Reporting Forward Progress Stopped

On her way home from work at around 6 p.m, my wife, Patricia texted me an Alert message she received from a neighbor on NextDoor, our local social media platform.

“Evacuation for fire in Greenbrae – Los Cerros, Vista Grande, Corte Cordova, Corte Dorado, Corte Patencio.  Go!”

The “Go!” in the Alert got my attention, When my cell rang and Patricia instructed me to put the dogs in the car and leave the house, I did as she said, immediately.  I took nothing, just Sadie and Picasso.

As I walked onto our street to get in my car, I smelled traces of smoke in the air. This reminded me of the devastating Sonoma County fires last October.  In Marin, we choked on particle infused air for two weeks.  How rapidly whole neighborhoods just north of us had burned out of control; by the time these fires were extinguished 42 people died and over 8600 structures were destroyed, with damages exceeding 1 billion dollars.  I allowed myself just a moment to feel the fear.  What would it be like to lose our home, our possessions, our pets?

Our house sits on a steep hillside, at the end of Tioga Lane, a very narrow windy road with two blind spots. “Slow down,” Patricia admonishes me whenever she is a passenger in my car, no matter how slow I am going.  The street safely accommodates a single vehicle traveling one direction at a time, so often there is another car or truck headed right for you.  Sometimes you can see it coming, other times, not.

Usually both drivers stop to engage in a negotiation where one driver invariably makes way for the other and no one falls off the hillside. For reasons unknown to me, people don’t use their garages and park on the street, so that also makes it extra fun.  And did I mention scampering deer and scurrying squirrels? Wandering coyotes intimidate the neighbors and someone recently spotted a bobcat, posting warnings on Next Door. Garbage and Recycling trucks have it really bad on Tuesdays. The street can get stopped up easily on good days, so in emergencies with a flee factor, you can’t mess around.

I considered the text Alert, and unsure if Los Cerros, the road into our Greenbrae area, was in flames, took the back way, down the hill on Manor Road. I encountered two screaming fire trucks headed up the hill. I could hear more sirens headed my way.

Several police cars lined Manor Road near Sir Francis Drake.   A policewoman when I rolled down my window and asked her what was going on, nonchalantly told me there was a fire on Visa Grande, the street right above my street.  “How serious?” I asked. She said that firefighters were getting it under control but she encouraged me not to go back just yet.

I drove on, as I had a couple’s therapy appointment in Mill Valley to keep, but I wanted to check my phone to see if there was an update about the progress of the Greenbrae fire.

I received another Alert, this time from the Marin County Alert service, concerning the vegetation fire in Greenbrae on Vista Grande: “IC reporting forward progress stopped. Evacuation order lifted.” 

I paused on the cryptic words “reporting forward progress stopped,” wondering who in the county was responsible for such bad writing, but soon directed my anxiety elsewhere since our home was be safe.  I noted that I needed to call the gardener to weed whack our yard immediately.

Juan, the gardener, an older Guatemalan guy, came over the next day and I surveyed the property with him.  Between discussing trimming the two kinds of overgrown Pyracantha shrubs, and cutting down the small dead oak tree that rests in front of a larger half-dead oak, Juan told me his story. 

He came to California thirty years ago and has worked two to three jobs most of the time.  At the height of running his own small business, he employed a crew of eight.  Juan wants to be retired, but can’t support his family on the Social Security he receives, $900 a month. He doesn’t qualify for Medicare yet, so his monthly healthcare cost for his family is $1200 through Kaiser.  He still hires a few workers and he explained that it is important to pay them a decent wage so they can support their families and also so that they stick around.   “Once I picked up a couple of day workers I didn’t know and we did a job at a very large house.  When we finished, they looked at me and suggested that we return to rob the rich people.”

“What do you think about what the United States is doing at the border, detaining children in cages and separating families,” I ask Juan.  This immigration horror unfolding is on my mind and is breaking my heart. I had a scare yesterday, unsure if our house would burn to the ground.  But having to leave your home because of violence and poverty, then having your children taken from you, as your own fate is equally precarious – this reality for people seeking asylum outrages and saddens me.

“Life is hard,” he sighs. 

“What this country is doing is wrong, so wrong, Baby jails,” I lament.  The voice recording released in the media of infants crying, and children calling for their papi’s and mommies, plays in a loop in my head. I am shell shocked by the cruelty, inhumanity, and trauma inflicted on people, on children and their parents fleeing dangerous, untenable situations with nothing.  My Jewish trauma genes activated, I think of concentration camps and families divided and sent to their deaths.  

“Yes, life is hard,” Juan repeats.

“We have to do something to stop this,” I say. “The political agenda of Donald Trump and the Republicans in control of the Senate and House is not just to stop ‘illegal immigration,’  it is to stop immigration period.  People deserve the opportunity to make their lives in this country.  We must be decent and kind to each other.” 

Our eyes meet and then we resume our discussion about whether to trim the Oleander bushes that have grown out of control.   He’ll be back with his worker in a day or two.

That night, when I return from an immigration protest rally in San Rafael and my Tai Chi class, Patricia and I have a stupid fight about whether or not Juan should cut the pink and white flowering poisonous Oleander now, or wait until the fall.  I retreat to bed, angry and sad from my day. 

“Wake up, wake up, honey,” I tell Patricia this morning at six.  “You must go outside before the next Alert and cut me a bouquet of fresh Oleander.”

She rolls over, but not before I detect a laugh.

Rings and the River

Since 1986, my wife, Patricia and I have worn our wedding rings, angular gold bands, subtly divided into two ridges and then brought together with a small round precious stone on the lower left face – a red ruby for her, a blue sapphire for me.

The year we got the rings, El Nino hit the Bay Area particularly hard. The Russian River in Sonoma County flooded its banks on Valentine's Day that spring, with cresting water reaching almost 50 feet. Winds blew roofs off barns and houses, leaving piles of debris once the water receded. For weeks, people fished mud caked couches, twisted lounge chairs, and water logged mattresses (the contents of Guerneville gay resorts,) from the meandering mellow river where nude sunbathers happily hung out.

When it finally stopped raining, one hot weekend, Patricia and I evacuated our Glen Park house and headed up to the Russian River.  Into the trunk of my red Honda Civic hatchback, we stuffed the silver and blue inflatable kayak that I had gotten from an advertiser in the Lifestyle magazine that employed me as a features writer. 

I’d choose an adventure or an adventure would choose me, and then I’d document the experience in an amusing way for the monthly magazine. I wrote about Hot Air Ballooning, Sky Diving, and immersed myself in a sensory-deprivation Samadi tank.  This last escapade was by far the most frightening, as I was enclosed and floating in a claustrophobic womb tomb, with only my breath and heartbeat to keep me company for what seemed like eternity.  When asked to try kayaking, I accepted the offered inflatable vessel and enthusiastically tested it out on Bay Area waterways. I didn’t think twice about taking it and Patricia to the Russian River for a paddle.

We parked the car at a canoe rental place on the outskirts of Guerneville, and used an electric air pump to blow up the boat.  “It’s so light and easy to get into the water,” I assured Pat as I handed her a paddle.  We put our backpacks into the kayak, and climbed in. I pushed off with my paddle, and we started down the river.

The brown water moved us along quickly, too quickly. Within a few minutes, we were headed straight towards cement pilings from a bridge that had long since been removed.  “Paddle harder,” I yelled to Pat, but we didn’t stand a chance and hit the grey barriers broadside. 

The kayak flipped and we were swept downstream, each going her own way.  I managed to hold onto my paddle, and when I bobbed up in the water, I didn’t see Patricia.   I did see the kayak, looking pathetically bent in the middle, but somehow afloat.  I swam towards it and held onto the side, still traveling rapidly downstream.  

Patricia meanwhile was in the middle of a scene from Deliverance.  She flailed and grasped onto tree branches on the far side of the river, desperately trying to pull herself up onto the riverbank.   Exhausted, she finally clawed her way to safety, just in time to hear my voice.

“We are so fucked,” I yelled. 

“Sue, where are you?  Are you okay?” she shouted back.

“We are so fucked,” I repeated.  “We are so fucked.”  I just kept saying this over and over, as I rounded the river bend.  “We are sooooooooooooooooo fucked.”  

I somehow got myself into the kayak, and paddled towards her.  “Get in,” I instructed. She looked doubtful.  “Our backpacks are gone, we have no car keys, no wallets, NOTHING!” I noted.  “We have to get to town, where maybe someone can help us.   We are so fucked,” I began my lament again.   Probably just to shut me up, Patricia got in the kayak and I paddled half-heartedly as the current, thankfully, slowed down.

About 100 yards ahead, we spotted a woman standing in about a foot of water, bending over and pulling something from the river.  The grey backpack.  She unzippered the front and pulled out a soggy Ms. Magazine. Behind her on the riverbank, a group of three women reclined on lawn chairs, looking up at us from their picnic.  Near their brightly colored blankets and sleek wooden canoes (containing life jackets -- who would have thought those were necessary) rested my soaking wet blue backpack with the car keys and my wallet.

We emerged from the kayak like defeated drowned rats, dripping relief.  As we recounted our accident, we started laughing, and didn’t stop laughing for the next few hours, as the kind lesbians offered us oreo cookies, sandwiches, and cold drinks from their coolers. One of the women, Linda Fisher, told us she owned a jewelry shore in the East Bay.  Later that afternoon, they loaded us into their canoes, and paddled us to town, towing the semi-deflated kayak. They even drove us the 15 miles back up the road to the parked Honda.

When Pat and I decided to get wedding rings – gay marriage was not yet legal but we had been together long enough to want to symbolically affirm our partnership – we headed over the Bay Bridge to Linda’s store.  The ring glinted gleefully in the glass case, and we both fell instantly in love with its design.

Cut to Austin, Texas, my sister’s Buddhist wedding a few years later, where a group of my parents' Jewish friends and family members sat uncomfortably whispering among themselves throughout the rituals.  If they could have chanted “Oy Vey,” they would have.

My dad’s longtime childhood friend, Al Weiss, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary and his wife Joan, had flown in from San Diego, for the event.  Joan, an elegant and strikingly beautiful woman, impeccably attired in a white linen suit and beige silk blouse, sat next to me at dinner, and she kept staring at my left hand.  She finally reached for my hand, gently holding my ring finger between her perfectly manicured thumb and index finger, and examined the ring.  

“Can you take that off”” she asked.  “Does it have an artist’s mark inside?”

“I think so,” I said, twisting the gold band from my finger.  “We got our rings at a jewelry store in Albany.”

Joan examined the inside of my ring, which had been engraved with the letters “PAT,” and then recognized another mark.  “You’re not going to believe this, but Al’s daughter, made your rings,” Joan told me. “See here, there’s her initials – LW.”  

Turns out that Al’s daughter, another Linda, worked as a jeweler in Petaluma and sold her creations at Fisher’s Jewelry.  And of all the rings in the world, we had chosen ones made by my dad’s oldest friend’s child.

When the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Colorado baker could refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, Pat posted a picture on her Facebook page from our Prop Gun Wedding, held at the last minute in 2003, right before California passed Prop Hate (8) banning gay marriage.  The photo was of the cupcakes we fed our friends and family that day.  She aptly noted that “Masterpiece Bakery can keep their cakes and hate. We prefer cake baked with love.”   On that day our dog Picasso was our ring bearer, delivering our gold bands to us in a tied up handkerchief.  Our daughter, Sophie, played us an Irish jig on her violin.

I like to remember this story of our rings and all of the calamity and serendipity that culminated in a ceremony of connectedness that is our vicissitudinal love. This love still flows 33 years later, like the Russian River.  Over the years, Patricia has lost her ring two times -- when Sophie was a toddler, Pat retrieved it from a leaf pile in our backyard after hours of searching, and the other time, just months ago, she found it on the floor of our garage after looking for it to no avail for two weeks.  I admire the fact that Patricia never gives up, not on rings, and not on what matters in life. 

Switzerland

My mom has mostly stopped talking. First, she lost random words, then entire sentences.  It’s been a cruel progression, or rather an unraveling. She isn’t mute but she can no longer hold thoughts and memories.  Ever pragmatic and practical, she just doesn’t say much anymore.

Her mind, like the Sears department store in the shopping mall near her Memory Care facility, just suddenly closed for business one day.  It used to contain a wealth of merchandise -- clothing, jewelry, home appliances, tools, lawn and garden supplies, paint, sporting goods, automotive parts, electronics, and of course, baggage, lots of baggage.  But now the big building that anchors the Northgate Mall in Marin County is vacant, and the red letters that screamed SEARS no longer appear on the expanse of the pinkish grey stucco wall.

Who would have imagined that Sears, such a formidable icon of American retail from my childhood and before, would ever fail? But Target and Walmart and Amazon came along and the whole business changed.  SEARS declined.  It lost its way.  It’s kind of like that with my mom and the dementia. 

Ever business minded, my mom would like this metaphor. She owned her own small  pharmacy in downtown Denver; she spent her days behind the cash register, ringing up prescriptions and maintaining an odd inventory of products. She got a kick out of putting “racy” items at the counter.  I can’t remember exactly what these were, but they involved breasts and penises, and made me incredibly uncomfortable when I worked at the drugstore as a teenager.  

She actively invested in the stock market, and now her “winnings” pay for her exorbitant assisted living costs. The day when she stopped understanding money and abdicated all control of her finances to me floored me. She just let all that go. I had stopped by the ATM Machine to get her a twenty.  When I popped back into the car, and handed her the bill, she looked very confused and said, “I don’t need that, do I?”

Like the Stock Market she taught me to play, she’s volatile within a reasonable range.  The medical marijuana she takes has improved her mood and she is much less anxious.  As she is less anxious, I am less anxious.  Some days she’s better than others, more alert, somehow. Other days she’s barely present and struggles to move her feet. She’ll look down and announce, “That one won’t work.”   I know how to keep her going – I take her hand, encourage her to take her time and lift her foot.  I tell her we’re on an adventure, that we will have some fun and get some food, or go see a movie.  She is happy always to see me. By the time I punch in the combination to unlock the exit door from her building, she’s forgotten where she is and where we’re headed.  But she still knows how I am.

I’ve been working this past year to let her go, and to put more space between us.  For someone so very complicated (I’m still analyzing her past) she now is remarkably simple. At 89, she is losing her mobility, control of bodily functions, and her speech. She still enjoys eating, though often forgets what to do with a fork or spoon, reverting to using her hands.  I don’t say anything, unless there’s a bowl of soup in front of her.

She has lost my father and several of their friends and relatives who populated her world.  Occasionally she asks where my dad is, and I remind her that he is dead. “But he’ll be coming around the corner,” she asserts.  “You’ll see him again soon,” I tell her.  “Probably In heaven, watching a Broncos game.”  Her awareness of her own loss of function is also thankfully disappearing. She used to stop mid-sentence and frustrated would announce, “I can’t even talk.”

“I wonder what’s going to replace Sears,” I say to my mom as we drive past the mall on our way to lunch. As we drive, I blast Frank Sinatra tunes on Pandora and my mom sings, remembering lyrics to these songs, not missing a single word.   This singing comforts both of us.  I am surprised at how many lyrics I know too, since this wasn’t my music; it is hers. 

The loss of language has happened gradually over a decade; in my mom’s brain, there’s a tangle of vines, like the Himalayan Blackberry on the hillside across from my house. This tangle produces a canopy that limits light to plants growing beneath, killing them off.  And so it is with language.  I used to be able to find the word or complete her sentences for her, or guess what she was trying to tell me about and fill in.

But lately, I have no clue.  When I spend time with her we don’t say much.  I ask simple questions like, “How you feeling today, mom?” and she responds, “Good,” or “Fine,” or “Ok.”  If I ask her what’s new, she always answers the same, “Absolutely nothing,” because from moment to moment she can no longer remember what she has done or what has happened.

She exists in the present, and increasingly, in this silence.  My mom never was a big talker.  She lacked the chat gene. People who used to call her were taken aback by the shortness of their conversations.  She would hang up within a minute or two.  It wasn’t personal. It was just my mom. It wasn’t that she didn’t have thoughts and judgments -- she had many; however, she quickly got to the point, with a directness that often disregarded feeling.  The autism spectrum wasn’t a thing when she was growing up, so my mom never was placed on it.  But I think she belongs there.

I struggled with her communication style for much of my life.  I didn’t think she had much interest in what I had to say since her responses were so abbreviated.  My dad, on the other hand, loved lengthy heartfelt discussions.  He kept the questions coming and listened carefully to my answers.  He also loved telling stories, and if the story contained something positive about him, he loved to repeat it, at least three times.  This was a running shtick with him.   I landed somewhere between the two of them, with a passion for using words and an aversion to small talk.  I relish meaningful dialogue.

 

“Mom, will you be sure to put something in your will that let’s me take you to Switzerland if you suffer from dementia and can’t write or talk?” my daughter asks.  “They allow assisted suicide there.”  We sit at our dining room table in the warm afternoon sun, discussing the state of my mother.  I’ve told my daughter that if I lose my mind, I do not want to hang around.  “Absolutely,” I say.  “Just tell me it’s time to visit the Swiss Alps, and then let’s fly away.”

True Friending

An old acquaintance fondly reminisced on Facebook about the J-Bar Double C Ranch camp in Elbert, Colorado a rustic outpost where I also spent the summers of my pre-teen years. “I loved Ranch camp and laugh often about it with my pal, Deedee Pike, who raised hell there with me.  My favorite counselor was named Carol Chazden,” I commented. 

Another good friend of mine from high school, Joanie, saw the post, and sent me an email telling me that a woman named Carol Chazden belonged to her synagogue in Boulder, She wrote her an email, asking her if she was “the same Carol Chazden,” and copied me.

We heard back from Carol.  “What a trip down memory lane. Yes, I was a counselor at JCC Ranch camp for three summers, the best summers of my life.   And yes, Sue Zemel was one of my favorite campers. She and her buddy, I remember her as Robin Pike, was always full of fun and mischief.  In fact, I think I still have a pair of handcuffs that those two presented me, along with a sheriff’s badge for keeping them in line!”

We received a photograph of these artifacts from Chaz, and asked if we could give her a call since I happened to be in Boston visiting Deedee.  Chaz told us to phone her the next afternoon, but of course, always the rebels, we didn’t do as she requested, and called her in the morning before I flew back to San Francisco. 

Fifty years later, we all connected as if it was yesterday.  I recently had a similar reunion with another friend, Ellen, who was the first person I met in a bar the night I arrived in a small town in Wisconsin to attend college over 40 years ago.  We got together with another Beloit College pal, Maud, in Key West, and enjoyed every minute of our time together; I visited Ellen in Israel this April on a trip with my best friend, my wife, and we all laughed more than I’ve laughed in a long time.

I learned the value of friendship from my father.  He had friends from all phases of his life and maintained these relationships without the assistance of social media. Imagine that. He just picked up the phone and called Al Weiss, his childhood friend, or his college roommate, Bob Rottenberg, or his pal Shelly Pike (the father of my friend DeeDee), one of the first new friends he made when we moved to Denver in the mid-sixties. 

He listened, he made his friends laugh, and he always looked forward to seeing them. It didn’t matter if they lived next door, states apart, or hadn’t been together for days, months or even decades.  I watched him take care of his connections over the span of his life.  He really knew his friends and this knowing was reciprocal.  He conversed with his friends with openness and candor; he went deep and asked important questions. His exquisite sense of humor enveloped his relationships, bringing light and laughter to the challenges everyone faced. His curiosity and abiding interest in how his friends’ lives unfolded proved irresistible.  His friends loved him dearly and he loved his friends.

As we both grew older, my Dad and I established a bond that celebrated who we each were, our strengths, weaknesses, and our vulnerabilities -- our complexity.  He taught me to be fearless when peeling away the layers with a friend, remembering that the core is the core; once you truly know someone and love him or her, that core is both your place of departure and your place of return.

Full of fun and mischief.  Interestingly, my best friends have always been playful troublemakers. They have encouraged me, accompanied me out of my comfort zone, and rewarded my creativity with their laughter and support.  I feel seen by them and I think that they feel seen by me. I trust that I will always be able to re-engage with my friends, regardless of distance and time.  They occupy an enormous place in my heart.

As my dad's birthday approaches (he would be 90 on June 13) I am thinking a lot about him. I am so grateful for this gift of friendship that he modeled for me, and consider it one my life’s greatest blessings.

  

Adventures in the Wild Wild West

“CBD, you must try CBD, the non-psychoactive ingredient of cannabis,” I tell my family, my friends, or anyone who tells me about their problems with sleep, joint and nerve pain, anxiety, and depression. In my circle this happens to be a growing number of folks of all ages. My wife calls me “a pusher,” and I have to laugh, but I’m serious about my advocacy and have gotten a range of my people to start using medical marijuana.

I’m an enthusiastic user, myself, at 62, inhaling this moment in California history, when the whole cannabis industry is in extreme flux.  ”It’s like the wild wild west,” observes Leib Ostrow, the founder and CEO of CBD Alive, a startup company in Humboldt County that produces medical marijuana from seed to bottle.

Leib, a serial entrepreneur who left the music business for the cannabis business, is one of the many people I spoke with on my quest to obtain medical marijuana for my 88-year old mom who suffers from dementia.  I spoke to entrepreneurs, growers and manufacturers, sales and distribution managers, dispensary staff members, caregivers, senior facility providers, and doctors, as well as a wide range of users, as I tried to accomplish the unexpectedly monumental task of getting my mom medicated. 

I had a much easier time getting medical marijuana for myself. About six months ago, suffering from back pain, nerve pain, and sleeplessness, I decided to try medical marijuana.  After doing a lot of research, I concluded that it could help me, as well help my mom, who continues to struggle on her prescription medications.   I procured a California State medical marijuana license by going to a prescribing doctor in San Rafael, whom I identified on the Internet. An older, long silver haired doctor with a gentle manner, she examined me and then signed a  “Therapeutic Cannabis Recommendation letter” that registered me with the state of California with an identification number.

This letter, which cost $100, must be shown at dispensaries, or to delivery services.  Then for good measure, I registered for a California State medical marijuana ID for another $100. With this ID, I can avoid paying about 15% in State Sales Tax.  There are different tax rates on marijuana – state, and local.  Medical marijuana is taxed and priced lower than recreational marijuana, which is taxed at the rate of about 32-36%. 

I hadn’t smoked pot myself, for many decades, though I fondly remember splitting lids of cheap Columbian weed with my friends and laughing a lot when I was a teen in Denver, Colorado. Then marijuana went off my radar. I was aware of its medicinal purposes in San Francisco in the 80’s, especially as men with AIDS used it to help with wasting. I interviewed Dennis Leary back in those days, as he was on the front lines of marijuana legalization activism. 

I watched with horror, as weed became something that Black and Latino people got incarcerated for using in the 90’s, and still do. From age sixteen, I have always believed in decriminalization, but it’s taken several decades for this to happen. When San Francisco and Sonoma County District Attorneys announced in January, 2018, that they would expunge and release several thousand marijuana misdemeanor and felony convictions, I felt a measured moment of happiness.  But these people didn’t belong in prisons in the first place. 

While I followed the progress of Colorado legalizing recreational marijuana with fascination (voters legalized cannabis there in 2012, and it took until 2014 to go into effect), it was still fairly far from my daily life. I hadn’t visited Colorado except on short ski trips, so I hadn’t seen any of the changes in action.  A friend from grade school had started an edibles bakery business outside of Golden, Colorado, which I found interesting, because she had previously sold real estate; the very straight and uptight brother of a high school friend had become a high profile cannabis business person, much to my surprise.

Although I was a fan of Jenji Kohan’s marvelous series Weeds, starring ex suburban mom pot dealer, actress Mary Louise Parker, marijuana resurfaced in my life only a few years ago, as a substance that my teenage daughter and her friends liked using.  Only instead of buying seed and twig filled baggies from a friend’s older brother, these young people, as well as people of all subsequent ages, obtained medical marijuana licenses, visiting nearby dispensaries to choose from a multitude of products for both recreational and medicinal purposes. 

Facebook’s micro ad targeting recently started putting ads for cannabis-related products on my news feed. They must be following my research activities, as I am using the Internet to investigate this article.  There are so many new products on the market (edibles, time release capsules, tinctures, salves, rosins, and vaping cartridges, along with weed of many different strains), available through local dispensaries throughout the state, or through online ordering,

Because of federal law, someone in a state that does not have medical or recreational marijuana, can’t obtain these products, unless they visit a state that has legalized recreational marijuana, sold in dispensaries.  Controversies rage weekly about opening dispensaries in neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area. There is only one dispensary in Marin County where I live, and many Marinites obtain their product by utilizing home delivery services.  Who exactly, I wonder, objects to selling alcohol in stores or having CVS or Walgreen’s in their local shopping centers?

I visited my local dispensary in Fairfax, the first medical marijuana dispensary in the state, opened by Lynn Shaw in 1996, after Prop 215, California’s Compassionate Use Act passed.  The Federal government shut her down in 1998; now, after over twenty years of litigation, Shaw, who suffered financial hardship and was prohibited from working in the cannabis industry for five years, finally was able to reopen the dispensary in June of 2017.  Happy to support her business, I bought myself a tincture from a company called CBDAlive, called “Abundant” with ratio 20:1, CBD to THC. I took the tincture before bed at night, and it helped tremendously with my sleep. I am convinced it also lessened my inflammation and nerve pain. I started telling my friends about my experience.

Last night a Muslim friend, who has a travel intense technology job with Amazon that leaves her with a weakened immune system and lung problems, stopped by for a cup of tea.  As she left I sent her a text with two links to articles about using CBD/THC for these health problems.  When she told me that her hajib wearing sister in England had sent her an email that day warning her to be careful because April 5th had been declared “Kill a Muslim Day,” by some white right wing extremist group according to some news report in the UK, I responded, “I’m so sorry.”  Then I added, “The CBD also helps with anxiety because we live in a time where shit like this is happening.”

Early one morning on my walking path I met two young men in their late teen’s/early twenties.  They asked my dogs’ names and we got to talking. The young man in an orange cap and powder blue sweatshirt, tells me he is back in Greenbrae on Spring break from Cal Poly, where he studies business; the other Hoodie wearing young man, lives and works in Marin.  “He also plays baseball,” the local friend bragged about his returning buddy.  “Nice, “ I said and went on my way. “You guys have a fun day together.”

When I circled back from the loop I take, I passed the young men sitting on a low concrete wall. They lit up a pretty brown joint.  “It’s early for that,” I laughed.  “Want some?”  I politely declined to take a hit.  “I bet you can’t smoke and play baseball,” I said. “No, I don’t do that,” the orange hat guy assured me. “ Well, I couldn’t possibly manage fastballs coming my way if I was high,” I noted.  We laughed. “Have you heard of the kid who took medical marijuana for seizures,” the hoodie guy asks.  “The seizures just stopped -- instantly.”

“Yes, epilepsy is being effectively treated with cannabis.”  I concur.  Then I tell them that I’m a writer and I’m working on a piece about the benefits of medical marijuana – especially CBD with a touch of THC.

“That’s cool; my mother has MS and she takes it,” the Cal Poly guy tells me.  “It’s saved her life. She can walk now.” He leaned in to share a bit more of his mom’s story  -- a single mom, diagnosed with MS at age 40. “The MS is in remission, though?”  I ask. “Yes, “ he says.  “Do you think it is because of cannabis and CBD?” “Yes, he grins in confirmation. “Well, I’m glad your mom is doing well. Thank goodness that California has legalized cannabis.  Now we just have to change the Federal laws,” I remark. “How?” he wonders, and we talk awhile more about overturning the Congress in two years, and the need to decriminalize drugs in our country. “We shouldn’t have people in jail because of drug violations,” he opines.  “Especially since so many of them are also people of color,” I add. 

I am always pleased to spend time on the same frequency as thoughtful, conscious, compassionate, courageous, and future minded young people. “You’re a business person,” I say to the Cal Poly student.  “The marijuana economy in California is taking off.  There are a ton of businesses for you to study and work for if you want.” He likes the idea, though his parents may not. We spend another fifteen minutes discussing the challenges of being a marijuana entrepreneur, and then I have to get going.

On my afternoon walk, I stopped to chat with Susan, the owner a beautiful brindle greyhound rescue named Nico; she explained how members of her greyhound rescue group use CBD to calm their shy and nervous dogs.  In California, even dogs take CBD with great results.

I recently vacationed with my college friend of 40 years from St. Louis, who came upon my bottle of CBD /THC tincture.  She tried some, as she suffers from chronic pain caused by autoimmune disorders including lupus and arthritis.

“Two drops of CBD/THC tincture have changed my life,” she tells me. She had previously tried just CBD oil, which is commercially available, but she found that it was only moderately effective.  The CBD rich tincture with a small amount of THC, the psychoactive property that accounts for the marijuana “high,” gave her great results without making her feel stoned. This is because CBD and THC work synergistically. When CBD’s applicable amounts of more than 4% are ingested with THC, CBD reduces THC’s psycho activity that is normally experienced by many people. And when CBD and THC are present in the body, the THC-therapy effect is prolonged by the inhibition of the breakdown of THC by the liver.

“Now I sleep more restfully, and wake up more refreshed with less general pain than I previously experienced,” my friend tells me. “During waking hours, when I know I am going to challenge myself physically, I take CBD in advance and find that my stamina is improved and pain level controlled. If my pain increases because I’ve over extended, two drops of the CBD rich tincture will bring it back to a manageable level.  I am so glad to have this non-addictive, natural option available to me.”

But this does require some “divine intervention” because she can’t obtain this CBD/THC tincture in the state of Missouri, where she lives.  Only 29 states have legalized Medical Marijuana, with Texas, mid-western and southern states remaining holdouts. Ironically, these parts of the country are reeling from the Opioid crisis, and the debilitating effects of addictive pharmaceutical drugs used for nerve disorders, anxiety, and depression and PTSD.

Over two years ago, one of my wife’s best friends from childhood was stricken with advanced stage lung cancer very suddenly.  She started taking high concentrations of CBD with smaller amounts of THC embedded in black tar cartridges. She didn’t survive the cancer, but she left the world in considerable less pain and distress, according to her family members.  I really understood at that point why California’s legalization of medical marijuana in 1996,was called the Compassionate Care Act.

California voters recently passed Prop 64 in November 2016, legalizing the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana.  The state’s existing marijuana black market is worth about $13.5 billion, while the legal market is expected to earn $5.1 billion in 2018.  This market is rapidly growing and changing, creating a huge new economy in the state.

But the legalization process is complicated and problematic. Because of the Federal drug laws still criminalizing marijuana and classifying it as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, those in the cannabis business, as well as consumers face harassment, regulatory barriers, and uncertainty. For example, marijuana businesses don’t have anywhere to put their profits/cash because banks won’t accept them as customers.  Credit Unions and alternative financial entities (including crypto currencies) are just starting to get involved.  But many businesses in the cannabis industry are cash-only businesses and in the SF Chronicle this week I read a story about three break-ins in houses in Sonoma County, where robbers were looking for stashed cash from cannabis sales.

Small and medium sized cannabis businesses must absorb a myriad of costs related to product development, testing, and manufacturing, as the state government attempts to regulate the industry.  Leib Ostrow and another medical marijuana entrepreneur, Kyle, who has a clinic and laboratory in Southern California, explained how difficult it is going to be to keep big Pharma at bay. With a July deadline on the horizon in California, with many new regulations and requirements, it is challenging time for developers of local plant-based organic products. They will eventually have to compete against mega drug companies who are chomping at the bit to manufacture synthetic marijuana (it’s cheaper) in order to make more money.

“I see what the drug companies give these Seniors,” observed Tanja, the Director of the Memory Care facility where my mom lives. “It’s just horrible.  The drugs don’t help them. It makes me so mad.”  She has watched me struggle to get my mom medical marijuana. “I’d love to join you in your advocacy,” she says. “I really believe that CBD can help them, so much so that I’d love to go out and get this into facilities like this.” 

“UC Irvine has about six important scientific research studies and trials underway,” Leib Ostrow tells me, when I ask why the medical establishment is taking so long to embrace medical marijuana despite multiple studies and trial results that confirm the efficacy of cannabis for a host of diseases and medical conditions. 

The World Health Organization, in a widely published report in 2017, notes that CBD may play a role in treating epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, cell damage due to low oxygen (hypoxia) that occurs during stroke, cancer, psychosis, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, depression, nausea, rheumatoid arthritis, infection, inflammatory bowel and Crohn’s Disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetic complications.  That’s quite a list.

The findings of this report show that CBD has a low toxicity profile and is not associated with abuse potential.  No one has ever died of a CBD overdose. After reading this report and several others like it, I am struck by how much is actually understand about the power of this drug.  Why is it taking so long to reach people who can benefit from its use?

I want my 88-year-old mom to try taking medical marijuana to see if this will help her anxiety and depression and neurological decline. But initially, I can’t get her geriatric psychiatrist to prescribe her medical marijuana. “There is research that shows that it reduces brain’s amyloid plaques that cause Alzheimer’s disease; and it’s being used to calm Seniors,” I explain. I send her links to articles and studies.

It took over a month to convince this doctor. The psychiatrist wants to simplify my mom’s current drug regimen and take her off two of the four mood altering drugs (developed in the 70’s) she’s on and increase the dosage of one of the remaining two. But so far, this is not helping my mother. I want her to try medical marijuana.

The psychiatrist is attending an annual conference this week; she promises that she will try to find more information about using medical marijuana for the elderly suffering from dementia. But in the meantime she won’t write an order for her Memory Care unit’s medication dispensary to give my mom the CBD enriched tincture I have found for her. I can’t wait to talk to the psychiatrist when she returns.  I will not give up.

I took my mom to see her internal medicine primary doctor for a wellness checkup, and when I asked her about using CBD enriched medical marijuana for elderly patients like my mom, she said she was open to it, but didn’t know enough about it, even though in her words, “it is the future.”   I implored her to learn more about medical cannabis, and told her it was worth her time as a physician to do her research, so she can start prescribing it.   I will not give up.

I’m not a doctor or a pharmacist, but common sense points to trying new treatments to treat old conditions. In addition to medical marijuana, I’m also curious about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people who suffer from PTSD/anxiety/depression. The success of clinical drug trials and research studies, along with anecdotal stories I have been collecting convince me that these treatments hold great promise. Still, the doctors my family visits know little to nothing about these new therapies,

Emperor Shen Neng of China, a pharmacologist in 2737 BC, wrote about how cannabis could be used to treat constipation, gout, malaria and poor memory. In an ancient Sanskrit Vedic poem, written in India around 1500 BC, the drug is described as “an herb that releases us from anxiety.” These drugs have been around and used medicinally for a helluva a long time.

I just read Lauren Slater’s book, Blue Dreams, an exploration of the history of psychopharmacology. She writes about the creation and development of psychiatric drugs like Thorazine, Lithium, Prozac, and Effexor (which was made from rocket fuel) and discusses the use of cannabis and psychoactive drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA.  She is enthusiastic and hopeful about using these drugs as relief for treating resistant depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and PTSD, along with a host of other diseases and conditions.

I also recently read Ayalet Waldman’s book, “A Really Good Day,” about her successful experiment microdosing LSD for her own treatment resistant depression and anxiety. At one point her teenage daughter looks at her in disbelief when her response to some potentially fraught situation is unexpectedly open-minded, calm, and kind, and says, “Wow mom, are you on acid or something?” Waldman has also used MDMA in couple’s therapy, satisfied that it has helped her marriage to a fellow writer and seeker.

A friend of mine, who has a psychiatrist husband, just sent me a press release from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which has been conducting a $26.7 million FDA study, now entering it’s 3rd phase, using MDMA and psychotherapy to treat PTSD.  The press release described a successful matching campaign that raised $8 million to complete funding for new clinical trials with 200 -300 more people in 16 locations in the US this summer.

Crazily, as a side note, a matching grant of $4 million came from a crypto currency philanthropist by the name of Pine, who founded the Pineapple Fund. The fund plans to give away $86 million worth of Bitcoin, and has already funded 13 organizations for the tune of $30 million including MAPS, the Water Project which provides clean water to people is sub-Saharan Africa, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights watchdog.  Pine leveraged Bitcoin to raise an additional $4 million in matching individual contributions for this MDMA trial. I don’t know how Pine made his money, but I strongly suspect he is involved in the marijuana industry, and applaud him for funding MAPS and other worthy projects.

The results from their MDMA Phase 2 Trials with 107 participants are excellent:  68% no longer qualified for a diagnosis of PTSD twelve months following treatment. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy now has a FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (which means that the FDA will work closely with MAPS to progress this treatment through the labyrinthine system.)  MAPS is well on its way to its goal of making MDMA a legal prescribable substance by 2021

How I wish my pharmacist dad was alive so I could talk drugs with him. With its anti-convulsant, anti-emetic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-psychotic, and anti-depressant properties, we would violently agree that no one in their right mind should be anti medical marijuana.

But, there is the not so minor problem of the Federal Government, the U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions and the Justice department aggressively enforcing drug laws in states that have decriminalized its production and sales.

Senator Kristen Gillibrand is the co-sponsor of legalization in the Senate to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substance Act and withhold federal funding from states that have racially disproportionate enforcement of cannabis laws. As Gillibrand recently stated, “Legalizing marijuana is a social justice issue and a moral issue that Congress needs to address.” It is also a medical imperative.

Marijuana has gotten a bad rap because of the psychoactive properties of THC. But to be clear, THC is also a strong painkiller and an anti-inflammatory agent that has twice the power of hydrocortisone and 20 times more than that of aspirin. THC is an effective antispasmodic, muscle relaxant, bronchodilator, antioxidant, and neuro-protectant. Pre-clinical trials have also shown that THC reduces vascular endothelia’s growth factor levels in brain cancer cells. With this information in mind, I return to my conclusion that taking CBD rich medical cannabis activated with a small ratio of THC, is the way to go.  It is good medicine and my mom needs it.

I hear from my mom’s psychiatrist, who in an email tells me that she had hurt her back at her conference in Hawaii and needs more time to figure out what to do about my mom and my request.   I write, “Sorry to hear you are having back problems. Have you tried CBD? “

Two days later she responds, “We are just going to have to try it.” She explains that she couldn’t find any of her long time trusted clinicians who actually have much experience with medical marijuana.  “They all said the same thing to me, ‘Get a good mixture and try it bit by bit.”

She agrees to write my mom a prescription/order, and she recommends I contact a local dispensary to get a sublingual CBD product with an 8:1 CBD to THC ratio. But when I go to the dispensary’s website, this business has announced that they are no longer accepting new clients.

Fortunately, there are multiple products in the market and local dispensary and delivery service options. Because my demented mom cannot administer her own medications, I go about trying to find either a spray or tincture that would be easy for the med techs to give her.

I take a trip to Mercy Wellness, a dispensary north of Marin, in Cotati, and use my medical marijuana license to obtain a sublingual spray product from a company called Care by Design, that has the correct 8:1 ratio that the psychiatrist suggested.  Unlike the smaller, more laid back dispensary in Fairfax, this place is very professional and somewhat sterile, with product displayed in glass cases.  There is a spectrum of people waiting in line just like at a pharmacy.

I buy the sublingual spray and bring it to the Memory Care Director, Tanja; I let them know that the psychiatrist will fax them her orders. I am relieved that my mom will receive the medication that I hope will benefit her.

Then I receive an email from the Memory Care Director telling me that they will not administer the medical marijuana to my mother because the product does not comply with Title 22.  Title 22 is a policy and set of procedures that residential care facilities for the elderly in California must comply with to retain their licenses to operate.

I have a long conversation with the Executive Director of the Senior facility.  While he admits to being “a big fan of medical marijuana,” Jody explains that they cannot give a sublingual spray to residents because there is no accurate measurement of the spray.  If we go with a tincture, he explains, it must meet the following requirements: it is prescribed by doctor’s order’s; both the bottle and dropper are calibrated; and that it is labeled with an expiration date.

But here’s the catch. Tincture products on the market in California do not carry an expiration date on their packaging.  Also, I can’t locate a product that uses a calibrated bottle.  I did manage to find a tincture that had a calibrated dropper only. But the expiration date is a showstopper. 

Why, I wonder, aren’t manufacturers using an expiration date?  According to cannabis expert and author Ed Rosenthal, in his book “Beyond Buds,” If stored properly, in refrigerators or freezers, minimizing minute degradation, a well-made tincture can last indefinitely, So, there is no dating that makes scientific sense.

I emailed the manufacturers of the CBDAlive tincture that has the calibrated dropper, in hopes of persuading them to make the tincture product in a calibrated bottle with a calibrated dropper and include an expiration date on the package. 

Leib Ostrow called me from his marijuana farm in Humboldt county.  A Jewish boy and natural storyteller, who “doesn’t like THC much” himself, but who loves the medical benefits of CBD,  Ostrow got started in the cannabis industry about ten years ago.

He told me that he was unaware of the Regulation in Title 22 about the calibrated bottle (it makes no sense to him, either), and then recounted his ordeal of not being able to give his own 90 year-old mother his CBDAlive tincture in her Senior living community in Michigan.   “They almost threw her out when they found the tincture bottle in her apartment,” he laughs.

He explained that sourcing calibrated bottles is an issue; it will be more expensive and he isn’t sure how he would size the market and order the right amount of the bottles for this particular market niche of Seniors, living in state-regulated Assisted Care facilities.   He agrees with me that there’s a tremendous geriatric market waiting to be tapped, and wants to know if I’d be interested in pursuing this business opportunity.

Just as I am about to fall into a state of frustration and despair over my inability to figure out a near term solution, I find a product that could circumvent all the regulations we’re up against.  Kyle, who owns GetZen in Southern California, makes a capsule form of CBD enriched medical marijuana, and the packaging includes an expiration date.  However, I am confused about the CBD to THC ratios in the different products described on his website.

When I speak with Kyle, a former manager of a large pharmacy, who left corporate America to found his cannabis business, he explains that after seeing and working with 300-500 people a month in his clinic, he has formulated his products without utilizing a ratio delineation.  He markets his capsules with the “condition” it best addresses: there’s Tranquility and Serenity and Relax 10, among others.  He sends me a recommended protocol for my mom and I arrange to have the GetZen products delivered to me. The psychiatrist has cooperated and sent her prescription orders over to the Senior facility.

It is six weeks since I started this project, and today at 3:30 p.m., a delivery service is scheduled to bring me the GetZen capsules to give my mother.   I can’t wait to see what happens.