Betty's (Little Basement) Garden (19 page)

“Really?” she said, feigning shock. “When did cannabis stop being considered medicine?”

“You can thank William Randolph Hearst and the Dupont Company for starting the bullshit campaign that smeared this beautiful plant.” Peyton launched into a concise history lesson, beginning with Hearst's newspaper empire and his vast ownership of timberlands. The strong fibers from
hemp
– the more common name for the non-psychoactive “ditch weed” version of
Cannabis Sativa
– had been used for thousands of years to make everything from paper and clothing, to rope and ship's sails. Hemp fiber was employed as canvases for Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the paper used for the first draft of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as the cloth chosen by Betsy Ross to sew the first flag. Labeled a “billion dollar crop” in the 1930s, hemp was poised to propel the United States out of the Great Depression. But Hearst's influence changed the course of history and started the propaganda campaign against the plant.

In 1937, Dupont held the patent for the process to make plastic from oil and coal. Synthetics were the future and natural hemp industrialization, while more cost effective and less invasive to produce, would destroy Dupont's monopoly in the marketplace. Dupont's primary investor in his plastics division was Andrew Mellon. Mellon conveniently became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury. Even more conveniently, Mellon appointed his future nephew-in-law and strong prohibitionist, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. An unholy alliance between the four powerhouses, Hearst, Dupont, Mellon and Anslinger, was born and exploited. In order for their wealth and power to continue, cannabis
hemp
had to be removed from the landscape.

But how? How could they convince the public that a plant used for thousands of years for fiber and medicine was suddenly not useful? “Danger and fear,” Peyton said in an ominous tone. “Tell us it's dangerous and make us afraid of it. Fear sells and compels,” he declared. “And there was a shit load of fear-stained rhetoric they couldn't wait to unleash.” After learning that Mexican laborers smoked “brick weed” – low potency cannabis that was barely psychoactive and full of seeds, stems and leaves – Hearst's tabloid-driven, racist-fueling, agenda-heavy creation of “the evil weed” was established to shock and manipulate the unsuspecting and naïve masses. “Back then,” Peyton added, “if you wanted to turn people against something, all you had to do was associate it with immigrants or people who were considered ‘low class.'”

Hearst, who believed blacks and Mexicans were inferior, fused racism with disinformation and the media blitz began. “This is when Hearst and his buddies started calling it
marijuana
,” Peyton informed Betty, “which was purely a Mexican slang term the field workers gave it.” When Harry Anslinger, who was also an unapologetic racist, discovered that black jazz musicians liked to toke on joints, he spun a story about how marijuana smoking would insidiously incite white women to have wanton sex with black men.

To visually shock the unsophisticated public with the supposed debauchery caused by “reefer,” Anslinger had a strong hand in the scripting and production of anti-marijuana, propaganda films between 1935 and 1937, including
Marihuana: The Devil's Weed, Marihuana: Assassin of Youth
and the classic,
Reefer Madness.
The films featured “marijuana crazed youth,” who turned into sex hungry, insane, violent, raping, murdering, nut cases when they smoked the herb. Peyton shook his head. “I mean, come on. If I vape a little too much of an
Indica
strain, I go to sleep. The last thing on my mind is plotting to kill someone.” He pulled a few dead leaves off the bottom of one of the blooming plants. “Have you ever seen those idiotic movies?” Peyton asked. “All the actors playing the ‘teenagers' look like they're in their late thirties or early forties. One of the guys even looks like he's balding.”

Peyton carefully disposed of the dead leaves in a trashcan. “The whole point was to confuse people, right down to the name of the plant. Medical doctors were used to requesting
Cannabis Indica
from the pharmacy to add
into their formulas,
not
‘marijuana.' So when doctors heard about the dangers of ‘marijuana,' they had no idea these jokers were really taking about cannabis, which they all knew was pretty tame.” Peyton continued his history lesson, mentioning that when the Marijuana Tax Law was introduced in the spring of 1937 to outlaw cannabis, none of the medical experts fought it because they didn't understand that “marijuana” was cannabis. The Bill was introduced to the House floor by a Dupont supporter, who was eager to make sure his investment in the plastics industry was protected and that
hemp
would be banned in all forms,
including
medicine.

Once it was banned, the herb stayed under the radar until the 1960s when it resurfaced and became connected to the hippie culture. Times were changing and so, as Peyton referenced, “they couldn't tie the plant to blacks and lazy Mexicans anymore.” Instead, they created new propaganda, claiming that marijuana made you unproductive and a burden on society. A few years later, they spun an unproven story that cannabis killed brain cells. “The irony,” Peyton said, “is that some of the cannabinoids actually stimulate new nerve growth in the brain. They proved it on rats.”

Peyton's concise history lesson continued. By 1970, with pressure from special interests and hysteria from parents who bought into the media's hype against the alleged dangers of cannabis, the Federal government changed the classification of ‘marijuana' to a Schedule I drug – the worst possible category to put it in. That label meant it had zero medicinal benefits, was highly addictive and could kill. The only problem was that there had
never
been a single case of anyone dying from using cannabis. Other Schedule I drugs, Peyton noted, include heroin and LSD. “So, you have these harder drugs like cocaine, meth and morphine that are
Schedule II
,” Peyton said with a knowing smile. “And yet they say cannabis, a
Schedule I
drug, is a ‘gateway drug' to these harder drugs. Don't you just love it? It's all backwards! In this scenario, shouldn't the abuse of cocaine, meth and morphine lead to
cannabis
and not the other way around?”

“Why don't they just change the classification of cannabis to a different Schedule that fits its use?”

Peyton leaned against the wall. “Aw, Betty. Now you're starting to sound like an activist.”

“It's an obvious question, don't you think?”

“If they wanted to keep their whole gateway gig going, they'd have to make cannabis Schedule III. But catch this: Getting it out of Schedule I would make it available for Federal research funding. And
that
would quickly uncover all the proven medical and health benefits of the herb that the privately funded foreign studies have already shown. Then the government would have to explain why they demonized the plant for over seventy years, lied to the public and put people in prison for something that was pretty tame in comparison to all the other shit out there.”

He paused and let out a disparaging snort. “The more you dig into this, the more you'll realize that everything you've been taught is based on disinformation. The whole thing is a game and a joke, Betty. The government has known since 1974 that cannabis can cure cancer in lab rats. You hear that?
Nineteen seventy-four.
But Nixon, who started the inane ‘War on Drugs' wasn't thrilled when he was told that. So he chose to bury the report and continue the ridiculous propaganda campaign against the herb. Don't take my word for it. Look it up.” He shook his head. “As if it's the government's job to protect you from a little plant! Like they actually care about your health! If you think the government gives a rat's ass about your health, then
you
must be smoking chemically grown weed,” Peyton argued. “It's not their responsibility to tell me how to take care of myself. Why would I want a bunch of strangers whom I've never hung out with, never talked to and who only know me by my social security number, dictate
anything
to me about my well-being? If I wanted to put up with that, I'd go back and live with my parents. They couldn't take care of me and the egg donor doesn't care about the welfare of her own father. That's why I live with him and watch over him.”

He examined several colas on a nearby plant. “So now you want to hear the
real
hypocrisy, Betty?”

“Sure.”

“Since 1968, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has contracted with a lab on the University of Mississippi campus to grow and harvest cannabis. They literally have
hundreds of pounds
of cannabis in temperature-controlled barrels. It's dried, cured and shipped to the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, where it's rolled into three hundred government-approved cigarettes and sent every single month to the last remaining medical cannabis patients the government quietly takes of. There used to be eight people in the program, but I think it's down to four people now. The patients suffer from different problems, like glaucoma, AIDS and MS. So, you tell me? How can the government hand out three hundred joints a month with one hand and use the other hand to write legislation that claims there's no medical benefit to the plant?”

Betty attempted to come up with a reason but failed. “I can't answer that.”

“That's because the whole thing is insane! It's like sitting down to a meal with the characters in
Alice in Wonde
r
land
. One person's comment conflicts with the guy across the table, but they both claim they're right. And meanwhile, we're all playing Alice, wondering if we're stuck in some sort of weird dream, and when we wake up everything will be right again.” He looked at Betty with a serious expression. “They're all nuts, but they're
also
serious control freaks. Even now, they're quietly putting all their weight behind billion dollar drugs made from cannabis. They know they can't keep up the lies forever, because people are getting smarter. So, now the bastards are gonna cash in on the plant they've been telling us is dangerous and deadly for decades. You watch, Betty. They'll reschedule cannabis down to II or III and then launch one of their big drugs made from cannabis. It'll be for PTSD, anxiety, MS, chronic pain…maybe even the Big ‘C.' But before they do that, they'll pull a reverse propaganda campaign and tell the public that cannabis, as a pill or some drug spray, is safe and effective, even though there will be dozens of side effects from whatever they create. There are
always
side effects from Big Pharma's lab creations. You can't patent any plant, Betty. So they'll lie and tell you nature is imperfect, that God made a mistake, and their Frankenstein pills are the ticket to whatever ails you. And I guess that takes us right back to the beginning of this history lesson. Right back to the lies, that plastics were better than anything industrialized cannabis hemp could offer. They're gonna want us to choose the synthetic again over the real deal. And they are gonna do whatever it takes to manipulate and coerce the public into agreeing to that. And you know what? The public might just be dumb enough to fall for it…again.”

As if on cue, the lights in the bloom room suddenly snapped off. They stood there in complete darkness until Peyton spoke up.

“I've got my green headlamp around here somewhere. Don't move.”

Betty heard him stumbling around the room. “Why green?”

“See how light tight this room is? There's not a sliver of light coming in. That's the way it's gotta be for twelve solid hours. The only light that doesn't alter their dark cycle is a green lamp. Humph, it might be out by my bed. I pop it on when I want to read after midnight when the veg ladies go to sleep. That way, I don't interfere with their natural resting cycle.”

“Your world really does revolve around this completely, doesn't it? Do you know what ‘myopic,' is?

He continued to fumble around in the dark. “Betty, how could I know what your ‘opic' is when I don't know what my ‘opic' is?”

Betty explained the definition.

Peyton weighed this new information. “Yeah, I can see how that's dangerous. People who are too consumed by politics, religion, alternative health…I know people like this. They can turn into raging psychopaths. I know a psychopathic, raw-food freak that I keep on a long leash.”

“Peyton, you do this 24/7. You work at a dispensary and a grow store and come home to tend your plants. That's myopic.”

“Well, I'm just glad the lights are out so the plants can't hear all this,” he said with strange sincerity. “These are my ladies. They need me.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

He stopped fumbling. There was a slight hesitation. “Why?”

“A boy your age should have a girlfriend,” Betty motherly suggested.

There was silence and then he spoke with measured caution. “Betty….how can I say this delicately? I like you and you're pretty hot for someone as old as you are, but I think the age difference between us would cause problems down the road.”

“
Not me
! I'm talking about a girl your own age!”

There was another pause. “Oh. Sorry about that. Uh, well, I dated a girl at the dispensary. I thought she was okay, but then I found out she was pretty much a whore. So that was a buzz-kill for our relationship.”

Peyton finally gave up trying to find his headlamp. Working their way carefully to the door, they finally exited the blackened bloom room and emerged back into the glaring light and vegetative plants who were now rocking out to The Allman Brothers' “Ramblin' Man.” He led her to a smaller area just outside the main vegetative grow area where a smaller, T5 light illuminated nine clones in various stages of development.