Everybody Must Get Legal

Everybody Must Get Legal

Ed Rosenthal talks about pot politics and getting stoned.

In the ongoing fight to legalize marijuana, there is no more a central figure than Oakland’s Ed Rosenthal. An expert on marijuana cultivation, Rosenthal was busted by the feds for growing pot for Oakland’s first legal marijuana dispensaries in 2002, despite the fact that he was acting as an official agent of the city to do so—something the jury never heard about. Can you say “grounds for appeal?” Rosenthal never served any hard time, but his case did bring into sharp focus the discrepancies between states with legal medical marijuana and the federal laws against the drug. Despite the battles, Rosenthal, who wrote one of the first books on marijuana cultivation 40 years ago and has a publishing company (Quick Trading Company) devoted to all things green (if you know what I mean), continues to advocate for full legalization. If marijuana advocates like Rosenthal have their way, the question will be put to the state’s voters again (it flopped in 2010) on the 2016 November ballot. How’s it all going to shake out? I rang the self-proclaimed “guru of ganja” recently to find out.

Paul Kilduff: I got the distinct impression that as far as pot legalization goes, you feel that Washington got it wrong. Did Colorado get it right?

Ed Rosenthal: Colorado was not bad, but administratively it could be handled better. It has separate medical and nonmedical adult-use pathways. And that’s going to become more important because the dispensary and an adult-use shop will have an overlap of products, but each will have products that the other doesn’t have. I’ll just give you one example. CBD is a medicine, but it doesn’t get you high, right? So a medical shop is more likely to carry a lot of CBD material.

PK: CBD?

ER: There are two main components that marijuana might have. One is THC [Tetrahydrocannabinol]; the other is CBD [Cannabidiol]. CBD does not have a psychological effect on you. It doesn’t get you high, but it is used medically. So if there were separate medical and adult-use shops, you would go to a medical shop to get your CBD material, but an adult-use shop might not have that product.

PK: When you go into a medical marijuana dispensary now, the products there are not going to get you high primarily?

ER: Yeah, they primarily will.

PK: Now?

ER: Now. And I am not saying that they won’t [if marijuana is legalized in 2016]. I am just saying there will be a different mix of products. When medical and adult-use are separated, there will be overlap of products in the shops, but there will also be products that are unique to either shop.

PK: For various reasons, full legalization of marijuana did not pass in 2010. Why do you think it’s going to be different in 2016?

ER: There are three reasons. One is that 2010 was an off-year election, and you have a different demographic than the presidential elections, which are more progressive. And the reason for that is that a lot of people don’t vote in off-year elections. The second reason is because the population has changed. Over the last six years, the oldest 12 percent of the voters have left us, and new younger voters have replaced them, and those voters tend to be more progressive than the older voters. The ones who were most opposed to marijuana are dying off. And the third reason is that the activists were dis-unified in 2010, and I think in 2016 they won’t be. There’s a fourth reason, too, which is public opinion is still moving up in terms of positive.

PK: We’re all concerned about drunk driving. What about driving while high?

ER: Well look, marijuana is not legal. But you know millions of people in California use it, right? And then they go driving, right? Where are all these marijuana accidents? The question is already answered. Making it legal doesn’t change the situation.

PK: How do you foresee driving while high will be regulated?

ER: Actually there was a test performed in Washington state to determine how people’s driving was. They gave people more and more higher-intensity pot. And at the higher intensities people said, “You know, I should not be driving; I would not drive like this.”

PK: Are you saying it’s a self-regulating thing? That people are going to know they’re too high to drive and won’t?

ER: Yeah, that’s what happened in the test. You have probably been around drunks who say that they can drive perfectly, while they can hardly walk, right? You don’t have that with pot.

PK: It seems as though people are getting away from smoking marijuana and more into edibles …

ER: Vaporizing.

PK: Yeah, vaporizing, too. Are they better for you than smoking?

ER: If you look at Dr. Donald Tashkin’s studies [at UCLA], he showed that marijuana really isn’t harmful to your lungs. It actually is a protection against cancer. That was a government-sponsored study.

PK: Do you think a lot of doctors are recommending that?

ER: If I were a doctor, I would write you a prescription for pot.

PK: How often do you partake?

ER: I only smoke once a day, starting in the morning.

PK: So you “wake and bake?”

ER: That’s right. A lot of people can function pretty well being stoned, so there’s no reason for them not to be. I mean, if you’re doing routine work. Let’s say you’re doing factory work—I am telling you, you would rather be stoned. A very long time ago, I worked at the post office, and we worked handling mailbags, and everybody would smoke first and then go unload the truck. It just made it go easier.

PK: Is there any gig you would not recommend someone smoke weed before they do?

ER: Well, I am doing a book, How to Pilot a Plane While Stoned. And the second book I am doing in that series is Brain Neurosurgery While Stoned. [Laughs]

PK: Just about anyone can get a medical marijuana card. Does that take away from its validity?

ER: It takes away the validity of the prohibition. The prohibition isn’t valid. Getting your medical card is stopping you from having the most serious problems with marijuana that you could have—getting busted. If you don’t want people to do that, then you won’t force them into that situation.

————

For more Kilduff, visit the “Kilduff File Super Fan Page” on Facebook.


ED ROSENTHAL Vital Stats

Age: 69

Birthplace: Manhattan

Astrological Sign: Sagittarius

Book on Nightstand: The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success

Former Motto: “To live outside the law you must be careful.”

Website: EdRosenthal.com

Faces of the East Bay