by Dominic Corva, Social Science Research Director
I first met Martin Lee about 6 years ago, after disembarking from a Seattle Hempfest stage where I delivered my five-minute “now that legalization is on the table, it’s time to talk about how” address. He was on his way up to give his 5 minute talk between music acts, and he stopped me on the stairs to tell me he appreciated my words. I was already familiar with his book “Acid Dreams,” and I knew him not only as a countercultural author but an online journalist and whole plant information organizer through his partnerships with Fred Gardner in O’Shaughnessy’s and Project CBD. What they were doing was familiar to me as grassroots nonprofit “nongovernmental organization (NGO)” work, which I had encountered and been helped by considerably in my research on drug policy in Latin America. There’s no question that their example influenced my decision to leave institutional academia to create CASP: in some ways their “ongoing history of cannabis” work is what I turned to, with a particularly geographical approach given my background.
So when Martin invited me to come hang out at their booth that day I was all over it — there was so much to talk about, especially the cultural history of cannabis reform and the politics of organizing around it. When Debby Goldsberry showed up to hang out a few minutes before catching her flight back to the Bay Area, I got to meet a key historical figure around those topics. She was a key part of the late 80s/early 90s Cannabis Action Network (CAN), itself funded by Zippie pot dealer Steve Deangelo, and the Zippies were a faction of the Yippies, who bridged the counterculture movement and the anti-war movements of the 1960s. In short, Martin opened up a world of amazing people to me starting then, and he’s never really stopped. Debby and fellow CAN pioneer Rick Pfrommer are two key parts of our upcoming Terpestival in Hopland.
Which is more or less the focus of this post. The origins of the July 23 co-fundraiser can be located in Santa Rosa, California, at the 2015 Emerald Cup. Dr. Sexton and I rented a cottage a few blocks away from the event, where we hosted Rob Clarke as the first stage of taking him on a bit of a tour following Tim Blake’s amazing event. The first stage of that tour was taking a group of people in our van to various CBD Guild locations — pretty much all of the ones that got raided last week, with Martin as the tour guide. I had been on a more private tour, with cannabis breeder DJ Short, the previous year, before MRSA compliance kicked the locations into active production. The photo that is at the head of this post gives you some idea what we were looking at, but we also got to see Absolute Extracts and Care by Design, as well as Emerald Pharms (the retail wing of Martin’s network) about an hour north, in Hopland.
This time, Dr. Sexton was with me and at some point Martin raised the possibility of doing a co-fundraiser. After reviewing potential difficulties doing the event in Washington after July 1 of this year, we began our co-fundraiser partnership.
Most of the key partners for this event are friends and allies our organization have in common. Debby’s Oakland access point, Magnolia Wellness, is an entry dropoff point and she will also be participating in our panels. Rick Pfrommer, who I met separately in my Sohum journeys, has assembled an amazing and experienced professional team of judges to cement the legitimacy of our unique competition. Tim Blake, the founder of the Emerald Cup who I’ve also met on my Sohum journeys, made Area 101’s Healing Harvest Farms an entry point and his staff is doing a lot of social media promotion as well as hustling entrees. Kevin Jodrey, who was an integral part of our first Terpestival (and the final stop for the Rob Clarke tour), made Wonderland Nursery an entry point and guaranteed 10 entries which allowed us to move forward when we had no entries at the first deadline, June 8. Emerald Pharms is of course the “host” of the event, located at the Real Goods Solar Living Center which is owned by a good friend of Martin. They are an entry point, promoter, and general organizational asset especially for the day of the event. And Martin and Michelle’s friends at SC Labs picked up the testing tab which makes the event possible at all.
We’ve had lots of challenges, and are still in the process of overcoming some of them, but last week’s Federal raids of the CBD Guild created a big one. After the media publicity around the raid surged and the joint task force found zero butane solvent extraction going on (which was what a disgruntled former employee falsely alleged), charges were dropped, and Dennis Hunter was released on his own recognizance just days after facing a $5 million bail. But the raids came on payday, and over $600,000 in cash was seized. As a result, we lost thousands of dollars in anticipated sponsorship.
Our network allies are stepping up, and in true countercultural fashion are most effective and productive at the last minute anyway. Last year to be honest we were in much worse shape leading up to the event, which turned out to be a sold-out, smashing success. Martin and Michelle are at the annual ICRS conference, along with our keynote speaker and fellow Project CBD collaborator Dr. Ethan Russo. You can be sure that they will bring back the latest whole plant science from the premier cannabinoid research conference in the world, and we are looking forward to the best part of the event, being able to be together and preform a great ritual of community.