AN INSIDE LOOK AT PROP 19’s RICHARD LEE

Temecula, CA – With only 13 days before voters go to the polls and vote nationally on many issues, people all around me are debating/approving the merits of Prop 19. Last week I figured it was high time to wade back in the thick smoke of things to gage the timbre of the movement’s direction. As luck would have it, a fundraiser spaghetti dinner was happening in the place I had visited before to get the skinny from the heart of the marijuana activist movement. But hey, that’s why you read your favorite social butterfly.

Those of you who remember the former FVR site may recall a piece titled “Where the Pot Faerie Lives” that showed how lush and Park Forest wild that place is. The magical reference is homage to the location’s oasis effect and being close enough to Hollywood to look like a ‘set’. It is against this palette of greenery and a Spanish guitar soundtrack that is the meeting place for THS, The Human Solution, a gathering of various individuals and patients involved in the medical policy reform for marijuana. It was here that member Wayne Williams, a pot advocate who doesn’t smoke weed, first proposed his Lake Elsinore town hall educational meeting which that city council shunned in a show of self righteous close-mindedness. It was also through the THS channels that I got to meet and greet brought Ed Rosenthal, the legendary marijuana grower who first unlocked the secret of how to grow really excellent, aka ‘chronic’ pot. I narrated that night in a piece titled “The Two Mr. Eds”, throwing a bit of Nick at Nite TV Land humor in the title.

Meeting Ed Rosenthal completed a dream I never ever pictured would take place. The modern awareness of cannabis and its colorful history that the government/status quo failed to cloak is a testimonial honor owned by two men and two men only: Jack Herer and Ed Rosenthal. As well-read and once part of the system, I knew about both men from articles in the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. When I met Jack in 2003 I never imagined I would run across Ed, especially since he lives up in San Francisco and leads a different active life than Jack (did). But yet I met ED this year and when that happened I felt a bond as if I had connected two dots. As I rattled my stoned writer brain to come up with a designation for that feeling, the second ‘Ed’ of the night dropped the catch phrase ‘emerald triangle’. I knew in an instant that I had completed my own ‘emerald triangle’ with meeting both pot culture legends, like meeting Mick and later Keith, who, BTW, are slated to tour together again in ’11with the rest of the band. Ronnie’s bank account took a hit when he pissed off his wife by shagging that 17 year old Russian model instead of rehabbing it. I love The Stones for helping a mate get back out there to enjoy mature single life.

The second Mr. Ed shares two high profile occupations. Mr. Ed2 or “Eddie” is a movie producer of documentaries, or as they say in film school, “real movies.” When I first wrote about Eddie, he was a video producer and just gearing up to shoot his first documentary. This past weekend he was at a festival showing a trailer from that completed work. However, when I first met Eddie it was in a four person session (smoking circle) with Mr. Rosenthal and Eddie, in his second occupation as a grower ‘up north’, was packing, no, rolling near perfect spliffs (conical shaped joints) complete with a preformed filter mouthpiece to boot. Suddenly I was ‘in the big game’ I thought to myself at the time. I remember still being buzzed the next day as I wrote up the story.

As I stood down by the fire pit after having a bit of spaghetti dinner to tide me over, who should walk over but Eddie to answer a question and request from a disabled patient. The request is to smell and identify the contents of the patient’s 5 different small glass container jars. As he takes, then sniffs and calls each one, I am too intimidated to ask for a sniff also. I am not a grower. I’m a social butterfly. The question asked is if Eddie’s plant buds are anywhere in Mr. Rosenthal’s latest The ‘Biggest Buds’ book, 4th edition, just published? Eddie opens the pages from the book under his arm and shows us all the pictures featuring his seed buds. He then fielded some questions and added comments.

Shortly later I said to him quietly, “Listen, this event is supposed to be non-partisan but I’m ‘no’ on 19. How do you feel about it? I’m very interested in how you see it,” I told him standing by two seated ‘no’ supporters who were passing around a joint of some tasty homegrown from last year’s grow. Unlike the previous times in this amazing botanical garden oasis which were sunny and pleasant, or even the times of heat, it was always dry. This time the weather was overcast with off and on light drizzle, steeping the whole still green forest in an English/European magick atmosphere but with no circus.

“I’m neutral. I don’t care if it passes,” Eddie said. Given that casual attitude belies the fact that Eddie pointed out to an 18 year old that if Prop 19 passes he can get busted and fined a $1000 whereas now with the new infraction law set for January 1, all he would get is a $100 ticket if Prop 19 doesn’t pass. Plus if he was in the car and his brother had a joint and he got second hand smoke, his brother could do six months. “We were at the festival smoking a joint together talking about the Prop. Later I see this kid debating (the issue) with Lanny (Swerdlow, RN, Activist, Show host, pro 19) and he argued Lanny point for point until (the age/$100/$1000 thing). Lanny had no comeback for it so he packed up his stuff then left the show. I told Ed (Rosenthal) the story and he said, ‘Don’t tell me, I know how bad it is.’ People need to read (Prop19) through to know how bad it really is.”

“Dennis (Peron) said that he supports 19 because it gets the issue on the ballot. He told me ‘I didn’t think (Prop) 215 was any good but it was a way to get marijuana on the ballot and before the public so forgive me for endorsing Prop 19. You don’t have to tell me, I’ve read it and I know how (Expletive deleted) it is.’ Now with (AG Eric) Holder issuing his statement on Friday, people in the movement are saying that if Prop 19 passes, there’s going to be a lot of arrests.”

The only other news, as if to echo Eddie’s theory of future prosecution, was the shutting down the Harvest Festival that was scheduled to take place in Winchester, CA on last Saturday. The Riverside county Mounties called the organizers and told them that they were going send a contingent of men to arrest any and everybody. When that threat didn’t appear to frighten the event people, the code enforcement searched and found a 20 year old violation to shut them down by pulling their event permit two days before Saturday. Curiously enough, that same day up in San Bernardino there was a big Snoop Dog stoner smoke-out that went off with only 10 people arrested out of 40,000 in attendance. Clearly in ordinance with carrying out state mandated law, you have rogue elements in power positions who control a territory’s morays and culture, not unlike the political landscape of Afghanistan with warlords. More peculiar is that these people don’t see themselves in that light.

Though I didn’t talk politics with every person I met, I had the feeling that many people who may have at first been like me, caught up in the euphoria of being legal to recreationally smoke pot, but have now seen the bill for what it really is, regulation, not legalization. Or as Eddie and I agreed on, why vote for something that is going to give you less rights and charge you for it. That point brought me around to ask what sort of man is Richard Lee?

From the conversation and stirred article memories, it seems that Richard Lee is a medical marijuana patient as well as a sharp entrepreneur and that provided his impetus to write the bill. However, his shrewdness is questioned by some in the movement who have mocked “I expect Richard (Lee) to leap out of his wheelchair and dance around if 19 passes.” It appears that Richard wrote the bill with the commercial angle in mind. That ‘angle’ is to provide a monetary incentive to the government by wholly letting them regulate and license development of all marijuana. At the heart of Prop 19 is that objective; and that is the Pandora’s box being offered to your local city council of ‘Sarah Palins’ and ‘John McCains’.

After Richard Lee authored the bill and used a lot of his own money to promote it, either he contacted them or the Drug Policy Alliance via Ethan Nadalmann contacted him. At any rate the organization threw their behind the scenes weight toward promoting California’s Prop 19. All of the ‘official’ above ground, main street organizations have been brought onboard this way. Ethan carries around George Soros’ portfolio (see ‘The plan from the Man’). When I explained this Lee/Ethan/Soros connection with regard to franchising and legality, Eddie understood my point from a political/business POV. During my explanation of said connection, Eddie, who develops strains according to your particular ailment – yeah, Sports Fans, he’s that good of a grower – explained the rational for a grower to be able to get around seed manipulation by companies like Monsanto.

The evening came to a close and I was full of homemade spaghetti sauce, meatballs, plus the validation that some people see regulation IS NOT legalization. Perhaps the most poignant moment came when I was sitting at a table with this patient, a man with a forlorn look that matched the day. His wife had gone to get some sodas for him. I mentioned the content of a Montel Williams video to him, see below,

And suddenly he got this focused stare, looked directly into my gaze and said, “Why don’t they leave us alone with our medicine? We’re not trying to get them to smoke pot. Why can’t they just let us medicate ourselves and leave us alone?”

It is the ‘why indeed’ that I cover, because that is where the story is.