pushing back against the "cannabis is harmless!" bandwagon

My mother has smoked tobacco every day of her adult life - and probably before she was 18. She's over 80 now. She has never had cancer. 

My siblings all smoked tobacco, well into their 30s, and one into his 40s or 50s. They are now in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They have never developed cancer or emphysema or COPD. 

I have known a few people personally who died from lung cancer. None smoked anything at all ever. 

I have never known anyone personally who died from cancer-related to smoking anything: no family member, no co-worker, no friend. 

My husband smokes, and he has met a lot of interesting people when he steps out of a restaurant or concert venue or hotel to smoke. On trips, he's ended up with some valuable information for our travel because he's met someone on a smoke break. 

Based on all of that personal experience, I should think smoking tobacco is just fine, right? My own, personal experience shows, explicitly, smoking tobacco is JUST FINE and, in fact, quite enjoyable. Plus, look at Now Voyager - if Paul Henreid lit me a cigarette, HOW could I not take it?!?

None of my personal experience has shown me that smoking is a horrible addiction that may lead to permanent disability and death, but I know it's a horrible addiction that may lead to permanent disability and death because of extensive scientific studies and lots of publicity surrounding the disabilities and death of famous people who have died from smoking-related illnesses.

Yet, by that exact same criteria, by their own personal observations from family or friends and experiences of their own, I have heard so many people tell me cannabis smoking or eating is:

• harmless
• can cure a host of ailments
• fights cancer
• improves breathing
• reduces anxiety
• prevents diabetes
• slows development of Alzheimer’s disease

In addition to their own, personal experience - through their own use or what they've "seen" - they also find something on a web site with a URL like "greathealthnews dot com" or "natural good health dot com" or whatever that touts all the health benefits they believe. Or they find one study on a university site - never mind how old it is, never how small it is, and never mind that aren't lots of other studies affirming the results - and use it over and over to support their belief that cannabis is magical, that "big Pharma" is working to keep this miracle drug away from everyone, and on and on.

I was one of those people that wanted cannabis to be at least harmless, if not actually beneficial. For years, I had no fear of it whatsoever. 

But then I got asthma, and I can tell you, first hand, cannabis did NOT help. And then I got more and more frustrated with the lack of concentration and short-term memory and motivation of people I was working with, all daily pot users. And then I started reading more and more - not just studies that said what I wanted them to say, but studies that said what I really didn't want to hear. And my conclusion: there is not enough known about long-term cannabis use to say that it has health benefits, conclusively, but there is a plethora of studies showing some very dire results from long-term use, like its adverse effects on brain development among young people. The connections between cannabis use and schizophrenia are also quite disturbing. 

Am I telling you not to use cannabis? No. Am I denying that you believe you feel dramatically better after smoking it or eating it? Nope. Do I think alcohol use is oh so much safer than cannabis use? Nope. Do I doubt that cannabis use has any actual medicinal benefits? Nope. 

I'm saying you need to stop saying or implying that cannabis is harmless or even beneficial because we just do NOT know. There is NOT enough evidence, period. I hope there will be more studies, I really do, but there needs to be so, so, so much more. And we need to be ready for where the evidence leads us, even if we don't like it.  

A person I loved dearly died from cancer a few years ago, and her last six months were increasingly painful. She was dating someone who had a legal business associated with cannabis, and he touted one small study out of Italy that seemed to say it reduced the size or spread of cancer. One study. One. Study. Based on that, he kept her so stoned that she had no idea what was happening for the last four months of her life. I'm not sure she was able to make proper end-of-life decisions. I'm not sure if she was making fully-conscious decisions to stay stoned. If all that pot smoking made her substantially more comfortable and less-in-pain in those last months, then great, even if it did remove all of her capabilities for any clear thought or conversation, but I will always wonder if she would have completely "checked out" mentally and emotionally so soon if she hadn't been so heavily stoned all of the time. 

During my university days, I watched a friend have an anxiety-ridden freakout after sharing a joint with several people, something so outrageous it could have been out of the ridiculously over-the-top and medically inaccurate movie Refer Madness. No one else had that reaction, so it wasn't laced with anything, she wasn't taking any medications, but her reaction was so dire, so disturbing, we came very close to taking her to a hospital. She gradually calmed down. A few months later, she tried pot again, and she had the same reaction. I really, really hope she no longer gets anywhere near cannabis.

I bring up these two personal experiences because, if other people are allowed to bring up some personal observation they had about someone's pot use that they deemed as positive, they should also know there are a lot of stories out there that are NOT positive. The reality is that anecdotes are not reliable for conclusive decisions. Neither of my two stories prove ANYTHING except ONE person's observations. It would be ridiculous for me to make decisions based on those two first-hand observations about cannabis use - yet I hear people do so all the time regarding the positives of cannabis. 

And one or two studies are also not reliable for conclusive decisions. A study in April 2020 regarding COVID-19 noted that "Available data from China suggest a lower than expected number of hospital admissions among the smoking population." The media jumped on that news and reported that smoking might reduce a person's chance of getting the novel coronavirus. The "finding" eventually got debunked as more data came in, but I heard about it for at least a week on various news outlets before that. I wonder how many people never heard the debunking part?

Look, as long as you do not use any cannabis products before or while driving any vehicle or ever around your children, or do not use it if you or your partner are pregnant, and don't use it before you are 25, I don't care if you use cannabis. If you aren't putting anyone else in danger through your use, if you are able to care for your family and manage your life while still using cannabis, I don't care. I feel the same way about alcohol, in fact. If you are stoned or drunk when I'm talking to you, and I can't tell, and we still have nice conversations and you are pleasant despite your lack of sobriety, I also don't care.   

I also don't think people should go to jail or prison for using cannabis. 

But I am going to push back against the "cannabis is harmless!" bandwagon. 

Update: "Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) affects the GI tract and can trigger severe uncontrolled vomiting. Once thought to be rare, doctors in the United States are increasingly reporting CHS cases in states that have legalized cannabis. If you are a frequent user of cannabis, please be aware of this, as many doctors, unless they are gastronomist, have not heard of it." More from this article in the Washington Post.

 

Why haven't I posted a whiney blog about how I can't travel?

You'd think that someone who changed the domain name of her professional web site to reflect her focus on travel and who uses the word stravaig in the name of her personal blog and on her Facebook page would have already posted about being so upset about not being able to travel.

I haven't, and I won't, because... thousands and thousands of people are dying and people are being permanently disabled because of COVID-19. Talk with some hospital workers, look at the death numbers, read The Atlantic, and I cannot imagine anyone would be thinking about traveling anywhere in 2020 (and probably next year as well). I'm still just as locked down now, in August, as we were when we came back from Mexico at the end of March - I want to live, and I also don't want to give anyone COVID-19. 

I also don't like focusing on what I cannot do. You can't help doing that sometimes, but making that a priority just makes me frustrated. 

I was thinking of writing a blog about things that a traveler can do now, when they can't or shouldn't travel, when they are taking the COVID-19 pandemic seriously (unlike others), but I found this blog by Lonely Planet and it covers anything I would want to say in that regard, and some I didn't think of. I like that the advice does NOT say, "Start planning for all you will do when this is over!" Because I think that creates frustration. We don't know when travel will be safe. We don't know when there will be a widely-available vaccine - or if there will ever be one. Pouring my energy into something that may never happen will leave me devastated to discover I don't get to do it.

Not that I'm not planning. Travelers are always planning, always dreaming. It's just that I'm not making plans for next year - I'm making plans for eventually. One of my dreams for eventually is to hike the length of most or all of Hadrian's Wall. But I intend to do that once we move back to Europe, and I don't mind glancing at some info and photos, but I'm not making actual plans. 

I'm much more concerned about how long we're going to have to go without collective experiences like going to the movies together, sitting and watching live theater or live music together, going to weddings and funerals together, playing games together, having meals together... it's not just the singular acts of doing these specific things and enjoying them, and missing that enjoyment, it's what I think happens because of them collectively, to all of us, things that are NOT happening now. I think the results of these activities, collectively, are things that keep communities functional and, without them, we are woefully and horribly dysfunctional. 

What makes me angry is how much we could have if people would just fucking wear a mask and if we had immediate, on-demand testing for the virus, with results in hours, not days. That's it, that's all we would need to do in order to have all the things we want and NEED back in our lives. If every student would wear a mask - not just teachers - and schools were allowed to have classes outside as much as possible, kids could go back to school safely, without spreading the virus. Maybe I wouldn't be so terrified of getting on a plane. 

But until people decide to care about each other, or there's a vaccine, this is the world. And I'll continue to just try to live in it. 

Pizzagate conspiracy theorists trying to appropriate World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

Apparently, the Pizzagate kooks are trying to appropriate World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Yes, really. If you saw a march or demonstration July 30 or yesterday with yellow and blue balloons and signs about selling babies, eating babies, a certain furniture store selling children, etc., that's what's up. The most ironic thing about this nonsense: the day was designated by the United Nations, an institution these wackadoos constantly rail against. And, yes, there was such a rally in the town where I live in Oregon.

🙄

You will see several posts about these demonstrations on Twitter, like this one.

Myths about sex trafficking abound in the USA, and Pizzagate supporters distract from honest, credible efforts to address the issue. 

Where is the Power of the People?

The movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington frustrates me every time I watch it. It frustrates me because Mr. Smith loses, as do his supporters. His filibuster fails and the kids trying to get the truth out via his little newspaper and the people that try to march in support are assaulted and stopped cold. Public opinion is completely against him. The power of "the people" FAILS. Truth fails. The system fails. It is only because one, corrupt, powerful man, Senator Joseph Paine, at the VERY end, suddenly has a change of heart and tries to kill himself and then shouts a confession to the whole corruption scheme that Smith is supposedly vindicated - though we never see that supposed vindication.

The people lose. The entrenched men who control the media and the message, the rich men who control the money, they defeat Smith at every turn, and the power of the truth, in the hands of people, does NOT win against them. 

Donald Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and continues to do so. He has betrayed the people of the USA over and over, both legally and ethically. Citizens are taken off the streets of Portland by unidentified federal agents, his agents use chemical agents against peaceful protesters (something Sadam Hussein did to Iraqis), public lands are being given to oil companies, he is becoming richer and richer in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause in the USA Constitution, he ignores court rulings, and families with LEGAL immigrants live in fear of speaking out, since green cards and even citizenship has been arbitrarily canceled. Children are in cages, some die, and families are separated. He undertakes actions to benefit Russia, like ordering troops out of Germany. He coddles Nazis. He has killed people and permanently disabled people through his inaction regarding the current pandemic. And no matter how many well-researched media reports reveal his corruption, no matter how often he is investigated, no matter how many times a court rules against him, he walks away, unscathed and even more empowered. Nothing has stopped him. 

Our system has failed. We are supposed to have checks and balances that prevent a President from being a dictator, from rewarding himself and his friends financially, and from our country sliding into fascism. Those checks and balances have FAILED. 

And we have almost six more months of this, at least... and maybe more, if the election is canceled - you saw Trump's tweet today, right?

Our country is in a perilous situation. It absolutely will continue to get worse. And there's no Senator Joseph Paine that is going to have a sudden, high-profile, well-publicized change of heart and save us all.

What now?

My neighbors deserve to live

I live two doors down, and across the street, from residential homes for adults with intellectual disabilities. There is one staff person on-site at all times. Each resident has their own room, has to pick out their clothes and dress for the day, has to do their own laundry (though some need assistance) and has keep their own room tidy. Some also have a night when they are responsible for cooking the meal for the residents, with assistance, and some have jobs: dishwashing in a restaurant or picking up debris at a hotel with large grounds. And still others have a school or program at a nonprofit they attend most days of the week.

Two of the residents are deaf. One is legally blind. Most are over 50. At least one resident had cancer. I'm pretty sure each of them has some kind of medical condition, like diabetes or high blood pressure. Most battle with being overweight.

The residents tend to live most of their adult lives in these homes. Outside of work or a program, if they have such, they watch TV, walk around the neighborhood, take mass transit to go to Wal-mart or McDonald's (favorite destinations of both), or sit on my front wall and watch traffic or watch me do yard work. Before COVID-19, two residents loved to put my garbage bins out on garbage day, or bring them in, or push my yard waste bin from one end of the yard to another as I mowed.

One resident loves all things Disney, especially Mickey Mouse. She's always wearing a hat or t-shirt with something related to Disney on it. She also loves to get her nails done.

One resident has never left the house in the seven years I've lived in my home. She also is the person who always answers the front door and she has flashing Christmas lights in her bedroom, and has them on very late into the evening.

One resident wears pink. She will also stand out in the front yard chirping when she's frustrated about something, like not being accompanied to the store for a soda (she's the one resident who isn't allowed to walk anywhere by herself).

One resident rides his bike everywhere, and since he's not allowed to smoke on the grounds on the residence, sits on my wall under some bamboo to smoke.

One resident loves cars, trucks and motorcycles, and though he has no idea what mechanical terms mean, will ask you, "Is that a v-6 or a v-8? Fuel injection? I bet it gets great gas mileage." When I ask him what's up, he says, "Nuttin'", and I get to respond, "Nut-n-honey?"

One resident has been my shadow for years, walking my dog with me every afternoon. For a couple of years, in Spring and Summer and Fall, we would ride our bikes together exactly 10 blocks most evenings. He loves cops shows. He loves going to church. He loves collecting bottles and returning them for money. He loves the cat that he's not supposed to have (it stays outdoors). He loves being judgemental about people that do not pick up their dog's poop.

All of these residents, and more, are my neighbors. They are my friends. I like them. But even if I didn't like them, even if I didn't know them, even if they didn't enrich my life in various ways, I would never challenge the idea that they do not have lives worth living.

Yet, I hear people say that thousands upon thousands of deaths from COVID-19 are inevitable and that these people I have just profiled for you, and thousands like them, and all who are medically vulnerable to the disease, are expendable. These people should die so you can go to Chili's. They should die so that your kids can play soccer. They should die so you can go to a bar. They should die so you can have steak made by someone else. They should die so you don't have to wear a mask.

Donal Trump told reporters during a press conference that while the death toll is “bad,” and “the numbers are going to increase with time,” we’re "going to be opening our country up for business, because our country was meant to be open."

In other words: people must die so that my hotels can stay open.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told Tucker Carlson of Fox News, "No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’" But if they had? "If that is the exchange, I’m all in," Patrick said. He continued: "That doesn’t make me noble or brave or anything like that. I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country, like me, I have six grandchildren, that what we all care about and what we love more than anything are those children. And I want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed…I’ve talked to hundreds of people, Tucker, and just in the last week, making calls all the time, and everyone says pretty much the same thing. That we can’t lose our whole country, we’re having an economic collapse. I’m also a small businessman, I understand it. And I talk with business people all the time, Tucker. My heart is lifted tonight by what I heard the president say because we can do more than one thing at a time, we can do two things. So my message is let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living. Let’s be smart about it and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country, don’t do that, don’t ruin this great America."

I am happy to sacrifice for my community - ALL of the community. I am happy to wear a mask, to socially-distance, to give up all sorts of conveniences, if that's going to keep my neighbors alive.

But I am not happy - nor willing - to sacrifice neighbors because I am inconvenienced. 

Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine

Even after a vaccine is discovered and deployed, the coronavirus will likely remain for decades to come, circulating among the world’s population. Experts call such diseases endemic — stubbornly resisting efforts to stamp them out. Think measles, HIV, chickenpox. There are already four endemic coronaviruses that circulate continuously, causing the common cold. But COVID-19 kills and permanently disables. The USA desperately needs a road map for the trillions of dollars needed, and a fixed navigational point to replace our nation's current, chaotic state-by-state patchwork strategy.

It's what a May 27, 2020 Washington Post article is saying. In fact, it's what a February 25, 2020 article in The Atlantic said as well (James Hamblin's articles are worth reading, regularly).

On our way back from Baja, California, Mexico, I knew things were going to be different for months, not for just weeks. People saying "this is only for two weeks" - I couldn't understand those comments at all. All you had to do was spend 15 minutes a day reading the news and that was obvious.

Within a week of being home, at the end of March, I wondered why there wasn't a nationwide lockdown declared through July 5th, with a massive mobilization for widespread, frequent testing - it seemed obvious to me that that was what was needed in order for schools to be open in the Fall.

And everything I've read since well before COVID-19 has said that while face masks don't do much to protect you, but they protect others FROM you and whatever you might be carrying - and the February article referenced earlier said that most people don't get sick.

In April, I asked repeatedly on Twitter where the social media messages targeting 20 somethings and 30 somethings were, why no one was targeting that age group specifically. I never got an answer.

I just don't get it. We all had this information. Why are we pretending we didn't? Why is everyone acting shocked now that our world may be different?

Not that I like it. I hate it. But I'm furious at the state of denial the world seems to be in. And I'm furious that it's very likely I'll pay the price for it. 😡🤬

I finally saw Hamilton

I've finally seen Hamilton. Like many thousands of others, I downloaded Disney Plus to my phone (to my cheap little android phone that continues to over-perform) and used Chromecast to watch it on my TV. I made an event of it, watching it with no other distractions - I love to single focus on a movie or TV event (which is why I still love going to the movies - or, I did before COVID-19...).

It's nice to finally be a part of the "in" club that has seen it.

This was absolutely the right call by Disney, to make this freely available. They deserve nothing but praise for this gift to the nation, a gift we really needed right now.

I was probably never going to get to see Hamilton live with professional performers, and no offense to high schools or community theaters, but if I couldn't see it first with a professional cast, I just didn't want to see it at all. 

It is a brilliant piece, no question. The amount of thought and years of work put into this astounds me. I am entranced with the idea of someone - Lin-Manuel Miranda - being so inspired by a thought, and idea, a biography, that they spend YEARS to create such a work. To have a muse like that... I'm jealous. I crave to be so inspired.

I'm also surprised that this play has struck such a chord with so many. While I didn't fall in love with it the way so many, many of my friends have (and that's FINE - to each his own), I have been touched by how much people have loved it, especially young people. I've been there, with other pieces, and I know what that thrill is like - it got me through college and made my brief stints in New York City back in the late 1980s and in 1990 utterly magical.

I read a lot of gushing from people on social media who fell in love with Hamilton off-Broadway, but that gushing felt very different than the explosion of love for it in 2016 coincided with the anger people felt about the rise of Donald Trump and all that he stood for. The way it was valued off-broadway and broadway was, from this observer, very different. But I kept trying to keep my distance from seeing or reading in-depth about it - I wanted to have my own experience and feelings when I watched it.

And my own feelings about Hamilton:

• I love the celebration of a person who is, truly, self-made, someone who, by every definition now, is "at-risk" and "disadvantaged", raised by a single parent, who truly had to make his own way in the world - and did so, in a hugely important way.
• I was astounded at the complexity of the female characters AND the complexity of their music. In fact, that's when I teared up - that's the moment when I became emotionally involved. 
• The cast was mind-blowingly talented. Just astounding in every way. And casting all the principal American characters with Black Americans, Latinos and Asians brought an ownership to the story and themes that's long overdue. 
• It was fascinating to see a musical celebrating Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington at a time when so many in the USA are questioning or lionization of those three - and so many others - and tearing down statues not only of Confederate traitors but the so-called "founding fathers." Miranda wrote about these figures just a decade ago, before this became a national, fevered conversation. Were he writing now, perhaps he would have written about Jefferson and Washington in particular VERY differently. But no piece can be absolutely comprehensive, no piece can represent every point of view and explore every theme, and I have no criticism of him whatsoever regarding these characterizations. In fact, I was glad at the very stark reminder about Washington staunchly refusing to seek another term and what that act meant for the future of our nation - it's a message that is more timely now than at any time Hamilton was performed live on Broadway. 
• Yes, there is a lot of important history that gets left out. I can't believe people want to focus on that. Some of the same people who praise the cross-cultural casting - which, technically, is historically inaccurate - complain about the historical inaccuracies. And they complain at what got left out. Folks, I deeply admire John Adams. I have often wondered what would have happened had he gotten the second term he absolutely deserved. The story of John and Abigail Adams is one that I think should be detailed in every American history class. John Adams believed while he was president that Hamilton explored the idea of a coup in order to remove him. They were NOT friends. Am I upset that none of this gets mentioned in Hamilton? Nope. Am I upset that, historically, the playwright is on Team Hamilton when I am clearly on Team Adams? No! That would be ridiculous. Stop being ridiculous. It's a work of ART. Like all art, it reflects the views of the artist. If you can't get past that, you are going to be miserable not only in theatres, but in art museums.  
• Gonna say it: it didn't have as much rap as I was expecting and for that I am grateful. And I was SO glad the show was subtitled because I wouldn't have understood a lot of it otherwise. Hi, I'm old.    

So, there are my thoughts on Hamilton. I celebrate it for what it is, I'm not going to criticize it for what it isn't, and while I'm not enthralled by it the way so many are, I sure am enthralled by it's brilliance, which cannot be denied, and how it's inspired so many, especially young people. More of this, please.

Also see Fathers & theaters.