Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of my Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as
Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show
Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today, the issue
Speaker 1: is a bit close to me personally. The subject we're
Speaker 1: talk about today is Jews and cannabis. And what prompted
Speaker 1: this was not that I just something like discovered I'm Jewish.
Speaker 1: I mean Jewish all my life. As many of your
Speaker 1: listeners hear the references I make from time to time,
Speaker 1: but there was an exhibit re only in New York
Speaker 1: that's actually playing for the rest of the year on
Speaker 1: the subject Jews and cannabis. It's at a famous institute
Speaker 1: called EVO, the Addition Institute for Jewish Research, which is
Speaker 1: part of a broader umbrella organization called the Center for
Speaker 1: Jewish History, which is committed to the preservation and study
Speaker 1: of the history and culture of East European Jury, but
Speaker 1: a key academic advisor and the head of their exhibitions,
Speaker 1: Eddie Portnoy, has always been sort of drawn to looking
Speaker 1: at the Devian side of things, and he came up
Speaker 1: with this idea of doing an exhibit on Jews and cannabis,
Speaker 1: which I just went to in May, which was fascinating.
Speaker 1: Place was packed and so Eddie, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me on Psychoactive. Thanks for having mean so Eddie, what
Speaker 1: was it that prompted you to, you know, do Jews
Speaker 1: in cannabis. Well, one of the odd things was a
Speaker 1: few years ago I happen to see online really kind
Speaker 1: of beautifully sculpted glass bong in the shape of a
Speaker 1: manora for the holiday of Hankka, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: this is really kind of an unusual will think it's
Speaker 1: this confluence of cannabis culture and Jewish culture. And I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know, I work at a historical
Speaker 1: research institute that has a really enormous archive with something
Speaker 1: like twenty four million objects and artifacts and documents, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, we've been collecting Jewish material culture
Speaker 1: for almost a hundred years. This Manura bong is something
Speaker 1: that's representative of Jewish material culture. This should be in
Speaker 1: our collection. And so I contacted the company Grav that
Speaker 1: makes it, and I told them what I just told you,
Speaker 1: that I work at historical research institute that has this
Speaker 1: huge archive, and I asked if they would donate it
Speaker 1: to the archives, and they were very receptive. They said sure,
Speaker 1: and they then following week it was in my office
Speaker 1: and as it sat at my desk, I thought to myself, well,
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought was why would anyone smoke
Speaker 1: eight bowls of weed at a time. But the second
Speaker 1: thing I thought was could I feasibly make an exhibit
Speaker 1: on Jews and cannabis? You know, could this? Could this?
Speaker 1: Is this something that I could actually create? Are there
Speaker 1: more items like this? You know, what's the history of this?
Speaker 1: And I began to do a bit of research and
Speaker 1: sure enough I came up with really much more than
Speaker 1: I would ever need to create an exhibit. And we
Speaker 1: waited until COVID was a little bit calmer to open it.
Speaker 1: But it opened it. As you said, the place was
Speaker 1: packed and it's gotten a really great reception. So far. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when looking at your background and what you've
Speaker 1: written and done in the past, I feel a certain
Speaker 1: kinship with you know, when I was doing my own
Speaker 1: PhD in politics, you know, decades ago, and I was
Speaker 1: always drawn to the kind of deviant side of things.
Speaker 1: I was curious about deviant and about even thinking about devians,
Speaker 1: not just in a sociological context, but a political context
Speaker 1: and even in a global context. And my senses that
Speaker 1: you also had that history. I mean, the book you
Speaker 1: wrote was called I think Bad Rabbi tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that to provide some broader context of this, right,
Speaker 1: so bad Rabbi. The full title is Bad Rabbi and
Speaker 1: Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press. This
Speaker 1: book contains a wide variety of different stories, most of
Speaker 1: them called from old Yiddish newspapers. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I began doing this was when I was doing
Speaker 1: research for my dissertation, which was on cartoons of the
Speaker 1: Yiddish press. I had to read the Yiddish press extensively,
Speaker 1: and I kept coming across really unusual articles about I
Speaker 1: guess what you'd call Jews in trouble, but trouble of
Speaker 1: their own making sort of bunglers and screw ups and
Speaker 1: you know, criminals and people involved in violent situations. And
Speaker 1: some of them were really hilarious. Some of them are tragic,
Speaker 1: some are tragic comic. But I've sort of found this
Speaker 1: trove of incredibly fascinating stories about Jews, mostly from the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, and they weren't the typical things you
Speaker 1: thought of when you thought of, you know, Yiddish speaking Jews.
Speaker 1: There are riots and murders and psychics and all kinds
Speaker 1: of fights. They are knocked down, drag out battles during
Speaker 1: divorce proceedings in rabbinical courts. It's almost as if it's
Speaker 1: a kind of Yiddish Jerry Springer show. And when I
Speaker 1: was at school and deeply studying the Jews of this era,
Speaker 1: I never came across material like this. But yet in
Speaker 1: Yiddish newspapers, this kind of material was legion and it
Speaker 1: really fascinated me, and so I compiled the fair amount
Speaker 1: of it and produced this book. M Well I saw it.
Speaker 1: I think also some of the other exhibits, maybe the
Speaker 1: ones that you've curated. There. There's one called Fight Club
Speaker 1: about the Jewish boxers and how many Jewish champions that
Speaker 1: were in boxing. There were Jews in space, jewsing comedy,
Speaker 1: and Renaissance literature, jew Face, which was kind of the
Speaker 1: variant of black face, mysterally involving Jewish and Jewish theater.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it sounds like there's a number of
Speaker 1: ones where you've kind of been drawn to looking at
Speaker 1: this sort of surprising ways in which Jews play a
Speaker 1: role in which you would not expect them to be playing. Right,
Speaker 1: That's basically my m o. I look for aspects of
Speaker 1: Jewish life that people really haven't scholars or really anyone
Speaker 1: else hasn't really touched on a great deal. And often
Speaker 1: this has to do with deviance, and some of it
Speaker 1: winds up being really fascinating. And I could just add that,
Speaker 1: you know, one interesting person who's connected to cannabis is
Speaker 1: Howard Becker, who's one of the fathers of Devian studies
Speaker 1: in sociology. And you know, he wrote one of the
Speaker 1: early academic articles in the Orly nineteen fifties on cannabis use.
Speaker 1: Howard Becker's I think he wrote Becoming a Marijuana User,
Speaker 1: where he talked about what it means to learn how
Speaker 1: to be high. I mean Howard Becker is still in
Speaker 1: his nineties. He became a very famous sociologist, but no,
Speaker 1: he was an early really leader in there. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the things you put in the exhibit is you
Speaker 1: go back to the period and it's a really very
Speaker 1: rich period of the nineties, sixties and seventies when you
Speaker 1: have both the counterculture as well as the Jewish researchers
Speaker 1: and scientists who are basically, you know, advocating for marijuana
Speaker 1: reform in the very early stages of the first wave
Speaker 1: of marijuana reform, and who are disproportionately Jewish at that time. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll say there was one name in the exhibit I
Speaker 1: think that I did not recognize. I think it was
Speaker 1: Walter Bromberg. Walter Bromberg, who was a psychiatrist, you know,
Speaker 1: working in the nineteen thirties at Bellevue Hospital and he
Speaker 1: did some of the first research on marijuana smokers who
Speaker 1: had been brought into his ward and he produced i
Speaker 1: think his first article in nineteen thirty four, and what
Speaker 1: he found was brilliant opposition to what was happening in
Speaker 1: the press, where marijuana was perceived as you know, something
Speaker 1: that caused people to engage in violence. Or made them
Speaker 1: psychotic in some way. He found that it didn't do
Speaker 1: that at all. His findings showed that marijuana was not
Speaker 1: particularly detrimental, at least not in the same way as
Speaker 1: you know, opium, morphine or you know, even alcohol. Right,
Speaker 1: And his recommendations I think shaped the LaGuardia Commission, which
Speaker 1: was one of the early governmental commissions in the US
Speaker 1: to come out basically advocating for some form of decriminalization
Speaker 1: of cannabis back in the thirties, and headed up or
Speaker 1: appointed by a mayor, Fiero LaGuardia, Italian name but half Jewish,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, you'd just speaking Italian mayor. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you there was a moment I remember in nineteen eighties seven,
Speaker 1: and I had just started teaching at Princeton and been
Speaker 1: asked to teach a corse on drug policy and gave
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to invite some of the more prominent
Speaker 1: figures in and I remember that's how I met Andrew
Speaker 1: Wild who was actually my very first guest on Psychoactive
Speaker 1: almost a year or so ago. And I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: having dinner with Andy, and he says, he's you ever
Speaker 1: wonder or maybe worry about how many Jews are involved,
Speaker 1: and we were just talking about cannabis, but brought a
Speaker 1: drug policy reform because you know, it was him. Then
Speaker 1: there was Arnold Treeback, who had just co created the
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Foundation to advocate against the drug war. But
Speaker 1: then you had Lester grin Spoon Harvard Medical School and
Speaker 1: Norman Zendberg at Harvard Medical School. And you had Ed Brecker,
Speaker 1: who had written the Editors of Consumers Report, which is
Speaker 1: a breakthrough book challenging the major drug work. John Kaplan,
Speaker 1: a Standford law professor who together with Grinspoon, wrote a
Speaker 1: couple of the key books in the early seventies, basically
Speaker 1: advocating for some reform. And so it raises the interesting
Speaker 1: question of was there ever a sense of marijuana legalist
Speaker 1: Asian or marijuana being something of a Jewish conspiracy. Some
Speaker 1: people thought, so, you know, one of those people being
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon. Well, now that you mentioned Nixon, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's just go to the famous clip of his He's
Speaker 1: talking to hr Holden and his aid and he's complaining
Speaker 1: about marijuana and Jews Jewish matter always. So just in
Speaker 1: case you couldn't make out what Nixon was saying, there
Speaker 1: he says, you know, it's a funny thing. Every one
Speaker 1: of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.
Speaker 1: What the crisis the matter with the Jews? Bob? He
Speaker 1: says to Bob Holdman, what's the matter with them? I
Speaker 1: suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists. So, Eddie,
Speaker 1: what's your take on that Nixon quote? Right? So, on
Speaker 1: the one hand, it's hilarious, and on the other hand,
Speaker 1: and it's terrible because you know, it obviously reveals Nixon's
Speaker 1: anti Semitism and his obvious pension for conspiracy theory. But
Speaker 1: what's actually happening here is this quote was recorded in
Speaker 1: the Oval office on his secret recording apparatus on I
Speaker 1: Believe one, and he was about to officially launch his
Speaker 1: drug war, and Lester Grinsapon's book Reconsidering Marijuana had come
Speaker 1: out a few weeks earlier, and this was a book
Speaker 1: written by a Harvard University psychiatry professor published by Harvard
Speaker 1: University Press. It's clearly something that's respected and legitimate. And
Speaker 1: the end result is that marijuana is not detrimental, it's
Speaker 1: even something that should be legalized. And obviously this is
Speaker 1: backed up by years of research, and so Nixon is
Speaker 1: furious because he's about to launch the drug war and
Speaker 1: this very obviously Jewish psychiatrist comes out with this book
Speaker 1: that's going to be problematic for him. And it's connected
Speaker 1: to this in some way. Is the other people who
Speaker 1: are involved in legalization and some of the people who
Speaker 1: Nixon is also trying to get at with the drug
Speaker 1: war are the Yippies, who are also Certainly anyone can
Speaker 1: join the Yippies, and probably most of you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think that there was any kind of official membership.
Speaker 1: So the Yippies was a political organization. Some people call
Speaker 1: them the groucho Marxists. They were this kind of radical
Speaker 1: left wing political group who was very performative some of
Speaker 1: the things they did. And if anyone saw the recent
Speaker 1: Chicago Seven movie, the Chicago Seven essentially the founders of
Speaker 1: the Yippies, and they would go into the gallery of
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange and in the middle of
Speaker 1: trading throw out hundreds of dollar bills and the traders
Speaker 1: would all go running to grab the dollar bills, and
Speaker 1: it was obviously meant to embarrass them. They also did
Speaker 1: things like threatened to spike the water system of Chicago
Speaker 1: with LSD. During the night Democratic Convention, they attempted to
Speaker 1: levitate the Pentagon. They were all kinds of funny formative activities.
Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things that I actually didn't
Speaker 1: know about the Hippies until I started doing research on
Speaker 1: this was that marijuana legalization was central to their political platform.
Speaker 1: And in fact, their official flag, which is a black
Speaker 1: flag with a red star, also has a marijuana leaf
Speaker 1: embossed on it. And if you read their newspapers, among
Speaker 1: them the Yipster Times or Overthrow, they're full of articles
Speaker 1: about legalization and the importance of legalization. So Nixon hated
Speaker 1: these people, and obviously they hated Nixon as well, and
Speaker 1: so they were always at each other's streaks. But one
Speaker 1: way that Nixon could harm them was by instituting a
Speaker 1: drug war in which they would wind up in jail.
Speaker 1: And so that was part and parcel of the drug wars.
Speaker 1: Put users in jail and use resources for that instead
Speaker 1: of other possibly more useful matters. And it just so
Speaker 1: happens that all five of the founders of the Yippies
Speaker 1: were Jewish, I mean Abbie Hofman and his wife Anita,
Speaker 1: and Jerry Rubin, who were both in the trilog Chicago
Speaker 1: seven and Nancy Krishan and Paul Krasner. So once again,
Speaker 1: none of them probably all that connected in their adult
Speaker 1: lives to their judaism, but nonetheless organizing this kind of
Speaker 1: anarchistic group. And then of course he had Alan Ginsburg, right,
Speaker 1: the famous poet, right. Yeah, so Ginsburg he was actually
Speaker 1: one of really the early adopters of legalization as a platform.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, he and Ed Sanders of the Fugs,
Speaker 1: if anyone remembers, the Fugs band did really interesting stuff,
Speaker 1: actually did some Yiddish songs, so they also had a
Speaker 1: Yiddish connection. But Alan Ginsburg and had Sanders founded Limar
Speaker 1: or legalized marijuana in New York, and in late ninety
Speaker 1: four began organizing public protests in support of marijuana legalization.
Speaker 1: These were really, I believe, the first public protests in
Speaker 1: support of legalization. He also wrote articles, I think in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic promoting legalization. He was very active in this regard,
Speaker 1: and I guess it's somewhat unusual to have a literary
Speaker 1: figure do this. But one interesting thing here is the
Speaker 1: connection he makes between generation. So one interesting thing about
Speaker 1: Ginsberg iscause I understand that he began to use cannabis
Speaker 1: as a results of his connection with the jazz scene.
Speaker 1: Jazz musicians have been using cannabis since the twenties, and
Speaker 1: he's also this link between the jazz scene and the
Speaker 1: popularization of cannabis and the nineties sixties counterculture, which he's
Speaker 1: also involved in, And so that makes him a kind
Speaker 1: of unusual figure in that regard. Well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: also something else because you go back to the thirties,
Speaker 1: right when you had both very common marijuana use among
Speaker 1: jazz musicians. Annu also had beginnings of reefer madness with
Speaker 1: Harry ann Slinger, the head of the FARO Bureau of
Speaker 1: Narcotics and others. But I mean that was the point
Speaker 1: where you had many musicians right who had reefer songs,
Speaker 1: and many of them didn't even have lyrics. But I
Speaker 1: think that you had Fats Waller and Duke Ellington and
Speaker 1: Jeane Krupa. But then you had a Jewish guy like
Speaker 1: Benny Goodman, the famous clarinetist who had his song Texas
Speaker 1: tea Party. And then the one who perhaps me the
Speaker 1: greatest connection here was Mesro, a clarinetist. Among other things,
Speaker 1: he did a song sending the viper, but who had
Speaker 1: other connections? So just tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: miss Misroe. Right, So, mess Mesro was born in Chicago,
Speaker 1: learned to play saxophone in reform school. He was, you know,
Speaker 1: admittedly not a great kid, but learning to play saxophone
Speaker 1: kind of saved him. He got into the jazz scene
Speaker 1: in Chicago, played with a number of great and as
Speaker 1: a jazz musician, he began using cannabis because apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of people who were doing it, and he, while
Speaker 1: in Chicago, made a connection with a particular Mexican dealer
Speaker 1: who apparently had higher quality marijuana than others. In late twenties,
Speaker 1: he moved to New York to become part of the
Speaker 1: Harlem jazz scene. And he's not really able to support himself.
Speaker 1: So because he has this Mexican connection, he begins selling
Speaker 1: marijuana and apparently he becomes one of the most popular
Speaker 1: figures in Harlem. Because of this, he becomes Louis Armstrong's
Speaker 1: personal dealer. Louis Armstrong was frequent user. He called it muggles,
Speaker 1: which he references in a number of his songs. And
Speaker 1: as you said, mes Mesro gets named dropped in a
Speaker 1: lot of songs. In fact, in Harlem of the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: marijuana was known as mez and he used to sell
Speaker 1: these pre roles that everyone called mes roles. And he
Speaker 1: was Albert Goldman, who's this journalist and scholar and well
Speaker 1: known biographer of people like John Lennon and Lenny Bruce
Speaker 1: and Elvis. He wrote a history of Marijuana America that
Speaker 1: came out in late seventies and he wrote that mesro
Speaker 1: was really one of the most seminal figures in the
Speaker 1: popularization of cannabis in the United States. And yet to
Speaker 1: a certain degree, he's been forgotten in this regard, you know,
Speaker 1: with the exception of mentioned in these books. Which is
Speaker 1: interesting here is he's this Jewish kid from Chicago who
Speaker 1: gets involved in the jazz scene, gets involved with cannabis
Speaker 1: use and sales in New York and then Alan Ginsberg
Speaker 1: winds up as a fan of jazz, going to show
Speaker 1: starts smoking cannabis because of that, and then he becomes
Speaker 1: this link to the counterculture and the ultimate large scale
Speaker 1: popularization of marijuana use as part of this growing youth culture,
Speaker 1: him being the marijuana deal supplier for the most famous
Speaker 1: marijuana use her in American history, which was Louis Armstrong,
Speaker 1: You know, Louie Armstrong, clearly not the black Man, a Baptist,
Speaker 1: I think, but somebody who wore a star of David
Speaker 1: all his adult life. I think because he had a
Speaker 1: very close relationship with the Jewish family when he was
Speaker 1: a kid, and he saw that family is having kind
Speaker 1: of enabled him to help him become who he was,
Speaker 1: not least by helping him buy his first trumpet when
Speaker 1: he was very younger. Yeah, so you get the counterculture
Speaker 1: from the thirties and the jazz era and then going
Speaker 1: into the sixties, and then in the exhibit you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think some of the musicians famous Jewish musicians, although
Speaker 1: they were may not have been known for being famous
Speaker 1: because they were Jewish. But one I think was shel Silverstein, right,
Speaker 1: who was a writer and a poet, a cartoonist, songware player.
Speaker 1: I think it was most famous for children's books like
Speaker 1: The Giving Tree and A Light in the Attic. And
Speaker 1: he also wrote that Johnny Cash song A Boy named Sue.
Speaker 1: But what was his contribution to marijuana songology? Verstein wrote,
Speaker 1: I got stone and I missed it missed. It's a
Speaker 1: song about someone who gets high and then misses out
Speaker 1: on some things. So it's the sort of comic song
Speaker 1: about you know what happens to you if you get
Speaker 1: too high? So Phillips wrote, you can't get stone enough.
Speaker 1: And so this is obviously a popular thematic in the
Speaker 1: nineties sixties, all of these you know, folk singers and
Speaker 1: rock stars would come to sing songs about cannabis in
Speaker 1: some way. We'll be talking more after we hear this ad. Now,
Speaker 1: the most famous song I think that's associated with marijuana
Speaker 1: but may not actually have been about marijuana, was by
Speaker 1: a guy named Bob Zimmerman who became Bob Diller, right right,
Speaker 1: Rainy Day Woman, Yeah, yeah, a day Women number twelve
Speaker 1: and thirty five and everybody must get stoned. But was
Speaker 1: that actually about getting high? Right? So he claims it's not.
Speaker 1: He claims it's about getting stone in the biblical sense
Speaker 1: of people stoning you if you've done something wrong. But
Speaker 1: he's obviously referencing getting stone, you know, getting high. There's
Speaker 1: no question that that's the reference, and that's clearly what
Speaker 1: made the song funny and popular, even though he's evidently
Speaker 1: talking about something else. Dylan also famously introduced the Beatles
Speaker 1: to marijuana, and by doing so may have changed the
Speaker 1: course of music history. Although interesting, right Ringo Star from
Speaker 1: the Beatles, I think at one point writes an anti
Speaker 1: marijuana's song. And I was actually talking Eddie to a
Speaker 1: Steve Bloom, you know who's been a marijuana journalist for
Speaker 1: decades at high times. Now he has lived stoner, and
Speaker 1: he pointed me to another song called the Pot Smokers
Speaker 1: Song by Neil Diamond in eight Do you know about this?
Speaker 1: But ye, I didn't know about it. That sounds great,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it's an anti marijuana song. I think
Speaker 1: Neil Diamond had visited Phoenix House, the drug treatment facility
Speaker 1: absence only drug treatment facility and headed by Mitch Rosenthal,
Speaker 1: also Jewish and a notorious kind of drug warrior, and
Speaker 1: Neil Diamond writes this terrible song, the Pot Smoker's Song,
Speaker 1: all anti marijuana, all equating it with heroin, and then
Speaker 1: years later he basically Recn's He says that writing that
Speaker 1: song almost destroyed his career. He realized it was a
Speaker 1: difference between marijuana and heroin. So yeah, different twist on
Speaker 1: the marijuana and songs aspect to all of this stuff. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's so fascinating. I guess it's not as big of
Speaker 1: a hit as Sweet Caroline. No, No, that's right, that's right,
Speaker 1: exactly lucky for him. But then if you jump forward
Speaker 1: Amy Winehouse right, which you know, dies tragically in her
Speaker 1: mid to late twenties and writes with the rehab song.
Speaker 1: But she has another song addicted. It's clearly something she enjoys.
Speaker 1: That's the gist of the lyric. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the key was you smoke all my weed man, you
Speaker 1: gotta call the green man. And then separately, there is
Speaker 1: in the Jewish music world of Klezmer music. You introduced
Speaker 1: me to something there I knew nothing about. Right. This
Speaker 1: is a song by the Kleismatics. Lyrics are written by
Speaker 1: Michael Wex. It's sheer more lakhan if and it's the
Speaker 1: reefer song in Yiddish, then run out and in Yiddish
Speaker 1: there are there are a fair number of drinking songs,
Speaker 1: and the Klismatics as a band who helped revive Klezmer music,
Speaker 1: which is Jewish traditional Eastern European music that most often
Speaker 1: gets played at weddings and sort of celebratory events. They
Speaker 1: decided that they wanted to put in an album of
Speaker 1: drinking songs, and they felt that they needed to update
Speaker 1: their material and have a song about smoking weeds. So
Speaker 1: they created this Yiddish reefer song, and I believe it's
Speaker 1: the only song in Yiddish about smoking cannabis. One of
Speaker 1: the points you made at the opening of the exhibit,
Speaker 1: and it was as part of the exhibit from which
Speaker 1: I learned the most, was that in some respects, when
Speaker 1: you look at the history of Jews in cannabis, there's
Speaker 1: relatively little, almost nothing in terms of the history of
Speaker 1: Jews in Europe, in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Yiddish Europe,
Speaker 1: Christian Europe, that it was sort of absent. And if
Speaker 1: you really want to look at the history of Jews
Speaker 1: and cannabis, you have to go back, maybe to the
Speaker 1: Bible or else to the role of the Jews, the
Speaker 1: Sephardic Jews as opposed to the ash Can Nazi Jews
Speaker 1: in Europe, the Sephardic Jews living in North Africa, in
Speaker 1: Egypt and Spain, where there is the more of a connection.
Speaker 1: And maybe you could just tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the origins of cannabis in the Bible, and then
Speaker 1: continuing through into the Middle Ages in that part of
Speaker 1: the world. Cannabis has been around, obviously for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It's been in the Middle East for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It's mentioned in the Bible and the Talmud, and the
Speaker 1: Talmud which is compendium of Jewish law, as well as
Speaker 1: a number of other religious texts. And in the Bible
Speaker 1: they refer to something called kannebos, and this is Hebrew,
Speaker 1: and it's usually translated as fragrant stock or aromatic cane,
Speaker 1: And in Exodus, for example, it's it's used to make
Speaker 1: anointing oil. Some translators call it sweet calamus, which is
Speaker 1: another plant. It's not really clear that that's what it
Speaker 1: is at all, and it's also not clear that it's
Speaker 1: actually cannabis, but a number of medieval rabbis and scholars
Speaker 1: today believe that it is cannabis, and one of its
Speaker 1: roles in the Bible, in addition to being used in
Speaker 1: making anointing oil, is as part of something called the
Speaker 1: cat at which which is a mixture of herbs and
Speaker 1: spices that was produced to create incense that was burned
Speaker 1: in the ancient temple in Jerusalem. And the burning of
Speaker 1: incense actually had was an integral part of Jewish ritual,
Speaker 1: and so this kind of bossum appears in this regard.
Speaker 1: And so one component of this squatt or the incense
Speaker 1: that's burned in the temple is something called the malaya
Speaker 1: shan or, which in Hebrew means this smoke riser, and
Speaker 1: it's an element that apparently makes the smoke go directly up.
Speaker 1: And there's a twelfth century Spanish rabbi is known as
Speaker 1: Nahumanities in his commentaries on Exodus, seems to claim that
Speaker 1: this sort of mysterious element, the smoke razer is kannebosum
Speaker 1: or cannabis. Additionally, there's the recipe for this incense is
Speaker 1: not found in the Bible, It's not found anywhere, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the recipe itself was held by a particular
Speaker 1: family in Jerusalem, the of Tina's family, and they notoriously
Speaker 1: refused to tell anyone what exactly was in it, and
Speaker 1: so no one really knows. There are a number of
Speaker 1: books that claim to know what exactly is in it,
Speaker 1: but apparently no one. No one actually does know. And
Speaker 1: there is also just more evidence as to what kind
Speaker 1: of bosa maybe in the Talmud, there's a story and
Speaker 1: the Talmud, as I said, as a compendium of Jewish law.
Speaker 1: There's a story in which Rabbi Akiva finds a boy
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem laughing and crying at the same time, and
Speaker 1: so he asks them, you know, why, what's going on
Speaker 1: while you're laughing and crying at the same time. And
Speaker 1: it turned out that he was in a field of
Speaker 1: the secret herb that made part of this incense. And
Speaker 1: so I think that if you're in a field of
Speaker 1: this herb that's part of this incense, and you're laughing
Speaker 1: and you're crying, there's something about a type of psychoactive
Speaker 1: ingredient that may be part of that. Another aspect to
Speaker 1: this is my Monitis, who's another well known medieval rabbi,
Speaker 1: I mean, perhaps the greatest of all the medieval era
Speaker 1: right Jewish philosophers. And he was an astronomer, He was
Speaker 1: a physician, a personal physician to the Sultan salad In.
Speaker 1: So I mean really, I mean, of all the great
Speaker 1: Jewish scholars, probably the ones who my Monity stands out
Speaker 1: one of the best known from this era. So all
Speaker 1: of these rabbis and scholars attempt to make sense of
Speaker 1: the sort of the flora and the fauna that's in
Speaker 1: the Bible, and so of course my monty is his
Speaker 1: definition of kane bosm is that it's a reddish green plant.
Speaker 1: It's used in medicine, and it's imported from India. India
Speaker 1: had long been a source for cannabis, and this is
Speaker 1: more evidence that kind of bosum does appear to actually
Speaker 1: be cannabis. Additionally, there was a Polish scholar named Jula
Speaker 1: Bennett who claimed that linguistically, kind of bosam came from
Speaker 1: the Scythian word, and the Scythians were a Middle Eastern
Speaker 1: tribe that preceded the Israelites I think by number of
Speaker 1: thousands of years or hundreds of years, and they were
Speaker 1: known to have used cannabis and their rituals. Is it
Speaker 1: just coincidence that kind of bosam sounds so much like cannabis.
Speaker 1: It may be, but it's actually not clear. It may
Speaker 1: be coincidence, and it may be that that's where the
Speaker 1: etymology actually stems from. And there is archaeological evidence also
Speaker 1: from some of the digs in Israel and Palestine. Looking
Speaker 1: at right, that's correct. So in the nineteen sixties, archaeologists
Speaker 1: began to excavate a dig of an ancient synagogue in
Speaker 1: a town called Telerod, which is near the Dead Sea,
Speaker 1: and it was actually be in the nineties sixties. But
Speaker 1: one of the things they found that they didn't investigate
Speaker 1: was that there are two small altars in this synagogue
Speaker 1: ruin and on the tops of the altars was the
Speaker 1: burned residue of some substance. So they took it for
Speaker 1: carbon dating and for chemical analysis, and they found that
Speaker 1: one the residue was from the third century, which is
Speaker 1: when the synagogue was apparently active, and on one of
Speaker 1: the altars was the burned residue of frankinsense, and the
Speaker 1: other altar was the burned residue of cannabis, and they
Speaker 1: found cannabinoids found cb d, t h C, CBN, And
Speaker 1: this is, you know, yet another indication that the ancient
Speaker 1: Hebrews were burning cannabis in religious ceremonies, and apparently not
Speaker 1: only the temple in Jerusalem. So what's fascinating here is
Speaker 1: and obviously with the advent of the diaspora two thousand
Speaker 1: years ago along the way, there are certain rituals that
Speaker 1: you're not you know, either because they must be performed
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem in the Temple or because they got us
Speaker 1: along the way that have just sort of disappeared from
Speaker 1: normative Jewish ceremony, and these appeared to be one of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, we still on Saturday night, at the end
Speaker 1: of the Sabbath, a ritual called Havdalah is performed, which
Speaker 1: separates the holiness of the Sabbath from the secularity of
Speaker 1: the work a day week. And part of that ceremony
Speaker 1: is to smell sweet herbs, and so that maybe the
Speaker 1: remnant of the use of incense in ancient times. It's
Speaker 1: not it's entirely clear, but it maybe or the ritual
Speaker 1: just disappeared entirely. But there are currently people who are
Speaker 1: trying to reintegrate cannabis use into Jewish ritual, which is
Speaker 1: you know something that's that's pretty fascinating. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you're talking about. There's a cannabis sader out in Oregon
Speaker 1: and a couple of Roy and Clear Kaufman organized some
Speaker 1: of your In fact, I was invited to it. I
Speaker 1: was unable to go. I was very Sabbath. They came
Speaker 1: out with a cannabis Agata and created a nonprofit called
Speaker 1: They are basically I think too, you know, the substitute
Speaker 1: cannabis for let us the Sader plate and promote consumption
Speaker 1: of cannabis as part of the passover. Going back to
Speaker 1: the ancient stuff, you also had a couple of posts
Speaker 1: in an exhibit involving the Cairo Geniza and just maybe
Speaker 1: explain what that was and what was found there. Right,
Speaker 1: So this isn't really ancient, it's really from the medieval period.
Speaker 1: It's from the eleventh through the fourteen centuries. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that I found in
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe and in Europe, and generally you really don't
Speaker 1: find much activity, and there's a little bit, but you
Speaker 1: don't find much activity with Jews and cannabis or really
Speaker 1: many people in cannabis. I mean, there's some intellectuals who
Speaker 1: sort of explore it, and I'm sort of a mass scale.
Speaker 1: Cannabis is available for rope making or textiles, but it's
Speaker 1: not used as as an intoxican at all. So when
Speaker 1: I began this research, one of the things I found
Speaker 1: was I needed to find Jews who were in an
Speaker 1: area where cannabis was used regularly, and that turned out
Speaker 1: to be the Middle East, where hashish has been a
Speaker 1: popular intoxican for thousands of years, and so Jews who
Speaker 1: live in the Middle East who are either Safardim or
Speaker 1: the descendants of Spanish Jews or Miserachim who are considered
Speaker 1: Eastern Jews or Jews who have remained in the Middle
Speaker 1: East from the beginning. They were dispersed throughout North Africa
Speaker 1: and the Arabian Peninsula and other places, generally throughout the
Speaker 1: Middle East, and because Hashish was was generally popular, they
Speaker 1: used it as well. You know, Jews always participated to
Speaker 1: varying degrees in the cultures in which they reside, and
Speaker 1: so because has she was commonly used in these places,
Speaker 1: they did as well. And so generally you don't find
Speaker 1: documentary evidence of things like hashish use. It's you know,
Speaker 1: like trying to find documentary evidence of something someone eight,
Speaker 1: although you can sometimes find that in some ways. But
Speaker 1: there was a synagogue in Egypt called the Benezer Synagogue,
Speaker 1: and most synagogues, I would say almost all synagogues have
Speaker 1: a special room called the giniza. And what that essentially
Speaker 1: is is a storage room for damaged documents, damaged prayer books,
Speaker 1: damaged bibles, damaged torahs, damaged Talmud's, things that people can
Speaker 1: no longer use. And the reason that these things need
Speaker 1: to be stored is that, according to Jewish tradition, you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to just casually throw these books away because
Speaker 1: they contain the name of God, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you have to store them until you have enough to
Speaker 1: bury them in a ceremony, which is what's traditionally done.
Speaker 1: So in the Benezer Synagogue, beginning in the ninth century,
Speaker 1: they began throwing away the books that were damaged, and
Speaker 1: in addition to books, it turned out that for the
Speaker 1: next thousand years until the nineteenth century, this community throughout
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of documents that ranged from wedding contracts,
Speaker 1: business contracts, all kinds of literature ranging from prose to
Speaker 1: poetry to popular songs, letters, all kinds of correspondence to
Speaker 1: and from businesses, individuals, the government. And it is an
Speaker 1: incredible historical trove of documentary evidence that shows how this
Speaker 1: community lived and what they did with their interests were,
Speaker 1: what literature they read, all kinds of fascinating aspects that
Speaker 1: we would never know otherwise had this stuff actually gotten
Speaker 1: thrown away. This ins it was discovered in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century by scholars who began researching it and also
Speaker 1: began taking it to wherever they lived. So there's a
Speaker 1: huge trove of it in St. Petersburg, it's a huge
Speaker 1: trove of it in Cambridge, England, there's trove of it
Speaker 1: to New York that Jewish Theological Seminary, and in a
Speaker 1: variety of other places. But there are now certain projects
Speaker 1: scholars who focus on this, and one of them is
Speaker 1: the Princeton guinessa project where they've taken digitized images of
Speaker 1: a lot of these documents and uh created databases of them.
Speaker 1: And so I looked in their database and discovered that
Speaker 1: there were a number of documents that referenced Hashish, and
Speaker 1: theoretically there shouldn't be surprising. Initially I was surprised, but
Speaker 1: then once I thought about the society in which they lived,
Speaker 1: it really made sense. And so, you know, there are
Speaker 1: things like letters to people, and I can read the
Speaker 1: text of one of them, and a lot of this
Speaker 1: material is written in Judeo Arabic, which is Jewish version
Speaker 1: of Arabic that's written in Hebrew letters and was the
Speaker 1: vernacular of the Jews in this time and place, and
Speaker 1: so this letter is it's very short, and it's dated
Speaker 1: to the from the twelfth to the thirteen centuries, and
Speaker 1: it reads as follows, me the esteemed Elder Abu el Hassan,
Speaker 1: God preserve him graciously obtained for the bear with the
Speaker 1: silver that he has fifty deer hums imitation sem nuty silk.
Speaker 1: He also has two carrots of ingots silver. Obtain hashish
Speaker 1: for me with them after I kiss your hands and
Speaker 1: feet peace. This is like a twelve th century venmo,
Speaker 1: please buy me wheat. You know, here's money, Please buy
Speaker 1: me wait, which shouldn't come as a surprise. But you know,
Speaker 1: when people think about ancient or medieval societies and the
Speaker 1: way that people live, there's just you know, there's a
Speaker 1: certain certain sensibility or certain stereotypes that people have, and
Speaker 1: hashish usage is not is generally not one of them.
Speaker 1: Like I never learned about Joos using hasheesh in Hebrew school.
Speaker 1: If I did, I might have stayed in Hebrew school.
Speaker 1: But certain things get canonized, and this is not one
Speaker 1: of them. There are a number of works by a
Speaker 1: particular writer that we're found, and he's thought to have
Speaker 1: lived in mom Look ruled Egypt around thirteen hundred from
Speaker 1: the year thirteen hundred and he calls himself Nasir the
Speaker 1: Hebrew litera tour. They think he's kind of like a
Speaker 1: popular bard. He sings his songs at weddings and in
Speaker 1: the marketplace, in another sort of popular events. And a
Speaker 1: number of his songs were found in the Genisa, and
Speaker 1: one of them is called Wine My Religion, and it's
Speaker 1: basically a wine versus Hashish battle song. It's like a
Speaker 1: rap battle, you know, between wine and hashe like again,
Speaker 1: this is not something you necessarily expect from the fourteenth century,
Speaker 1: written in Judeo Arabic, found in a synagogue waist bin.
Speaker 1: But one of the things he does is he Nasir
Speaker 1: really likes wine. He loves wine, and he really dislikes
Speaker 1: hashish and the people that use it. And so in
Speaker 1: the song he talks about how hash has a way
Speaker 1: of scrambling your brain. People that use it they eat
Speaker 1: everything in sight, their eyes turn all red, they slack
Speaker 1: off at work. These are the same stereotypes that people
Speaker 1: discussed today. But yet you have this early fourteenth century
Speaker 1: reference to it in Judeo Arabic that in consideration of
Speaker 1: Jewish documents that people dig out of archives, this is
Speaker 1: not something that gets a lot of play in the
Speaker 1: scholarly world. So for me, this is really kind of
Speaker 1: a fascinating reference. I mean, obviously Nasir doesn't like hashish,
Speaker 1: but it clearly references Jews who do, and there were
Speaker 1: quite clearly Jews who were using it in fourteenth century
Speaker 1: Egypt and doubtlessly all over North Africa in the Middle
Speaker 1: East because it was just commonly used. In the exhibit,
Speaker 1: there are a number of other references to this kind
Speaker 1: of usage as well. Let's take a break here and
Speaker 1: go to an ad. You have another part of the
Speaker 1: exhibit where you briefly mentioned this tradition and Judaism of
Speaker 1: gaumatria or numerology right where letters have numerical values. And
Speaker 1: for many people they most familiar with this is that
Speaker 1: typically if you see Jews wearing anything that's kind of
Speaker 1: Jewish oriented around their neck on a necklace, it might
Speaker 1: be the star of David, or the other thing will
Speaker 1: be the high the letters, and you would right and
Speaker 1: is eight, and you would is ten as eighteen and
Speaker 1: that means light. But you had something there about the
Speaker 1: possible numerology around four, right, So gamatri or or Hebrew numerology,
Speaker 1: and every Hebrew letters are accorded in numeric value, and
Speaker 1: this is most prominently used in Kabala. And what they
Speaker 1: do is they take these numbers and they create words
Speaker 1: out of them, or they take words and they add
Speaker 1: up their numeric value and they create new words or
Speaker 1: phrases or things like that. Using this system. The number
Speaker 1: four twenty turns into word ashan, which is smoke in Hebrew.
Speaker 1: It turns into a lot of other words as well.
Speaker 1: But this was useful for us because we have this
Speaker 1: really kind of with this brilliant artist Steve Marcus make
Speaker 1: this amazing poster that you know, has four twenty at
Speaker 1: the top and the word has shot at the bottom
Speaker 1: and a plume of smoke creating the number four twenty
Speaker 1: and also coincidentally insaid that the kids initially came up
Speaker 1: with four twenty, which is apparently the time they used
Speaker 1: to leave school and go get high as a code
Speaker 1: word for that was a group of mostly Jewish kids
Speaker 1: who called themselves the wal Does and they were, you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere in northern California. And this is obviously coincidence, but
Speaker 1: it's a good coincidence. Yeah, you know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: when you think about that strand of Judaism, Hasidic Judaism,
Speaker 1: a real kind of more spiritually oriented Judaism in a way,
Speaker 1: and one in where there's more drinking and dancing in
Speaker 1: addition to all of the scholarship you see with other
Speaker 1: elements of Judaism, but and with the ballsh until the
Speaker 1: founder of that some hundreds of years ago, you would
Speaker 1: think that there would have been cannabis associate with that,
Speaker 1: but I guess simply because it just wasn't around in
Speaker 1: that part of the world were Jews were living in
Speaker 1: central eastern Europe, they just didn't know about if they
Speaker 1: didn't have access to it or anything like that. Right
Speaker 1: right there is an author whose name is Josef le
Speaker 1: Needleman who wrote a book called Cannabis Hasidus, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that he argues is that all of
Speaker 1: the early Hasidic masters smoked pipes, and they were known
Speaker 1: to reach heights of ecstasy after smoking their pipes. So
Speaker 1: his claim is that they possibly were smoking cannabis, although
Speaker 1: it's not clear that historically it was actually available, but
Speaker 1: you never know. It's never mentioned explicitly anywhere, but it's
Speaker 1: still a fascinating idea. What's interesting today is that because
Speaker 1: cannabis is now legal in more places than it had been,
Speaker 1: there are Hasidium and other Orthodox Jews who are now
Speaker 1: using cannabis. Certainly they were using it before under the radar.
Speaker 1: But three years ago I was in Megi Budge, which
Speaker 1: is a town in Ukraine where the Balshamtov, the founder
Speaker 1: of Hasidism, is buried, and when we arrived there at
Speaker 1: the cemetery, the first thing we saw was a group
Speaker 1: of hassid Um sharing a joint, and so that was
Speaker 1: not expected, but also to a certain degree, I guess,
Speaker 1: not completely unexpected. And it's really interesting because you see now,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's videos on YouTube of these hyper orthodox
Speaker 1: ninety year old, you know, Orthodox rabbis blessing medical marijuana.
Speaker 1: And I know that in my own interactions with some
Speaker 1: of the Lebovit, the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, I can
Speaker 1: see there's an ease around marijuana. This seems to be
Speaker 1: that even though I guess an Orthodox Judaism, it's not
Speaker 1: treated the same as alcohol. There's a sense in which
Speaker 1: there seems to be a greater toleration of it, and
Speaker 1: maybe not just for medical but even sometimes outside the medical.
Speaker 1: But what's your perspective on this right there, I think
Speaker 1: definitely for medical and you know, since it's become legal,
Speaker 1: especially in New York, I think you'll find that it
Speaker 1: will become a regular feature of theirs and many other
Speaker 1: people's lives. And one of the reasons is that there's
Speaker 1: a ruling or a law in Judaism called din, which
Speaker 1: means the law of the land is the law. And
Speaker 1: what that means is that if something is illegal in
Speaker 1: wherever you live, it's also illegal for you as a Jew.
Speaker 1: And if it's permitted, it's also permitted to you as
Speaker 1: a Jew. I mean, obviously something like bacon is not
Speaker 1: going to be permitted, but because cannabis is available as
Speaker 1: a medication and as something recreational, this is something that
Speaker 1: you'll find Orthodox Jews using it just like everyone else does. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Often times wonder about when tobacco enters Europe in the
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds and then just sort of takes over Europe
Speaker 1: during the seventeenth centuries, cetera. I wonder how the Jewish
Speaker 1: scholars and rabbis dealt with that at the time, and
Speaker 1: whether it was something like marijuana where it's initially a
Speaker 1: look down upon or prohibited and then depending upon what
Speaker 1: the broader society says about its legality, that shapes them.
Speaker 1: But do you have any idea about how how tobacco
Speaker 1: I don't, but it's a great question. I don't actually know.
Speaker 1: But tobacco, especially among Hassidam, became extremely popular obviously throughout Europe.
Speaker 1: It was like spread like wildfire. You know, everyone spoke.
Speaker 1: It was extremely common. It was also common, especially if
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier than all the early Hasidic masters smoked
Speaker 1: pipes and they also did snuff was also extremely popular
Speaker 1: there as well, So using tobacco in a variety of
Speaker 1: ways was very common. I don't know if initially Rabbis
Speaker 1: looked at it a scance or not, but if it
Speaker 1: was legal and wasn't perceived as harmful, then it was
Speaker 1: okay and certainly acceptable for use. Although you can't smoke
Speaker 1: chopper course, well, I mean most earingshibit folks on the US.
Speaker 1: But obviously there's this part about Israel, and Israel, you know,
Speaker 1: in recent decades really became the epicenter of medical marijuana research.
Speaker 1: And you have a little part there about Raphael michelan
Speaker 1: sort of the godfather of marijuana research. So tell us
Speaker 1: about your interactions with him. Right, So, Rafel Maulm is
Speaker 1: in his nineties. I think he's still doing research and
Speaker 1: as you said, he's the godfather of cannabis research. He
Speaker 1: was a young chemist. He got a PhD in chemistry
Speaker 1: from the Whitesman Institute and when he started his career,
Speaker 1: he realized that he was in a small country and
Speaker 1: he had a small research budget, and that if he
Speaker 1: wanted to make a mark in his field, he would
Speaker 1: have to engage in research on a topic that was
Speaker 1: not typically researched in big countries with big institutions that
Speaker 1: had big research budgets. And he happened to read about
Speaker 1: hashisha arrests in the newspapers and he thought, you know,
Speaker 1: this is maybe a possibility for something to work on.
Speaker 1: So he contacted the police and he asked them if
Speaker 1: he told them that he was a chemist, you know,
Speaker 1: working at Hebrew University, and he asked that if they
Speaker 1: would give him, you know, the hashish that they had confiscated,
Speaker 1: and they agreed and he began to work on it,
Speaker 1: and in the early nineteen sixties he became the first
Speaker 1: chemist to isolate th HC and CBD. And he understood
Speaker 1: even then that these substances would come to have medical applications,
Speaker 1: and he's worked on cannabis entire career. Mostly his his
Speaker 1: work focuses on cannabinoids, and by the early nineties he
Speaker 1: and his colleagues discovered the endocannabinoid system, which is a
Speaker 1: complex cell signaling system that regulates a variety of bodily
Speaker 1: functions in mammals. And this includes appetite, mood, memory, sleep,
Speaker 1: and it's it's almost as if the human body produces
Speaker 1: its own version of THC in order to regulate homeostasis,
Speaker 1: which bodies required order to maintain stability. And so he's
Speaker 1: really a major figure in cannabis research, and he very
Speaker 1: much helped and it took it really took way too long.
Speaker 1: It took, you know, so many years to break the
Speaker 1: stigma on cannabis as something legitimate on which to research.
Speaker 1: His initial research has led to all kinds of successful
Speaker 1: trials that indicate the medicinal value of cannabis for a
Speaker 1: wide variety of ailments. He's really really a major figure
Speaker 1: and his work services the basis for for all cannabis
Speaker 1: research today. But also, you know, one of the ironies
Speaker 1: here is that creational use is not legal in Israel. Nowtheless,
Speaker 1: Israel is still at the forefront of cannabis research. They've
Speaker 1: created hundreds of different kinds of strains of medical marijuana
Speaker 1: that you know, target specific ailments, have all undergone clinical trials.
Speaker 1: Apparently that also export a lot of medical marijuana. Al Right, well,
Speaker 1: let's just come back a bit to the president. And
Speaker 1: in the United States, I mean, obviously there were all
Speaker 1: of the scholars ACT in the late sixties, early seventies,
Speaker 1: Grinspoon and Zendberg, Andy Wile and others. More recently, there's
Speaker 1: Julie Holland, who you have in the exhibit. There is
Speaker 1: Ethan Roussel of kind of famed medical marij wanna research
Speaker 1: who sounds Italian but in fact is Sephardic Jewish, and
Speaker 1: many Safari Jews have names that sound like their Italian
Speaker 1: Mitch early wine professor Suny Albany, whose writing was crucial
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands in this area. But then
Speaker 1: there's the political domain here. I was thinking about the
Speaker 1: fact that if you look at the politicians, i mean
Speaker 1: even at the national level, who had been deeply involved
Speaker 1: in cannabis reform, probably the major champion of marijuana reform
Speaker 1: going back a decade ago was Barney Frank, you know, Jewish, right,
Speaker 1: and then Earl Blumenauer, who's not Jewish, Morrigan steps into
Speaker 1: his shoes. But if you look at the major marijuana
Speaker 1: bill coming out of Congress each year and out of
Speaker 1: the House, it's Jerry Nadlin, my congressman on the Upper
Speaker 1: West Side. And then if you look at on the
Speaker 1: Senate side, who's the trio leading the marijuana legalization effort.
Speaker 1: It's Chuck Schumer, the Jewish New York Senator who's a
Speaker 1: majority leader. It's Ron Wyden from Oregon, also Jewish, and
Speaker 1: it's Corey Booker, who has typically been described as the
Speaker 1: most Jewish nine Jew in the US Senate. But then
Speaker 1: I looked back Eddie historically, and if you look at
Speaker 1: the early marijuana decriminalization bills in Congress in the seventies,
Speaker 1: the two sponsors were Ed Cootch then a liberal Jewish
Speaker 1: congressman in New York who became something of a drug
Speaker 1: warrior when he became mayor, and Jacob Javitt, the liberal
Speaker 1: Jewish senator from New York as well. And so, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I sometimes worry about even pointing out all
Speaker 1: these Jewish connections, and I kind of like wishing something
Speaker 1: here to be Oh my god, federal marijuana legalization is
Speaker 1: entirely a Jewish conspiracy here, but it's really striking the
Speaker 1: extent to which it's been playing a very leading role
Speaker 1: on marijuana reform, and any thoughts about that. Part of
Speaker 1: this I think comes from the traditional Jewish place in society,
Speaker 1: which is off to the side. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is, for thousands of years, and especially in
Speaker 1: the medieval period, Jews did not have any sort of
Speaker 1: citizenship on power with anyone else I mean, and obviously
Speaker 1: in medieval society has no one really had anything called citizenship.
Speaker 1: But they were prohibited from engaging in certain kinds of occupations,
Speaker 1: they were prohibited from owning land, they were forced into
Speaker 1: certain kinds of occupations, and their opportunities were very much limited.
Speaker 1: And this is something that occurred for many centuries, and
Speaker 1: as a result, Jews were really required to scramble to
Speaker 1: make a living, and that forced them to engage in
Speaker 1: either black market or gray market activities, and this to
Speaker 1: a certain became a Jewish tradition. And because of this
Speaker 1: you find Jews getting involved in let's say, risky New technologies.
Speaker 1: You can think of things like the early film industry
Speaker 1: or the early recording industry. People tend to forget that
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth early twentieth century Jews couldn't enter
Speaker 1: proper society. You find this tendency for Jews to gear
Speaker 1: themselves to doing things that are sometimes risky but also
Speaker 1: sometimes have a big payoff. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: something like cannabis, Jews saw this risk. They also, to
Speaker 1: a certain degree, coming from a different direction, saw this
Speaker 1: kind of injustice that this substance was illegal when it
Speaker 1: was clearly not particularly harmful or even beneficial. Additionally, with
Speaker 1: the advent of the drug war, the sense of justice
Speaker 1: kicked in even more because not only they as in
Speaker 1: the guise of the hippies or other members of other
Speaker 1: left wing organization, but they also clearly saw that minorities
Speaker 1: were suffering the most from interdiction during the drug war.
Speaker 1: That sense of justice that tends to be part of
Speaker 1: especially secular Jewish culture really kicked in and became part
Speaker 1: of this equation. But you know, it's also a moment
Speaker 1: to talk about and when it comes to the money
Speaker 1: and the politics of this thing. You know, when I
Speaker 1: think back to six when we did the first medical
Speaker 1: marijuana initiative. Now, the person who instigated it was Dennis Barron,
Speaker 1: not Jewish, you know, and AIDS activists in San Francisco
Speaker 1: who drafted it. But then I came in in order
Speaker 1: to raise the money and put together the campaign the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and the guy I hired to leave the
Speaker 1: campaign was Bill Zimmerman, Jewish, and the three major donors
Speaker 1: were George Sorrows and Peter Lewis, the head of Progressive Insurance,
Speaker 1: and George zimmer the founder of the Men's Warehouse, all Jewish,
Speaker 1: So I mean essentially it was quote unquote Jewish money
Speaker 1: and I was the kind of major doma running the thing.
Speaker 1: And Bill zmin who basically led that first medicalmar Wana
Speaker 1: initiative and basically the next half dozen that came thereafter.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you look at some of
Speaker 1: the tax that were coming directed at, especially Sorrows and
Speaker 1: me back years ago on that one of them was
Speaker 1: a m Rosenthal, the Jewish former you know, executitor of
Speaker 1: the New York Times, who was a rabid drug warrior.
Speaker 1: It was Mitch Rosenthal, Jewish, who was a founder of
Speaker 1: Phoenix House and radically in support of the drug war.
Speaker 1: It was her cleber professor at Columbia and Yale who
Speaker 1: was the deputy drugs are into the first drugs are
Speaker 1: William Bennett, right, it was a Senator from California, Diane Feinstein,
Speaker 1: and more recently a Congresswoman from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Speaker 1: So there's been a healthy dose of Jewishness on the
Speaker 1: anti marijuana and pro drug war side as well. Now,
Speaker 1: their numbers and influence obviously don't compare to the role
Speaker 1: of Jews on the kind of pro reform side, But
Speaker 1: I think we need to point out that it's not
Speaker 1: all been one sided in this regard. Sure, of course
Speaker 1: not it never is. Obviously, the anti semis will will
Speaker 1: claim if there's some sort of conspiracy. But there's there's
Speaker 1: an expression in Yiddish Zemlin of I should blink that
Speaker 1: which means if you open a role, a jewel pop out,
Speaker 1: And what that really means is you could find Jews
Speaker 1: everywhere when you want them and when you don't want them.
Speaker 1: So and it's the same in this matter as well.
Speaker 1: Jewish drug warriors and there are Jews who are for
Speaker 1: the legalization of Yeah no, I guess that's true. Well,
Speaker 1: just to bring it up right now to the whole
Speaker 1: marijuana industry that's booming. I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: it would almost make sense that Jews would play a
Speaker 1: disproportionate role in this, because Jews are deeply involved and
Speaker 1: successful in commerce, disproportionally wealthy relative to the average part
Speaker 1: of the American population. But I'm wondering if that's fully
Speaker 1: true when I look around at some of the biggest companies,
Speaker 1: I was trying to go through a list to them,
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing, you know, benk Hold or a Green Thumb.
Speaker 1: You know, you must have looked into this some what
Speaker 1: what was your take on that? First of all, there
Speaker 1: are hundreds thousands of new companies and it's impossible to
Speaker 1: keep track of them, so it's really hard to say.
Speaker 1: My general perception is that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: Jews involved in this industry. I would suspect that they're
Speaker 1: not a majority, and I'm talking current, but I would
Speaker 1: say that they're probably is a pretty significant minority. I
Speaker 1: guess could well be, could will be. Welly, let me
Speaker 1: ask you. I mean, this has been fascinating for me.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that we intersected on this issue here,
Speaker 1: What do you imagine? I mean, can you imagine doing
Speaker 1: an episode on Jews and some other element of psychoactive
Speaker 1: drugs in the future, or is this going to be
Speaker 1: it for evil exhibits on Jews and psychoactive drugs of
Speaker 1: any sort. You know, if something comes up, it's always possible.
Speaker 1: And I will say that when I first broached this
Speaker 1: idea to a number of people, the first thing out
Speaker 1: of their mouths was you gotta do psychedelics, you know,
Speaker 1: Jews and psychedelics, and I I would want to wait
Speaker 1: for that. I want to silo cannabis because it's something
Speaker 1: you know, distinct, and I don't want to sort of
Speaker 1: mix it up with something else. But if I find that,
Speaker 1: like I did with cannabis, that there is a significant
Speaker 1: history to this, and there's significant activity on the part
Speaker 1: of Jews, either in the industries or in creating new rituals,
Speaker 1: then I'm open to anything that. I think any kind
Speaker 1: of culture that people create that's sort of based their
Speaker 1: traditions is fascinating to me. And if I'm able to
Speaker 1: develop something on Jews and psychedelics, I'd be happy to well.
Speaker 1: And if you go that way, remember to ask me
Speaker 1: about the time twenty years ago when Ramdas otherwise known
Speaker 1: as Richard Albert, who had been Timothy Larry's colleague at Harvard,
Speaker 1: he was doing his ram Das and Friends gathering at
Speaker 1: the Omega Institute of New York. It was just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks after nine eleven and two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: and he invited me to join the other DOSses, you know,
Speaker 1: Lamassuria Doss and Christna Doss and Ron Das. So I
Speaker 1: got to be Ethan Dos for a week, and it
Speaker 1: turned out that Junkie Poor was in the middle of
Speaker 1: the week, and so I started ragging on all of them,
Speaker 1: like here we are probably half the people act as
Speaker 1: gathering our lab to Jews, right, And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, what did ram Das, Krishna Doss, Lamassiria Dos
Speaker 1: all having common. They all were bar mitzvooed, they all
Speaker 1: did psychedelics. They all went to India to find their guru.
Speaker 1: They all came back to America to become a spiritual
Speaker 1: leaders who had ambivident relationships, you know, with their judys.
Speaker 1: And then a couple of days there they're all kind
Speaker 1: of sheepish about it and A couple of days later,
Speaker 1: Ron Dass pulls me into his room, gets me, sticks
Speaker 1: a joint in my mouth this when he was smoking seven,
Speaker 1: gets me high, and he says, Ethan, I want you
Speaker 1: to league called kneed Ray Services tonight and for his
Speaker 1: whole group. And so that like me and Rondas and
Speaker 1: Lamassuria DAWs and Mickey Lemley also Jewish. He was doing
Speaker 1: a documentary about ron Dust. Got up there and I
Speaker 1: let a call kneed Ury Service at Ron Dawson friends
Speaker 1: gathering back, you know, two weeks after nine eleven. It
Speaker 1: was one of the more remarkable moments in my wife,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. All right,
Speaker 1: you know what you're in the exhibit? Oh well, Guyle,
Speaker 1: that about getting I'll get a two friend in that case.
Speaker 1: But Eddie, listen, I think he did a marvelous job
Speaker 1: with the exhibit. I'm so glad you did. It was
Speaker 1: so much fantastic energy and enthusiasm. You put together a
Speaker 1: great panel when you're there. And so I surely hope
Speaker 1: that EVO is going to be doing other exhibits involving
Speaker 1: Jews and psychoactive drugs. As for this one, it will
Speaker 1: be still showing at EVO. That's why I the o
Speaker 1: based at the Center for Jewish History sixteen Street in
Speaker 1: New York, or just google Juice in Cannabis. It's going
Speaker 1: to be showing there through the end of the year.
Speaker 1: If you're visiting New York or living New York, I
Speaker 1: strongly encourage you to check it out. And Eddie, thank
Speaker 1: you ever so much for being my guest on Psychoactive.
Speaker 1: Thank you had a great time. If you're enjoying Psychoactive,
Speaker 1: please tell your friends about it, or you can write
Speaker 1: us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas,
Speaker 1: then leave us a message at one eight three three
Speaker 1: seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero,
Speaker 1: or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot
Speaker 1: com or find me on Twitter at Ethan natal Man.
Speaker 1: You can also find contact information in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures.
Speaker 1: It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's for deduced by
Speaker 1: noam Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden,
Speaker 1: Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: me Ethan Edelman. Our music is by Ari Blusien and
Speaker 1: a special thanks to A. Brios F Bianca Grimshaw and
Speaker 1: Robert bb. Next week I'll be talking with Norman Ohler,
Speaker 1: an award winning German novelist, screenwriter and journalist who has
Speaker 1: written a fascinating book called Blitzed All about the use
Speaker 1: of methamphetamine and other drugs by Hitler and a German
Speaker 1: military during World War Two. No army in the world
Speaker 1: I've ever done this to to march for three days
Speaker 1: and three ninths because no human being can stay awake
Speaker 1: for three days and three ninths without an artificial stimulant,
Speaker 1: but with methamphetamine is actually possible. So the German army
Speaker 1: used this no longer time window of being able to
Speaker 1: be active to overrun the enemies which had to go
Speaker 1: to sleep. Actually subscribe to cycleactive now see it, don't
Speaker 1: miss it.