"Is this piece seriously arguing that we should continue to consume (another!) known carcinogen so that people can have low-paying jobs?"

Says the top-rated comment on the NYT article "What Else Do We Lose When People Give Up Booze? Yes, there are many benefits of cutting back. But bars are closing. Jobs are going away. And a way of being together can feel harder to find" (gift link).

Related news: "More Americans now use weed every day than drink or smoke cigarettes" (NY Post).

"[I]n 1972, Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, discovered ['Reefer Madness'] in the Library of Congress archives."

"He screened it at a New York benefit, catching the eye of Robert Shaye, founder of the new production company New Line Cinema. Shaye knew it had potential as an accidental satire so he rereleased it, holding midnight showings marketed to college students across California campuses in particular. The rest is campy cult classic history, one that includes a 1998 stage musical, which has been revived in productions big and small around the country since, and a 2005 TV movie musical starring Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming and Neve Campbell. 'Reefer Madness' may be the first film to be embraced by a generation because it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good."

That's from a new NYT article, "'Reefer Madness,' the P.S.A. That Backfired Spectacularly/The comically self-serious and outrageous 1936 morality tale, which warned the public about marijuana, became an unintentional parody and midnight-movie classic decades later."

First, I was sorry to see the article omitted the name of the author of the story:

 

Image taken from Wikipedia.

That's amused me for a long time.

But, second, I don't believe "Reefer Madness" was the first thing that "a generation" embraced because "it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good." Personally, I remember going to see "The Green Slime" in 1969 for this reason. I remember hearing that it was what "all the heads" in New York were seeing. 

But I see the distinction: "The Green Slime" was trying to be so bad it's good. "Reefer Madness" was trying to warm young people away from marijuana.

Or was it?

AND: Even as we speak: "Trump administration moves to ease federal restrictions on marijuana/Marijuana had the same classification as heroin, LSD and others before being reclassified for lower potential for abuse" (Guardian).

ALSO: I took my "Or was it?" question to Grok, which assured me it was sincerely intended as propaganda. That made me think. I wrote this sentence to sum up my thoughts: "Propaganda is inherently funny but circumstances might cloud one's ability to appreciate the fun."

Afroman tells his own story: "My proof's on the internet."

For a quick read, go here: "Afroman found not liable in bizarre defamation case brought by Ohio cops who raided his home" (NY Post): "The hip hop star wrote the satirical song 'Lemon Pound Cake' and made a music video with real footage of the raid taken from his home surveillance cameras to raise money for property damage caused during the search, he has said. Seven cops with the sheriff’s office then sued him in March 2023, alleging the music video defamed them, invaded their constitutional privacy, and was an intentional infliction of emotional distress...."

Here's penguinz0 with clips from the trial and mockery of the plaintiffs for their Streisand effect problem:

Here's Afroman's impressive testimony.

Here's "Lemon Pound Cake," one of the songs that led to the lawsuit, with the security camera footage of the cop's cake double-take:

"I grew up on a commune in Northern California where I was raised by hippies, drank well water and ate wild Miner’s lettuce from our field."

"The only medicine allowed was herbs, homeopathy and marijuana. During the stress of my divorce, my mother suggested that I micro-dose mushrooms to regulate my moods. But I knew I needed more than meditations and adaptogens during this ongoing, post-pandemic punch in the face.... It wasn’t until my friend explained how ChatGPT offered her better advice than her expensive psychotherapist that I asked her to come over and walk me through it....  ... I wasn’t feeling better after seven years of work with [my therapist].... I worked for days with Chat to process my feelings and notes and to compose an email....  The therapist responded with a single sentence: 'I appreciate your sentiments.' Her cold reply provided clarity, but it also revealed to me how my relationship with her had mirrored the pattern in my marriage. 'You poured your heart, clarity and depth into that message,' Chat wrote. 'Her reply confirms the very dynamic you’ve been working to free yourself from, where your vulnerability and honesty are met with detachment, minimalism and emotional withholding.'..."

Writes Adele Uddo, in "My Rebound Relationship With a Robot/Raised on a commune, I resisted technology at every step. Until it saved me" (NYT)(gift link).

"In northern Arizona my zinnias and cosmos are still flowering. My cannabis is half harvested (2 of 4 plants)..."

"... and it looks like I'll be yielding at least 6 lbs of dried flower. I don't even like the stuff, but decided to grow it for a lark this year. It is legal to grow 6 plants after all. I'm going to end up with vast quantities of the stuff, and it is apparently very strong. All my pot smoking friends and relatives are delighted with my new hobby. It's better than when I was making my own whiskey. That led to too much drinking for me. The funny thing is that this is entirely legal, and the whiskey was not."

Wrote the commenter who calls himself "Old and slow" in last night's sunrise post — the open thread.

I should reformat this post and give it the headline: How to win friends and put people under the influence.

I'm expressing no opinion on what's "entirely legal" in Arizona, but I was motivated to do a little fact check on ChatGPT. I had several questions. You can do your own research. I'll just quote my favorite sentence from the response I got: "The law doesn’t police casual social reciprocity ('hey thanks for dinner, here’s a little bud'), but if there’s a pattern that looks like payment-in-kind, it can cross into illegal distribution."

"It might sound like snake oil to you, but remember, Bobby Kennedy actually cooks with snake oil."

"We commit federal felonies by the day, by the hundreds if not the thousands. But there’s no real ability for the federal government to shut it down. So the cat’s out of the bag."

Said Aaron Morris, co-founder of the company that manufactures the Wyld brand of cannabis-infused gummies, quoted in "Mummies on cannabis gummies: meet the mothers getting high at home/Frazzled American parents are swapping a nightly glass of chardonnay for chewable THC gummies. But are they ignoring the health risks?" (London Times)

Meanwhile: "Stacy Allen lives in a white wooden house with a perfect lawn and a labradoodle in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.... About once a week, after her two children have gone to bed, she’ll take a bite of what looks and tastes like an ordinary [gummy].... 'I feel like it’s just a way to unwind.... Just like having a glass of wine.... I was even at lunch recently with someone I felt was a very conservative mom, and then she and her husband started opening up about doing gummies — and they have teenagers too.... More women do it than you realise. It’s just like anything — talking about it removes the shame. Then other people will be, like, "Oh, I do them too." It’s not a big deal.'"

"Even low doses of CBD may cause harm to the liver in some people, FDA study finds."

NBC News reports.

Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Applied Regulatory Science carried out a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial last year to assess how low-dose CBD affects liver function in a group of healthy middle-aged men and women.... The goal was to give them a typical amount that might be used by consumers.... While the vast majority of people in the trial were unaffected, 5% showed greatly elevated levels of the liver enzyme aminotransferase, a known marker of liver cell damage or inflammation.... Women appeared to be more vulnerable than men....

"Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani."

The headline for a Michelle Goldberg column. Excerpt:

“His campaign has attracted Jewish New Yorkers of all types,” wrote Jay Michaelson, a columnist at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. The rabbi who runs my son’s Hebrew school put Mamdani on his ballot, though he didn’t rank him first. And while Mamdani undoubtedly did best among left-leaning and largely secular Jews, he made a point of reaching out to others....

So it has been maddening to see people claim that Mamdani’s win was a victory for antisemitism.... Ultimately.... New York’s Democratic primary wasn’t about Israel.... 

The attacks on Mamdani during the primary were brutal, but now that he’s a national figure, those coming his way will be worse. His foes will try to leverage Jewish anxieties to smash the Democratic coalition.... But don’t forget that the vision of this city at the heart of Mamdani’s campaign — a city that embraces immigrants and hates autocrats, that’s at once earthy and cosmopolitan — is one that many Jews, myself included, find inspiring....

Earthy.  

I was moved to unearth every "earthy" in the 21-year archive of this blog. They're all quotes of other people. I've never once used the word (except for one instance, now corrected, where I clearly meant to type "earthly" ("I didn't think you would be terribly sad to see that Robert Blake has left the earthy scene")).

"Was there an episode of 'Sea Hunt' where someone was growing marijuana underwater?"

I asked Grok to check my memory, which surfaced as I was talking with Meade about the gold in Fort Knox and the movie "Goldfinger," which both of us saw when it first came out. We also saw the next new James Bond film, "Thunderball," and thought it was boring and spelled the end of the James Bond craze. All I could remember of "Thunderball" was that there were scenes underwater, and, I said, "Underwater scenes are always boring. Only Lloyd Bridges could make underwater scenes interesting. But the only episode of 'Sea Hunt' I remember is the one where somebody was growing marijuana underwater."

Hence, my question to Grok, and I was delighted by the answer:

Yes, there was an episode of "Sea Hunt" where someone was growing marijuana underwater. In Season 3, Episode 34, titled "Underwater Narcotics," which aired on August 27, 1960, Mike Nelson (played by Lloyd Bridges) encounters divers who are cultivating a hybrid form of marijuana underwater. The episode involves Mike tangling with these divers as he uncovers their unusual operation.

I don't know what your next question/"question" would be, but mine was:

The fact that I'm wondering if the things said to be "a real program" are perhaps not actually real — that says enough.

I found this because it's easy to find things tweeted by Elon Musk in the last 24 hours:

pic.twitter.com/VyFYXCDG9p

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2025

I am reminded of the old "Golden Fleece Award":

The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was a tongue-in-cheek award given to public officials in the United States for squandering public money....

One man controlled this award: Senator William Proxmire. His idea of what sounded stupid ruled. You had to be careful about how your research project looked, at first glance, to a politician who wanted to make a general point about out-of-control federal spending.

"Finding a studio that made her 'feel comfortable enough to be creative' took time, she said, and eventually, she found Pot, a studio in Los Angeles that seeks to empower people of color in ceramics."

"'In that studio, I met a lot of people that help me feel safe and feel able to create whatever I want without thinking: Am I going to sell this or is this going to be something that people are going to want in their stores?' said Ms. Muñoz, who now lives in El Paso and has a studio in Guadalajara, Mexico."

From "That Art Piece on Your Coffee Table? It’ll Get You High. Cannabis paraphernalia is joining the world of home décor. Here are some of the most interesting new designs and designers" (NYT)(free-access link).

I'm expending one of my 10 gift links on this one because I want you to see some of the godawful pottery the NYT is promoting for artists and empowerers of people of color. I found this article at the top of the NYT home page, right next to "Trump Favors Blunt Force in Dealing With Foreign Allies and Enemies Alike." No pun intended, I'm sure.

I'm old enough to remember the kind of gigantic atrocious ashtray that was regarded as an "art piece on your coffee table," back in the heyday of tobacco smoking. 

Smoking paraphernalia "joined the world of home decor" a long time ago.  

By the way, did you ever look and look and finally find a place where people helped you feel safe and feel able to create whatever you want without thinking and then you relocated to Mexico?

Now, get out there and be creative. Creative for the people. Of color. Perhaps orange. Or avocado....

"In September 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a speech in Las Vegas, warned that drug use was threatening 'to sap our national strength'..."

"... and called out a number of pop songs, including the Beatles’ 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and the Byrds’ 'Eight Miles High,' as 'latent drug culture propaganda.' Within a year, under the Nixon administration, the Federal Communications Commission warned broadcasters about playing songs with lyrics that might promote drug use. As a result, 'One Toke Over the Line' was banned by radio stations in Buffalo, Miami, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Brewer & Shipley, Mr. Brewer said, came to embrace the crackdown as 'a badge of honor.'"

From "Michael Brewer, Whose 'One Toke' Was a Big Hit, Is Dead at 80/The duo Brewer & Shipley reached the Top 10 in 1970 with 'One Toke Over the Line,' a ditty about marijuana that ran afoul of Nixon-era censors" (NYT).

Brewer lived to be 80 and that was half a century after he expressed this conception of how he wanted to die: "My last wish will be just one thing/Be smilin' when I die/I wanna be one toke over the line, sweet Jesus/One toke over the line..."

The singer was "sitting downtown in a railway station" and "just waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary." 

Even if the song originated from an exclamation about smoking marijuana, it seems that the substance of the song is religious. The metaphor of the train is seen in other songs, such as "People Get Ready (There's a train a-coming....") and "This Train (Is Bound for Glory)."

I wouldn't brush off "One Toke Over the Line" as a "ditty."

And by the way, screw Agnew. Back in 1970, young people easily opposed censorship. Who would have thought that in 50 years, the tables would be turned and the young would embrace it?

James Carville watched a few minutes of the Biden/Trump debate, then turned it off, "ate two pot gummies and started listening to some Hank Williams."

"He said he realized at that moment that Mr. Biden would have to drop out. By every account, Mr. Carville’s decision to act against Mr. Biden came after extensive consultation with a network of friends he has been talking to daily for 30 years. 'I went into this with what you would call in the law malice and forethought,' he said.... 'I could have been embarrassed,' Mr. Carville said. 'He could have run and won. But it never occurred to me that I was wrong.' At this stage in Mr. Carville’s life, there was not much to lose and it is hard to imagine him remaining quiet. 'He can’t help it,' said Paul Begala, Mr. Carville’s partner on that 1992 campaign and one of his closest friends. 'It is who he is. His income does not depend on being hired by politicians. Nor has it been for 30 years. He can say whatever he wants.'"

Writes Adam Nagourney, in "James Carville on Aging, Edibles and His Anxieties About Harris/At 79, the Democratic commentator is the subject of a documentary that captures his musings — and his warning to President Biden — about the toils of age" (NYT).

What Hank Williams song did James Carville cue up?

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (because JC was sad)

Jambalaya (because JC is Cajun and the song begins "Goodbye, Joe")

Hey Good Lookin' (because no one ever said that to him)

Other (make your argument in the comments)

 

pollcode.com free polls

Fungus of the Day.

That's a photo by Meade. And here's a photo I took not far from there:

I thought the "Vance" brand for marijuana was amusing. I looked up the company and found this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, from 2020: "This Milwaukee company rolls thousands of CBD joints every day and is bringing in millions":

At Knuckleheads Tobacco stores, Vance Global's product is the top CBD cigarette, said Madison store general manager Landon Meske. It's the No. 1 staff recommendation for a CBD smoking product, Meske said.

Oh! Knuckleheads. Funny to see "knuckleheads" so soon after the VP candidate who is not Vance called himself a sometime knucklehead. But I know Knuckleheads. I've done photography there:

Write about anything you want in the comments.

"When states began legalizing marijuana nearly three decades ago, initially for medical use, they set in motion something of an unintended public health experiment...."

"But cannabis remains illegal under federal law and classified as a tightly controlled substance, which has stymied oversight and scientific study.... [Few states] require warnings about cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome or psychosis. None are monitoring — or are even equipped to assess — the full scope of health outcomes. 'There is no other quote-unquote medicine in the history of our country where your doctor will say, "Go experiment and tell me what happens,"' said Carrie Bearden, a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.....  The commercial industry that followed [legalization] touted its products as beneficial, while focusing not on developing marijuana’s medical uses but on engineering a quicker, more intense high.... The commercial market expanded further in 2018 when Congress legalized hemp, a cannabis plant used in industrial products, and inadvertently legalized highly intoxicating hemp-derived compounds like Delta-8 THC...."

From "As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms/The drug, legal in much of the country, is widely seen as nonaddictive and safe. For some users, these assumptions are dangerously wrong" (NYT).

This is the article I've been wanting to see but — at this point — thought I'd never see.

"Kamala Harris and the Influence of an Estranged Father Just Two Miles Away/Donald J. Harris rarely speaks to his famous daughter, who lives nearby. But he helped shape who she became."

That's the NYT, and I'm giving you a free-access link.

Dr. Harris’s spectral presence in Ms. Harris’s life began when he and her mother separated in 1969, when Ms. Harris was 5. The couple divorced in 1972 after he lost a bitter custody battle that brought his closeness to Ms. Harris and her younger sister “to an abrupt halt,” Dr. Harris wrote in a 2018 essay. The sealed divorce settlement, he said, was “based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting.”

He added that it was “especially in the case of this father, ‘a neegroe from da eyelans’” who “might just end up eating his children for breakfast! Nevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children.”...

They're eating the.... 

The question is why Kamala Harris never found a way to connect to him. Did she not want to understand what happened in that momentous court case? Was her father discriminated against by the U.S. authorities? She is forefronting her genetic inheritance from her father (and making that her dominant racial identity over that of her mother), so shouldn't she want to make that connection to her father? Compare Barack Obama, who made an elaborate search for his father — recorded in "Dreams From My Father." And his father had not been there in his young life or fought to preserve the relationship the way Harris's father (apparently) did.

"It was a rare homage to her father, a prominent economist but fleeting figure in her life who has largely been a footnote in her personal and political story."

"The first Black scholar to receive tenure in Stanford University’s economics department, Dr. Harris remains a professor emeritus there, and turned 86 the day after his daughter gave the most important speech of her life at the Democratic National Convention. He was not among the family members who accompanied Ms. Harris to the convention.... Her relationship with her father is a closely guarded part of Ms. Harris’s life about which she has spoken only sparingly.... 'There is no title or honor on earth I’ll treasure more than to say I am Shyamala Gopalan Harris’ daughter,' Ms. Harris wrote in her book. 'That is the truth I hold dearest of all.'..."

"'Run, Kamala, Run': Mention of Harris’s Father Was a Rare Homage to a Fleeting Figure/In her convention speech, Kamala Harris told of being inspired by her father, a prominent economist who was otherwise largely a footnote in her personal story" (NYT).

Ms. Harris’s father has largely declined to weigh in on his daughter’s barrier-breaking political ascent in recent years, except in 2019 when he criticized a comment she made connecting her Jamaican roots to marijuana use. Since then, he has cited his aversion to seeking publicity....

From Professor Harris's 2019 essay:

"More people in the United States say they are using marijuana daily or near daily, compared with people who say they are drinking alcohol that often..."

"... according to a new study. In 2022, about 17.7 million people reported daily or near daily marijuana use, compared with 14.7 million people who reported drinking at the same frequency, said the report, which was based on more than four decades of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.... While 'far more people drink' than use marijuana, high-frequency drinking among Americans is less common.... The 2022 survey found that the median drinker reported drinking on four to five days in a month, compared with 15 to 16 days in a month for cannabis."

WaPo reports.

So does that mean cannabis is more addictive than alcohol? I searched the article for "addiction" and it only came up as the name of the journal where the study was reported.

Toxic.

There's a WaPo article with the headline, "How to give up smoking weed (or other toxic habits you’re tired of)/Quitting marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol was tougher than the writer expected. She shares what works and what didn’t." The last line of the article is: "When I gave up toxic habits, I had room for something more beautiful to take their place."

And the comments are loaded with people resisting the notion that marijuana is "toxic":

"Again, the Post treats addiction to alcohol and nicotine the same as the use of the non-addictive cannabis. Why the lie? Why the supposition cannabis use by adults is 'toxic'? I don't use any intoxicants. Haven't for more than three decades. Cannabis is medicine."