Deadhead Cannabis Show

C’mon you motherf*ckers, get up and dance

Episode Summary

Four-Years of musical memories and the latest cannabis news Larry Mishkin celebrates the fourth anniversary of the Deadhead Cannabis Show and discusses the Grateful Dead's performance of "Alabama Getaway" in 1980. He mentions Taylor Swift's sold-out concert at Soldier Field, drawing parallels between the passionate following of Swifties and Deadheads. He reminisces about the time when Warren Zevon opened for the Grateful Dead and discusses their cover of "Werewolves of London" and expresses his love for the strain Pre-98 Bubba Kush. 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

Episode Notes

Four-Years of musical memories and the latest cannabis news

Larry Mishkin  celebrates the fourth anniversary of the Deadhead Cannabis Show and discusses the Grateful Dead's performance of "Alabama Getaway" in 1980.  He mentions Taylor Swift's sold-out concert at Soldier Field, drawing parallels between the passionate following of Swifties and Deadheads.  He reminisces about the time when Warren Zevon opened for the Grateful Dead and discusses their cover of "Werewolves of London"  and expresses his love for the strain Pre-98 Bubba Kush. 

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

Episode Transcription

Larry:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Deadhead Cannabis Show. I'm Larry Mishkin of Mishkin Law in Chicago coming to you solo today. Um, it's a big day. Uh, both, uh, the day that you're all going to be listening to this, which is Monday, June 5th and the date that we're taping it here, which is, uh, Monday, June, excuse me, Saturday, June 3rd. And, uh, yesterday, uh, Friday, June 2nd. is the four year anniversary of the first time we dropped a episode of the Deadhead Cannabis Show. Back at that time, it was Jim Marty and myself subsequently joined by Rob Hunt. Jim Marty retired off to bigger and better things, living a life out in Nevada. Rob and I have carried the show for a while. Rob taking a little bit of time off here while he works through other matters that are involving his time and I'm still here to get to talk about the Grateful Dead in marijuana and four years is a long time. So we'll do something a little bit more to celebrate this. We'll get Jim back on because we can't have an anniversary without one of the founders of the Deadhead Cannabis Show. And we'll certainly hopefully try to have Rob on as well, kind of get the gang or the band back together as it were. And also can't celebrate this milestone without big shout out and thank you. Uh, to Dan Humiston, our producer, but let's get back to what we do best around here and today we're featuring a show by the Grateful Dead from June 5th, 1980 Compton Terrace Amphitheater in Tempe, Arizona, and let's dive right into it.

 

Larry:

two, one. Yep, Alabama Getaway, what a great tune. Always one of my favorites, a great show opener, right up there in my mind with Bertha, because they're both Jerry tunes, they're both really hopping and moving. If you're coming in and you're looking for the Grateful Dead, but you're looking for a real jolt of Jerry, it's a great way to get things going, and it's always been a lot of fun. But you have to understand, right at this point, in June of 1980, this is really still a relatively very new tune for the Grateful Dead. It was released on their album, Go To Heaven, which came out in 1978. Although it was getting pretty heavy play, I think, in 79 and into 80, still, you know, you miss the Grateful Dead coming through your town once and then they come through another time a year later and now they're playing Alabama Getaway and you get a chance to hear it. It's a great song. If you can slow it down enough or go check out the lyrics online, it's a fun story. Poking a little fun at Alabama and why not? Although Leonard Skinner never pushed back on Jerry and Robert Hunter like he did on Neil Young, famously of course with Leonard Skinner days. But yep, it's a great way to start a show. So again, welcome to the show for your anniversary here. It doesn't really feel like it. Dan and I were talking about this before the show. Um, you know, this is like, for me, the cool thing is we've gotten to the point where you can just crank these out on a weekly basis now and, you know, not like back in the day when we were journalism majors in college or whatever, and they'd say, put together a podcast and you'd work all semester, pray to God that you got it right. So, uh, again, that's as much of a credit to Dan and his organization. Uh, but really I think it's credit to the fact that, uh, if you like the grateful then if you like marijuana, there's always so much to talk about that you actually have to try not to be able to find anything. Uh, that you can bring in and talk about. So in fact, let's just dive right into it. I'm gonna jump into this. It is the Grateful Dead Cannabis Show and most of our cannabis talk typically deals with news and we've got plenty of that to get to today, including some great responses in the letters to the editors of the New York Times responding to Ross Dothat's silly article which we talked about last week. But recent travels to another state. uh... allowed me to reconnect with uh... uh... probably my favorite strain of all which is pre-ninety-eight Bubba Kush this is a strain that is a uh... indica leaning hybrid i suppose in its purest form it's a heavily indica leaning hybrid but i found this one to be not quite that heavy which was great uh... you know it worked you know kind of as a good hybrid would uh... activities and meals and all that kind of stuff. And then you can transition right to it in the night. And it works just as well there. And at the end of the evening, like any good strain that leans a little more heavily to the indica side, it usually assists in falling asleep and staying asleep and all of that. Leafly talks about its benefits for pain, stress, insomnia, appetite, for me it certainly helps my appetite, can help with stress, certainly with pain. And like I said before, it's a great way to end the evening with it, but pre-98 Bubba Kush, if you have access to it at any of your dispensaries in your states or within the state, any location where that's closer convenient for you, or even if it's not that close or convenient, I love pre-98 Bubba Kush. And I was so happy to come across some recently that I thought that I really just had to talk about it for a few minutes. Give the strain it's due. I'm not going to get into a whole history of where it came from and all of that because it's hard to really know for sure what's true and what's not true. The one thing I know is that, uh, uh, that this stuff was, uh, wasn't his, uh, first rate all the way. And at least, uh, you know, and I guess like right out of a moment of the matrix, well, pre pre 98, Bubba Kush, as I know pre 98, Bubba Kush, uh, you know, right? Whatever the computer's told us to think it, it's, it tasted like, uh, that's what this tastes like. So, um, be on the lookout for it. I just don't think you can go wrong with it. It's perfect for first timers. It's perfect for people who smoke all the time. It's perfect for people who are concerned about being a little too sensitive to THC. If you just take a, you know, a small hit of it, or even like an agami or an edible that you might make with your own stuff, I say go for it. So pre-98 Bubba Kush, and of course, when you talk pre-98 Bubba Kush, that can only lead to one other conclusion, and that is Taylor Swift. And people are gonna say, Why are you talking about Taylor Swift on the Deadhead Cannabis Show? And I'll tell you why. Because again, playing this game about what day I'm taping on versus what day you're going to be listening to this. I am taping it on June 3rd and yesterday, June 2nd was the first of three nights of Taylor Swift on her eras tour at Soldier Field in Chicago. Uh, completely sold out for all three nights as it is for, uh, pretty much every other city that's out there. And. So they had the first show last night and I eagerly read the review. I will confess, I'm not going to any of them. Um, these days I save my trips out to Soldier Field for Jerry's resurrection and the, you know, the Grateful Dead coming back. And then, uh, you know, maybe I would go out and see a show at a venue that large with a crowd that crazy. But, uh, certainly for Taylor Swift and the Swifties, this is, this is the way to go. Uh, her second show is, is later this evening, another show for me tomorrow night, which for you guys will be last night. And this is huge. Soldier Field is a big, big venue. And starting in 1991 through 1995, right up until the very last show ever played by the Grateful Dead, the Dead sold out Soldier Field every time they played. And they would always write in the press about how amazing this was. It's such a big venue, and when you add all the seats on the floor as well, that's that many more people that. that you can bring in and all of this for a band that at the time, you know, it was anywhere between 25 and 30 years old. And you know, their lead guitar player looked like he might have a heart attack any minute. And, um, you know, okay, yes, we get it. That's cool little piece of Americana that, uh, that the grateful debt are still around, but seriously, right? But no, here they were. And this was during a period of time when, uh, they were one of the highest grossing, uh, rock and roll acts every single year in North America. sometimes even in the world, you know, maybe not if the Rolling Stones were touring one year or, you know, some other huge artists was touring. I think one year Oasis outdrew them, but, you know, it's kind of hard to compete with Oasis, I guess. Um, but right, but they sold out Soldier Field and they didn't just sell out Soldier Field, they pulled in Deadheads from everywhere, right? The Soldier Field would often be the last show of the summer tour and, you know, the Deadheads would come from all over the place, both to see the end of the summer tour and both because Chicago is a cool place and. Uh, you know, soldier fields all in all for a big stadium, isn't that bad. It doesn't have those big, huge, uh, you know, like overhanging balconies or anything, although it does have some, uh, in the newly refigured soldier field, it still looks like a spaceship landed in the middle of the old one. Um, it still does have some, uh, seats that are pretty high up there. Uh, but I remember during the 50th anniversary shows a few years back, which was the first time I would have been in soldier field for music, maybe since the, the, the final dead show. 10 years earlier, or not 10 years earlier, excuse me, 20 years earlier, it was really kind of amazing to see how full it was again at that time, and everybody loved it, and people are dancing everywhere, and it's so great, and now here's Taylor Swift doing it, right, and just like all the deadheads coming into town, the papers picking up on that, all the Swifties are coming into town, and they're all dressed in their sparkles, and they're all getting on the subways, and they're all roaming Michigan Avenue, and... eventually making their way out there. The similarity occurred to me today because earlier today I was on my way to my weekly yoga class, which I do thanks to my wife's ever present encouragement and support, with my good buddy Sam, which is also another reason why I go because we can go together and put ourselves in the right frame of mind on the way, get in some good stretching and come back and do some other fun stuff. But Sam's daughter, Sarah, is a Swiftie, and I happen to love Sarah very much. She's one of my favorite people in the world. She and I, I don't know what it would be if we're also SpongeBob obbies or whatever. If there's a name for a loving SpongeBob, she's my SpongeBob pal. And we've watched it and chuckled over it together for years. And she's off to see Taylor Swift tonight. And he was telling me how she's taking the train down and she's meeting up with a friend of hers who's coming in from out of state and the friend from out of state has grandparents who live down in the city somewhere. And so they have a place to stay and it's going to be a whole big evening. And I thought, this is just like when we saw the Grateful Dead. And you know, it is Taylor Swift. has that kind of following, at least right now. Maybe it'll continue, maybe it won't, but I mean, it's been pretty consistent for a number of years, so I don't really see it going anywhere. You know, and other than the fact that I don't know if I would want to be her boyfriend, because as soon as I was her ex, I'd have a song written about me, which I think would be pretty boring, but she has a way of turning those into exciting songs that, you know, her fans eat up. So to all the Swifties out there, I hope you've enjoyed your show, had a great show. Sarah, I hope it's a rock and roll adventure and you and I will talk about it, I'm sure, sometime in the future over another episode of SpongeBob Still To Be Determined. We gotta go back to The Grateful Dead though, because one of the things about this show too, which unfortunately I can't share anymore with you than just tell you about this, the opening act for this show was Warren Zevon. And you know, that's kind of amazing, because we've talked about Warren Zevon and talked about the fact that he didn't get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year and what a crime against rock and roll that is. But here's the thing, he was just great. And he was kind of wild and unpredictable and very much like the Grateful Dead. And obviously he liked Jerry and Jerry liked him because by this point, the Dead had long been covering Werewolves of London. Well, not long, I think that album for Warren Zevon came out sometime in the late 1970s. Certainly by 78, when they played it into Cal Illinois. And if I recall, I think they also played it in normal Illinois, maybe on Halloween one night. Um, but, uh, it was in their repertoire and, uh, surprisingly, uh, based on what I could find, and there's not a lot to, to not a lot online that I could really find about the show could not find Warren's Eve on set list at all. Other than the fact that he must've played werewolves of London. Cause there seems to be a lot of confusion in the online chatter about the show with people debating first, whether or not. the Grateful Dead played the song and then ultimately devolving into whether or not anybody played the song and somebody pointing out, well, of course it's Warren Zevon's song, so it must have been Warren Zevon playing it and you're just tripping at the show and later on you conflate it with the dead and assume that since they've played it before it must have been them or something like that. But the dead didn't play Werewolves of London that night either. And I, you know, look, Jerry moves in mysterious ways and uh, far be it for me, you know, to ever tell Jerry what to do if he's going to play a show. But for I got, if you played werewolves of London, you got the guy who wrote the damn songs there with you. How do you not play werewolves of London? And, um, but whatever they didn't, but they did play a lot of great stuff. And we're going to dive into another track right here. Thanks, Dan. Don't Ease Me In or as a lot of my buddies used to like to call it, Don't Sleaze Me In was a complicated song at least for me because it typically signified the end of the first set and it was a Jerry Garcia jam and as you heard in there I picked the part of the song where Jerry really jams hard and then gets into the girl I love scream which Good Night when he's really feeling it can be a lot of fun and instantly make you say no I'd love this tune I'm glad they're playing it. But sometimes it could almost be a little bit of a letdown. Not criticizing them for it, just telling you how I personally felt about the tune. But here's the thing, nobody cares about what I thought. It was released by The Grateful Dead as a B-side to their single Stealin', which is a song that almost never got played in concert after 1966 or 7 probably. And the single was released in 1966, Stealin' on the A-side. Don't Ease Me In on the B side, by the way, the single has been subsequently released again by The Dead as part of their singles releases, which totaled, I think, 20 or 25. Scorpio Studio Sessions, and it was first played by The Grateful Dead on July 16, 1966, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. As I said before, it was later released by The Dead on their album Go to Heaven. They played it a total of 318 times, which is amazing. I don't know how many tunes in their repertoire. got played over 300 times. We always joke about me and my uncle being the most played. And me and my uncle, I think, was played somewhere in the high 500s, maybe low 600s, depending on who's counting. So 318 times is a significant number of times for the dead to play this song. And obviously, it's a song that Jerry liked to play. And over time, you just learn to like it and to appreciate it. And certainly, a great version at this concert and worth playing, written by Henry Thomas. Uh, who was an American country blues singer at the turn of the last century, uh, from the 1800s into the 1900s, just to clarify that, uh, he was American country blues singer. He was a songstress musician. Uh, his, his recording career in the late 1920s was brief. He influenced performers, including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, The Living Spoonful, Kenan Tietin, of course, the Grateful Dead. He was often billed as ragtime Texas. His style is an early example of what later became known as Texas blues guitar. A lovely style made famous by a lot of people since that time. Thomas's legacy was sustained by his songs which were revived by musicians beginning in the folk music revival in the early 1960s. Initially, Honey Won't You Allow Me One More Chance, which was reinterpreted by Bob Dylan on his Free Will and Bob Dylan album in 1963, calling it Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance. Dylan reworked the melody and almost totally rewrote the lyrics, but he credited Thomas as a co-writer on the Freewheel and album. Blue Dose Blues and other of Thomas's recordings was reworked by the pianist Johnny Miller in 1927, who wrote the words and gave it to Wiggy Minone, who recorded two versions titled Up the Country in December 1927 for Columbia in September 1930 for Champion Records. And other than in certain jazz circles, it remained an obscure blues number until Canned Heat. pulled it out and recorded Going Up Country, which is one of the opening tunes of the Woodstock movie and album. Although they say Can't Heat Rearrange the tune, it was still basically the song down to the faithful rendition of Thomas' Quill solo by Jim Horn. The lyrics borrow from Blind Willie McTel, Statesboro Blues, and fellow band member Allen Blind Wilson rewrote the lyrics entirely and received credit on the song's original release in 1968 on Canned Heat's version and on their album, Live in the Blues. It was also played by them and it's available on the Woodstock, I think, album and it's featured in the movie. So Thomas' recording, by the way, of Don't Ease Me In is included on the Dead's compilation album, The Music Never Stopped Roots of the Grateful Dead, which includes recordings. of a number of tunes the Grateful Dead covered, in this instance recorded by the artist that originally wrote the numbers. And it's always fascinating to hear how other people sing their songs versus the way the dead subsequently reinterpreted them. And this is a good one to listen to as well. And Thomas is a good guy to listen to and a good style to get to know. So another fun tune along the way for the Grateful Dead and one for us to have some fun with. In other news, I want to talk about the fact that this weekend, this coming weekend, I'm going to be seeing the Grateful Dead at Wrigley Field. They're coming in for two nights, not the Grateful Dead, Denning Company. Listen to me. Talking as though, well, I do really wish it was the Grateful Dead and not Denning Company, but I'm going to go see Denning Company almost dutifully, I might add. And right, this is it. This is their final tour, even though there's already no Billy Kreutzman. Um, but I've been talking to people who've been going to the shows. Uh, I'm excited because two nights from now, I believe they're playing in St. Louis and my brother's down there and a bunch of my good buddies are down there. Cool. Cousin Brent is down there and I will be excited to get reviews from them. And then, uh, off to Wrigley field. Uh, and the next time I talk to you, those shows will have already passed. So I'll have to give you my, uh, my review of them at that time. But very, very excited to get out there one more time. And it's always fun to go into Wrigley Field and just fill it up with deadheads. And whether you're a Cardinals fan or a Cubs fan, you can kind of put to the side for a little while. Everybody's just enjoying themselves and having a good time. And I anticipate much the same this year. And I'm certainly looking forward to that. Marijuana, last week, boy, we spent some time really taking to task Ross Dothat. and his article about the error of legalizing weed and his ultimate suggestion that maybe it's just easiest to recriminalize it. And I'm not going to recap all the things I said because I spent a lot of time saying them and nobody needs to hear me repeat it all again. And if you really want to hear it, that episode of the podcast is readily available on our page on the PodConnect website. But I do want to talk about the fact that late last week, actually a week and a half ago now, late last week for me taping it now, sorry, the New York Times on Thursday, May 25, ran in their Letters to the Editor space, responses to Mr. Dothat. There were a few. The most important. ones I think first one is from Paul Armantano who is now the deputy director of normal and as we've talked along with Steve Fox and Mason Tver wrote marijuana is safer so why is everyone why is everybody pushing us to drink I'm not saying that right but that's basically what it's titled and Paul was one of the first presenters I ever heard the first time I went out to a normal legal conference in Aspen they typically have them over the Memorial Day weekend and was just blown away by the things that he was saying and his ability with citation and background, backup facts and all of that, to be able to put to bed so many of the myths about marijuana and establish so many of the truths about marijuana to really dispel the notion once and for all, at least for folks like me, to the extent we had any doubt, hopefully for people who come at this with an open mind. As we spent a lot of time talking about last week, marijuana is so much safer than so many other substances that are out there and are used on a regular basis by adults, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, just to name a few, obviously opioids, which are readily available, unfortunately still, and other types of drugs. And then there's marijuana, which is so much safer and so much more mellow and makes people feel better and doesn't tear your stomach apart. In fact, makes your stomach feel better. can help relax your mind, can help you sleep, can take care of pain. And we're just beginning to scratch the surface of all the good things that it can do. But still the rostrothets of the world persist, and the Maureen Dowd's with their nonsense columns based either on prejudices that they've developed because they've probably never really tried it, or in the case of Maureen's, as we talked about, tried it improperly and wasn't able to distinguish that from proper usage and sat down at her pulpit and... and wrote a column that was not a good one. Let's just say that. So Paul Armentano responding to this article says, those who desire to return to an era of cannabis criminalization, desperately try to characterize state level marijuana regulation as a policy failure. Public opinion and data do not support this opinion. Public support for legalization has never been higher. Further, none of the 22 states that have legalized adult recreational use have ever repealed or even rolled back their laws. This is evidence that these policies are working largely as intended. Adolescent cannabis use has not risen in parallel with legalization despite what many critics feared. According to a new CDC report, the percentage of high schoolers who have tried marijuana fell 30% between 2011 and 2021. Another study dismissed concerns that state-level legalization is adversely affecting mental health. its authors did not observe a statistically significant association of state cannabis policy level with overall rates of psychosis-related diagnoses or prescribed antipsychotics. This is not to imply that cannabis is harmless or that it cannot be misused. However, such risks are best mitigated by regulation and public education, and they are only exacerbated by criminalization and stigmatization. Again, that's Paul Armentano of Normal. And that says very efficiently, very succinctly, and very directly what I was desperately trying to say and probably just not saying it very well. But that's one of Paul's strengths is his ability to convey these messages. And although I typically am not a big fan of reading things on this podcast, I have to read one more letter because this is written by a physician by the name of Peter Grinspoon. who was an instructor at Harvard Medical School and the author of Sing Through the Smoke, a cannabis expert on Tangles the Truth About Marijuana. In 1984, when I was a senior at the University of Michigan, I took a debate class as part of my communications major. And at the end of the year, we were instructed to pair up with one person in the class and we were gonna debate an issue that the professor was gonna give us. And we'd have a few days to go get it ready. And then we'd each have our own debates with the rest of the class and the professor obviously. watching and evaluating and ultimately able to ask us questions and everything. And in Ann Arbor at the time, marijuana was considered a citation offense, meaning it was like a traffic ticket. And if you were caught publicly smoking or possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, the penalty was a $5, like a parking ticket. You would just go down to the courthouse and drop a check in the mailbox. And that was it. No court appearance, no court record, no nothing. And we all thought it was kind of funny and $5 is fine with me. a nice little double entendre there, and I think I may even still have my pin from back in that era that said that. But there were already some rumblings in 1984, which was certainly in the heart of the Nancy Reagan Just Say No era, as to whether Ann Arbor's law was a little too permissive, and one of the questions became whether to reduce, or excuse me, to eliminate the $5 fine and treat it as a more serious criminal matter, and at the same time, There was certainly pushback from the more liberal forces that let's just make it easier for everybody and just legalize it and then we don't have to worry about it. In fact, that was the debate topic, whether or not marijuana should be legalized. The person who I got matched up with was a person in the class who I know fancies himself already to be a very, very good debater. I had watched him in certain segments of debate that the professor set up for us. And he was very well-spoken and very quick on his feet. He immediately announced that he was going to take the anti-position because of course, the anti-position for anything drug related is in his mind a slam dunk. And I went to the Michigan library and I started digging around almost immediately. I found a book with an article that was written by Lester Grinspoon, who I believe is Peter's father. And he also was a Harvard medical professor. And in 1984, this was when I was reading it, it must have been written. some amount of time prior to that, because there was enough time for it to have been written, published, purchased, stuck in the Michigan library, and me managing to stumble upon it. And even then, it went on and on and on about, and I remember at this point when I was reading it thinking, oh my God, this is amazing. I've got to copy these pages because there was no other way to do it. You couldn't take a picture of it. You couldn't just find it online, although now I'm sure you could. And taking this out to show all my friends. And hey. You know, when we all sit around and laugh and think, wouldn't it be funny if marijuana was really good for you? Well, here's articles that say it's really not that bad for you. And in some, in some cases might be good for you. And Lester Grinspoon had hit upon this a long time ago while at Harvard. And so this is Peter Grinspoon and this is Peters with that background. This is his response to Ross Dothat's article. As a physician and cannabis specialist, I was mystified when I read Ross Dothat's description of the effects of cannabis use. and legalization. Mr. Dothat's description of a form of personal degradation of lost attention and performance and motivation is not what I have seen clinically or personally. If anything, I have witnessed effects that are the exact opposite of what Mr. Dothat is describing. While cannabis has some clear potential for harm if used by the wrong populations, example teenagers, pregnant or breastfeeding women, people with psychosis. It is widely and correctly perceived to be a safer alternative for millions of Americans than many of the more troublesome pharmaceuticals. Cannabis helps millions of people with pain, sleep problems, anxiety, spasms, boredom, nausea and anorexia and for many, it benefits their lifestyle and creativity. When Mr. Dothat discusses recriminalizing cannabis, he callously dismisses the suffering of more than 20 million Americans, mostly with black and brown skin. who have been needlessly arrested and saddled with criminal records for nonviolent cannabis possession over the last half century. The stigma, poverty, and dislocation this has caused and is still causing in places where cannabis prohibition has not been overturned have been a far greater social disaster than any of the flaws of legalization that Mr. Dothat has highlighted in a somewhat cherry-picked manner to emphasize some legitimate shortcomings of legalization so far. We certainly can and must do better with our patchwork process of cannabis legalization, but let us not idealize or glorify a past that is littered with racially disproportionate policing and persecution, Peter Grinspoon. That's a great way to say it too, right? I mean, and we talked about this last week, whatever shortcomings any of us are willing to admit to in terms of the current legalization programs, there's just absolutely nothing that in any way, shape or form justifies recriminalization and for Ross Dothat to offer that up almost so flippantly is yeah hey we'll just go back to recriminalization that way we don't have to worry about rules it's easy for everybody and off we go and you know for squares I guess like Ross Dothat that would be par for the course so sorry about that on the other hand and just to give equal attention there were a couple of letters that supported Ross Dothat including one by a woman from Brewster Mass, and I will not identify her by name, even though I disagree with her. There's no reason to call attention to her, although she called attention to herself by publishing this letter. Ross Dothat says, naysayers of legalization of weed are made into uncool squares. I am one of those uncool, puritanical prohibitionists who was booed in a town meeting after imploring that clearer heads should prevail. This meeting lifted a ban on commercial sale of marijuana in a tiny Cape Cod town. Not only do we get a pot shop, but also an indoor cultivation lab. I am hoping that someday our town will wake up, come back to its senses, and shut down the pot shop. So she starts off by calling herself a puritanical prohibitionist, which pretty much in my mind would mean anything, right? Alcohol, any smoking cigarettes, anything at all. Drinking caffeine. If you're going to be a pure, true puritanical prohibitionist, ma'am, then I assume you mean everything. So that already paints you as somebody, uh, who's not going to give us a really accurate argument about this because as a prohibitionist, you're against everything just because you're against it if it's in any way intoxicating. And we've all long ago well established the fact that in this country and in fact in most places in the world these days, a certain level of intoxication is not only tolerated but encouraged. And the fact that you're never going to be satisfied with anything other than a puritanical prohibitionist condition, while perhaps workable for you, is not one that's workable for society, I don't think. and is just another case of busybody, worrying about everybody else's life instead of worrying about your own. The second is a letter that was written in by a writer from Oak Park, Michigan. And she says, I agree that legalization of marijuana was a mistake. As a nurse in behavioral health, I see many patients admitted to hospitals because they substituted marijuana for their psychiatric medication. Often the use of marijuana will precede a psychotic episode. I see the marijuana business is no different than the opioid business. Growing stronger and more harmful strains to capture business. Well, okay, but psychotropic meds and opioids are two different things, right? And number one, we're not talking about opioids, but we accept to the extent that marijuana helps people come off of opioids. So in that respect, it's a positive. If you wanna talk about psychotropic drugs, I'm sure that there are many psychotic conditions psychiatric conditions, excuse me, that require specialized meds of one kind or another. And I have no doubt that those meds will function better than marijuana, but nobody's ever touted marijuana as a substitute for psychotropic medication. Marijuana might be useful to people who are on psychotropic medication, that it might work with those meds and it might help them calm themselves or center themselves or give them an appetite or help them fall asleep. or anything like that. Um, but you know, to say that somebody went off their psychotropic medication and started smoking marijuana and, and, and then had a psychotic episode as the fault of the marijuana is ridiculous. And it is typical, I think of kind of, uh, uh, you know, try to hide the ball. Well, if I, you know, yell loud enough about this and I'm there and I witnessed these things, I have no doubt that if somebody goes off of their psychotropic meds and they just eat chocolate cake, instead of their psychotropic meds, they're going to have a problem. So the fact that they chose to smoke marijuana, uh, doesn't prove anything. And what we don't know is where they smoking marijuana, even while they were on their psychotropic meds and everything else. But I'm going to let it go now because there's other things I'd like to talk about, but Lester Grinspoon, uh, comes across with a solid medical statement, Paul Armentano with just basic common sense. But everybody's free to make up their own minds on this. And I would encourage people to study and get to a point where you feel comfortable as if you could. you know, be in a position where, you know, you have an opinion on this. It's an important thing. And just because I say something one way, it doesn't make me any more of an expert than Ross Dothat, other than I like to think mine is more sensible because it's more, uh, reflective of and respectful of, uh, basic human choice. And just because something doesn't work for Ross Dothat or Marine Dowd, or some of these other people who wrote into the Times doesn't mean it doesn't work for the rest of us and thank you very much. But. We don't need you telling us what to do with our bodies. So I'll just say I don't say that, obviously, to cheapen or in any way demean the abortion movement, of which I am a big supporter and would hope most people are, but another issue that we're going to directly stay away from. But said more in the ironic sense of the conservative folks who during the pandemic would not put on a mask or get a shot because of their concern about somebody trying to do something with their body, missing the total irony of having taken that very position on the abortion issue and certainly on other issues where they say no, like drugs, where they're sticking their nose into somebody else's business. And that's where the hypocrisy of it all comes in. And I think that's what's so disappointing to most people is that that's a hypocrisy that should be separate and apart. from a political position on policy and everything else. There's plenty of room for personal biases and hypocrisies on the side, but when they come into public policymaking or public opinion making, it can be very, very dangerous and very damaging. And somebody could say I'm doing that right now, but again, I like to think that I'm erring on the side of not telling somebody that this is a restrictive society where you can't do something because I've decided that my interpretation of the evidence is going to supersede your experience of having tried the substance. So nevertheless, we move on. And before we dive into more cannabis news, let's kind of wash it all up by turning back to a little Grateful Dead for a minute. Dan, what's our next tune? You don't know how it is Brent tuned from Go to Heaven also, not surprising. They're playing a lot of Go to Heaven in 1980. Brent had first played this on August 14th, 1979 at McNichol Sports Arena. That's within his first year playing with the band. And since he started in April that year, just a few months after that, Brent's already stepping out and taking the lead. It was last played on July 18th, 1990, I believe at Deer Creek, which was one of Brent's last shows after Deer Creek. They went to Tinley Park. That was the end of the tour. And then tragically Brent died. And after Brent's death, the band did not revive the song. Ultimately, it was played a total of 45 times by the dead, if I recall the statistic that I saw. And it was always nice at the shows. We've talked about this plenty for little Brent interlude, far from me, or we can run but we can't hide, or whatever tune he would write and bring out. a nice change of pace and Brett was always a very enthusiastic singer and obviously really liked to play on his own tunes and that's a great one. I just want to roll right into the next tune here because it's another great song, very time appropriate from the era, another go to heaven tune and one we all know and love. Yeah, another Dead, another Go To Heaven song, right? Like as if Althea is just another song. Um, and you know, we all know sometimes you have to forego the music and, uh, as they would say, just listen to the music play. Uh, the Jerry jams are always what make this song such a fan favorite. Uh, even John Mayer's, uh, I know it's a favorite of his. Um, and, and just hearing that jam is fantastic. And I'm going to say something that I know is going to make Dan cringe, but that's okay. I'm going to say it anyway. But back at the Denning Company shows at Folsom Field a few years back when the kids behind us tried to tell us that sometimes John Mayer plays the song better than Jerry. This is the version, son. Listen to this version from June 5th, 1980 Compton Terrace amphitheater in Tempe, Arizona, and that will solve all of the questions. And that's the last I'll ever say about this until I mention it again. So Althea, my buddy Tommy's favorite song, just a great song, always so much fun to hear. And wow, you just listen to that and Jerry's just playing hard. He's, he's, he's got a groove. He's going with it, right? 1979, 1980, 1981, I know, uh, many of them, many deadheads and, you know, well, you know, almost kind of consider those, you know, really down, grateful dead years when you could, it was much easier to get into shows and, uh, they had lost a little bit of the steam. Certainly that picked up again, uh, after the, uh, the shows at, um, Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall where they pulled the material for Dead Set and Dead Set and um... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I fucked this up. Why can't I think of the album? Um... Dead Set? I had thought I had this written down. On reckoning. God. Okay. Um... Oh, okay. 3...2...1... And ultimately those shows in the Warfield and in Radio City Music Hall were the music, the sample songs, the songs that they pulled for the Dead Set and Reckoning albums, Reckoning being the acoustic and Dead Set being the electric tunes. And that really was already starting to rekindle interest in the dead, I think, you know, and getting it up to a point. When I started seeing them in 82 and 83 and even parts of 84, They were still playing smaller venues like Red Rocks. You could still pretty much get in anywhere. But certainly by the time we got to the end of the 80s and definitely by the time we got into the 90s, it was just a whole different experience and everything had gotten much larger and then the dead ideal and the need to see them had grown to proportions not seen again until Taylor Swift's most recent tour. But that's what it feels like at least. But Althea is a great song. I just, I can't ever say enough good things about it. I do have a couple of marijuana related articles to dive into today. First one, unfortunately, is that our friends over at the DEA are telling us that they're considering a ban on Delta 8 THC with severe CBD restrictions. Thank you to our friends over at Marijuana Business Daily, who's supplying this and a few other stories today. The US Drug Enforcement Administration proposed a change to federal drug control laws that would ban nearly all Delta-8 THC products currently on the market and significantly upend the country's $5 billion CBD industry. Products containing Delta-8 THC and other cannabinoids derived from hemp legalized nationwide under the 2018 Farm Bill. have proved enormously popular in states without regulated adult use cannabis markets. So too have products containing CBD, which can be converted into intoxicating Delta-8 THC via a chemical process. Okay, well first of all, let's just stop right there. It's not like a chemical process that anybody's just gonna do at home, right? Yes, it can be done by people who run processing facilities or things like that. And in fact, those are the people who are doing it. But you know what's... actually fascinating about all of this and in all of this, here's what we haven't heard yet. Why? What's wrong with Delta ATHC? Right? And why now is the US Drug Enforcement Administration making a big deal about it? And by the way, all of this they're saying, which we all know is completely legal already under the 2018 farm bill. So the thing that they're now complaining about is something they made legal, right? Um, but Delta ATHC and other novel cannabinoids. many of which have been unknown or poorly understood up to this point, also have drawn increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and law enforcement. And today, 14 states have banned Delta THC outright. Those sales continue online and in smoke shops and other retailers. Critics say the booming trade in hemp-derived cannabinoids was not what Congress intended, Congress, excuse me, intended when it legalized hemp in 2018, defined as a cannabis plant with 0.3% THC by dry volume weight. and it takes advantage of a loophole that the DEA is proposing to close. So here's what they said right there. Congress fucked up. Congress didn't do its job. Congress didn't know what it was doing. It legalized something without stopping to understand or figure out what it was. Why? Because nobody would talk to the marijuana industry. Nobody was interested in doing it. They were just pushing this through because there's commercial uses for hemp. And ultimately I believe that's what the 2018 farm bill was really directed at, not creating a CBD market or, you know, or. That was not the primary reason. It was because people recognized that hemp has significant commercial use. But that's not where we're at anymore. So now we have everyone after the fact running around and saying, oh my goodness, a product that has 0.3% THC, if you get a whole bunch of it together, you could actually probably get a good amount of THC out of there. And oh my god, if you do whatever conversion process has to be underdone, all of which was known, none of this was like secret sauce that people in the industry weren't telling Congress, right? But no, all of a sudden they've discovered it. So what are they going to do? Recently, Terrence Booze, who's the chief of the DEA Diversion Control Division's Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, indicated that the DEA will propose a new limit of no more than 0.1% THC on a weight-to-weight ratio in hemp-derived products. Okay, so now instead of 0.3%, they're going to go to 0.1%, right? Not that 0.3% had any real scientific or... other significant reasoning behind it was just a number that had been proposed years before and used and everybody was fine with it. So I said, nope, that's still too strong. Now we're going to take it down to 0.1%. Well, the first thing this is going to do is it's going to upend the commercial hemp industry because right now you have farmers who are growing commercial hemp, right? Hemp, which is never going to be intended for CBD or Delta-8 or any of that. It's hemp that's going to be processed and turned into hemp fiber. But they're still bound by the same rules. meaning that their hemp plants have to stay at 0.3% THC or lower, which is already a tricky enough thing to do. If the feds are now saying, sorry guys, we're gonna make it even harder on you, now your plants can't exceed 0.1%, that may be a step too far and more of a risk than many farmers are willing to take. People joke about hemp just being a weed that can grow anywhere, but if you're trying to grow hemp and actually ensure... that you're not giving it a chance for its THC growth to kick in, you have to really be careful, you have to watch it very closely and have a real understanding of how it works and be prepared to know that if your plants exceed that level, then by law you're going to have to destroy your entire crop. So we'll see what happens with this. But it just seems like they're being difficult for no reason at all, except let's not also ignore the elephant in the room on this, which is certainly the adult use marijuana cultivators and dispensary owners in all of the states are very unhappy with this, because their position is anybody who's trying to get high off of the stuff should have to come through us. And with all due respect to those guys, many of whom I know, and you know. No, that's not right. And the reason that's not right is because I don't think that there's a very, very big group that's defined by an overlap of people who are buying Delta 8 who would otherwise be buying Delta 9 THC. I think people who are buying Delta 8 are people who aren't interested in buying Delta 9 and are buying the Delta 8 because it's not the same kind of high as if you smoke Delta 9. You do get a little bit of a buzz as they say, but not certainly, at least my experience has been on the level of when you're smoking THC. So the guys who have the licenses right now to grow and sell Delta 9 THC don't have a license for any type of cannabis intoxicant. They have a license for Delta 9 THC. If Delta 8 THC can create a more mellow buzz and there's people who would prefer to buy it at that level would be like, you know, Budweiser saying, well, it's no fair for somebody to sell, uh, non-alcohol beer. Well, now in fact, Budweiser makes their own non-alcohol beer. So, you know, there's technically nothing stopping these guys, uh, dispensaries from doing it, but they don't want to sell Delta eight THC because they're all about selling strong marijuana and strong marijuana is not Delta eight THC. But this is where they are going with it. Uh, and this is the issue. uh... as it stands right now uh... speaking of the uh... the big boys uh... they're now set to enter the new york adult use market after a policy change surprise surprise new legislation a major policy shift having been proposed to stabilize the shaky rollout of new york's adult use marijuana program include allowing some of the nation's largest multi-state operators to enter the expanded market by years and so let's just stop right there this is new york state in new york city They're not Illinois and I refuse to believe that they couldn't find a way to to roll this out in some sort of a, a, a better method than they have, where you basically go to the bodegas now and buy your marijuana in the back. Um, and now who's going to step in and take advantage of it? The MSOs and, uh, that really bothers me, not because I don't like the MSOs and good for them for being smart enough business people to see the opening and diving into it. but because it's stepping once again on the opportunity for the small mom and pops. And even in a city the size of New York, anybody who's ever, a city, anyone who's ever walked the streets of Manhattan or some of the other boroughs knows that those are nothing but one after another. The pizza parlors and the luggage shops and the jewelry stores and the electronics store. These are all, always all owned, not always, but many of them by small families, and by families and smaller business people. you know, why shouldn't marijuana be sold the same way on the streets of New York City? But you know, once the MSO step in, they're going to be there, there's really going to be no turning back. But the regulators at the state's office of cannabis management recently proposed revised regulations to jumpstart the potential $3 billion market with more retail locations. Hey, here's an idea. What if you just give out more licenses to people in New York and actually let them start selling, give them rules so they can get going? And then you don't have to worry about the bodegas. Let the MSOs come in later after New York has already established a market. You know, I mean, I've said it before, but in Illinois, the MSOs have established such a strong market based on all the mistakes and the unfortunate, unreasonable delays in the Illinois rollout that many of us are very skeptical as how successful the new dispensaries and the new cultivation facilities are going to be able to be in terms of competing with these guys who have already, you know, well established their brands, uh, throughout the state of Illinois. But you know, once again, they're going to get, now they're going to get an opportunity to dive into New York, um, and, and really play it out. And you know, we're just going to have to see, uh, how this plays out there. And, um, you know, while I'm all about New York city and the rest of the state, uh, finally being able to actually have legal adult use marijuana sales, which the law provides for, they just haven't figured it all out to make it operational yet. Um, you know, there's a certain part of us, uh, that hopes that it won't necessarily just be all GTI and pharmacans and cure relief and, and Cresco and, and all of the big guys, you know, who we all know about now. And again, you know, they do their job and you know, they do it just fine. Um, but let's give everybody an opportunity. Uh, we don't necessarily have to write at the very outset of legal cannabis. you know, over to overbranded into, you know, three basic brands. You know, this shouldn't just be a McDonald's Burger King and Wendy's situation, right, where 99% of the burgers are sold by them. You know, there's nothing wrong with giving, especially a place like New York and New York City, uh, an opportunity to let individuals run with this program. And we'll just have to see what happens down the road with that, but it does not bode well, um, if the city's already saying that in order to solve what they've. perceived to be a shortage, not the city, the state, to resolve what they perceived to be a shortage, they think the answer is bringing in the MSOs. So I remain to be convinced, I'll admit when I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but I just think that it kind of pushes again back against the grain of what many people visualize when they think of illegal cannabis industry in this country. On the other hand, and to follow, to end the show on at least the news part, on good news, and having everybody with a little bit of a smile before we venture back into the grateful den and some really cool stuff there. The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, has signed a bill to bolster marijuana-related protections for working professionals in the state, effectively codifying an executive order he entered last year. For this article, I wanna give a shout out to our friends at Marijuana Moment and Kyle Yeager and thank them as well, between them and MJ Biz. uh... you know it's really all the news here you ever really need to know about what's going on in the marijuana world uh... so this legislation was proposed by uh... actually republican uh... kevin van winkel uh... it was approved by the legislature last month it prohibits regulators from denying or revoking professional certifications registrations or licenses to people based solely on prior civil or criminal violations over cannabis related activity that's been made legal in the state well hallelujah it's about damn time right lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, anybody who has a job where you have to get certified by the state, you have to be a registrant. Guess what? In New York, they can't say no to you anymore because you're using cannabis. In fact, it went even further to say that they can't punish you even if you're using it in a state elsewhere in the United States. So long as the violation concerns activity that would otherwise be lawful in Colorado. So, right, that's a great thing. And we don't punish people simply because they drink. We don't punish people simply because they smoke cigarettes. We don't punish people simply for a lot of reasons. And we shouldn't punish people who are professionals or operate in license regulated professions that because they smoke marijuana, that that should be a disqualifier for them. And Colorado, which of course has been a leader on everything related to adult use marijuana and legalization as it were, is once again helping us break new ground. And as they become successful with it, the hope is that this will spread as quickly as the state's desires to start cashing in on marijuana and opening up the legal facilities. But at least if you're a professional living in Colorado or thinking about moving out there. This is good news and I'm glad to see both the Colorado state legislature led by a Republican pushing this bill through and the state governor, Jared Polis, a Democrat signing off on the bill and that's great effort. That's great bipartisanship work to support something that's just very, very common sense and long overdue on the book. So hats off to them and that's a good move. diving back into our concert now, because we're running out of time here, but I've got some great music here at the end that I'm not prepared to walk away from. So this song you're all gonna know, I know you're right, but I want you to listen carefully to the two snippets that Dan has expertly and professionally clipped in when I asked him to try something new, so we could hear two different parts of the same song in one clip. And we're gonna circle back in a minute to find out what's so unique about it. Okay, so it's I Know You, Ryder, and obviously the sharp-minded deadheads in the room, the nerds, as we like to call ourselves, have noticed that this is very unique because whereas Bobby and Jerry often trade verses on this tune as they go through it, there's two things that have always been sacrosanct. That is... that Bobby sings the Sun Will Shine in My Back Door Someday verse and Jerry sings the I Wish I Was a Headlight on a Northbound Train verse and in this version they flip it. So we have Jerry doing the Sun Will Shine in My Backdoor Someday and Bobby singing the Wish I Was a Headlight on a Northbound Train. Let me tell you, Bobby sings it and he rips into that Headlight on a Northbound Train the second time around the way Jerry I don't think was really quite doing it yet in the late 70s, early 80s. He may have started picking up on that. But that was more of a late 80s, early 90s thing when they'd sing that song. Jerry would really get the growl going on the headlight on a northbound train. So maybe Bobby inspired him with this. I can't find any article that explains why on this occasion they traded those verses. And I can't find right now, at least, it's what I've been able to see, and if anybody else can, please send it along, any examples of them ever doing this on any other versions of it earlier or later. And that's one of those little things, right? Miss a little, miss a lot. You go to a dead show one time, they trade versus, who the hell knows why. But if you're there and you get to see it, it's very, very cool. And even if not, nowadays, thanks to technology, we get to all hear it. So yeah, just one of those funky little things. Jerry and Bobby trading versus, seeing if anybody noticed. And we here at the Deadhead Cannabis Show did, and now you know too. Well, we're getting to the end of the show this week. Thank you for listening, as always. Thanks for letting me bitch again about Ross Dothats column, which really bothered me and as you can tell, still does to some degree. And look, we're beginning our fifth year. This is great. I'd like to say we can't do it without our listeners, but I'd come out here and do it anyway, just because I love doing it. And so yes, obviously the more listeners, the better. And if for no other reason, just because it means that there's more of us out there who are so interested in this. that were taking the time to create it and taking the time to listen to it and hopefully taking the time to talk about it with our fellow deadheads and indoctrinating those who might have a curiosity but have never yet found their way to get on the bus and pay their fare the first trip and off you go. So again, thank you for all of that. We've got another exciting year of great, great shows coming up, working on interviews that we think will be very exciting. And... As we said before, there's always just so much to talk about with the Grateful Dead and with marijuana and cannabis as a whole that I feel like we can keep going forever. As long as you listen, we will be here. So we're going to close out and take off here in a second with one of my all-time favorites anyways, Truckin'. This is just such a great show. They're on such a roll. They're really playing so well. And just really want you to listen to how crisp and clean that is. So... Have a great week everybody. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you'll be back next week and I'll be here to tell you all about Den and Company. So enjoy and enjoy your cannabis responsibly. Thank you.