CENTURY OF LIES

JULY 31, 2016

TRANSCRIPT

DEAN BECKER: The failure of drug war is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors, and millions more now calling for for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century Of Lies.

DOUG MCVAY: Hello, and welcome to Century Of Lies. Century Of Lies is a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org.

I attended an event in Portland, Oregon recently, called Summer Fair. It was basically a marijuana expo. Growers, dispensaries, oil producers, edible makers, a host of others that had booths. The way the adult social use marijuana law works in Oregon, no one at the event was allowed to sell any marijuana or products containing marijuana. Vendors were however allowed to give away free samples. In order to do that legally, organizers could not charge admission fees for attendees, though people still had to register online for tickets to avoid overcrowding the venue. I was there, with my recorder, and I got some good audio for you. Let's get started.

Jorge Cervantes, Jorge, you, in the mid-1980s, you were a supporter of the Oregon Marijuana Initiative, a campaign on which I worked, Ballot Measure Five. And we were very grateful -- I don't know if I ever told you this, but thank you so much for all that.

JORGE CERVANTES: It's been years, years of doing the same stuff.

DOUG MCVAY: Even back then, thirty years ago, you were one of the top people in marijuana, period. As far as writing, as far as cultivation, as far as the knowledge, technology, from the -- from rudimentary to the scientific stuff. Thirty years later, you're still the best writer and -- you're still the best writer in this business, it's such an honor to be sitting here with you.

JORGE CERVANTES: Well, thanks, that's a big compliment, you know, but I'll tell you, as a writer, I have excellent editors. A good editor makes -- an excellent editor makes a great writer. I mean, that's what it comes down to. It's just a lot of hard work, getting your facts straight, a lot of that, making sure that you have an easy to understand style, so you can get as many people growing as much as possible, as soon as possible. That's the idea. So, yeah, I've just been in this forever and gosh, Oregon's come full circle. I remember the cops used to visit, I lived here in Portland, you know, it was like you said, owned a grow store here and everything. But I remember when the cops would come to my house. I had -- I took out all the curtains in my house. You know? And it was a different time, you know. Now, it's so refreshing. You know? It's a wonderful place.

DOUG MCVAY: It is, it is, it's a -- I'd forgotten you had the grow store, too, that's right. I mean, this is --

JORGE CERVANTES: Yeah. I had it on, well, mail order, we didn't really have internet back then. And, yeah, it was on Foster Avenue, Foster Road. Yeah. And, now, gosh, everything's changed so much. It's amazing. We've got grow stores everywhere, we've got, well, I was just talking to Phylos Bioscience, Mowgli [Holmes] from over there. And they've, they have done a genetic profile on about 500 plants. And they've got it all on their website, this great -- and they've put them in relationship, how they would fall in a three-D sphere. So you can see the differences in varieties, and their effects. It's pretty amazing.

And they're getting ready to redo it. It's changed from the cops coming and visiting me, and talking to me, and making troubles, or, to now, we're doing genetic research here. And he just explained to me how we can share this, for $250 you can get a genetic test, and he wants me to get everybody in Europe, and in Spain, into it, because, you know, that's where I lived for years. Yeah, that's a -- because I left America because it was too weird.

DOUG MCVAY: Green Merchant, this -- I mean, I want to know about the projects you've got going now, you've just got a new book out, but before we do, you are -- I mean, you have been there doing the, watching the, you know, from the business side of marijuana in the mid-80s, and involved with the politics, and here you are now. Okeh, you were back in the day when mentioning the word marijuana was enough to have someone ejected from your store. Right? I mean --

JORGE CERVANTES: Oh yeah, those days aren't that long ago, either. That was 10 years ago. But, yeah, back in the '80s, sure. First it was real loose, first off nobody believed that cannabis grown indoors was, would get you high. And then, it retained a better reputation, the police didn't know how to search for it at first, there was some kind of like grace years there.

And then, technology came out, you know, they started going through people's trash, the grow stores got really big. It was just, it was horrid. And people were getting arrested right and left, so many people lost their kids, they lost their assets, their property. You know? They could be tried criminally and civilly both. Just horrid, horrid repression going on here, for a plant that we have found doesn't -- it's not bad for children. Actually, children with epilepsy benefit immensely from this. It's a medicinal plant. None of that research was able to be done. Now, there's -- all has to be done at once, you know. And they make more regulations now, and the government has to catch up. And then also there's still the other people in the prison system, the prison guards and everybody else who was putting people in jail, they're afraid they're losing their jobs. So they don't know what to do, and that's why they're against it. It's crazy.

DOUG MCVAY: It is madness, it is madness. I mean, we have a chance. the -- California's official, they once again have a chance to vote legalization, and everyone thinks California's the big bellwether. What do you think, does Prop 64 have a chance?

JORGE CERVANTES: Yeah, it does. It's got some things in it, you know, there's a lot of control measures in it, but heck, Oregon's got a lot of control measures, but they leave the acreage open, and everything, and California, they're going to have more controls, and it's going to take a while to get people under control, because what I've seen, the countries like Humboldt County and Calaveras County, where those two counties are big -- yeah, where those two counties allow growing. I just heard of a seven acre parcel that was okehed to grow cannabis in southern Humboldt County, just heard about that today. Yeah, it's going to be incredibly huge. But those guys, man, they are growing so much.

DOUG MCVAY: That's -- is that -- that's approved --

JORGE CERVANTES: Approved. Legal.

DOUG MCVAY: Approved for medical, that is? Since it's only medical now.

JORGE CERVANTES: For medical now, yeah, for medical, they'll move right in, into recreational, for sure. But right now, everybody's growing medical, and those are two counties, Humboldt County and Calaveras County, you can grow in. Sonoma County's rather loose. But they're closing the door on a lot of new things, they're putting tons of regulations in. So, because, what it's causing is, there's people, the land value in Humboldt and Calaveras County, and also Sonoma County, has like tripled in the last year. You know, I mean, for single family dwellings in Sonoma County, no, or other places, but all the outlying areas, and anybody with water rights is really big.

DOUG MCVAY: It's California, I mean, California's all about the water, unfortunately.

JORGE CERVANTES: Yes.

DOUG MCVAY: That's, well, the whole southwest for that matter.

JORGE CERVANTES: Yeah. And so there's going to be some real battles for water there. We'll see what happens.

DOUG MCVAY: Right on. Well, now, let's see, let's get -- you've got some, you might even have a customer waiting. Ah, he's just going to take a picture, all right. But the, this is your new book, the Cannabis Encyclopedia.

JORGE CERVANTES: Yes, yes it is.

DOUG MCVAY: Massive, massive. A lot of information, lot of detail. Tell me about this.

JORGE CERVANTES: Well, it weighs four pounds for starters. It's 5-1/2x8-1/2 format, three columns, 596 pages. If you remember my last book, Marijuana Horticulture, the one that the growers dubbed "The Bible"? Well, that sold a million copies. Well, this new book is twice as big, and it's 10 years newer, it's completely updated, and it's, oh, like I said before, incredibly well-edited.

DOUG MCVAY: Gorgeous. That photography is gorgeous, too.

JORGE CERVANTES: Oh, I got to work with some world-class photographers. And on this book, I was able, I had already -- I did substantially more traveling. I spent time in Mexico, interviewing the mafia, visiting mafia farms. I've been to South America. I've been, like, all over Europe and North America, or a lot of North America. So there's a ton of new information here, it's pretty amazing. Oh yeah, and also, the president of Mexico wrote the forward. Yeah.

DOUG MCVAY: Wow.

JORGE CERVANTES: Yeah. And it's all about, let's see. Well, and too, it's, anything about cultivation, it's in here. It's very good with cultivation, cannabinoid measurement --

DOUG MCVAY: Vicente Fox, Wow!

JORGE CERVANTES: also concentrates and cooking. It's quite good, actually, yeah. Very pleased with it.

DOUG MCVAY: Ah. "Legalizing cannabis is the way out of the trap in which we find ourselves," he writes. This option provides substantial benefits: separation of violence and crime from the health issue, reduction of consumption as happened in Portugal after legalization. The time has come for governments -- for the governments of our countries and the governments all over the world to act and govern, as the great President Abraham Lincoln envisioned, that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom, and government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Vicente Fox Quesada. Wow. Wow. That's --

JORGE CERVANTES: He just wants the killing to stop. That, and he owns some of the biggest farms in Mexico, all of the north part, Chihuahua, north there. And he said he would start growing cannabis as soon as it's legal on a big scale. And Mexico's changing now, you know, they had the human rights issue, where it was a human right to grow cannabis. I've got a good friend down there, Julio Zenil, because, I mean, I talk Spanish so I can talk to everybody, I know everybody, and we see each other in Spain. Julio, yeah yeah, last time I saw him was in Spain. But, he's -- I'm amazed, he's got the Cáñamo, which means hemp, magazine going for several years down there, and it's had no troubles. Yeah, well, I thought the narcos would, you know, the drug lords would bother him, but he's had no troubles.

DOUG MCVAY: We've been talking about the legalization and the medicalization moving people out of the business of marijuana cultivation down in Mexico, that's been the subject of Congressional hearings, for instance. And their concern is they're shifting to poppies. My concern is that nobody remembers history, because I remember the 1980s, when NORML issued its big crop report about the -- when one of the states went over a billion dollars, and a lot of it -- and so much of the marijuana in the United States that was being consumed was being produced already by the mid-'80s, and it was because of the heightened interdiction and just people shifting from one drug to another. It's one of those things when you hear people, you know, noticing something that started thirty years ago. What do you think?

JORGE CERVANTES: In Mexico, you think for the people to change from growing cannabis? No, as long as there's money in it, they'll do it. There's all kinds of businesses, and they're tough guys, and they, you know, they take over violently. So, but what they do, I've been to the farms, you know, several of them. They have, the campesinos, the farmers, that live in the country there right next to them, they set up a farm, it's the best job around, they go there. They just go to the best job, that's all. It's simple economics, if you, you know, and the campo, those guys are going to grow it as long as they can make good money. That's the long and short of it. You know, you can put politics in there, but you keep it to an economic function, and it's over. Drop the price here, in America, the problem's over. Everything with the police, it's all over. But now they -- here, they can't drop the price too much because they want the tax.

DOUG MCVAY: Which, yeah. I mean, it comes down to the, what do you think, pack of 10 pre-rolled half gram marijuana cigarettes that would be a nice flavor, fresh, no mold, no problems, but a nice standardized, oh, say, 10 percent THC. How cheaply do you think people could make those?

JORGE CERVANTES: Oh, I don't know, let's see, that's ten joints, right now, whatever the joints are selling for now, $5 apiece maybe. So that would be $50, that would sell for $10. You know, after all of the taxes and everything. Yeah, that, I mean, just to pull a figure out of the air. Yeah, but see, then again, we've got all the -- you've got all the home growers. See, with home brewing, they didn't let you start brewing until a few years ago, or, well, 30 years ago, and that spawned an industry.

Well, now, now you can already grow at home, and a lot of people like it, and they know how. And it's legal, so the volume of home growers is just going to go through the roof, and in a lot of homes, you know, depends on how green your thumb is, you can grow anywhere from one to 10 pounds in this climate, easily. So, usually that's enough for a person's needs. And they can have friends, if they're better growers. But, say, a block that has 20 houses on it, and 10 of them grow, and, okeh, so if each one of them grows five pounds, that's fifty pounds.

DOUG MCVAY: And builds -- and it builds a social network around the community, which is something that's actually been lacking.

JORGE CERVANTES: It's amazing what can be grown at home, because that's what I've seen for many years, and a lot of people, especially here in Oregon, like to grow. You know? Have a vegetable garden, have a flower garden, annuals. As soon as the -- well, the availability of cuttings shows up. I'd love to see it, if the Cash's Nursery or old Portland Nursery, if they just opened up a cuttings section, you know, little plantlets there. That would open up everything so much, you know. They might have to have a special license or something to do it, but, a guy like that does it, everybody in town goes there. You know? It's not like you're -- it's mainstream at that point.

DOUG MCVAY: That's a smart business move, too, because just one small section, maybe one person whose there responsible for the key.

JORGE CERVANTES: Oh, the volume would be so big you'd need two cash registers and several employees, and a running truck to keep bringing in more. It would be a great idea, you'd help out so many people, get them growing, quick and easy.

DOUG MCVAY: All right, you've got -- I'll get out of your hair so you can start doing your work here. But tell me again about the book, and where can people find out more about this, where's your website, and do you have any final words for the audience?

JORGE CERVANTES: Yeah, the Cannabis Encyclopedia. You can find it everywhere. Everywhere. My marijuana -- my site is called MarijuanaGrowing.com. My name is Jorge Cervantes. Jorge Cervantes, when you go -- just type that name into the internet and you will see hundreds and thousands of pages about, well, of things that I've been involved in.

Yeah, and parting thoughts. Hey, this whole world is changing really quickly. Hold on, because the wave has just -- the tidal wave has just started. Grow more. Thank you.

DOUG MCVAY: Jorge Cervantes, thank you so very much. It is, wow. Just thank you so much.

JORGE CERVANTES: For sure, I'm very happy to be able to share.

DOUG MCVAY: And MarijuanaGrowing.com.

JORGE CERVANTES: Yes. That's correct.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. That was my interview with the author and grow expert Jorge Cervantes at the Summer Fair in Portland, Oregon.

You're listening to Century Of Lies, a production of the Drug Truth Network. I'm your host, Doug McVay.

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: My name is Chris Van Hook, I'm from the Clean Green Certification Program. We're based out of northern California, but we certify cannabis in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Nevada. We're the only nationally recognized, and beginning to be internationally recognized cannabis certification program.

DOUG MCVAY: How did you get started doing this?

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: Well, we started, I was a marine biologist by trade, I was a marine biologist for over thirty years, and, but I ended up going to law school late in life, and during law school, we became accredited by the USDA Organic Program, in order to issue that logo. We're a USDA accredited organic certification company. In 2004, the cannabis industry asked, isn't there something, can they get their cannabis certified as organic? California said yes, the feds said no, and so the industry said, isn't there something that we can do, can't we develop a program? I said sure, we'll develop the Clean Green Certification Program.

And the program is based on the national organic program. And as I said, when I say that, what we mean is that we work in that program 7 days a week, and all we're really doing in this big industry is, we're simply moving the existing agricultural and food handling regulations into the cannabis industry. We didn't make up regulations or think, oh gosh, let's do this or that. We went ahead and just are moving the existing regs into the cannabis industry.

DOUG MCVAY: And, well, starting in California, and working there, now you're in so many states. Well, I just read not long ago in Colorado, I saw that a massive batch of marijuana had to be recalled because of pesticides, there have been a handful of pesticides that were -- I saw some kind of a thing from Washington or Oregon, pulling some of these products off the shelves because of concerns over unlisted ingredients. Sounds like you've got your -- I mean, sounds like you've kind of got your work cut out for you. What's the response been like in the industry?

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: Well, it's true, every time that there's a -- every time that there's a pesticide article that gets written, every time that there's a pesticide scare or crop destroyed, we really get our phone -- our phone really rings off the hook. I think that as it becomes more legal in the various states, and as the states get more sophisticated in their regulations, there's going to be greater testing, and we're going to find out that pesticide use is relatively rampant in the cannabis industry. That's why the Clean Green certification is so important for consumers, is that they, when they see the Clean Green certified cannabis or products, they can be relatively certain that -- they can be certain that that farmer or processor has met all the program requirements, and part of those requirements are that each one is screened for pesticides every year. So we use a federally licensed agricultural lab for our pesticide screening.

DOUG MCVAY: Do you -- how many clients do you have up here in Oregon?

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: We have about 55 farms, I think, in Oregon right now, and we've got probably about 22 outlets that are licensed to carry our products. You can go to our website at www.CleanGreenCert.com, that's CleanGreenCert.com, and we have our farmers and our outlets listed by state.

DOUG MCVAY: Well, fantastic. This is -- Chris, this is a very, you're doing some great work, and, as I say, I heard about you years ago, and it's, I'm not surprised you've expanded this way. It's -- okeh, so CleanGreenCert.com. You've been watching this industry grow in the, really, I mean, the last decade has been tremendous. What do you, where do you think it's going to be in another couple of years?

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: Well, I think that other states are going to be moving into it, of course. You know, there is no "no answer." We cannot say, we cannot vote no to legal cannabis and assume that it's going to go away. A no vote for legal cannabis is a yes vote for the status quo. It's a yes vote for the drug cartels, it's a yes vote for the violence and the crime that comes with an illegal industry. I think as it becomes more legal, people will realize that it will fall into standard agricultural and food handling practices, and I think you're going to see the crime rate drop, you'll see the profit, you know, the high profit margin drop out, and I think you'll see more responsible farmers staying in the industry, and new responsible farmers coming into the industry.

DOUG MCVAY: One last, if I may. Prop 64, a position?

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: Actually, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with Prop 64.

DOUG MCVAY: California, not up here. Your Prop 64, the one down in California.

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: I don't have an opinion on it yet. You know, California's such a large state. There've been so many proposals, and I just literally, I'm on the road over 200 days a year. I'm afraid California's going to mix it up pretty bad. The regulations that are going to be coming in effect in 2018 look pretty burdensome. I don't like the industry being broken up into that many permits. I don't like the fact that the farmer cannot communicate directly with the consumer. I think that that's something that's in small agriculture for centuries. Here in, you know, along the west coast, the farmers market. So whenever, like, the Washington model, where the farmer cannot communicate directly with the consumer, I think that you really place a controlling interest in the outlets, and the distributor. And we're a very farmer-centric organization. I think it should remain that way. So, I don't know. California's a huge state with a multibillion dollar cannabis industry, so I don't have opinions on it yet.

DOUG MCVAY: Fair enough. Chris Van Hook, thank you so much.

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOOK: Thank you very much, we appreciate the interview.

DOUG MCVAY: That was Christopher Van Hook, he's an attorney and environmental scientist based in Crescent City, California. His company is called Clean Green.

Adrian Brown, I've spoken with you before, at a, I think it was a hemp conference. You have a business model which would involve a delivery service. It's, you've been waiting for the OLCC, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, to make some changes, and I guess your wait is over. Tell me about your business and tell me about what just happened.

ADRIAN BROWN: That's correct. So, I'm one of the co-founders of Green Box. We're a monthly cannabis subscription service. For monthly, we source the best flower, edibles, topicals, concentrates, and all other cannabis products. We curate them in a nice box, and deliver them directly to your patient's or consumer's home.

And we were -- patiently been waiting for the temporary rules from the OLCC to be finalized, temporary rules limited deliveries to a $100 value limit, which made it pretty hard to run a sustainable business under those rules. So, through a lot of communication, emails, phone calls, with various OLCC commissioners, and we had a few friends reach out to them as well, you know, some supporters. And so finally, the temporary -- final rules came out, sorry. And that limit got raised to $3,000. So, in our favor of course, and now we're able to run a sustainable business.

DOUG MCVAY: And so it's really just a question of a person doing deliveries being able to carry more than just a, well, that's the retail value of what they'd be allowed to carry at one time on deliveries, right?

ADRIAN BROWN: Correct. Correct. The temporary rules allowed for only $100, which is, as you know, probably the average transaction at the dispensary per order, and just one at a time, it's not possible to run a sustainable business.

DOUG MCVAY: Bicycles would be horribly, horribly insecure, and your vehicles would be gulping gas like nobody's business. Okeh, so that's pretty reasonable. So, now what's, what are your plans for Green Box?

ADRIAN BROWN: So, right now, we're in a process of securing a retail location to operate out of, and once we do, once we find that location, we will submit our OLCC retail application.

DOUG MCVAY: Are there any remaining hurdles, the city, any kind of issue, or are you basically clear to go?

ADRIAN BROWN: No, no other remaining issues, we're clear to go. Just need our location, and when we get our license, we'll start delivering.

DOUG MCVAY: Adrian Brown, that's really terrific news, I'm glad to hear it. Congratulations. Do you have a website where people can find out about your business?

ADRIAN BROWN: Yes, you can go to PDXGreenBox.com, and we're also on every social media platform as GreenBox_PDX.

DOUG MCVAY: Adrian, thank you so much.

ADRIAN BROWN: Thank you as well.

DOUG MCVAY: That again was Adrian Brown, he owns a business called Green Box, located in Portland, Oregon. The state of Oregon has adopted new rules for marijuana delivery services that will allow his business model to operate.

And folks, one quick announcement: On August 19th, 20th, and 21st, that is just a few weeks away, the 25th anniversary Hempfest in Seattle, Washington. I will be speaking. Schedule and other information at HempFest.org.

And well, that's all the time we have today. Thank you for joining us. You've been listening to Century Of Lies, we're a production of the Drug Truth Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org. Drug Truth Network is on Facebook, please give its page a like. Drug War Facts is on Facebook too, give it a like and share it with friends. You can follow me on Twitter, I'm @DougMcVay and of course also @DrugPolicyFacts.

We'll be back next week with thirty minutes of news and information about the drug war and this Century Of Lies. For now, for the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay saying so long. So long!

For the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition: the century of lies. Drug Truth Network programs archived at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.