Winterland ’71: First Promised Land. On either May 28th or May 30th in 1971 some distributed a barrel of spiked apple punch to the crowd at The Grateful Dead concert, resulting in many people consuming a significant amount of acid. The chaotic aftermath included arrests, emergency room visits, and general mayhem. Larry Mishkin reviews the show and also response to a negative cannabis New Yor Time editorial titled "Legalizing Marijuana is a Big Mistake." Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-show Larry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin Jay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesberg Recorded on Squadcast Show Less
Winterland ’71: First Promised Land.
On either May 28th or May 30th in 1971 some distributed a barrel of spiked apple punch to the crowd at The Grateful Dead concert, resulting in many people consuming a significant amount of acid. The chaotic aftermath included arrests, emergency room visits, and general mayhem. Larry Mishkin reviews the show and also response to a negative cannabis New Yor Time editorial titled "Legalizing Marijuana is a Big Mistake."
Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-show
Larry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin
Jay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesberg
[00:00:00] Are we doing video today too? No. Okay.
Ah, play back the next. I'm not worried.
Whenever you're ready. Okay, man. Oh, another countdown. I can just start. Start. Okay.
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Deadhead Cannabis Show. I'm Larry Michigan of Michigan Law Chicago. I'm flying [00:01:00] solo today. Rob is out celebrating, uh, one happy family event or another of the kind that we all celebrate when we have wives and kids and, uh, good for him and, uh, we'll miss him today.
But, um, this is a great, great day to be here. No guest, but we're not gonna need a guest because a, um, we have a really wonderful Grateful Dead Show, uh, to play and talk about, uh, from 1971. So 52 years ago today, if I've done my ra math right, Dan, and, um, uh, he's given me a nod, so I guess I did this time.
Homework helps. Uh, it's a Grateful Dead show. May 29th or 28th or 30th, nobody knows. 1971 from Winterland in, uh, San Francisco. And as we always do, let's just dive in with the opening song of the show.[00:02:00]
Casey Jones from a show on May 29th through [00:03:00] 28th. I'll get to that in a minute. 1971. Uh, this song is barely a year old. Uh, it, uh, shot def Fame because it was the, uh, closing tune on, uh, working Man's Dead album, uh, which, uh, had just come out, uh, barely a year before. And by this point, it's already a show opener.
And as you can tell, a crowd favorite, uh, and a great way to get, uh, a show. And you can tell the boys are firing right out of the gates. And I wanna tell you right now that the sound on this show is not ideal. Uh, that is not a repeat, not Dan Hummus's fault. He can only work with what we give him. And, uh, unfortunately, uh, even on, uh, some of the online, uh, download services where you can find these shows.
Um, and, and we like archive just as our personal favorite. Uh, You know, you have to take what you get. And the fact that these shows even exist at all is amazing and it's probably too much to hope and expect it back at that time. All of the official recordings, if there even were official recordings, were all being preserved.
Many were, but many were not. So, uh, we're happy to have this [00:04:00] one and, and be able to get into it. Um, there's a lot of debate regarding the actual date of this show. Uh, it's clearly a two night run at Winterland, somewhere between May 28th and May 30th. Some say the two nights were the 28th and 29th. Some say the 28th and the 30th, and some say the 29th and the 30th.
And if you go on to any of the online forums, there's page after page after page of commenters all explaining why they're right and everybody else is wrong. Um, but it has something ultimately to do with Jerry having been sick and they were trying to accommodate him by either starting a day late or ending a day early or giving him a day off between, um, But, but that's really a pretty much the only thing about this show that people can't agree on.
And, and I guess to a lesser degree, the set list, because depending, people remember hearing certain songs and they're convinced they heard it on the 29th and somebody says, no, they played that song on the 30th. And, you know, so it, it, it, it goes back and forth. But the one thing that everybody agrees about is that on one of these nights, um, and, and, and maybe it's this one, and certainly from the comments I was reading, [00:05:00] uh, there was a barrel in the lobby.
Of Winterland, and it was filled with spiked apple punch. And when I say spiked, we're not talking about alcohol kids, right? We're talking about the real deal. Uh, cups were being passed out to the crowds as they entered. Uh, some people took a sip, some people drank an entire glass, some people went back for two or three.
It was a very, very strong batch. And as it turned out, uh, some people were consuming well over a thousand mics of acid, which is a significant amount, uh, for anybody. Uh, let alone the, you know, the, the pros that would hang out, uh, with the dead. I mean, that, that might be okay for the Mary Pranksters and the folks who were all going to Ken's acid tests.
Uh, but for the general public coming in off the street from, uh, San Francisco, even if they were told that it was spiked, probably couldn't have imagined it was like this. And the, the commenters all say they, they report people lying on the floor, crawling on their hands and knees. Twirling around aimlessly throughout the entire building with no real being tied into the music or anything other than just twirling, [00:06:00] grabbing for objects.
Not really there. Right. Kind of sounds like an early version of ai, I guess, but it's just one of these things that's like, uh, you have to see to believe. And the band, they just, they, they played on and, and did their show. There's great stories about all the chaos in the area around winterland after the show when all of these, you know, very heavily dosed deadheads headed out into the San Francisco night.
You know, just think, uh, general mayhem. There were arrests, uh, emergency room visits, uh, you know, wandering aimlessly throughout the city and, you know, all sorts of general craziness. Uh, in addition, apparently the. The place was oversold. Uh, but this was not entirely unexpected because one of Uncle Bill's tricks was he would have his ticket takers take the tickets, not rip them, and hand them that they had just accepted back to Bill, who would take him over to the box office and sell them a second time.
So it created a terrible crowding problem inside the building. And again, in this night, you know, mostly of highly dosed. Deadheads. Um, so as a [00:07:00] result of all of this and, and, and the, the, the problems that followed it, uh, after the show, it was announced that Graham had, uh, briefly lost his concert license, but in a move that, you know, you appreciate Bill Graham being able to pull off in any major metropolitan area.
He got the city to reduce the problem to a no fire aisle, meaning that there was no aisle down the center of the floor. So in case of a fire, people would have a way to run out. Uh, he paid a fine and then he was back in business. And I don't know for long, you know, how, how, how many times he, he played this game with tickets.
Um, but I can tell you that there are no more reports ever of large barrels of acid, uh, at any future. Dead shows just being generally available. Now, some people, uh, wanted to contend that this was the last official asset test. Uh, but the reports that I read from those that, uh, who were there, deny that and simply say that someone brought in a barrel that night filled with punch, and that was that it was not billed, uh, as an asset test.
Um, Interestingly, new writers for the Purple Sage opened that night, [00:08:00] uh, which was not uncommon for them in 19, uh, 70, 71 and part of 72. Uh, and Jerry would often play with them before coming back out with the dead for their, for their set, but he did not play that night again because of his, uh, recovery from some unnamed illness.
But I'm always loved when, uh, new writers play and, uh, as you know, one of our prior guests, Rob Stein, uh, who introduces the concerts on the, the Sirius XM Dead Channel, uh, is the archivist for the new writers of the Purple Sage. So seeing them makes me think of him and, uh, I'll just give a shout out to Dan here and say we gotta reach back out to Rob Blitzstein and see if we can't get him back on.
Uh, cuz there's lots of good stuff going on with the, um, Uh, new writers of the purple s stage. We've seen them link into a few of our stories and uh, that would be very cool. So, um, this is just a fun show for everybody. Uh, the boys are having a good time. If Jerry wasn't feeling well, you really can't tell.
Uh, the crowd is having a good time. Uh, bill Graham is, is, is doing his thing. [00:09:00] Um, not yet having to go through the, uh, problem with the city, which will, which will pop up after the show. So, Casey Jones, we just heard, uh, but let's uh, dive back into another one here before we get to the other side of the show that we're gonna spend quite a bit of time on.
And, uh, this is the song. It hurts me too, uh, with Pigpen taking the vocal lead. So Dan, if you can spin that for us too, that would be great.[00:10:00]
It hurts me too. Uh, tune Played by the Grateful Dead Sung exclusively by Pigpen. Interestingly, no one seems to know who wrote the tune. It is a blue standard that is one of the most interpreted blue songs out there. The first known recording of it is a 1940 by Tampa Red, who I was not able to get a lot of information on, but maybe next show.[00:11:00]
It's described as a mid tempo eight bar blues that features slide guitar borrows from earlier blues songs and has been recorded by many artists, including, but not limited to Eric Clapton, Elmore James Junior Wells. As we mentioned, the Grateful Dead covered it from approximately 1966 through 1972.
Pigpen sang it, and after he died, the band did not make any effort to revive the tune. It was played, uh, heavily on the Europe 72 tour. A lot of really, really good versions there and certainly worth checking out if you're just looking for some good examples of it. But of course, this shows another great example.
And what I really love about this version is that you don't just get pig's, great blues singing, also his harp playing. And when he's wailing away on that thing, you know, the crowd really loves it and just shows not just how versatile Pigpen was, but the entirely different sound that the Dead had with him, with, with this harmonica that could just cut in and instantly turn them from a rock band into a blues band.
And, and Pig was [00:12:00] the guy who could bridge both of those worlds. And he did it great. And we always talk about, uh, what a loss it is not to have him around anymore. And it is a loss not to have him around anymore. But it's great that we have him recorded in so many ways, uh, that we can go back and listen to it as often as we do.
Now, today we are going to spend a little bit of time living up to the other side of our name of our show, and that's marijuana. And you know, we, we try on this show to express our views on marijuana. We, we make no bones about it, who we are, and the fact that we support legalized marijuana, both for adult use and for medical.
We make no bones about the fact that, uh, Rob and I have used it. Uh, I continue to use it. Rob, probably not so much. Um, we make no bones about the fact that our businesses are heavily involved in the marijuana industry. But what I think we do is that we're very transparent and we bring reality to this show and to our listeners so that they can make their own decisions.
We're not telling [00:13:00] you that we're the gospel and you have to believe us, but we're saying that we're giving it to you straight. And it's important to get it straight, right? We, we'll tell you, we don't, we do not condone. Underuse, uh, underage usage. We, we, I fully accept studies that are, that are being conducted that, that can demonstrate that using marijuana at a young age, uh, before the brain is fully developed, which, depending on who you listen to, could it be anywhere between like 22 to 26 years of age.
Most people kind of agreeing right around 25 that any use before that, uh, can be disruptive to the development of the brain. That may be true, uh, from personal experience and knowledge of my friends from that point in time and, uh, people who were trying marijuana and, uh, really getting into it long before the age of 25.
I can't tell you that I've ever seen that happen, but, Nevertheless, I'm not gonna dispute experts on that. And, uh, you know, I don't think the industry should be targeting people, [00:14:00] uh, who are under, uh, the, the age of either 18 or 21, depending on what states you're in. But policy that, that tries to push things that way is, is not good policy for society, for the industry, for anybody.
Uh, we do not support intoxicated driving. Our point with driving is if we're gonna, we as a society are going to allow, uh, people to drive home on Saturday nights after having had a few drinks. Wouldn't it be better if instead of the drinks they had smoked marijuana so they could still get the intoxicating high and relaxation that they were looking for, uh, while being a little, uh, less dangerous to the rest of us on the roads.
Um, but you know, nevertheless, we recognize when people say, you know, if you, we, I don't wanna get on an airplane and know that the pilot has been smoking a joint before he got on the airplane. Uh, common carriers and things like that. I don't want a trucker who's barreling down the highway pulling two huge loads, uh, to be sitting in his calves smoking a joint.
Uh, you know, and kind of drifting off, listening to some Grateful Dead music. There's a time and a place for everything. When I'm going into court and getting a case ready [00:15:00] for trial, uh, I'm doing my work. I'm not getting high, I'm doing what needs to be done. And, uh, and this is what we do now, is, you know, we can say it's true that there are people out there that, that don't control their smoking as well.
But as you're gonna find out in a minute here, you know, of course there are. Uh, and we, and we don't deny that either. But what we do get really upset about is when people try to point to the marijuana industry, uh, and single it out in some unique way, as is justifying, uh, any, uh, recognition of it. Any legalization of it is just wrong.
Or is Ross, or excuse me, Ross, do that. And I apologize if I pronounce his name wrong cuz not withstanding my disagreement with him on this article, everyone deserves to have their name pronounced correctly. His first name is Ross. I've read his writings many times. Um, do that d o u t h a t. Uh, he is a columnist for the New York Times.
So this column that I'm gonna be talking about was published in the New York Times on May 17th, 2023. Uh, I guess it's kind of fair to say that, that Ross and David Brooks and maybe one or two other [00:16:00] columnists are the, uh, designated conservative side of the op-ed page for the New York Times and. As you would expect for somebody writing from the New York Times, even then, they, they still don't tend to be as, as hard to the right, um, as, as other, uh, conservative, uh, uh, journalists might be.
Um, but nevertheless, uh, you know, they, they hold the views that they hold and, and everybody's entitled to hold those views. But when you're in that kind of a position where you're a columnist from one of the most respected publications in the world, and, and that's just true no matter what President Trump and his handful of deplorables, sorry Hillary, I have to steal your line, you know, might say about that.
Uh, just cuz you don't like what it print doesn't make it, uh, any less great. It makes mistakes like every other major newspaper in the world. Uh, but if the world were ending tomorrow, I would wanna read the New York Times report of it, uh, before just about anybody else. Now again, that's me. So Ross's column is titled Legal wa [00:17:00] Legalizing Marijuana is a Big Mistake.
You know where this is going. Of all the ways to win a culture war, the smoothest is just make the other side seem hopelessly uncool. So right off the bat, we know where Ross is going. It's gonna be, Hey, I'm a i, I know I'm a square. Uh, this is a culture war and since I can't see the cool side of it, you guys, you know, ostracize me and push me off and don't wanna listen to anything I have to say.
And my response is, it has nothing to do with being cool or uncool. Uh, you know, folks that we would call uncool, and Lord knows according to my kids, I'm certainly one of them. Uh, plenty of uncool people, uh, squares, if you will, enjoy smoking marijuana very, very much. And just the opposite. Many people who I would say are some of the coolest dudes out there, both professional and private, that I know many of them choose not to smoke marijuana and, and, and don't smoke it.
So the minute you, you create a group and make it us against them [00:18:00] mentality, uh, in my opinion, you're doing it cuz you know you don't have a good argument and you're looking for s. Be able to be part of a group. It's not just my idea by the way he says, right? All of us squares kind of see it this way. I say, no, really what you guys are are just a bunch of busy bodies.
What you always are, you're a busy body about my personal choices. Um, you know, and compared to what your choices that are to forbid the teaching of, uh, to children of anything that has to do with the black community or the L G B T Q community and many others. So, you know, you wanna slam my personal choices?
Yeah. Um, go right ahead. But you know, you better look in your closet folks because when you wanna come in and start making a big stink about marijuana, uh, it doesn't hold a candle to some of the stuff, uh, that people on the right wanna talk about. We can't do anything about guns as. Hundreds and thousands practically it seam of kids thousands have, have been shot and killed, uh, since Columbine.
And you know, as you'll see as we get here in a minute, in some of the other stuff, they [00:19:00] basically, this entire article can be summed up by saying that marijuana, legal marijuana hasn't delivered with what it said it would. So therefore we just need to make it illegal again. Yeah, we'll leave a little bit out for medical, but otherwise, no, it's, we're just gonna make it legal illegal again.
And that's really, uh, you know, the way it should be. Which is an absolutely astounding argument to make, um, but is very, very indicative of a, uh, overly right wing, conservative state of mind, uh, who don't wanna see a problem, so they just get rid of it. Notwithstanding the fact that people have been smoking marijuana since the dawn of time, and certainly as long as they've been drinking alcohol.
Uh, but let's just pretend that it's some new things started by John Lennon and the Beatles, and, you know, now it's gotten out of control and, and we don't know what to do about it. So he goes on to say that, um, yeah, you know, there, there might be some legitimate, uh, benefits of pot, but then in, in, in, uh, Ross's words.
But the vibe of the whole debate has pitted the chill against the uptight, [00:20:00] the cool against the square, the relaxed future against the principle Skinners of the past. I, I, I have to say, I've been involved, uh, in the legalized marijuana industry since 2013. I've read it all. I've seen it all. I don't ever recall people making that much of a split because again, everybody smokes marijuana.
Republicans smoke it, Democrats smoke it, conservative smoke it, liberal smoke it. The guys on Fox News, smoke it. For all we know, rush Limbaugh smoked it. Right? And why would anybody ever be embarrassed or afraid to say that they smoked it? We know that people smoke it everywhere. All sorts of people have smoked it.
Bill Clinton smoked it, even though he pretends that he didn't. You know, most of those folks who were, you know, are in their sixties, seventies, of course, they all smoked when they were in college or were exposed to it in such a way, uh, that, you know, you couldn't get away from it. So, Again, to, to, to try and say that, you know, this is the chill versus the uptight.
We call that projecting, right? Those of us who aren't really in the, uh, mental healthcare industry, but you know, no [00:21:00] people who do provide mental health care, that's a projection when you're projecting your insecurities on other people. And again, you know, this argument is going nowhere when somebody, you know, is already burying themselves so deep in the ground and basically saying, I'm not Cool.
Don't listen to me. Now Ross does note that, uh, marijuana has legalization for marijuana and now has a two-thirds majority in recent polling at this time. So he says, well, trying to make any counterargument feels really kind of futile and you know, Even any modest, uh, his word cave's, you know, complaints or couched and apologetic and defensive style as if, well, I don't question the right to get high, but perhaps the pervasive smell of weed in our cities has a bit unfortunate.
I'm not a narc or anything, but maybe New York doesn't need quite so many unlicensed pot dealers. Hey, you know what? Talk to the legislators who run New York City. That's not a slam against marijuana, that's a slam against the policy. People who put a program in place, and not unlike Illinois, still haven't figured out [00:22:00] how to get their stuff together so they can get these licenses issued so people don't have to go to the bodegas.
But you've been able to buy pot on the streets in New York City forever. I remember going to, uh, when I was in college at Michigan, and some of my roommates and friends who were from New Jersey or, or the New York area, would talk about, you can just go over there and pull into places in certain neighborhoods, walk inside at a ticket window, slip your money underneath, get your weed and beyond your way.
So none of this is new. None of this is like, you know, other than the fact that New York has said like many other states that we're making marijuana, uh, legal under these, under these rules, and then they fail to follow through and allow people to come forward with an industry based on the rules. So what happens?
Uh, they've created a, a climate now where people feel comfortable with marijuana again, and since they aren't moving fast enough, the black market swos in and takes over, and that's what they do. So the, the problem here is that we have legislators who are trying to appease people by, Passing these, these statutes.
But the same legislatures slaters, who don't wanna be bothered by actually listening to what people in the industry, or people who have [00:23:00] practical experience or knowledge about any of this will say, no, no, no. We've got this all covered. We have very, very detailed legislation here. They said in Illinois, we don't need rules, we don't need anything.
It's all gonna work out just fine. And as soon as that first, uh, independent dispensary opens here, maybe it has now maybe one has we're, oh boy, three years down the road. But that's okay. We, we saved two big months on the front end by not actually taking our time to listen to folks in the industry who could have easily pointed us in the right directions, just like they've done in so many other states, Missouri, for God's sakes, just look at Missouri people.
It doesn't have to be that hard. Um, so. Ross goes on to say, all of this means because the, the, it's, it's so pervasive. A two-thirds majority, it's, oh boy, we have two-thirds of the population in favor of it. But don't, don't worry folks, they'll eventually come around. Uh, so it's gonna take a while for that to happen.
Uh, it's, as he says, it will take a long time for conventional wisdom to acknowledge the truth that seems readily apparent to [00:24:00] squares like me. Marijuana legalization of we've done so far has been a policy failure, a potential social disaster, and clear and evident mistake. Now, those are bold words. And you hope he can prove them, but of course, you know that he can't.
These are bold words you throw up in front. People read the first three paragraphs of something, they walk away, uh, and, and, and then nothing works. So, okay, he, he says The best version that day the squares can make is an essay by a gentleman named Charles Fain, Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute.
Stop right there. Full disclosure, Manhattan Institute is a very highly conservative think take on the East Coast. So, um, while everybody's entitled to make their own opinions, and they certainly are, uh, if you're gonna read their opinion and understand it, you have to understand the, the, the position and the slant from which they, they come.
Uh, and, and Mr. Fain is explaining his evolution from a youthful libertarian to a grownup prohibitionist, uh, somebody who smoked marijuana. And now that they're older or wiser and understand that the people younger who wanna do [00:25:00] it at the age I did, it shouldn't be allowed to. Um, it will not convince readers who come with as stringently libertarian pres presupposition, who believe on high principle, that consenting adults should be able to purchase, sell, and enjoy almost any substance short of fentanyl, that no second or no second order, social consequences can justify infringing on this, right?
Like alcohol, like nicotine, like caffeine. Right? Is that what we're saying here? Uh, you know, you wanna talk about second order social consequences. Alcohol destroys, li destroys lives. Alcohol kills people. Alcohol is a horrible, terrible thing for society as a whole. If you really wanna do a cost benefit analysis, millions of people die every year in this country and even more around the world from alcohol poisoning and alcohol related diseases.
Cirrhosis of the liver being the most prominent, but so many others, it messes up people's mental capacity. It messes up their stomach so they can't eat food anymore. It messes up their physical ability so they lose [00:26:00] the ability to do anything. And you wanna talk about your, oh, very clear social disasters that Mr.
Lehman and you are gonna kindly point out to us while you sit around and eat your red and meat at dinner and drink your alcohol and smoke a cigar afterwards. I mean, really this is, you know, the, this is what, this is what the argument is. Okay, so now, but Lehman goes further and he explains in detail why the second.
Order effects of marijuana legalization have mostly vindicated the pessimist and skeptics sisters of themselves. First of all, on the criminal justice front, the expectation that legalizing pot would help reduce American's prison population by clearing out non-violent offenders was always overdrawn.
Because it only makes up a small share of the in Carson incarceration rate. Yes. But people were let out. So is he now suggesting that we should just go throw them all back in? Not enough of 'em. Were let out. We're not really keeping enough people out of jail. So there's no reason to try and protect any of them.
Um, you know, none of these people belonged in jail in the first place. They were all there for a long, long time, [00:27:00] or longer than they should have been. They get out and basically he's saying, no, we don't see enough of a benefit there. Of course, that's a policy decision again, and the government can't make a better policy decision cuz people like Ross Wright columns and say, we can't let these people out of jail.
So the number of people they can let out has to be limited to appease people on the left. Well without insulting people on the right. So, you know, Ross, it's a little disingenuous to sit there and make that argument at all. Um, and I, I in our friend Mr. Lehman's view, then the cops often use marijuana as a pretext to search someone they suspect of a more serious crime, and they simply substitute some other pretext when the law changes, leaving arrest rates basically unchanged.
Okay, so good. This is what he's saying. Even if we get rid of marijuana, this particular problem's still gonna persist because they'll just find a reason to arrest people for something else that they can claim has a pretext crime. So therefore, we're just gonna keep getting rid of everything until what?
Forever. You know? So because of that, you're saying that anything's gonna matter. So what's the difference? Why are we worried if [00:28:00] it's gonna be marijuana, whatever. I got a good idea. How about stepping in and working with the police officers now? You know, we saw so social upheaval a few years ago and everybody on the right screamed and yelled and said, support the police.
Support the police until they stormed the capitol and beat the hell out of the police. But they say, support the, support the police. Support the police. You wanna support the police. Don't put 'em in a position of having to go around to arrest people for smoking marijuana. Don't put them in a position of having to do these kind of things and maybe put police officers in there who don't feel the need to hit people over the head with their night sticks, uh, and do other things like that.
Not all police officers. I support the police. I'm a huge supporter of the police. But this police, like every other profession, lawyers included, have bad apples. And if the profession itself doesn't weed out those bad apples, then the stain goes on everybody and there's just no other way for it to be. Uh, people get, uh, there's all sorts of policing problems in this country right now, and that should not, and cannot overshadow all the good work and the positive work that police do, but we can't ignore the other stuff.
At the risk of, uh, insulting the police who are, [00:29:00] who are the good cops, hopefully they can say, just like us, we don't want this either. This shouldn't happen. Okay, so they say legalization isn't striking a blow against mass incarceration. Uh, but that's okay. We can just put people back in jail. Then they go and say, nor is it doing great things for public health.
There was hoping some early evidence that legal pot might substitute for opioid use. Um, but some of the more recent data cuts the other way. So the first piece of evidence that we have here from our, uh, good friend is a, uh, a paper that branded the Journal of Health Economics that found that legal medical marijuana, particularly when available through retail dispensaries, is associated with higher opioid mar mortality.
Okay, marijuana legalization and opioid deaths by Neil k Mather. Christopher J Room, uh, October, October, 2016. Can't, sorry, I'm having trouble reading the date here. It could be March of 23 [00:30:00] at. It's printed on the internet. Okay, so the abstract, right? As many states of legalized marijuana. Uh, so despite prior research, it remains how clear, unclear how these policies are related to rates of opioid, involve overdose deaths, which have trended rapid, rapidly upwards over time.
Uh, and so they're trying to make a case that this is a result of legalized marijuana. Forget about, uh, you know, uh, dope Sick and the Sacklers and you know, all of these opioids that have been handed out like candy for years and years and years. Uh, no, no, no. The prevalence of that all has to do with the legalization of marijuana, right?
That's the cause and effect. They're both happening at the same time, which is like, I look when it's about to rain, I go outside and I cough and it rains. And I can say It only coughs. It only rains when I cough. That, that, that's the argument they make here. But, but this gets so much better or worse depending on how you look at it.
Right, cuz they said there was, there was an overly optimistic assessment of the effects of marijuana legalization on opioid [00:31:00] deaths, whatever, that, that's not accurate. Second, we present new estimates suggesting that legal medical marijuana, particularly when available through retail dispensaries, is associated with higher opioid mortality.
We don't know for sure with recreational, uh, they say whether it can be correlated with that, um, but certainly not any more or less than non-legal cannabis. Again, whatever that means, a very generalized statement. But folks, God bless these guys for their honesty. But let's hear this next line in this report.
A likely mechanism for these effects is the emergence of. Illicit Fentanyl, which has increased the riskiness of even small positive effects of cannabis legalization on the consumption of opioids. Now, I have no idea what that means, if there's legal fentanyl out there, how that has anything to do, unless what they're saying is maybe right, that people are spiking the marijuana.
Uh, But if they are, isn't that an org argument for legal marijuana? And didn't [00:32:00] they just get done saying that the, the le the, the evidence suggests that it's legal marijuana when available through a retail dispensary that's higher associated with higher opioid mortality. But the likely mechanism is fentanyl, which isn't in retail dispensaries.
Marijuana, any marijuana that's sold under any stage program doesn't have fentanyl in it. It's been tested. Can I swear to God that nobody snuck in and poured cement? I can't. But, you know, assuming that everybody's playing by the rules and testing their products, and I have no reason to believe that anybody isn't, and that they aren't doing quality control, the legal marijuana isn't bringing in fentanyl.
So where is this coming from? Uh, Decreasing opioid mortality. Oh, uh, again, so they, they, they, they just, um, they, they talk about the same, uh, finding dec uh, that why there are many reasons why it may be desirable to legalize the use in sale of medical and recreational marijuana, but decreasing opioid mortality is not one of them.
Some earlier research suggests that legalization of medical cannabis [00:33:00] reduces these deaths, that it does so provide, provided that there are sales through retail dispensaries that is recreational marijuana has these benefits. Well, of course if it's medical marijuana, of course it's being sold through the retail dispensaries.
This is so preposterous, I don't know even know what to make of it, right? That, that it's legalization works, but only that you're selling through the dispensary. Well, I got a good idea. Sell through the dispensary, but don't say in the front of the paper that even the sales through the dispensary are causing the problem.
This is just crazy. But, but let's, let's go to a better source maybe. And the better source is to say, what about opioids in marijuana? There's a group out there called Athletes for Action. It's a great group. Uh, and they, they're made up of athletes from many, many professional sports, although they tend to be, uh, you know, primarily from football and, uh, hockey, which are the two most heaviest contact sports have the highest concussion rates and, and other issues like that.
But they do get baseball players. They do get [00:34:00] basketball players. Here's the story that they all tell. And I, I was at one and I saw, uh, former Bears quarterback, Jim McMahon, get up. Marvin Washington is a big proponent of this. Um, uh, so many of them are, uh, and, and these athletes and, and, and what they say is this, when we played in our league, we had no choice.
We had to take opioids because if we smoked marijuana, even though we knew it made us feel better and bothered us less, we would get tested. And if we tested positive for marijuana, we'd have to sit out again and we'd lose a paycheck. So they, the league had us take opioids. That's how we would get shot up.
Like they, you know, all talk about whatever the medicine was that the doctors were prescribing was opioids of one kind or another. And we never liked them. Yes, we could play without pain for that moment, but it made us do crazy things. We've all heard the stories about athletes who fly off the handle and who can't handle themselves, and there's increase in violence and the dependency gets worse and worse and worse, and then they retire.
And now they've got a problem cuz [00:35:00] they're addicted to opioids. They're not on a team anymore, so they don't have a ready source for the opioids that they once had. This leads, I'm sure to, uh, all sorts of problems in terms of how are these athletes. Not many of them, of course, have millions and millions of dollars these days and maybe they have their own access to these medicines, but not everybody, they all weren't that successful.
But we'll just throw 'em out in the world and they can do what they can do. These guys all say the thing, the thing that saved them from opioid use and certain death was marijuana. They were able to replace opioid use with marijuana. Use. Marijuana doesn't kill you. Marijuana doesn't do the things to you that opioids do to you.
These athletes for action. Many other athletes and quite frankly, just people in general. Who have been on opioids and wanna find a way off of opioids, marijuana has been their gateway off, not their gateway on two harder drugs, their gateway off of harder drugs. People who are alcoholics, severe [00:36:00] alcoholics and want to change their life.
Many treatments now recommend not alcoholics anonymous words. You can't touch anything. It's let's replace the mari the, uh, alcohol with something like marijuana that is less dangerous, less, will make you less prone to violence. Uh, and, and hopefully make you just an overall better person. Uh, and you can do this.
Uh, this is what marijuana does. So, I I I, I'm not a doctor and I can't purport to know that I, that I'm even interpreting that study correctly, but to me it just doesn't make any sense. Um, but then, uh, they talk about, he says there are therapeutic benefits, um, And of course, by recognizing that there are therapeutic benefits for cannabis, we have to recognize that there are none for alcohol.
There are none for nicotine. Uh, there are none for, um, um, uh, uh, caffeine, right, which are all higher ranked than, uh, [00:37:00] THC in terms of problematic, uh, substances that Americans, uh, have a dependency on or an addiction to, depending on what the substance is. Um, So, yes, we know that there are therapeutic of, of benefits, uh, even available for prescription.
But then it goes on to say, but the evidence, uh, of its risk keeps increasing. This month brought a new paper strengthening the link between heavy pot use and the onset of schizophrenia in young men. The minute somebody says schizophrenia, uh, we know that we're going off the deep end. So I went and I looked at this article too.
Um, this is from the National Institute of Health. So, uh, you know, for what it's worth, uh, schizophrenia is a, is a result of cannabis use disorder, uh, which apparently means you smoke too much cannabis. Uh, it goes on to say that as many as 30% of cases of schizophrenia, uh, have been, could, would've been prevented by averting cannabis use disorder.
They're gonna say cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia are serious, but treatable mental disorders that can profoundly impact people's lives. Here's the thing, listen to this. [00:38:00] People with cannabis use disorder are unable to stop using cannabis despite it causing negative consequences in their lives like alcohol.
Like nicotine, like caffeine, like opioids. I mean, are we pretending that this is a perfect world except for marijuana coming in and ruining everything? And that's not to say that again, that marijuana may not have problems, but to sit here and to judge it for certain problems that it causes when there are so many other substances out there that cause so many worse problems.
Again, meaning if people were smoking marijuana instead of drinking, instead of, uh, being addicted to nicotine or even caffeine on some levels, we know nicotine kills people. It causes death, it causes lung cancer. We know that alcohol kills people. Uh, we know that caffeine causes all sorts of health problems for people who over drink coffee and have, uh, become, have a too heavy reliance on caffeine.
It doesn't mean that people. Don't ultimately maybe develop some sort of a dependency on marijuana. I'm sure that there are some people that do, but there are people that develop [00:39:00] dependencies on Lexapro and all of the other, uh, uh, I can't remember the fancy words, sorry, Dini, uh, all the other fancy words for, you know, for, for, for these medications that we give our children in young adults, like they're going outta style.
And so the idea that what marijuana is singularly bad among all of these and must be isolated out among all of these, and only it is looked at for these bad things that it potentially causes without even looking. We, we, we promote things that will kill you over marijuana. And we say marijuana is no good cuz it causes these things even though the things that kill you cause these things too.
Uh, cannabis use disorder. Here are the following signs of marijuana use disorder using more than intended. Trying, but failing to quit, spending a lot of time using it, craving it, using, even though it causes problems at home, school or work, continuing use despite socially relationship problems, on and on and on.
Substitute alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, opioids in there, and every single one of them reads [00:40:00] the same way. Marijuana use disorder. Can people smoke too much marijuana? That it negatively impacts them? Sure. They can just like, people can drink too much alcohol and people can take too many opioids and people can do all sorts of things that is not good for them and that will impact their lives.
This is nothing new, it's nothing unique to marijuana. And to sit here and make a policy argument as though we're discovering this and that the face of all of this requires us to turn it around is preposterous. The other point that, oh, bother. Where's my, uh, sorry. You can only get yourself so prepared.
And I thought I had it all here. But generally speaking, there are other studies out there that, that went out and, and, and did, uh, surveys of people who are medical marijuana patients and an overwhelming number of them, overwhelming number of them indicated, uh, that their medical marijuana treatments, uh, had substantially improved, [00:41:00] uh, the quality of their life.
Uh, here, here we go. Assessment of medical, cannabis and health related quality of life. May 9th, 2023. Uh, Thomas j Arkel, Luke Downey, uh, others. This is in the jam. Uh, jama, the journal for the American Medical Association. Findings of the 3,148 patients tested significant improvements. Uh, these are people whose medical cannabis treatment associated with improvements in health related quality of life.
Uh, so in, in the study in the series of, uh, 3,148 patients, significant improvement were reported on all eight domains of their health survey. Uh, improvements were largely sustained over time, so this is all of their patients doing this. The, the findings suggest that medical cannabis treatment may be associated with improvements in health related quality of life among patients with a range of health conditions.
Ross Do that can go suck eggs. You know, don't throw out these little things and make it sound. [00:42:00] New York Times column, the SCO figure. Right now we put Ross in the same category as Maureen Dowd, uh, who back in, uh, 2014, I think it was f wrote a column and basically freaked out on weed, uh, be, uh, infused chocolate because she's stupid.
Right. She went out, she was in, uh, Colorado. She says, she thought, oh, I'm in my hotel room in Denver. I'll nibble the end off of one of these, uh, chocolate infused candy bars. And then, well, nothing happened. Nibbled some more for an hour. I felt nothing kept nibbling. I had a scary shut up through my body and brain.
I merely ab baited to the desk from the dust to the bed where I laid curled up on a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty, but couldn't move. Uh, on and on and on. Yeah. Okay. Everybody's gotten too drunk before everybody's eaten too much medical marijuana before. The idea of course, which she doesn't talk about is how to learn how to take proper dosages of marijuana.
No, no, no. Uh, instead it's, you know, um, A diagnosed 62 old reporter who walks into a [00:43:00] retail marijuana to purchase and consume a drug for the first time, asks no questions of the state licensed employees who've been trained to offer their advice, who does no research regarding the proper dosage of T H C for a novice user.
The amount of time the drug will take before you begin to field its effects or even the overall potency of the product she selected, which might have been listed on the label though she neglects to say, and her answer is, get rid of medical marijuana. Ross Doar. Get rid of medical marijuana. I'm not done with Ross yet, but we gotta go back and play some music cuz Dan took all the time to put it together.
And the truth is, this is an amazing show. Um, the next clip that we're gonna play, and Dan just hit it, everybody knows this one.[00:44:00]
Everybody knows Promised Land written by Chuck Berry. Uh, we've talked about it, recorded in February 64, chess records in Chicago, released on November 1st, 1964 on Chuck's album, St. Louis Liverpool. Love that St. Louis native Chuck Berry. He wrote the song in prison using an atlas from the prison library to [00:45:00] be able to plot the journey of his, uh, wayward traveler going from Virginia to California.
Uh, so this is a guy, you know, who used his ingenuity and, uh, wrote Kick Ass Rock and Roll. It's still being played, uh, so many years later. Now we know it was played by the Grateful Dead, but something interesting folks, this clip you just heard is the first time they ever played it on stage. This is the breakout version by the Grateful Dead.
Of the promised Land. And as usual, even all these years later, as we would know, Bobby screws up some of the lyrics and there forgets this, forgets that. But that just makes the song better cuz we would all have to try and guess which one it is. And the game was, if you're singing along and Bob screws up the lyrics, can you stay on the lyrics and keep going Right until he, he finally gets it right.
Um, but at the end of the day, the story still has a happy ending. Everybody's, uh, loves it. Uh, the song was played regularly by the band during the seventies, less often after that, maybe about 10 year, 10 times per year, then thereafter through the end it was there. Were still playing it in 95. Uh, so this [00:46:00] is the breakout version of it.
Uh, it would go on to be played for a long, long time by the Grateful Dead. And it's always great to hear it. Uh, they, they played a number of Chuck Berry tunes. This was always one of my favorites. And, uh, uh, a great piece for, uh, to Bob Weir to really flex his muscles on. And speaking of Bob Weir, this next, uh, cut that we're gonna play, um, is, is a, is another Bob.
We are special.[00:47:00]
Now, at the time, this was still a relatively brand new song. Well, it was a song from the relatively brand new Ace album, Bob Solo album, which we've talked about previously. That was released earlier in the year. Uh, but the song, uh, was first played in 1971. Uh, at which time and, and, uh, of course this is 1971 show, but a few months earlier.
Uh, but by this show and, and going forward, they, the band had fully transformed, uh, [00:48:00] the first version of the early version of this, the known as the main 10. We've played that before. That was a 10 beat Mickey Hart rift that The Dead started playing in the midnight at mid 1968. It popped up in shows now and then for a couple of years when they felt like, uh, taking an excursion.
It also appeared on Hart's first album. Rolling Thunder. It's strange to hear the rift today when it's so identified with playing in the band, but it's an original incarnation. It embodied, mysterious, kind of otherworldly feeling in that tune in, in early 1971. Then the Dead decided to turn the riff into a complete song and merged it into playing in the band, uh, which they debuted.
Uh, just a few months earlier. On February 18th, 1971, it's credited to Weir Hart and Hunter on presumably heart originated. Uh, The main 10, we are added the other, uh, sections of the song. And Hunter wrote the lyrics. And of course, playing in the band is now, uh, certainly one of Bobby's most famous and well-known tunes and a tune that even, uh, those who are not the biggest of [00:49:00] Bobby fans have to admit is just a great, great song.
Wonderful. When they played in concert so often, the springboard then to a, uh, uh, a long hour or more of just, uh, inters, speller, stellar rock and roll, uh, finally to make their way back into the reprise, which we played last week, and, uh, talked about a little bit. But this is, this, you know, the song, you know, still in its very embryonic stage, just, you know, uh, being given birth to just, uh, uh, making its, its presence known in the world.
And, you know, but I love how they, they had this little Mickey Hart riff and they enjoyed playing it so much that they said, heck, let's turn that into a song. And Bobby, uh, and, and Mickey and, and, and Robert Hunter stepped up to the plate now, uh, Our, uh, Rob Hunt, uh, may not be here today, but he's still always thinking a quick shout out to him because he sent over right before Showtime.
A little note that we have to remind everybody, uh, that one year earlier on May 24th, 1970, so 53 years ago today. Got that, Dan, [00:50:00] I'm blacking and rolling on one day in basically a, a single sitting Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics for Ripple, broke Down Palace and Tula me down. Three of the most iconic, uh, you know, Jerry Garcia numbers that the Dead would ever play.
Uh, ripple probably being one of the most, uh, not that the other two, uh, take any backseat to any of them. And those were always great tunes, always lovely in concert. Uh, could always leave you with a tear in your eye. And, uh, The fact that this guy, at that time in his life had the ability, you know, to even put these, any of these lyrics together, um, and, uh, let alone come up with three of them all in one day.
And he talks about he was in a single sitting and, and if I recall correctly, he may have even been in London. And, uh, he started going out and walking around and, but I, I could be wrong about that. He, he's got stories for how he wrote all of his songs and, uh, sometimes I will confess, you know, they, they get a little bit garbled up in my mind.
But as long as we were [00:51:00] talking about Robert Hunter there, uh, important I think to, uh, to give him a quick shout out here. Um, now I'm gonna run out of time, but I gotta go fast here because, uh, there's just a couple of other things in this, in this article, and I, and I, I don't, I have notes on all of it. Um, I, I, I just don't have, uh, uh, the, the time today to go into all of it.
But anyone who wants to read the article, I think will, will have to come back and agree, uh, that if you're, you know, even as one of my, uh, Old buddies who, uh, you know, became a hardcore writer, used to say, if we're gonna be intellectually honest here, uh, which I always love, cuz whenever somebody says that, it means they're about to be not intellectually honest.
Uh, but nevertheless, the spirit of that phrase, um, goes on and on, right? He, he, he talks about, um, you're gonna need, uh, if, if all of a sudden, um, In order to make this work, uh, we have to make prices go down. We have to be able to undercut the black market. He says, well, of course, uh, but we're gonna need [00:52:00] much more enforcement against the illegal marketplace, which is expensive and difficult, and again, obviously uncool and in conflict with the good vibration spirits of the legalizers.
Right? You know, it's funny when, when, uh, the Black Lives matters. People said that the cops were being obviously uncool. Guys like Ross do thought, shouted back at them, you know, for, you know, for even having the temerity to make that kind of a suggestion. And here he is making it, you know, almost, uh, second handedly iJust, uh, you know, um, or maybe just make legal marijuana available everywhere and then you do drive the black market out of business.
Again, this is a political issue. Um, then it would be nice if something was done, um, but you know, Ross won't go for, uh, that he would prefer to go back too. Let's call it what it is, folks, prohibition, because we know that in history that's always worked out so well. Um, then he says, then you have the extreme case of New York where legal permitting his land, la Okay, that we agree that's a problem for the politicians.
While untold numbers of legal shops are doing business unmolested by the police, he just got done telling us above [00:53:00] that the police will use marijuana as a pretext, and now he's saying they should use marijuana as a pretext again. Yeah. Is it illegal weed? Yes or no? It depends on how you look at it. The state says you can sell.
They haven't come forward and put the rules in place. They're going ahead and doing it. There's nothing stopping the police from arresting these people other than being afraid that they won't be cool. But they weren't worrying about that before. Uh, right. When the, um, uh, when the issue was, was so much more, he said, he, he says, you probably need to make legal pot as cheap as possible, which in turn undermines any effort to discourage chronic life altering, uh, abuse.
Right? Meaning we need, uh, social welfare. Well, um, You know, we don't want the government to tax more. That's what you're gonna say, I'm sure, uh, Mr. Ross. But hey, what about if they just took a larger portion of the money they had, and since you're calling this chronic life altering abuse and we need, uh, we need something to discourage that, why do republicans always vote against mental health?
Why does Greg Abbott [00:54:00] say gun is not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem, while he slashes 250 million out of his state's mental health budget, as if nobody's paying attention and nobody cares. You know, it's, again, these types of things where people just kick you down below and it, it, it's just so bad.
So here's where we go. Policymakers who don't want so much chronic use and personal degradation have two options they can set out to design a much more effective but necessarily expensive, complex, and sometimes punitive system and regulation and enforcement that exists. Or they can reach for the blunt instrument of re criminalization, which Lehman prefers in its simplicity.
Oh yes, the square's answer for everything. Let's just make it illegal again cuz it's so much easier to put all these people back in jail stuff. This back underground really create a black market instead of, he says, let's not take the time to do what we need to do to make the market work. Even though it's a safer product, it does generate tax revenue, it does all sorts of things.
[00:55:00] Let's just re criminalize it. Oh, forget the social changes I was talking about a few minutes ago. We'll go back to the good old days. We'll just do that. Here's how he ends. I expect the legislation to advance much further, uh, before either of these alternative builds, uh, significant support. So, legalization is gonna go on for a while, but here it goes.
Eventually the culture will recognize that under the banner of personal choice, we're running a general experimentation. A general experiment, exploitation. Addicting our more value vulnerable neighbors to myriad pleasant seeming vices, handing our children over to the social media dopamine machine and spreading degradation wherever casinos and weeds speak up.
Nice to mention casinos replace that with alcohol for everything he just said there. Opioids for everything he just said there. Cigarettes. Okay. We don't push cigarettes so much anymore, but kids still smoke 'em. I mean, singling out marijuana in a way. Okay, let's just cut to [00:56:00] the chase again. Alcohol, nicotine, opioids, they kill marijuana.
Doesn't kill why? The conversation has to be any more complicated than that. I just don't know. Um, here, somebody summed it up this way and then, and then we'll, uh, close up shot for the day in a minute. Um, Because what this is, is we have to send Ross and his gang, uh, our, our favorite book, marijuana is Safer.
So why are We Driving People to Drink? Written by Steve Fox of Blessed Memory, Paul Armento, uh, the, the current head of, um, normal and Mason Traver, the very Mason Traver, who we had on our show, and explained to us how he was able to fight against such crazy prejudice, uh, to get legal marijuana launched, uh, in Colorado and then in other places around the country.
So, uh, the people who have read this book leave wonderful comments, and this is one, I don't know the guy's name. It was anonymous, but I thought it was great, but it's not me. A quick distillation of the argument. The two most popular [00:57:00] recreational nervous system to presence are alcohol and cannabis. One is legal, the other is not.
The legal can affect the brainstem and thus cause death by asphyxiation, the illegal one cannot. The legal drug is associated with aggressive acts like assaulting and rape. The legal one is not by discouraging cannabis use society is pushing people toward a drug that is more dangerous for the individual and the public.
Legalizing the private use of cannabis by adults would decrease the use of alcohol. Freeing up law, law enforcement resources raise tax revenue and improve the public health. Ross, only one wrote a column one one of them. Shame on you, Ross. That's not okay. This is not okay. This is wrong. And you apologies to a lot of people out there cuz you're disrupting something that's for the public good.
And if you can't see it, get the hell out of the way. Go right about other things. The. Say what you wanna say, but stay the hell away from this. Sorry. The only thing that makes you uncool is not understanding how uncool you are by even raising the whole cool, uncool thing. Um, enough. [00:58:00] He is hard to handle back to, hard to handle.
Dan, kick it up. We need music, man.[00:59:00]
Hard to handle. Always A crowd favorite written by Otis Redding in 1968, released later that year as the B side to his Amen release. Uh, both. It was the, the single was released just after the Singer son death in 1967 and hard to handle was ultimately made part of the 1968 album, the Immortal Otis Redding.
It ultimately reached, uh, the song number 38. On billboard's, Billboard's, r and b chart, it's been covered by many bands, including most recently and, and notably of the more recent bands. Uh, the Black Crows who do a really great job with it. Uh, the Dead First played it, uh, in March, on March 15th, 1969 at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco.
And yes, I did independently verify that there was a Grateful Dead Show at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco on March 15th and [01:00:00] 1969. And hard to handle shows up in the set list. They went on to play it 117 times. Most of it between 1969, uh, and 1971. It was last played by the Dead on December 31st, 1982.
One of only two times. It was plays that played that year, uh, with Bobby doing the singing instead of Pigpen. Um, but, uh, great, great Pigpen night again at this show, as you can hear. Uh, and that's all wonderful. Just, uh, uh, really great. A couple of things to do before we sign off for the night. Uh, just a couple of things to take note of here.
Uh, first of all, very unfortunately, but it's happening more and more, uh, we have lost, uh, some few other great rock and roll, uh, notables. Um, in the last week, Andy Rourke, the basis for the Smiths died. He was 59. I love the Smiths. They're a great band. Um, and people who haven't heard them should go back and listen to them.
Uh, they, they made a really big impact in, uh, on the musical scene, and Andy Rourke was a crucial [01:01:00] part of it for a long, long time. Pete Brown, uh, was 82. He passed away. He was described as a counterculture poet who wrote the lyrics for a number of rock tunes, most prominently Sunshine of Your Love recorded by cream.
Uh, sunshine of Your Love was also the cream part of the fish, uh, Boston Cream. Uh, donut on the ni uh, on their Boston Cream donut night during their Baker's Dozen run in, uh, 2017 in Madison Square Garden. Uh, so even though you might not know Pete Brown, you've certainly heard his work and, uh, that's a big loss.
And finally, I just heard today, literally minutes, uh, today being a few days before the, uh, you guys are listening to this. Um, and, and by the way, that's the same with Robert Hunter. That was May 24th, uh, the anniversary of when he wrote everything, uh, not the 29th, which is the day, uh, everybody hears this.
Uh, but today on May 24th, I just heard that Tina Turner has passed away. Tina Turner was 83 years old, um, of Ike and Tina Turner. Fame, proud Mary was a song that she kind [01:02:00] of made her own a Korean's Clearwater tune, uh, that she really turned into a signature piece. Uh, she recorded with Mick Jagger, only rock and roll, brown Sugar.
Others. She recorded with David Bowie. She recorded with Rod Stewart. She was a force of nature. Uh, she was on the cover of, uh, rolling Stone and an iconic cover. And, uh, she combined, uh, talent and sexy and energy, uh, no matter how old she was, uh, she always, uh, Brought a smile to the faces of the people that saw her.
Uh, for those people who were into the Mad Max thing, she was in the movie Thunderdome. And I remember seeing that movie and, uh, even noting in there, uh, you know, just how great she was. Um, and so this is obviously, uh, very sad times and, uh, it's a real shame to lose all of these people. And we, uh, certainly send our condolences to their family and loved ones and, uh, hope that they're remembered fondly and favorably, uh, for all the good that they did, uh, for people with their music.
That's it for today, folks. I ran out of my voice. I can't [01:03:00] really talk anymore. Um, I hope you didn't mind me. My screen against Ross Doha and his, uh, really kind of, you know, silly and, and, and uniquely, not uniquely, he's just one of many people who does this, you know, but does it with the imprimatur of the New York Times.
And yes, it's important to show both sides, but. It's not important to show both sides when in order to show the other side, you have to make stuff up. When in order to show the other side, you have to create a harm as if that harm is unique to this product and not multiplied by on who knows how much by any of these other products that he's not saying a word about the one that he's only trying, and then who at the end says, yep, we're just gonna make it illegal again.
We're gonna put that genie back into the bottle. Uh, forget about people who have money invested. Forget about people who have gotten out of jail. Forget about anything. We're gonna make it illegal. Yeah, we'll let you use it if you're sick. But that's all. Sorry folks. You don't get the benefit of this.
Excuse me, please, while I go drink my bourbon or brand or whatever the hell Ross drinks at night before he goes to bed. Um, So some [01:04:00] might say that makes you feel bad, I don't know. But we'll close out with going down the road, feeling bad. That's a, that's a false connection that I made for Rob because he likes doing those kind of things.
Um, but going down the road, feeling bad will always make you feel great. And this being 1971, uh, this was the height of there not fade away into going down the road, feeling bad into not fade away. Concert closers, uh, there's a really, really great version of it, as we've talked about on, um, the, uh, grateful Dead Live album, uh, that was recorded in 1971.
Um, and it's, it, it's just a great song. It's been recorded by many artists throughout the years. Uh, nobody really knows exactly who wrote it, the first known recording. It's from 1923 by Henry Whittier, an Appalachian singer as Lonesome Road Blues. The earliest version of the lyrics are from the perspective of an inmate in prison.
Apparently, uh, the song has been recorded by many artists. Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, skitter Davis, Elizabeth Cotton, of course, the Grateful Dead, uh, song is featured in Tobani from Delaney, uh, mountain Jam, born and Raised World Tour, the Grapes of Wrath and Lucky [01:05:00] Stars. Others who have recorded and include Cliff Carlisle, uh, Woody Guthrie.
Um, I ain't gonna be treated this way. Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Roy Hall, Elizabeth Cotton. And, uh, as we said, you know, uh, Delaney and Bonnie and Canned Heat, uh, the Grateful Dead began playing it in 1970, uh, and they played it through the 1990s pretty much right up until the end. The stories that Jerry, Jerry apparently learned the tune from Delaney Br Bramlett of Bonnie and Delaney during the festival Express Train right across Canada in 1970.
We've talked about the Fe Festival Express, uh, with the band and the Dead and Janice, and all sorts of great musicians, and there's a movie called Festival Express where you can watch it. Uh, the song, uh, the Grateful De the Jerry Song might as well, uh, is, is the story of the Festival Express and, um, great North Central, put you on board.
Can't find a ride like that no more. So out of that, another, another gold nugget out of the festival. Express the Grateful Dead, playing down, going down the road, feeling bad. [01:06:00] So please enjoy this version. Everybody have a great week. We'll be back next week with more good stuff. Uh, keep supporting marijuana.
Be safe and enjoy your cannabis responsibly. Thanks everyone.[01:07:00]