Garlic Oil for Earaches and Other Infections

            When my fiancé was a young child, he was plagued with recurring ear infections so bad that his eardrums were lanced 9 times in 11 months around the age of 4.  One time, his right eardrum burst because he had been left in the care of his uncle, who did not heed his childish cries to take him to the hospital until blood was pouring out of his ear.  So his hearing is bad in his left ear, and much worse in his right. 

            His earaches could have been stopped at the mild stage—or even later—if his mother had known to put oil in the ear and plug it with a cotton ball.  My mother used “sweet oil,” which I believe is almond oil, on nine children and never had to take an earache to the doctor.  I used garlic oil on my children when their ears ached.  But his mother didn’t know it, and waited until it was an emergency to take him to a doctor, something that happens way too often to too many children.

            I got the idea for using garlic oil from a letter in Mother Earth News, at a time when I happened to have a bad earache.  That writer squeezed garlic oil and vitamin E capsules in the ear; I decided to make garlic oil by the same recipe as for Oil of St. John’s Wort, which I got from the Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable, by Juliet De Baircli Levi (Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pennsylvania, 1976).  (She uses garlic extensively, but not in oil.)  Once I dropped the warm oil into my ear and plugged it, the pain was gone within an hour; the infection within a few days.

            Since then, I’ve found garlic oil useful as a topical antibiotic on scratches, scrapes, wounds, and road rash; and as an internal antibiotic in dogs and cats, clearing up colds and distemper.  Garlic oil in the ear can fight an infection anywhere on that side of the head, including teeth and sinus infections. 

For toothaches, I use it in concert with a piece of cabbage on the nearest cheek, held in place with an elastic bandage.  Tooth infections are stubborn; the pain will go away quickly with cabbage and garlic oil, but it takes most of two weeks to kill the infection.   In the end, however, the only cure for a bad tooth is to fix it or remove it.

Some people are allergic to garlic oil in the ear, and a sensitivity can develop.  This happened to my elder daughter, who found that Oil of St. John’s Wort was still effective.  If you use garlic oil in you ear and it hurts more, clean it out with a Q-tip and use something else.  Sweet oil works simply because it stops cold air from irritating inflamed tissues, and the warmth also kills germs.

            To make garlic oil: peel some cloves of garlic; slice them up; put them in a small jar; and cover them with olive oil.  Place the jar in a pan of hot water and heat it to a low simmer; allow it to simmer for ½ hour; remove from the water bath and let it cool; drain the oil off the garlic and bottle some in a dropper bottle for easy use.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener       541-955-9040      rycke@gardener.com

My favorite pot recipies: Oatmeal cake and Gingersnaps

Pot Butter

2 sticks (one cup) butter, unsalted

1 cup (or more) pot shake (leaf or broken buds), crumbled.

1 cup (or more) water

Put all ingredients in the top of a double boiler, or in a metal or glass bowl within a larger sauce pan of simmering water, or crock pot set on low heat.  Simmer on low for 2 hours; strain out the pot and throw it away; allow butter and water to cool in refrigerator; pour water out from under the solidified butter.  Yields ¾ cup pot butter.

Oatmeal Spice Cake

1½ cup boiling water

1 cup oats

½ cup butter

Pour boiling water over oats and butter; cover; let soak 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together:

1½ cup wheat flour

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/3 tsp. salt

1/3 tsp. nutmeg

Set aside.  When oatmeal is done soaking, add:

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together.  Add flour and spices; mix thoroughly.  Bake in a greased 9x9x2” pan at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

For pot cake, make it with pot butter or add finely powdered leaf to the oats to soak.

Pot Gingersnaps

¾ cup pot butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

¼ cup molasses

Cream together above ingredients; add:

2 ¼ cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons soda

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ tsp. cloves

¼ tsp. salt

Mix together into a stiff dough; refrigerate 3 hours.  Form into 1-inch balls; roll top in granulated sugar; place 3” apart on greased cookie sheet; bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until just set; immediately remove from baking sheet.  Makes 3-4 dozen cookies

Or, roll dough very thin on the greased cookie sheet; cut into diamonds or squares (diagonally or at right angles); and bake until just set at 300 degrees, approximately 10 minutes; remove from sheet when crisp; store well-dried cookies in sealed jars.

Another alternative is to make rolls of frozen dough, cut ¼ inch slices. Sugar tops, and bake as needed.

The "secret" of making thin, crisp, sugary cookies by ball or drop, rather than thick, chewy or hard cookies is: Go heavy on the sugar (mounded in the cup); light on the flour (not quite filled); and a smallish (medium) egg.  Sugar melts, spreads, and melts in the mouth; too much flour makes cookies hard; too much egg makes them chewy; water makes them soft.

If you roll the dough thin and cut out the cookies, this is not important, and more flour might be better than less.

Be Careful with Vitamin D

I learned about Vitamin D overdose the hard way.  I took a double dose of D3 (800 units) with the rest of my vitamins for two days in a row.  The next day, about 12 hours after the second dose, I started feeling achy in every muscle in my body.  I Goodsearched “body aches, vitamin D” and found a couple of sites among all the hype that mentioned overdose symptoms.  It turns out that Vitamin D deficiency causes body aches, but so does overdose; and some people are sensitive to vitamin D supplements.   Another symptom is frequent urination, no doubt to flush the excess from the body.

 Within an hour or so it was inflaming my stomach; cold tea went down, but not-too-hot tea burned going down, and came right back up.  I had gone to work with my housemate to help; I soon realized that he would have to work alone.  Not only did every muscle ache, but I could not generate body heat.  The bitter cold went to my bones despite layers of clothing, and every muscle cramped.  I spent the day in my customers’ recliner with my feet in front of their fireplace, trying to stay warm and relatively relaxed; napping was impossible with the body aches.

What’s interesting is that I’d taken higher doses of D in the past: 1000-unit oil capsules that did not cause a reaction.  The new 400-unit tablets did, combined with a multivitamin containing another 400 units one day and Calcium Citrate with 400 units of D the next.

It may be that I set myself up for a reaction with my treatment of a toothache; I was taking 800 mg of ibuprofen every four hours, along with Oil of St. John’s Wort in the ear, a cold mask, twice daily Listerine, and occasionally dropping Oregano Oil on the tooth.  I’d left off the cabbage on the cheek; I wasn’t sure if the real problem was a tooth infection irritating my ear and sinuses, or a slight sinus infection irritating the tooth.  Garlic oil seemed to irritate the ear more; I may have become sensitive to it, as happened to my daughter a few years back.

I left off the ibuprofen for about 12 hours, but resumed as the tooth began to ache.  Through the day and the night, I kept drinking water and urinating, trying to wash the excess D out of my system.  I was eventually free of body aches and not excessively sensitive to cold, but it took all night, getting up to drink and pee about 5 times during the night.

I’d always known that one has to be careful with vitamins D and A, because they are oil-soluble and do not wash out of the body as easily as Vitamins B and C, and overdoses happen.  A few years ago, a friend with many health problems was talked into 2500-unit (or 25,000; I’m not sure) megadoses by a naturopath; she got body aches, and I told her that too much Vitamin D could be dangerous, especially with her particular problems.  It turns out that the healthiest of us can run into trouble with too much vitamin D.

Stop that cold with a mask

A cold mask can keep colds and flu from starting, and greatly reduce the symptoms and length if one does get sick.  It works by allowing one to breathe warm, moist, acidic air from one’s own lungs. 

Infected lungs and sinuses are irritated by cold and/or dry air, and respond by becoming inflamed and putting out protective mucus, causing drip, coughing, sneezing, and congestion.  Cold and flu viruses prefer the cooler temperatures of sinuses and lungs to the rest of the body, and more easily invade when humidity is low, which is common indoors in the winter.  Wearing a thin cotton mask that has some space for air to sit in warms and humidifies the air that one breathes, making life easier for the sinuses and lungs, and harder for the germs that are attacking them.  The air coming out of your lungs is 40,000 parts per million CO2, compared to 400 ppm going in.  This makes it a bit acidic, which germs also don’t like.

I first discovered this when I lived out in the desert near Kingman, Arizona, at the time when the Sin Nombre hantavirus was newly discovered and was still called the Four Corners virus.  It was May and hot; not the normal season for colds.  Spread by mice in their urine, it was causing people to suddenly collapse in places like air conditioned dance floors.  They were taken to hospitals; their lungs filled up with fluids; and they died.

I got a lung infection that was making the air bubble in my lungs.  Figuring it was the Virus, I began to get worried, and thought I should go to the hospital.  I actually got into my car to go.  As I sat in my very hot car, I began to breathe better, and I started to think.  Hospitals are cold.  Dance halls are kept chilly in Arizona in May.  People had collapsed on the dance floor and died in the hospital.  If I went to the hospital, my lungs would fill with fluid and I would die. 

So, I stayed home, put on a bandanna mask, and wore a wet towel on my head to keep from overheating my brain.  I breathed much better, and got over it in a few days.

But a bandanna folded in half is a bit thick to breathe easily, and it squashes the nose a bit.  I eventually cut some in half and sewed up the cut edges with elastic over the nose to allow it to rest easily on the nose and create a bit more room for air to gather.

I wear a cold mask around my neck throughout the cooler seasons.  When the air feels cold or irritating in my sinuses or lungs, I pull it up over my nose and breathe my breath, which feels better.  This can stop a cold from really getting started.  But if one starts, it relieves symptoms greatly and shortens it considerably.

Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) 2008

Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) [The office of Oregon's Attorney General has, by law, provided the ballot title summary below.] Ballot Title: Permits State-Licensed Cultivation of Marijuana, Sale of Marijuana to Adults Through State Liquor Stores Results Of "Yes" Vote: "Yes" vote permits state-licensed cultivation of marijuana and sale to adults through state liquor stores; ninety percent of net proceeds to state general fund.  Results Of "No" Vote: "No" vote retains all existing prohibitions against the cultivation, manufacture, possession, and delivery of marijuana; retains current statues that permit regulated use of marijuana.  Summary: Current law prohibits cultivation, manufacture, possession, and delivery of marijuana, but permits regulated medical use of marijuana. Proposed measure replaces state, local marijuana laws except driving under the influence laws. Directs renamed Oregon Cannabis and Liquor Control Commission to license marijuana cultivation by qualified persons and to purchase entire crop. Commission sells marijuana at cost to pharmacies and medical research facilities for medical purposes, and to qualified adults for profit through state liquor stores. Ninety percent of net proceeds goes to state general fund; smaller percentages for education, drug abuse treatment, promotion of hemp products. Bans sales to, and possession by, minors. Bans public consumption except where signs permit and minors barred. Commission to regulate illicit use, set price, other duties. Provides penalties. Other provisions.

The Proposed Law: The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act Whereas the people of the State of Oregon find that Cannabis hemp is an environmentally beneficial crop that: (a) Yields several times more fiber, for paper and textiles, and healthier protein and oil than any other plant; (b) Yields cloth and paper of superior strength and durability without the application of pesticides during cultivation and without producing cancer-causing pollutants during processing; (c) Yields more biomass than any other plant outside the tropics, though it grows well in the tropics too, and grows faster than any other plant on earth in the temperate and cooler climates; (d) Yields a substance that relieves the suffering of many ill people without life-threatening side effects; and, Whereas the people find that federal and corporate misinformation campaigns that economically benefit small groups of people have suppressed the information above and the fact that: (a) George Washington grew cannabis for more than 30 years and, while he was President, said, “the artificial preparation of hemp is really a curiosity” and told his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, that he was, “suggesting the policy of encouraging the growth of Hemp”; (b) Thomas Jefferson invented a device to process cannabis, and cannabis fiber was used for most clothing and paper production until the invention of the cotton gin; (c) Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who spoke at the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787 more than any other delegate and of whom James Madison said, “the style and finish of the Constitution properly belongs to the pen of Gouverneur Morris,” wrote a paper he sent to Thomas Jefferson called, “Notes Respecting Tobacco” that compared cannabis and tobacco and concluded that cannabis “is to be preferred”; and, Whereas the people find that cannabis is Oregon’s largest cash crop, indicating that cannabis prohibition has failed; and  Whereas the people find that, despite misinformation concocted to justify cannabis prohibition, the courts of Alaska, Hawaii and Michigan have noted presidential commission findings, scientific studies, and learned treatises which: (a) Characterize cannabis as a relatively nonaddictive and comparatively harmless euphoriant used and cultivated for more than 10,000 years without a single lethal overdose; (b) Demonstrate that moderate cannabis intoxication causes very little impairment of psychomotor functions; reveal no significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities attributable solely to cannabis use; and that long-term, heavy cannabis users do not deviate significantly from their social peers in terms of mental function; (c) Disprove the “stepping stone” or “gateway drug” argument that cannabis use leads to other drugs; rather, that lies taught about cannabis, once discovered, destroy the credibility of valid educational messages about moderate and responsible use and valid warnings against other truly dangerous drugs; (d) Indicate that cannabis users are less likely to commit violent acts than alcohol users, refute the argument that cannabis causes criminal behavior, and suggest that most users avoid aggressive behavior, even in the face of provocation; and (e) Declare that cannabis use does not constitute a public health problem of any significant dimension; finds no rational basis for treating cannabis as more dangerous than alcohol; and  Whereas the people of the State of Oregon find that cannabis does not cause the social ills that its prohibition was intended to guard against; rather, that most of the social ills attributed to cannabis result from its unreasonable prohibition which: (a) Provides incentives to traffic in marijuana instead of limiting its prevalence, since almost all cannabis users evade the prohibition, even though drastically expanding public safety budgets have reduced funding for other vital services such as education; (b) Fosters a black market that exploits children, provides an economic subsidy for gangs, and sells cannabis of questionable purity and uncertain potency; (c) Generates enormous, untaxed, illicit profits that debase our economy and corrupt our justice system; and, (d) Wastes police resources, clogs our courts, and drains the public budget to no good effect; and, Whereas, the people recall that alcohol prohibition had caused many of the same social ills before being replaced by regulatory laws which, ever since, have granted alcohol users the privilege of buying alcohol from state licensees, imposed strict penalties protecting children, delivered alcohol of sure potency, and generated substantial public revenues; and, Whereas the people hold that cannabis prohibition is a sumptuary law of a nature repugnant to our constitution’s framers and which is so unreasonable and liberticidal as to: (a) Arbitrarily violate the rights of cannabis users to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure as guaranteed to them by Article 1, Section 9 of the Oregon Constitution; (b) Unreasonably impose felony burdens on the cannabis users while the state grants special privileges to alcohol users, which violates Article 1, Section 20 of the Oregon Constitution;  (c) Unnecessarily proscribe consumption of an “herb bearing seed” given to humanity in Genesis 1:29, thereby violating their unqualified religious rights under Article 1, Section 3 and their Natural Rights under Article 1, Section 33 of the Oregon Constitution; (d) Violates the individual’s right to privacy and numerous other Natural and Constitutional Rights reserved to the people under Article 1, Section 33 of the Oregon Constitution; (e) Violates the state’s right to regulate and tax an intoxicant market as reserved to states under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, thereby abdicating control to illicit markets; and, (f) Irrationally subvert the ends to which, in its Preamble, the Oregon Constitution was ordained and the purposes, in Article 1, Section 1, for which our government was instituted; now,  Therefore, the people find that the constitutional ends of justice, order, and the perpetuation of  liberty; the governmental purposes of preserving the peace, safety, and happiness of the people; and the vitality of the other constitutional provisions cited above, demand the replacement of a costly, self-defeating prohibition with regulatory laws controlling cannabis cultivation, potency, sale, and use; defining and prohibiting cannabis abuse; protecting children with a comprehensive drug education program and strict penalties for the sale or provision of cannabis to minors; funding a state drug abuse treatment program; and raising substantial revenue for public use. Wherefore, be it enacted by the people of the state of Oregon, the laws relating to cannabis are revised as follows: Section 1. This Act shall operate uniformly throughout Oregon and fully replace and supersede all statutes, municipal charter enactments, and local ordinances relating to cannabis, except those relating to operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. The name of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is hereby changed to the Oregon Cannabis & Liquor Control Commission. This Act is a scientific experiment by the people of the state of Oregon to lower the misuse of, illicit traffic in and harm associated with cannabis and will set up voluntary studies of cannabis users under ORS 474.045 (b) and other studies. Section 2. Section 3 of this Act creates an ORS chapter 474 titled the “Oregon Cannabis Tax Act.” Legislative Counsel shall move and renumber existing provisions of chapter 474.  Section 3. 474.005 Definitions. As used in this chapter: (1) “Abuse” means repetitive or excessive drug use such that the individual fails to fulfill a statutory or common law duty, including but not limited to the duties owed by parents to children, by motorists to pedestrians and other motorists, and by employees to employers, fellow employees, and the public. (2) “Cannabis” means the flowering tops and all parts, derivatives, or preparations of the cannabis plant, also known as “marijuana,” containing cannabinoids in concentrations established by the commission to be psychoactive, but does not include “hemp” as defined by ORS 474.005(5). (3) “Commission” means the Oregon Cannabis & Liquor Control Commission, or OCLCC, formerly the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. (4) “Cultivation” means growing the cannabis plant. (5) “Hemp” means the seeds, stems, and stalks of the cannabis plant, and all other parts, products, and byproducts of the cannabis plant not containing cannabinoids in concentrations established by the commission to be psychoactive. Seeds and starts of all cannabis strains shall be considered hemp. (6) “Person” means a natural individual or corporate entity of any kind whatsoever.

474.015 Short Title. This chapter may be cited as the “Oregon Cannabis Tax Act.”  474.025 Purpose of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. This chapter shall be liberally construed so as to minimize the misuse and abuse of cannabis; to prevent the illicit sale or provision of cannabis to minors; and to protect the peace, safety, and happiness of Oregonians while preserving the largest measure of liberty consistent with the above purposes. 474.035 Powers and duties of the commission, licenses for cultivation and processing. Hemp fiber, protein, oil not regulated. (1) The commission shall have the powers necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter. It shall make such rules and regulations as will discourage and minimize the diversion of cannabis to illicit sale or use within the state, the illicit importation and sale of cannabis cultivated or processed outside the state, and the illicit export or removal of cannabis from the state. The commissions jurisdiction shall extend to any person licensed under this chapter to cultivate or process cannabis, but shall not extend to any person who manufactures products from hemp. Hemp production for fiber, protein and oil shall be allowed without regulation, license or fee. No federal license shall be required to cultivate hemp in Oregon.  (2) The commission shall issue to any qualified applicant a license to cultivate cannabis for sale to the commission. The license shall specify the areas, plots, and extent of lands to be cultivated. The commission shall equitably apportion the purchase of cannabis among all licensees. The commission shall purchase and sell cannabis products of the quality and grade set by market demand.  (3) The commission shall issue licenses to process cannabis to qualified applicants who submit successful bids. Licensed processors shall, as specified by the commission, contract, cure, extract, refine, mix, and package the entire cannabis crop and deliver it to the commission’s physical possession as soon as possible, but not later than four months after harvest.  474.045 Commission to sell cannabis at cost for medical purposes. The Commission shall sell cannabis at cost, including OCLCC expenses: (a) To Oregon and other states’ pharmacies for use under a physician’s order for glaucoma, nausea related to chemotherapy, AIDS, or any other condition for which a physician finds cannabis to be an effective treatment; and, (b) To recognized Oregon medical research facilities for use in research directed toward expanding medical and sociological knowledge of the composition, effects, uses, and abuse of cannabis, to include studies of cannabis purchasers voluntarily participating through OCLCC stores under ORS 474.055. 474.055 Commission to set price and sell through OCLCC stores. The commission shall sell cannabis through OCLCC stores and shall set the retail price of cannabis to generate profits for revenue to be applied to the purposes noted in ORS chapter 474 and to minimize incentives to purchase cannabis elsewhere, to purchase cannabis for resale or for removal to other states. 474.065 Qualifications of purchasers and licensees, effect of conviction. To be qualified to purchase, cultivate, or process cannabis, a person must be over 21 years of age and not have been convicted of sale of cannabis to minors or convicted under this chapter of unlicensed cultivation or sale of cannabis. (2) Conviction for cultivation or sale of cannabis to other than minors, when committed prior to the effective date of this chapter, shall not be grounds for denial of an application for a license under this chapter. 474.075 Disposition of license fees and profits from sale of cannabis by state.  (1) The commission shall collect license fees which shall be calculated and continually appropriated to defray the commission’s administrative costs of issuing licenses under this chapter and the Attorney General’s costs of litigation in defense of the validity of this chapter’s provisions and in defense of persons subjected to criminal or civil liability for actions licensed or required under this chapter. (2) All money from the sale of cannabis shall be remitted to the State Treasurer for credit to a cannabis account, from which sufficient money shall be continually appropriated: (a) To reimburse the commission for the costs of purchasing, processing, testing, grading, shipping, and selling cannabis; of regulating, inspecting, and auditing licensees; and of research studies required by this chapter; and, (b) To reimburse the Attorney General’s office for costs of enforcing this chapter’s criminal provisions. (c) To reimburse OCLCC contractors for their expenses and labor with 15 percent of gross sales. (3) All money remaining in the cannabis account after reimbursement of the related commission and Attorney General costs shall be profits which the State Treasurer shall distribute quarterly as follows: (a) Ninety percent shall be credited to the state’s general fund to finance state programs. (b) Eight percent shall be credited to the Department of Human Resources and shall be continually appropriated to fund various drug abuse treatment programs on demand. (c) One percent shall be credited to create and fund an agricultural state committee for the promotion of Oregon hemp fiber, protein and oil crops and associated industries. (d) One percent shall be distributed to the state’s school districts, appropriated by enrollment, and shall be continually appropriated to fund a drug education program which shall: (I) Emphasize a citizen’s rights and duties under our social compact and to explain to students how drug abusers might injure the rights of others by failing to fulfill such duties; (II) Persuade students to decline to consume intoxicants by providing them with accurate information about the threat intoxicants pose to their mental and physical development; and, (III) Persuade students that if, as adults, they choose to consume intoxicants, they must nevertheless responsibly fulfill all duties they owe others. 474.085 Commission to establish psychoactive concentrations of cannabinols. The commission, based on findings made in consultation with the Board of Pharmacy and cannabis and hemp farmers to cannabinoid and cannabidiol concentrations which produce intoxication, the economics of residual cannabis extraction, and strains of hemp that produce better quality and quantity of fiber, protein and oil, shall establish reasonable concentrations of cannabinols deemed psychoactive under this chapter. 474.095 Commission to set standards, test purity, grade potency of cannabis, label contents. (1) The commission, in consultation with the State Board of Pharmacy, shall set standards which the commission shall apply: (a) To test and reject cannabis containing adulterants in concentrations known to harm people; and,  (b) To grade cannabis potency by measuring the concentrations of psychoactive cannabinoids it contains. (2) The commission shall affix to cannabis packages a label which shall bear the state seal, a certification of purity, a grade of potency, the date of harvest, a warning as to the potential for abuse, and notice of laws prohibiting resale, removal from the state, public consumption, and provision and sale to minors. 474.105 Commission may limit purchases. The commission may limit the quantity of cannabis purchased by a person at one time or over any length of time and may refuse to sell cannabis to any person who violates this chapter’s provisions or abuses cannabis within the meaning of ORS 474.005(1). The commission will require persons convicted of violating this act, any criminal statute while under the influence of cannabis, or neglecting any statutory or common-law duty by reason of cannabis intoxication or abuse, to complete a program prior to reinstating their privilege to purchase cannabis. 474.115 Unlicensed cultivation for sale, removal from the state, penalties. Cultivation for sale, removal from the state for sale, and sale of cannabis, without commission authority, shall be Class C felonies, and removal from the state of cannabis for other than sale shall be a Class A misdemeanor. 474.125 Sale or provision to minors, penalties, exception. The sale of cannabis to minors shall be a Class B felony, and gratuitous provision of cannabis to minors shall be a Class A misdemeanor, except when to a minor over 18 years of age under the same conditions provided by ORS 471.030(1) for alcohol. 474.135 Fine as additional penalty. In addition to other penalties and in lieu of any civil remedy, conviction of sale or unlicensed cultivation for sale under ORS 474.115 or 474.125 shall be punishable by a fine which the court shall determine will deprive an offender of any profits from the criminal activity. 474.145 Acquisition by minors, penalty. Except as provided by ORS 474.125, the purchase, attempt to purchase, possession, or acquisition of cannabis by a person under 21 years of age shall be a violation punishable by a fine of not more than $250. 474.155 Public consumption prohibited, penalty, exception. Except where prominent signs permit and minors are neither admitted nor employed, public consumption of cannabis shall be a violation punishable by a fine of not more than $250. 474.205 Commission to study methods of use, potential for abuse, establish cannabis levels for presumption of intoxication. The commission, in consultation with the Board of Pharmacy and by grants to accredited research facilities, shall:  (a) Study methods of use and the potential for, and ill effects of, abuse of cannabis, the possible damage of throat and lungs from inhaling cannabis smoke, less harmful methods of administration, including but not limited to filtration of smoke and non-combustive vaporization of the psychoactive agents in cannabis, and shall report its findings in pamphlets distributed at OCLCC stores; and,  (b) Study cannabis intoxication and, if practicable, shall establish by rule levels of impairment above which a person shall be presumed intoxicated. 474.215 Presumption of negligence. In civil cases, a rebuttable presumption of negligence shall arise upon clear and convincing evidence that a person is found to be intoxicated at the time of an accident and if the person’s actions materially contributed to the cause of injury.  474.305 Disclosure of names and addresses prohibited. Information on applicants, licensees, and purchasers under this chapter shall not be disclosed except upon the person’s request. 474.315 Attorney General’s duties. The Attorney General shall vigorously defend this Act and any person prosecuted for acts licensed under this chapter, propose a federal and/or international act to remove impediments to this chapter, deliver the proposed federal and/or international act to each member of Congress and/or international organization, and urge adoption of the proposed federal and/or international act through all legal and appropriate means.  474.325 Effect. This Act shall take effect on January 1, 2011. Any section of this Act being held invalid as to any person or circumstance shall not affect the application of any other section of this Act that can be given full or partial effect without the invalid section or application. If any law or entity of any type whatsoever is held to impede this chapter’s full effect, unimpeded provisions shall remain in effect and the impeded provisions shall regain effect upon the impediments removal.   Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp CRRH P.O. Box 86741 Portland, OR 97214 (503) 235-4606 http://www.crrh.org crrh@crrh.org

Addictions are a Cost of War: Marijuana Speech #31

31st speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 5-9-2012; 

Honorable Commissioners:

          Last week, Mr. Ford took offense to my previous speech, saying that I had tarred all Vietnam vets with the same brush, and “We didn’t all come back drug-crazed maniacs.”

          I didn’t say that anyone came back a “drug-crazed maniac”; I said that some men came back with “habits”.  I also confined such remarks to people who were protesting that war, and who had such habits, in talking about the origin of our modern “drug culture.”  Mr. Ford can rest assured that I was not talking about him or people like him.

          I talk about what I know, in this case, men who were drafted to ‘Nam with drug habits and came back with more reason to use them.  In the case of my late husband, Randy Brown, when he was drafted, he had a wife and two sons, and owned a bar in Georgia.  During his first tour, his wife divorced him, kept the kids, and sold the bar.  He stayed for a second tour. 

          Before he owned the bar, he had a roofing business in Kansas; he was a natural entrepreneur.  After he was drafted, he never started another business; all his efforts were focused on get-rich-quick schemes.  Why work hard and save your money when the government can pick you up at any time and take it all away?  Being in the black market, that threat always hung over his head.

          Since the discovery of opiates, addiction to such pain-killers has been a cost of war.  A war on those who take marijuana, opiates and other pain-killers and stimulants does not help our soldiers recover from their experiences overseas; it just makes them the enemy in their own country.

          Many of us are said to be primed for drug addiction by trauma in childhood.  We are not helped with our addictions by being made the enemy by our government.  I was well on my way to being a social alcoholic when I smoked pot in college at 18—in a state where the drinking age is 19.  Your ban on youth drinking didn’t stop me; it just taught me to get drunk.  I was drunk when I tried pot.  Your ban on marijuana didn’t stop me from finding my drug of choice; your ban on harder drugs didn’t stop me from trying them to see what they really do.  All it did was put me outside the rule of law, afraid to report an attempted rape.

          Please help stop the war on us and our habits and support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act as a first step toward peace and freedom of medicine.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com

Save Our Children by Legalizing: Marijuana Speech #30

30th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 5-1-2012; 

Honorable Commissioners:

          Last week, I returned to the subject of legalizing marijuana and other drugs.  Commissioner Reedy, you refused a copy of my speech and answered me in Matters from Commissioners.  Thank you for arguing.

          Your remarks boiled down to the fact that you couldn’t understand why I am so concerned about weeds and not about saving our children from drugs.  I didn’t say a word about weeds; I did decry disorder and say that police should be more concerned with catching thieves and getting people to clean up their properties than with keeping us up on the latest teenage slang.

          Why are the cops concerned with teenage slang?  Because the kids are using and selling illegal drugs.  Our laws that supposedly protect children by allowing higher penalties for selling to children and lower penalties for children generally, make children our street dealers.  They can’t even get a job until they are 16; they often start dealing drugs and making big bucks long before that.  They get hooked on easy money and don’t get real jobs.  By the time they are in their mid-twenties, they couldn’t get a job if they wanted to, having no work experience to put on a resume, and they can’t rent a place, because they have no pay stubs.  They are trapped in the black market.

          I have seen this happen to too many kids.  Mothers marched against Prohibition because their kids were getting drunk.   Our kids are getting high and dealing.  We have wasted 3 generations of entrepreneurs on the black market since Nixon declared War on Drugs in the 70’s, pushing up prices faster than inflation. 

          Our black market in marijuana has collapsed in recent years, thanks to medical pot; the only place one can get high prices is out of state or in tolerated dispensaries, selling to people with cards but no grower.  I used to tell people who asked me where to get pot to ask any scruffy kid.  Now the scruffy kids are asking me.

What’s a dealer to do when his drug of choice is no longer profitable?  He moves on to harder drugs.  Soldiers are coming back from Afghanistan hooked on heroin, and getting opiates for their injuries.  Kids are selling to them and each other.  Overdoses are rising among young adults.

          To protect our children from dealing drugs, we need to legalize all drugs, starting with marijuana.  We are collecting signatures to put marijuana under essentially the same regulation as liquor.  Please support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, now petitioning for the fall ballot.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com

Drug Culture v. Cop Culture: Marijuana Speech #29

29th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 4-25-2012; 

Honorable Commissioners:

Last week we had a presentation from our local cops through the ladies of our Department of Public Health, titled, “You can’t fight what you don’t know.”  It was about the drug culture in our high school and on our streets: slang; acronyms and logos; clothing lines with such logos.  The one I found most amusing was “SRH: Stoners ‘Reaking Havoc.”  Stoners don’t wreak havoc.

Nonetheless, the cops are exceedingly interested in their culture, clothing, and the places one might stash a pipe, like a bracelet, or a belt buckle.  One wishes that they were as versed in the culture of thieves.

But theft culture isn’t in your face.  Thieves don’t advertise themselves, even to each other.  People are not proud of being thieves.  They don’t celebrate theft in song and clothing; they stay very quiet about their activities.

Thieves we have always had.  Drugs we have always had.  We have not always had drug culture.  That began to really develop as people who used illegal drugs protested the Vietnam War and at the same time rejected the culture of war on their habits, including the habits they brought back from ‘Nam.  Those men were yanked out of their lives and made slave soldiers in a foreign land for no good reason; they had plenty of reason to take opiates and cannabis. 

In thanks for their involuntary service, Nixon declared war on drugs and the people who take them.  Reagan, a few years later, declared zero tolerance.

As those men who went to ‘Nam become grandfathers and great-grandfathers and their sons and grandsons return from Afghanistan with heroin habits, the drug culture has become more bold.  We put pot leaves and only slightly cryptic acronyms and logos on our clothing, to irritate the Powers That Be.  As government tries to do too much and thus neglects the basics of law, which is keeping order, it loses power to harass and jail us for mere habits.

Perhaps police should stop trying to keep up with teenage slang and start getting people to clean up their properties.  Stop making war on substances and start concentrating on catching thieves.  Stop riding around in cars, stopping speeders, and start walking neighbourhoods, talking to people.  It isn’t the distance one covers in a day that counts; it’s the amount of disorder one stops.

I ask this Board to tell our sheriff that you think that marijuana laws should receive the lowest level of enforcement, and support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, now collecting signatures for the 2012 ballot.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com

Pot Prices Collapse! Marijuana Speech #28

28th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 5-25-2011 

Dennis Roler this week editorialized in the Daily Courier, “Police and marijuana supporters are duelling over proposed tighter regulations in Salem, but they are missing the point.”

HB 3664 is apparently the last of two dozen such bills introduced this year that is still alive; it would tighten eligibility for cards and give police more access to OMMP records—too much access for Mr. Roler.  He thinks that the “old” program of growing one’s own should be scrapped in favour of state-grown pot sold in state-owned dispensaries, which would bring the collapsing prices for pot in our in-state black market back with a roar.

One might wonder why, after so many years, so many legislators introduced so many bills to do something to tighten up OMMP, and their fellows threw cold water on them.  Wonder no longer; the answer is in those collapsing prices.  A lot of people who have formerly made a living off their risky behavior are hurting now that it is not so risky and a lot of other people have gotten into the act. 

Under OMMP the prices have fluctuated from a low right after harvest, back to high prices before harvest.  A brave grower could hold on to the bulk of his crop until prices recovered and still make good money.  But that price recovery point has gotten later every year, and this year, they have not yet recovered.

Have no doubt that many of these braver growers talk to their legislators, probably posing as rabid anti-pot-people for protective coloration.  But marijuana consumers also talk to their lawmakers, and more legislators appear to support consumers than support black marketers.  They know that tightening up eligibility for medical marijuana and making it more dangerous to grow can only revive the black market and make life harder for consumers of weed.

Now that people are getting used to the idea that they can’t make a lot of money off a few plants anymore and young pot dealers are looking for real jobs, it is time to put pot on the same footing as alcohol and pass the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act.  That will allow a few licensed farmers to make a living off of marijuana, allow any of us to grow our own without license, and drive a stake through the heart of the black market in marijuana.  This Board should ask the legislature to pass it now, and not wait for the People to pass it next year.  There’s still time in this session; they can gut and stuff HB 3664.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com

Indoor Cultivation Sucks: Marijuana Speech #27

27th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 4-27-2011 

  

An article appeared in the April 15^th Oregonian, “Pot growing gobbles power.”  Eric Mortenson tells us about research by Californian Evan Mills that indicates that indoor marijuana growing uses a full one percent of electricity consumed in the United States. 

I have long held that growing pot indoors is stupid.  It’s a huge full-to-part-sun plant that cannot grow with normal indoor lighting, and it takes a lot of water as well.  1000-watt lights were the standard twenty years ago when I was interested in indoor growing.  The heat from these lamps and the humidity from rapidly transpiring plants has to be vented, which uses still more power.

If it isn’t properly vented, it is hard on a house, as is water that spills on the floor.  It can cause mold and dry rot.  This is a major problem for landlords screening potential tenants; tenants generally don’t tell their landlord that they plan to grow pot in a house, even with a license.

          Cannabis is a big plant for which a pot is never big enough.  Once its roots fill the pot, it cannot get enough water and gets stressed, which encourages indoor pests like whitefly and spider mites.  This encourages the use of insecticides that lower the quality of the product, and can harm consumers.

Indoors is a very expensive, difficult way to grow marijuana.  It makes electricity more expensive for everyone and ruins rentals.  The only reason that anyone grows pot indoors is fear of police and/or thieves.  Medical marijuana has reduced fear of cops, but it has brought the work of thieves into the open; legal growers report thefts. 

A greenhouse is the best option for growing marijuana safely in Southern Oregon: it keeps the crop hidden; gives it lots of the heat and humidity it loves; it can have no floor, allowing roots to spread freely in the soil beneath; and it protects the heavy buds from fall fogs and rain that can cause mold.

When Oregon passes the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, it will end the black market within our state, and the fear of cops and pot thieves with it.  People will grow a few plants in their yards for themselves; licensed growers will grow it in fields, where it belongs, for sale to the state.  Farmers will grow hemp in fields for the world market.   One place you may be sure it will not be grown very much will be indoors, under lights.  Landlords will have one less worry, and we won’t be wasting electricity growing a plant that loves the sun.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040         rycke@gardener.com

End Nixon’s War on Us: Marijuana Speech #26

26th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 4-13-2011 

I recently received new petition sheets for the Cannabis Tax Act 2012; I will be petitioning for this as well as All-Non-Partisan Elections in Oregon at my weekly protest on Saturdays between noon and 2 PM at 6^th and G in Grants Pass, and before that at the Growers’ Market entrance between 10:00 and 11:30.

But we are in a deep budget hole, and I ask this Board and others to ask our state representatives to pass this measure now because we need it now, to end the violence and corruption of the marijuana black market and stop spending our money on unnecessary, counterproductive evil.

Speaking of counterproductive evil, I’d like to remind my tea party compatriots that the War on Drugs was named such by Richard Nixon, following Johnson’s War on Poverty, around the time he instituted wage and price controls against the inflation he’d unleashed by expansion of the Vietnam War.  He created the Drug Enforcement Administration and turned it into a cabinet-level department, just as he did the Department of Education.  At the point when states were starting to de-emphasize drug-law enforcement because it filled prisons with low-level offenders and got in the way of stopping real crime, he got Congress to give the states money for his war on us and our habits.

People in Mexico are protesting Mexico’s intensified war on drugs, which is tearing their country apart and making it particularly dangerous to work for the Mexican government, as well as to visit or live there.  They should legalize marijuana, license the manufacture of other U.S.-controlled substances, and let US deal with the consequences of our own black market while they profit off it.

Oregon should do a little of the same, by passing the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, and letting the rest of the nation deal with their black markets in pot while we eliminate ours.  Our state can stop spending money enforcing stupid laws and concentrate on real crimes like theft.  Our people can stop spending so much on a weed that we can grow ourselves, and have more money for other products and services.

Now, when newly elected tea-party congressmen are looking for portions of the federal budget to cut, we should remind them that there are whole Cabinet-level departments, like the DEA, committed to unnecessary evil that should never have been created and would not be missed by most of us if they were eliminated.  Frankly, if they can’t get rid of the DEA and the Department of Education, they won’t get far with balancing our budget.

(You may contact your Congressman by calling 202-224-3121; you don’t even have to know his name.  Put this number in your cell phone for easy use; it’s rather satisfying to call and leave a message for your public servant.)

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040         rycke@gardener.com