CULTURAL BAGGAGE

JUNE 12, 2019

TRANSCRIPT

DEAN BECKER: I am Dean Becker, your host. Our goal for this program is to expose the fraud, misdirection, and the liars whose support for drug war empowers our terrorist enemies, enriches barbarous cartels, and gives reason for existence to tens of thousands of violent US gangs who profit by selling contaminated drugs to our children. This is Cultural Baggage.

Hi folks, I am Dean Becker, the Reverend Most High. This is Cultural Baggage. In the second half of the program, we'll hear from Mister Paul Stanford from Oregon, but first ...

Well, friends, today we're hearing from two of the main players, a couple of guys who have devoted much of their lives to the marijuana industry, to the marijuana plant. We'll hear from Mister Paul Stanford up there in Oregon, but we're also going to hear from the author of a great new book, Marijuana Garden Saver.

It's a field guide to identifying and correcting cannabis problems. It's written by an author you've certainly heard about, Mister Ed Rosenthal. How are you doing, Ed?

ED ROSENTHAL: Good, and yourself?

DEAN BECKER: I'm well, Ed, good to hear your voice. I mean, the cannabis industry has made great strides over the years, over the decades, if we dare say it, and you have actually created a library of useful information in regards to the marijuana plant. I've got to commend you, this new one, Marijuana Garden Saver, it's going to save a lot of crops, it's going to build some better buds, and it's going to make a hell of a difference and I want to thank you for writing it.

ED ROSENTHAL: Oh, thank you very much.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah, Ed, you're out there in Oakland, but, you have, well, decades working with the cannabis plant, you've been in magazines and books for years and years, have you not?

ED ROSENTHAL: Yeah, I've been working on it for a while, and --

DEAN BECKER: Well --

ED ROSENTHAL: -- it's -- it's been a good -- I've had a lot of interesting times doing it and learned a lot.

DEAN BECKER: Well, and we all thank you for having devoted your time and effort to it. Now, Ed, this book, it is, I don't know how to say it, it's so complete, so useful, so helpful. You deal with all kinds of problems. I'm going to list a couple of the chapter sections: The Nutrients, The Pests, The Diseases, The Environmental Stresses, along with a section on controls.

And, this is, I don't know how to say it, so useful for those who, you know, marijuana grows pretty good if you've got sunshine and good soil, but there's a lot else that needs to go into it. Right?

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, it takes a lot of research to do a book like this, and it's -- and then, a lot of experimentation, talking with other people, going to conferences, reading books. So it's -- it's quite an endeavor to research papers.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah.

ED ROSENTHAL: So, but it's fun doing it.

DEAN BECKER: Well, I have to agree with you, it's fun reading it, too, because it's just that useful. You've got a page or two about so many complications, potential complications, that can get in the way of a grower. The, here, here's -- I'm looking at this one, diagnosing nutrient toxicities. Give us an idea of what that is talking about and how that might be helpful to a grower.

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, sometimes growers think that more is better, so they overfertilize, and then plants will show toxicity from it, and this shows the toxicity, and it tells you how to get rid of it.

Well, let's get into the book. What the book does is it, you know, it has, I don't know, to be honest, the table of contents, but in the front of the book is a table of contents, and it consists of pictures of plants with problems, or the plant, or leaf with problems.

And so, let's say you have some unusual, something unusual growing on the, your leaves, or the plant. You can match the problem to -- you can match the problem and it -- to the picture and figure out what the problem is and then resolve it.

DEAN BECKER: Right.

ED ROSENTHAL: So that's what the book does. And then with insects and pests, it goes into what the effects, you know, very often, before you see the insect or the pest or the disease, you see the results of it. Like, maybe the leaves are speckled, or, you know, have some other problem.

So, there again, we show not only what the pest looks like but the effects of the disease on the plant, so you can recognize what's going on.

DEAN BECKER: Okeh. Now, and I'm looking, glancing here into the environmental stresses and I'm looking at a picture of a plant with airy buds, and I have had a few of those over the years, or back when I was growing, that just don't fill out, that don't get the fat, juicy looking buds like, you know, we've come to expect. What causes those airy buds, Ed?

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, it could be a cold spell. And, then there are some varieties that require a lot of light in order to really fill out well, so that in the -- they don't really do well indoors, sometimes, like a number of the Hazes, which require an incredible amount of light.

So, those are really plants for growing outdoors, and especially, you know, they're especially good in your area of the country.

DEAN BECKER: Right.

ED ROSENTHAL: Because they're sativas. They don't like long days, and you have much shorter days in Texas than people do in the northern part of the country. So, those plants would do well there.

DEAN BECKER: All right. Well, and, you know, I think of some of the problems that I had, you know, certainly had some of those airy buds, and I think it was because they were in a lot of shade.

ED ROSENTHAL: Oh, yeah. They weren't getting enough light, if they were in shade. The need light, marijuana needs light for most of the day, or else it won't fill out well.

DEAN BECKER: Right. Well, and that's me trying to hide from helicopters, and thieves.

ED ROSENTHAL: I understand.

DEAN BECKER: Well, Ed, you have -- you live in California, now. You guys have --

ED ROSENTHAL: Yes.

DEAN BECKER: -- legal marijuana, that folks can grow on their own in their own home or in their garden. It's created a lot of new customers, or folks who need to learn more, who can benefit from reading this book, because, as you said and I'm indicating, this thing runs the gamut. It's got it all in here. Tell us about fusarium. Am I pronouncing that right? What is fusarium?

ED ROSENTHAL: Fusarium, that's a fungus, and it causes a rot. And there are a number of different races of it, some of them attack the roots, some of them attack the canopy, and it's deadly. You want to get that out of your garden and you don't want to use that soil, that's soil's contaminated.

DEAN BECKER: Now --

ED ROSENTHAL: So ....

DEAN BECKER: -- here's another one that I think I have had at times, maybe following a lot of rain. Powdery mildew. That's a common problem, right?

ED ROSENTHAL: Yeah. Yes, powdery mildew, the virulent strains that we have now transferred from hops. It was endemic to east coast hops, but it transferred to west coast, and then it transferred to marijuana, and it's very virulent.

And what -- one thing is to plant early so that you harvest before powdery mildew becomes more prominent, which happens in the fall. So if you plant early and you harvest early, you miss the powdery mildew season a lot.

DEAN BECKER: Okeh. That's from the rainy season, then, is it?

ED ROSENTHAL: Yeah. Well, it's -- when it's moist.

DEAN BECKER: Okeh.

ED ROSENTHAL: You know [inaudible]

DEAN BECKER: Ed, you've got a whole section here on pests. All the bugs and stuff. You know, over the years, I've gotten weed from Mexico that had wasp's nests in it, that had bugs, dead bugs, who knows, all kinds of things.

ED ROSENTHAL: Yes.

DEAN BECKER: And, you talk about all these various pests, and the one that I think is maybe most prevalent, I've heard about, I don't think I've had it in my crops, but that is spider mites. How common are they and what do you do about them?

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, there, first of all, there are a number of pests -- of beneficial mites that go after spider mites. And then there are some midges that also go after them. So, that's one way to get rid of them, by having insects.

Also -- there are some insects that will attack, and then, if there's an attack and you haven't seen it, and it's a bad infestation, you probably want to use a pesticide, and there are a number of herbal pesticides that are very effective. Remember herbal pesticides are not -- they're not some [inaudible], the reason why plants make those herbs and, you know, the herbal -- the spices are, you know, spice and herbs, and makes those oils, is to protect itself.

So these are protectants that have been perfected by the plants for hundreds of millions of years. And when you get it in a pesticide, they concentrate it.

DEAN BECKER: And, I --

ED ROSENTHAL: Yeah.

DEAN BECKER: -- there's a lot of people that grow more in the wild. With me it was always behind a 7-11 or something like that. But, out in the countryside there's a lot more critters that can get involved. How do you deal with deer and other animals?

ED ROSENTHAL: Your deer stress depends upon the food stress that deer have. So the more food stress that they have, the more likely they are to attack your garden, even if it's inconvenient.

But there are several things that you can do. One is that deer are repelled by the scent of urine from -- both from wolves, coyotes, and big cats. And that's available commercially, and as a dry powder.

The surest way to keep deer out is using an electrical fence, which causes a shock, and sometimes you have to put it at different heights for deer, because, you know, they can jump, from standing still they can jump like six to eight feet, usually, or more.

DEAN BECKER: Wow.

ED ROSENTHAL: Yeah. Other things that you can do with deer are to put -- to actually have animals protect it. For instance, guard dogs. I know one person who put red meat so that predators would come around and actually, you know, hang out there, piss there, and, you know, just get them -- get their scent there.

DEAN BECKER: Right.

ED ROSENTHAL: And that was a prevention point. Those are the -- those are several things, and there are other protectants, but those are two of the most effective, as I said, an electrical fence or add predator urine.

DEAN BECKER: All right, real good. Folks, once again we're speaking with Mister Ed Rosenthal, he's author of Marijuana Garden Saver: A Field Guide To Identifying And Correcting Cannabis Problems.

Ed, we've got just a couple minutes left and I want to ask you, now that it's legal in California and several other states, and you do travel, do you ever visit dispensaries? Do you ever see some of these maladies or bad weed because folks failed to follow the kind of rules you have in this book?

ED ROSENTHAL: Are they selling infected buds, is that what you're asking?

DEAN BECKER: Well, I guess so, or bud that could have developed better, had they known what to do about it.

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, usually, you know, usually buds like that, if they had -- let's say there's a bud that's deformed but it's high quality in terms of its -- of its potency. They, that would probably be used either for concentrates or for pre-rolls or something like that. But, as I've seen, what happens is, only the best A buds are making it to the counter.

DEAN BECKER: Well, that's good to hear. I mean, again, I'm in Texas, we don't have dispensary one, and I'm really thrilled when I get to be in a state where I can actually look at some good bud.

ED ROSENTHAL: Well, Dean, you know, I hate to chide you on this, but I never thought that the state of Oklahoma would have the most progressive laws in the country. Who would have ever believed that, right?

DEAN BECKER: I know.

ED ROSENTHAL: Remember Will Foster, who they gave 93 years to?

DEAN BECKER: Oh yeah.

ED ROSENTHAL: And he did about four and a half years. Well, he went back, and I believe that he's farming in Oklahoma now, and as a matter of fact, the two cops who testified against him are in prison because of malfeasance. So I suggested to him that he go visit them.

DEAN BECKER: Man. Well, I tell you what, we have, I don't know, turned --

ED ROSENTHAL: Can you imagine that? He's growing, now Will is growing, and the cops are in prison.

DEAN BECKER: That is something --

ED ROSENTHAL: Everything worked out. That's everything that we suggested should happen. As long as marijuana is high priced, then people don't have a lot of incentive to use it. Right?

DEAN BECKER: Right.

ED ROSENTHAL: I mean, people will go to alcohol, especially younger people where it's a price-sensitive thing. But if instead you sell -- but if instead people had easy access to cannabis, at low prices, then we would become more of a cannabis centric nation than we are.

And I think that's good for individuals, as individuals, and good for society. So I'm going to have, like, have to join the American capitalist system, if people can get it inexpensively and can affect their minds in a positive way.

DEAN BECKER: Well, some good advice there from Mister Ed Rosenthal. I urge you to get a copy --

ED ROSENTHAL: I don't know that that's -- I don't know that that's advice. That's just what's happening. So that's one way of looking at it.

DEAN BECKER: It's time to play Name That Drug By Its Side Effects! Headache, low blood pressure, dizziness, fainting, unexpected sleepiness, nausea, excess perspiration, trouble controlling your muscles, dyskinesia, hallucinations, uncontrollable gambling urges, compulsive eating, and increased sex drive. Time's up! The answer, from Boehringer Ingelheim Laboratories: Mirapex, for restless leg syndrome.

Well folks, I'm privileged to know a lot of good folks that work in drug reform. A gentleman I've admired for years for the work he does up there in Oregon and Washington, and the plants he's able to grow, the way he's able to get them to bush and bud and just become so beautiful, a man with a lot of expertise, he's also a journalist, he has his own television show. I want to welcome Mister Paul Stanford. Hello, Paul.

PAUL STANFORD: Hello. Thanks for having me on, Dean

DEAN BECKER: Well, it's good to have you with us. And, I was wondering if you would tell us a little bit about your expertise as a grower, as an activist. How long have you been at this?

PAUL STANFORD: I first went to a marijuana protest at the White House in 1978, just a week after my eighteenth birthday. And then, Kevin Zeese made me the state director of Washington state for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in 1982, and I did that until 1984.

In '84, I moved to Oregon to help the Oregon Marijuana Initiative. Other activists moved there as well, a couple that I know you know, Doug McVay and Jack Herer. And we worked with John Sajo and Doctor Fred Oerther to put marijuana legalization on the ballot in 1985, it was voted on in 1986, and we lost overwhelmingly with just 26 percent of the vote and the whole Reagan administration came down on us.

But, I continued to work at marijuana legalization. We legalized medical marijuana in Oregon in 1998, and then in 1999, I worked with Doctor Philip LeVeque to start the first medical marijuana clinic, helping patients get their permits to possess, use, and grow medical marijuana.

And patients came from Washington state, so I opened up in Washington state. And then we opened clinics in Hawaii, in Colorado in 2004, in Montana, Michigan. We saw patients altogether in nine different states and sixty different cities with about fifty different doctors, and we helped 270,000 patients get their medical marijuana permits.

And so, that was a successful business, and I used the profits from that to be able to grow medical marijuana in Oregon, and I was able to grow and give away six thousand pounds of marijuana for free to sick and dying patients, only because I had the clinic business, which became a five million dollar a year business, and my accountants told me I spent about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year to grow and give away free medical marijuana.

But, the -- using some of those profits, we managed to put marijuana legalization on the ballot in Oregon, and I was the spokesperson and chief petitioner under Oregon's rules for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, which was Ballot Measure 80, and we voted on that in November of 2012. The same time that Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana with 52 percent of the vote, we lost with 47 percent of the vote.

So we came back in the 2014 campaign, and worked with a coalition of other people to legalize it then.

DEAN BECKER: Well, Paul, I, you know, we've been hearing rumors, Big Marijuana's coming, we all better look out, they're going to take over the whole thing and run the regular growers out of the business, and you've had a situation that kind of endorses or supports that theory. Tell us what happened with you and Big Marijuana, please.

PAUL STANFORD: Well, basically, in 2014, when I was working on the initiative there, they came in and offered to take my company public, which is something I'd always wanted to do. I wanted to access the public stock market, be able to grow my business with the proceeds, and continue my activism.

Well, they said they would give us four hundred thousand dollars for our campaign in 2014. So I agreed to work with them to do that in 2014, and unfortunately, or by their design, they made sure that money came in too late to be useful for the campaign.

Then they used fraudulent documents going into court in June of 2016 to basically take over my company and say that I had signed documents that gave them control of my company, when in fact they presented fraudulent documents to the court.

But, my attorneys, I spent about a hundred and seventy thousand dollars on attorneys over that six month period of time. Altogether they spent two million dollars on the most prestigious, highest powered lawyer firm in the state of Oregon, one that the judge's all know and recognize, and they ruled in their favor and gave them control of my company.

And so today I have two ten-thousands of the stock in my company, it's worth about four hundred dollars, where the people who came in and took over my company are now the board of directors of Cronos Group, one of the two big Canadian groups, and they just brought in a $1.8 billion investment from Altria, which used to be known as Philip Morris, and their biggest tobacco brand is Marlboro.

So I guess you can say the Marlboro Man now owns my clinic business. Basically, they seized 270,000 medical marijuana patient records, and they've sold those records to, you know, the corporate database out there, and that helped them raise that money.

DEAN BECKER: Paul, I, it chaps my ass, I don't know what else to say, you know, when I hear stories like this. You've been at this, hell, there's thousands of us that have been at this for decades, trying to get the focus, the changes necessary to move to a more modern, more compassionate, truly, era, and big money, it just works and weaves what it wants, doesn't it?

PAUL STANFORD: Yeah, well, you know, marijuana prohibition was implemented by big money because it took money out of the hands of the majority of hemp farmers and put it in the hands of the select few who could control capital.

And so now they're turning the tables on activists such as myself and many others, and it's another power play. You know, we've got to take control of this plant, deregulate it, we've got to deschedule it.

I believe cannabis, you know, it's the oldest and most productive crop. It produces more fuel, fiber, food, and medicine than any other plant on this planet, and as the late Gatewood Galbraith said, it was the petrochemical pharmaceutical military industrial transnational corporate elite fascist sons of bitches who brought us marijuana prohibition, and by golly, they should not be the ones to profit from its relegalization.

And so I'm continuing to fight them to the best of my ability, and we'll see where the cards land.

DEAN BECKER: Well, I know, with your expertise, I've seen pictures of your plants, you're going to -- you will bounce back, and I love that quote from Gatewood, I was privilege to meet him a couple of times and he was, well, just a good hellraiser.

PAUL STANFORD: He was a great man.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah.

PAUL STANFORD: He introduced me to Willie Nelson back in 1990, and Willie Nelson was actually part of my garden as well, and we helped him get medical marijuana permits.

DEAN BECKER: Well, I've had the opportunity to be on the bus and smoke some of that. Maybe it was handed down from --

PAUL STANFORD: Maybe it was.

DEAN BECKER: But anyway, Paul, I want to thank you for your courage, your motivations, your hard work and just for standing tall. We've been speaking with Mister Paul --

PAUL STANFORD: Thank you, Dean. Thanks for your work there in Houston, Texas. You know I was born in Houston and grew up in Texas until '75, so, I appreciate you carrying the flame there for so long in my birthland.

DEAN BECKER: Well, thank you for that, Paul. Yeah, it's not easy down here, I'll tell you. But, okeh. Paul, I want to give you the chance, share some closing thoughts with the listeners and maybe a website or two.

PAUL STANFORD: Okeh. Well, like I said, you know, cannabis is the oldest and most productive crop and I believe that we're in a symbiotic relationship with it, and it has the potential to save some of what's left of the biosphere for future generations, and that's what motivates me.

But if you want to find out more, you can find me on facebook at D., as in Douglas, D. Paul Stanford, like the university, or look up our website, it's CRRH.org.

Our television show is actually live each week on Facebook at Facebook.com/RestoreHemp. It's at 8 PM Pacific, that would be 10 PM there in Texas, or 11 in the east coast, on Facebook.com/RestoreHemp. And that's our biggest facebook group, facebook.com/RestoreHemp.

Thank you again, Dean.

DEAN BECKER: Well, no, real good, Paul, and thank you.

Just enough time for a quick editorial. Until we expose and embarrass these prohibitionist politicians, they will forever protect the banks, the cops, the cartels, big pharma, they'll count on us being scared of encountering them, fearful of getting the focus of law enforcement or worse.

There are lots of folks that are harvesting the drug war money, but just a few that deem it to be eternally necessary. That should be our number one enemy. They are the ones that make the madness possible. We own the moral high ground. We should make good use of it, and again I remind you, because of prohibition you don't know what's in that bag. Please, be careful.

To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the unvarnished truth. Cultural Baggage is a production of the Pacifica Radio Network. Archives are permanently stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. And we are all still tap dancing on the edge of an abyss.