales before pressing them. Now we have Weed Week, a marketing scheme devised by publicists for a Cannabis Industry pushing gummies and vaping devices and pre-rolled joints that deliver however much THC consumers think they want (while generating lots of loot for the politicians and bureaucrats who run our city, county, and state governments).
Weed Week is an expansion of a one-day celebration that pot partisans have observed for many years on April 20 (4/20). As recounted in these pages, the number 420 was first used as a veiled reference to smoking marijuana by five San Rafael High School students in 1971. (You can listen to an Executive Summary of the story by googling Bandcamp Gardner Waldos.)
Nowadays, use of the term "420" promotes sales for the Cannabis Industry by hearkening back to the days when marijuana use had to be on the QT. Many people want to seem just a bit daring. With cannabis, the smell of illicitness lingers long after "legalization" is imposed on a jurisdiction. In Maureen Dowd's "Rollicking Requiem for a Pirate" in the NY Times April 13, she wrote about her friend Jimmy Buffet: "Jane Fonda said that 'Jimmy has the ability, like Tinker Bell, to spread happiness all over' — his generosity of heart and spirit always at the fore. She, John McEnroe and others paid homage to Jimmy’s love of weed with a running gag about smoking joints with him in outlandish places like the roof of the Vatican and center court at Wimbledon."
How brave can you get?
Maybe we'll live long enough to see Weed Week expand into "Marijuana Month." There's a precedent In the 1950s the existence of Negro History Week was acknowledged only by leftists. Now February is Black History Month, guaranteeing that at least token some token respect will be paid in the media and schools to African Americans who led the fight for equality and/or contributed to the well-being of us all.
Don't the brave abolitionists involved in the long, righteous struggle to end marijuana prohibition deserve recognition? Millions of US Americans did time behind bars for breaking the marijuana laws. An incalculable number of epileptics and their families were denied effective anti-seizure medications. It was brave AIDS patients and their allies who finally refused to cower to the narcs. We have a great deal of interesting history to rehash, and as the poet said, "April is the coolest month."
But seriously folks,..
Activists in the Bay Area and the Emerald Triangle have been talking about creating an archive of materials that shed light on the origins of the Legal Cannabis Industry. If you have relevant materials or memories, Richard Jergenson of the Counter Culture Museum and Archive in Willits is the man to contact (707/367-3968 or rjjergenson@gmail.com… Charlie Harris, an Oxford University researcher, has been in Mendocino County since February interviewing growers and activists "about their community." Harris has a contract from LA-based Counterpoint Press. The working title of his book is "Mendo," but he will add a subtitle. His sources to date include Norman DeVall, Barry Vogel, Pebbles Trippet, and Tim Blake. He's reachable at 707-357-8604 or charliernharris@gmail.com
Sad downsides of old age are obvious – physical and mental decline if you're lucky, "high-end medical torture" if you're not; the loss of loved ones and friends… Surprisingly upsetting, I find, is the falsification of history. It's bad enough that the opportunists funded by George Soros usurped control of the medical marijuana movement from Dennis Peron, Dr. Tod Mikuriya and other grassroots activists back in '96. Soon we'll have to watch their version of events get the official seal of approval from Ken Burns.
Weed Week in San Francisco brought out many authentic growers and users including some of the pioneers who challenged pot prohibition. Better to have a mayor who said she welcomed weed than a major who declared war on weed.. 4/20 in some of SF’s dispensaries was a joyous occasion that brought together people of different ethnic groups and social classes. The history of weed has been written about many times in many good books. It will go on and on to be written about. No one will have the last word. There is no last word about weed except weed’s last words about itself. Why doesn’t Fred shut the fuck up and write his own weed story and tell it from the heart and without bravado. “Mendo” sounds like an unappealing title for a book about weed. The author had better come up with a better title. Fred might have attended weed week events. He could have met men who were arrested and incarcerated and who are not cynical old men which is what he sounds like.
Fred Gardner! A blast from the past. He did such excellent and important work in relation to the Vietnam war and GIs — the coffee house movement, and so much more. We were friends, but lost touch. I hope he sees this. I hope he will read my autobiography, entitled “Left, Gay & Green: A Writer’s Life.”
Thanks for the great info about archiving the times, Fred! Bless you and all your wonderful work over the years…
Warmly,
Lynne Barnes