Anna Wilcox

The word “marijuana” plays a controversial role in cannabis culture. Many well-known organizations such as Oakland’s Harborside Heath Center have publicly denounced “the M word” in favor of our favorite plant’s Latinate name, cannabis. Even Salon Magazine, a major press outlet outside of the cannabis industry, published an article titled “Is the word ‘Marijuana’ racist?” last year.

As mainstream culture becomes a little more herb-friendly, the terminology used by the industry is coming to center stage. But, why exactly does the term “marijuana” cause so much debate? Even worse, why has the word gained publicity as a racist term?

To save you from reading those lengthy history books or some boring academic articles, we’ve created this brief timeline to give you the low-down on “marijuana”’s rise to popularity in the United States. Here’s what you need to know:

The Mexican Revolution

1840-1900:

Prior to 1910, “marijuana” didn’t exist as a word in American culture. Rather, “cannabis” was used, most often in reference to medicines and remedies for common household ailments. In the early 1900s, what have now become pharmaceutical giants—Bristol-Meyer’s Squib and Eli Lilly—used to include cannabis and cannabis extracts in their medicines.

During this time, Americans (particularly elite Americans) were going through a hashish trend. Glamorized by literary celebrities such as Alexander Dumas, experimenting with cannabis products became a fad among those wealthy enough to afford imported goods.

1910:

Between the years of 1910 and 1920, over 890,000 Mexicans legally immigrated into the United States seeking refuge from the wreckage of civil war. Though cannabis had been a part of U.S. history since the country’s beginnings, the idea of smoking the plant recreationally was not as common as other forms of consumption. The idea of smoking cannabis entered mainstream American consciousness after the arrival of immigrants who brought the smoking habit with them.

1913:

The first bill criminalizing the cultivation of “locoweed” was passed in California. The bill was a major push from the Board of Pharmacy as a way to regulate opiates and psychoactive pharmaceuticals, and seemingly did not stem from the “reefer madness” or racialized understanding of “marijuana” that paved the way to full-on prohibition in the 1930s.

The Aftermath

1930s:

The Great Depression had just hit the United States, and Americans were searching for someone to blame. Due to the influx of immigrants (particularly in the South) and the rise of suggestive jazz music, many white Americans began to treat cannabis (and, arguably, the Blacks and Mexican immigrants who consumed it) as a foreign substance used to corrupt the minds and bodies of low-class individuals.

In the time just before the federal criminalization of the plant, 29 states independently banned the herb that came to be known as “marijuana.”

Harry Anslinger:

It would not be an overstatement to say that Harry Anslinger was one of the primary individuals responsible for creating the stigma surrounding cannabis. Hired as the first director of the recently created Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930, Anslinger launched a vigilant campaign against cannabis that would hold steady for the three decades he remained in office.

A very outspoken man, Anslinger used the recent development of the movie theater to spread messages that racialized the plant for white audiences. In one documented incident, Anslinger testified before Congress, explaining:

“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind… Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage.”

In another statement, Anslinger articulated: “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

In retrospect, Anslinger’s efforts with the Bureau of Narcotics were the reason “marijuana” became a word known by Americans all over the country. When making public appearances and crafting propaganda films such as Reefer Madness, Anslinger specifically used the term “marijuana” when campaigning against the plant, adding to the development of the herb’s new “foreign” identity.

Cannabis was no longer the plant substance found in medicines and consumed unanimously by American’s all over the country.

1937:

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was the culmination of Anslinger’s work and the first step to all-out prohibition. The bill federally criminalized the cannabis plant in every U.S. state. In order to discourage the production of cannabis use, the Tax Act of 1937 placed a one dollar tax on anyone who sold or cultivated the cannabis plant.

On top of the tax itself, the bill mandated that all individuals comply with certain enforcement provisions. Violation of the provisions would result in imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $2,000.

Though the word “marijuana” is the most common name for cannabis in the United States today, its history is deeply steeped in race, politics, and a complicated cultural revolution. Some argue that using the word ignores a history of oppression against Mexican immigrants and African Americans, while others insist that the term has now lost its prejudiced bite. Regardless of whether or not you decide to use the word yourself, it’s impossible to deny the magnitude and racial implications of its introduction to the American lexicon.

CONTINUE READING…

(Catching up on old news…It’s here because it’s important!)

By Adrian Devitt-Lee on May 05, 2017

As cannabis is legalized for medical and recreational use on a state-by-state basis, safety regulations regarding cannabis products are becoming increasingly important. One aspect of safety regulations involves setting maximal allowable limits on pesticides. Such regulations are particularly significant given that medical populations, including young and immunocompromised patients, are among the intended consumers of cannabis products.

The cannabis industry has a pesticide problem – actually, many problems. A number of studies have reported high levels of pesticides on cannabis samples taken from the medical markets in Washington and Colorado [Russo p66, Sullivan]. There have been cannabis product recalls in both states and in Canada because of pesticide infractions.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets pesticide standards and tolerance levels nationally. But the EPA has not approved any pesticides specifically for use on cannabis because it is a federally illegal substance. So, as of now, it’s up to each state to decide on a single “action limit” for each pesticide applied to cannabis. An action limit refers to the maximal allowable level of a pesticide. This limit is reported in units of parts per million (ppm). A 1 ppm limit on a pesticide means that up to 0.0001% of the product’s weight can be from the pesticide.

A state cannot set a pesticide action limit that is more permissive than regulations for general use on food crops established by the EPA. In some cases, the EPA’s limit for food products is adopted by state marijuana regulators. But in other cases a stricter limit is determined by the level of quantification that can be “reasonably achievable by analytical chemists” [APHL p15]. In other words, action limits are often based on the ease of detecting chemicals rather than a prioritization of their dangers.

The same limit for a particular pesticide applies whether a product is meant to be smoked, vaporized, or ingested – even though different modes of administration can dramatically change the toxicity of the pesticides. Cannabis is still consumed primarily by smoking. Yet there is next to no information on the health effects of burning pesticides. This information vacuum is likely attributable to lobbying by the tobacco industry. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the “EPA does not assess intermediate or long-term risks to smokers because of the severity of health effects linked to use of tobacco products themselves” [GAO].

In other words, because cigarette-smoking is already known to be harmful, federal officials decided that it’s not important to understand the adverse health effects of inhaling combustible pesticides. Consequently, state regulators are lacking crucial information about many pesticides. Two pesticides used in the cannabis industry, myclobutanil (generally sold as Eagle 20) and pyrethrins, underscore the inconsistency of current pesticide regulations.

Pyrethrins

Pyrethrins are a natural family of six pesticides produced by chrysanthemum. They break down quickly in sunlight or heat. They are highly toxic to aquatic life but have low toxicity to warm blooded animals, including humans. The EPA maintains that pyrethrins do not pose a chronic risk for mammals (including humans), except potentially for people who regularly spray them on crops [EPA p9]. In commercial products, pyrethrins are generally sold with piperonyl butoxide (PBO), a compound that synergizes with pyrethrins, allowing them to be effective at lower doses. Pyrethrins should not be confused with pyrethroids, synthetic chemicals that are as different from pyrethrins as THC is from synthetic “spice” or “K2” bath salts.¹

The action limit for pyrethrins is 1 ppm in every state that has set pesticide regulations for marijuana. California recently released proposed regulations, setting the pyrethrin limit at 0.7 ppm for edibles and 0.5 ppm for other cannabis products.² Hearings will be held on this proposal four times in the month of June. The regulations can be found here.

But the European Food Safety Administration (EFSA) has concluded that it is safe for humans to ingest up to 0.4 mg pyrethrins per kg bodyweight every day [EFSA]. By this estimate, an average 135 pound human consuming state-approved cannabis could ingest 55 pounds of product in a day without toxicity due to pyrethrins.³ This calculation can be inverted, and an action limit can be determined from the maximal amount of cannabis products used in a day. For example, if one assumes that no one ingests more than 1% of their body weight in cannabis products (about 1.1 pounds for an average human), then 40 ppm is a stringent enough action limit to prevent pyrethrin toxicity, according to the EFSA.

While the European Food Safety Administration’s limit for pyrethrins does not take into consideration the synergistic toxicity between pesticides, it does provide a viable starting point to base action limits on safety.

Burning pesticides

The toxicity of myclobutanil highlights the importance of considering how a cannabis product is consumed. When heated myclobutanil decomposes into hydrogen cyanide, a toxic compound that causes neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular, and thyroid problems at concentrations of 0.008 ppm [MSDS]. Smoking or vaping cannabis tainted with myclobutanil residue is a bad idea. This pesticide is now banned for use on cannabis in Oregon [Farrer p11]. However, in Nevada up to 9 ppm of myclobutanil is allowed on cannabis as of January 2017 [DPBH].

Since smoking is still the most preferred method of consuming cannabis, it is essential to know the safety of pesticides when heated. Vaporization leads to temperatures around 200˚C, while burning causes temperatures above 400˚C. Unlike myclobutanil, pyrethrins likely break down into two safer chemicals when heated without burning: chrysanthemic acid and a rethrolone. This breakdown may be reduced in the oily solution of a concentrate. When smoked it is not clear how pyrethrins will decompose and how dangerous these chemicals will be.

There’s ample reason for state officials to be cautious and to err on the side of safety with respect to pesticide regulations. But being stringent without a basis in science may have the unintended effect of pushing cannabis cultivators to use harder-to-detect pesticides that are more toxic.

It is paramount to study the effects of heating pesticides. Lacking pertinent data, regulations should at least be geared toward reducing the use of pesticides that we know burn to highly toxic compounds, and regulations should give some leeway to pesticides and growing practices that are safer. Moreover, regulations need to be malleable, so that as research provides us with a better understanding of pesticide toxicity, regulations follow suit.

Adrian Devitt-Lee is a Project CBD research associate and contributing writer.

Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.

Footnotes:

¹ Pyrethroids account for 30 percent of global pesticide use, according to Chinese researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, pyrethroids have been linked to early puberty in boys, which can stunt growth and cause behavioral problems. Exposure to pyrethroids also increases the risk of testicular cancer in men and breast cancer in women.

² California’s proposed regulations do account for some differences between ingesting and vaporizing pesticides. However, this is because compounds enter the bloodstream through the lungs much more easily than they pass through the digestive tract. They do not consider the effect of heating solvents or pesticides. Moreover, in their reference to exposure limits for solvents regulators confuse two different units. The short-term exposure limit (STEL), applicable to acute inhalation, can be measured in ppmv or mg/m³. Ppmv stands for parts per million by volume, which is sometimes written “ppm”. Limits on cannabis are given in ppm by weight, which is measured as the grams of adulterant per million grams of cannabis product, or µg (microgram) of adulterant per gram product. The relevant ppmv in the lungs is not simply the ppm contamination on cannabis. The relationship between ppmv and ppm depends on the volume of the lungs and the amount of cannabis product inhaled. The concentration (in mg/m³) of adulterant inhaled is approximately L*c/V, where L is the limit in ppm, c is the amount of cannabis used in grams, and V is the volume of the lungs in liters.

³ The relationship is as follows: Let b be the individual’s body weight in kg, L the regulatory limit in ppm, A the acceptable daily intake in mg pyrethrins/kg bodyweight, and C the maximum amount of cannabis consumed by any individual per day in grams. 1 kilogram is equal to 2.2 lbs. Safety would mean that these variables satisfy:

A * b ≥ 10^-3 * L * C

Substituting b = 62 [kg], L = 1 [ppm], and A = 0.4 [mg/kg], we see that C ≤ 24,800 [g] or C ≤ 54.7 lbs.

On the other hand, if we suppose that b ≥ 0.1 C (that the individual consumes less than 1% of their bodyweight in cannabis each day), the limit must satisfy L ≤ 40 [ppm].

Sources:

• Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). “Guidance for State Medical Cannabis Testing Programs.” May 2016.
• European Food Safety Administration (EFSA). “Conclusion on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance pyrethrins.” 2013.
• Farrer, D. “Technical Report: Oregon Health Authority’s Process to Determine Which Types of Contaminants to Test for in Cannabis Products, and Levels for Action.” December 2015.
• “Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS): Myclobutanil.” 2009.
• Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH) “Monitoring List for Pest Control Substances and Plant Growth Regulators.”
• Russo E. “Pesticide Contamination of Cannabis in the Legal Market.” Presented at the 2016 International Cannabinoid Research Society.
• Sullivan N, Elzinga S, Raber J. “Determination of Pesticide Residues in Cannabis Smoke.” Journal of Toxicology, volume 2013.
• US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “Reregistration Eligibility Decision for Pyrethrins.” June 2006.
• US Government Accountability Office (GAO). “Pesticides on Tobacco: Federal Activities to Assess Risks and Monitor Residues.” March, 2003.

PLEASE CONTINUE READING AND TO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION THRU THIS LINK!

Steve Sarich with Eddy Lepp and 94 others.

May 23 at 3:42pm ·

PLEASE SHARE FAR AND WIDE!

Yesterday at 12:10 pm the WSDA Industrial Hemp Coordinator, Emily Febles, was served with a lawsuit filed against both the WSDA and the herself, both individually, and in her capacity at the WSDA.

The lawsuit filed by John Worthington is comprehensive and exposes what clearly appears to be an effort to set up a hemp seed monopoly in Washington State. While licenses to grow under the WSDA Hemp Pilot Program were not legally available until May 15,

and neither were seed acquisition forms, partners Cory Sharp and Shane Palmer apparently found a way to entice Emily Febles into applying for multiple DEA permits to bring in thousands of pounds of seed, for them and their friends, on April 5th, 2017….40 days before anyone else in Washington could even legally apply for a license.

When requests from prospective hemp farmers over where to get viable hemp seed were received by Febles, they were told to contact Cory Sharp….and that he already had seed. And she should know…she had it imported for him, without so much as a license application.

There were 8 or more “special farmers” that got their seed in using Cory’s special connection with the Febles. On all but two of these people, the WSDA did not have anything more that a name on these people….no application, no license, not even a phone number or an address!

We’ll be back in Thurston County Superior Court at 9am on Friday, May 26th. The Assistant Attorney General defending the WSDA & Emily Febles it Mark Culkin. To this day, Culkin has not even bothered to file an answer to the lawsuit and it is now, according to court rules, to late for him to even file a response or to bring evidence in this case. But this is Thurston County and those Judges protect the state at all costs, so we really need your support in court this Friday morning!

HELP US fight corruption in Washington State by showing you care enough to show up!

Steve Sarich added 2 new photos.

2 hrs ·

COURT UPDATE….

Yesterday’s court hearing on John Worthington’s injunction against the Washington State Department of Agriculture & WSDA Hemp Project Coordinator, Emily Febles, left the dozen or so supporters in the courtroom dumbfounded.

Judge Murphy had everyone in the courtroom confused when she called Worthington and Asst. AG Mark Calkins to come forward and speak to her before any of the cases were called.

She stated that the case was not noted on her calendar and was not in her computer. Worthington told the judge that he has absolutely filed it, noted it for yesterday, and that AG Calkin had been served. At that point Calkin clearly stated to the Judge that that he had NOT been served.

This despite the fact that the AG was in Court, and wouldn’t have know to be there unless he was served, AND that the person that had served the AG’s office was there in the courtroom as well. John didn’t have the stamped copy with him at the hearing, but as you can see from the attachment here, the AG’s office even time-stamped the copy of complaint when they were served. Yes, the assistant AG perjured himself to buy himself another week.

To make a short story even shorter, it was obvious to everyone there watching this circus that the fix was in. Had the state been the complainant, and not the defendant, Judge Murphy, would have moved forward with the hearing since both parties were there. But since the State was the defendant, Judge Murphy kicked the can down the road another week.

This action would give the WSDA, Hemplogic and Joy Beckerman another week to plant the seed that was illegally brought in imported by the WSDA on behalf of 9 or more “special” farmers associated with Hemplogic.

They have announced now that they will plant this illegal seed next Wednesday, May 31st. If they plant this seed on Wednesday, they will only be increasing the amount of the damages due Worthington and future complainants. As of yesterday, the WSDA still hadn’t issued a single hemp growing permits so it’s unclear if they will go forward with planting on Wednesday, without any licenses. The other possibility would be that they will exacerbate the damages further by ‘miraculously’ issuing licenses to the co-conspirators in a nick of time on Tuesday, the day before their $200 a head hemp planting & self-promotion day. But giving them a license now, won’t solve their legal issues, it will actually just make it worse for them.

So it’s back to court, AGAIN, next Friday. I really want to thank everyone who showed up yesterday….we were ready with four video camera ready to roll. I hope we have bigger crowd next Friday, June 2nd.