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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

letter from the editor As another semester smolders away, we decided to give our annual Finals Edition some extra spark.

In honor of 4/20 and a heap of topics swirling around marijuana, we at The Pitt News decided to deliver our first-ever Pot Edition.

Past any point of denial, “weed,” “ganja” or “Mary Jane” (a psychedelic herb by any other name) is nearly as commonplace in our society as in a Lil Wayne rap.

As Pennsylvania’s government looks to rehash its medical marijuana legislation, the “stoner boy” culture in movies has nearly burned out. Meanwhile, the plant is spiking appetites for any dish slathered in hot sauce or ranch, and complementing the natural high we crave at the gym.

We’re four decades removed from Woodstock and the Beat Generation, yet we can’t deny that marijuana is still controversial within our nation’s borders.

Wherever you fall on the marijuana debate, we hope this edition enlightens you during the most dreaded week of the semester.

Hail to Pitt!

Natalie Daher Editor-in-Chief Cover by Theo Schwarz

Vol. 105 Issue 154

Table of contents

3|high times on TV 5|The State of Marijuana 7|The meaning of dank 10|weed culture, then and now 11|Why we snack 12|Running High 13|Which weed is which?

16|Death of the stoner comedy 17 |Smoke across the water 24|”Mob Barley” Cartoon 25|pot in the pros

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D I RT Y CARTOONS

How children’s television covertly caters to stoners Jack Trainor Staff Writer Cartoons these days are getting seedy.

Millennials can remember spending their childhood Saturday mornings watching beloved, more innocent shows that now only exist in reruns, like “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and “The Powerpuff Girls.”

The audience for the newest crop of cartoons, however, is hazier than that of its predecessors. The bizarre, short episodes p of “Adventure Time” and “Regular Show” have quickly turned a new leaf for Cartoon

Network, a television channel whose widespread appeal comes from its straight-faced adult references. While this isn’t necessarily groundbreaking for children’s shows, “Regular Show’s” deadpan references to smoking and drinking, specifically, resonate with a certain college-aged viewership that the network has previously bypassed.

On the surface, “Regular Show” looks like any other kids’ show. It follows Mordecai, a 20-something blue jay, and his buddy Rigby, a raccoon of the same age, in their work as park ggroundskeepers. p Yet, look dee deeper, and you’ll see that the show has a h habit of slipping in discreet nods to a viewership closer to its protagonists’ ages (and hobbies) protagonist with Pink Floyd posters, references to stoner movie “The Big Lebowski” and 4:20 digital Lebow clock faces. clo A search for “Regu-

lar Show” on the website Reddit’s “trees” section, which is a self-declared community of marijuana enthusiasts, returns numerous “look what I found!” posts of images of the same 4:20 clocks — all of which, I imagine, have to be read in a voice similar to Shaggy’s from “Scooby Doo.” The website Cannabis Destiny, a marijuana media network, included both “Regular Show” and “Adventure Time” on its list of “Top 5 Cartoons That are More Adult Than You Think.”

“Adventure Time” follows a boy and adventurer, Finn, and his dog Jake, as they travel in the Land of Ooo. The show’s characters (including talking animals and an Ice King voiced by “Spongebob” voice actor Tom Kenny) and bizarre spontaneity, all crammed into 11-minute episodes, put “Adventure Time” in the same conversation as “Regular Show.”

These winking references, coupled

with intense levels of creative talent, are what make these shows some of the best on TV right now.

While Mordecai and Rigby never explicitly smoke, their formulaic “guy messes up, leading to a psychedelic space endeavor” adventures stem from the college projects of the show’s creator, J.G. Quintel, whose own experiences, he’s said, sparked many of the on-screen plots.

Mordecai, voiced by Quintel, makes his first appearance in Quintel’s “2 in the AM PM,” while he was still at the California Institute of the Arts in 2006.

The animated short is a hand-drawn film that is basically the first-ever episode of “Regular Show,” clearly only made for giggling adolescents. Of the two Quintel short films available on YouTube, “2 in the AM PM” is his only work that definitely could not run on Cartoon Network’s daily rotation, unless it was part of the channel’s latenight “Adult Swim” program.

Whereas Mordecai and Rigby are limited on “Regular Show” to kidfriendly exclamations like “What the H!” or “How are we gonna fix this S?” the short employs curse words and straightforward drug use as it follows two gas station clerks working the graveyard shift who eat candy laced with acid. Their hallucinations hilariously lead each other to become Mordecai, the blue jay, and Benson, a gumball machine who also became a central character in “Regular Show.”

After watching this short, it’s easy to see where the Emmy Award-winning “Regular Show” came from and the

Cartoons

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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

THE state of Elizabeth Lepro and Alex Leighton The Pitt News Staff

In the Pennsylvania Senate, marijuana legislation is up for reconsideration — but supporters say the bill isn’t about getting high.

Gov. Tom Wolf has supported an act that would legalize the use of medical cannabis. Proponents include families and cannabis reform groups. Opponents, however, say the cannabis bill, SB 3, is too limited. The bill is slated for State Government Committee consideration on Tuesday. In January, bill sponsors Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, and Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery/ Delaware, reintroduced the medical cannabis bill to the Senate, where it passed in 2014, but the session ended before it could pass the bill in the House.

The bill would legalize three types of cannabis strains — sativa, indica and a hybrid of the two — for patients diagnosed with various conditions including cancer, epilepsy and seizures, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and severe fibromyalgia.

If SB 3 passes through the Senate and House, Pennsylvania will be the 24th state to legalize medical cannabis since California became the first in 1996, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

New York was the most recent state to legalize medical cannabis last July, but the bill left some restrictions in place.

The bill stated that users of cannabis could not smoke THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and doses may not contain more than 10 milligrams of THC. In a bipartisan effort, Folmer and Leach have joined to push for cannabis reform in Pennsylvania.

The senators said they’ve chosen to sponsor the bill because of families like that of Latrisha “Lolly” Bentch, whose seven-year-old daughter Anna was diagnosed with autism and epilepsy from mesial temporal sclerosis.

“Children are suffering [who] don’t

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Legalization

Katelyn Binetti | Staff Illustrator

medical use legalized recreational use Legalized

“We can get prescriptions for oxycodone, morphine, you name it, but we’re not allowed to get a prescription for [medical cannabis].”

-SEN. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon need to be suffering,” Folmer said.

Bentch works with Campaign for Compassion, a grassroots organization that advocates for cannabis treatment.

Among the stigmas Bentch opposes is the idea that the legalization of medical marijuana will prompt further allowances and recreational use.

“I take offense to that,” Bentch said.

“I’m interested in taking care of my child, and so are other parents.”

She and C4C don’t find SB 3 comprehensive, Bentch said, because its revision by the Senate last year cut its list of conditions — including chronic pain— by a quarter.

“There are some days where I’m optimistic, and some days where I’m not

proud of Pennsylvania,” Bentch said.

“Today, I’m crushed. I fear what the bill will look like [when passed].”

Folmer has an idea of how he wants the bill to look. Diagnosed with nonHodgkin lymphoma in 2012, Folmer said the law should allow citizens to seek better health through medical marijuana.

“We can get prescriptions for oxycodone, morphine, you name it, but we’re not allowed to get a prescription for [medical cannabis],” Folmer said. “The whole goal was to give patients and their doctors one more arrow in their quivers.”

Folmer added that he would push for the “broadest bill possible” that allows doctors and scientists to dictate diseases and delivery systems for patients.

Les Stark, executive director of Keystone Cannabis Reform, who has been an industrial hemp historian for the past 20 years, also wants broader cannabis legalization along with the legalization of industrial hemp.

In partnership with co-director Erica McBride, Stark formed the Keystone Cannabis Coalition — a nonprofit group to advance cannabis and hemp reform — this past summer after learning about the experiences of parents looking for treatment for their sick children.

“We’re not just fighting for the children,” Stark said. “We’re fighting for everyone that can benefit from medical cannabis.”

Stark, other cannabis reform proponents and parents who think their children might benefit from medical cannabis met with Wolf earlier this year.

Jeff Sheridan, Wolf ’s press secretary, said Wolf is ready to sign the bill that meets his goal — full legalization of medical marijuana.

Sheridan said he could not guarantee that Wolf is going to sign the current legislation, as it is not yet finalized, but he “supports [the Senator’s] goals.”

Wolf ’s knowledge of medical marijuana and its effect on physical health has been shaped by his two top health advisors, Dr. Karen Murphy, secretary of health, and Dr. Rachel Levine, physician general, according to Sheridan.

One of the opponents of medical cannabis reform is Pa. State Representative Matt Baker, who Stark said is “ideologically opposed” to medical cannabis.

Baker said he wants to see increased and controlled research for the medical effects of cannabis, and aligns with the Pennsylvania Medical Society and the American Medical Association.

Legalization

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The etymology of

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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Marijuana: [mar-uh-wah-nuh]

What we say and why Courtney Linder Assistant Opinions Editor I still cringe when I remember my high school health teacher rattling off street slang for marijuana in her shrill, overly enthusiastic voice.

“Pot, weed, skunk, reefer, ganja!” she said with an undue smile, as if her life’s passion was to discuss slang for the cannabis plant. As a class, we all shifted uncomfortably on our cold, plastic seats.

Beside teaching me the potential awkwardness of adult interactions, health class illustrated that society loves to nickname its favorite herb. I’d always written this off as a Cheech-and-Chong brand of shenanigans — potheads say ridiculous things.

Katelyn Binetti | Staff Illustrator

The etymology of marijuana lingo is more complex than jargon among the smoking-inclined, though — the slang is indicative of social and cultural change and creates a historical road map of the contemporary perception of marijuana.

This dynamic dialogue dictates which words for the same seven-prong plant are carried over, replaced or restricted to certain regions.

The earliest marijuana vernacular includes “cannabis,” or “sativa,” which we now associate with more formal, medical terminology. Cannabis is Latin and originates from the Greek word “kánnabis,” which referred to hemp, according to “10,000 Years: An Etymologically Guided History of Cannabis” by Brian Grimmer.

The Oxford English Dictionary first referenced cannabis in 1548 as “common hemp.” In the 16th and 17th centuries, the

French and British cultivated hemp in their colonies to make rope, cloth, paper and fuel.

In 1848, the Oxford English Dictionary updated the definition of cannabis as parts of the marijuana plant that are “smoked, chewed or drunk for their intoxicating or hallucinogenic properties.”

Marijuana’s rebranding from a practical industrial element to a psychological mediator reflects the time period between 1850 and 1915 when Americans could buy marijuana at pharmacies and general stores.

During the same era, “ganja” became another popular 1800s term for marijuana. Ganja comes from the Hindi word “ganjha.” Similar to the definition for marijuana in Western culture at the time, “ganjha” referred to a “powerful preparation of cannabis sativa,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The movement toward coining ganja reflects the 1856 British tax on “ganja” and “charas” trade in India alongside the popular practice of hashish smoking throughout the Middle East.

In 2009, Eminem would come to revive the term. A track on his Relapse album titled “Must- be the Ganja” repeatedly referenced marijuana as “ganja.” “It must be the ganja/ It’s the marijuana that’s creeping upon me while I’m so high,” he raps.

Up to the 1900s, though, people primarily referenced marijuana in terms of practicality – whether it was in regard to industrial hemp use, private use or trade. At the turn of the 20th century, not only did “marijuana” come into prevalence, but so did its negative stigma.

In 1905, The LA Times reported that a man attacked and killed a policeman while under the influence of a “marihuana

cigarette.” The modern-day form of marijuana is anglicized from Latin American Spanish, originally spelled as “marihuana” or “mariguana.” Around 1910, at the onset of the Mexican Revolution, an influx of Mexican immigrants introduced recreational use into American society.

“Reefer” grew in popularity in the 1920s, derived from the Spanish word “grifo,” which more or less meant “dirty pothead.” Reefer — as a term for a joint — also comes from “reef,” or the horizontal section of a snail which looks like a rolled-up joint.

But just how did we reach the conclusion that it seemed sensible to name marijuana after a household kitchen container?

In the 1920s, “pot” evolved from the Mexican word “potiguaya” for marijuana leaves. That slang word probably came from the Spanish phrase “potacion de guaya,” which translates to “the wine of grief.”

The “marihuana cigarette” shooting, coupled with the “fear of brown people ... [and] nightmare drugs used by brown people” eventually led to the “reefer madness” that spread during the mid-20th century, according to NPR. In 1936, a church group financed the American propaganda film “Reefer Madness” to scare American youth away from using marijuana. Shortly after, the U.S. Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, federally criminalizing marijuana.

The reefer madness of the 1930s and 1940s subsided in the 1960s when hippie culture commanded the U.S. Advocates of marijuana policy reform and users alike rediscovered the “Reefer Madness” film but treated it as satire, eventually granting it cult-film status. During this time period, the marijuana lexicon rapidly developed.

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WEED CULTURE: 10

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

When you look out over the Cathedral lawn, you see students sprawled out, soaking up the mid-April sun. While today you wouldn’t find anyone conspicuously smoking pot, 40 or 50 years ago pot use was commonplace.

The radical late ’60s and ’70s were a response to the conservatism of 1936’s government-backed film “Reefer Madness,” which launched decades’ worth of public concern over marijuana.

These conservative sentiments clashed with youthful hippie rebellion. While flower child counterculture seemed ubiquitous, it took some time to flourish on Pitt’s campus.

Older generations were concerned about marijuana use, and the drug’s popularity was concentrated in places where young adults could smoke away from their parents, according to John Stoner, a history professor. So, young people consumed inordinate amounts of weed on college campuses and at music festivals like Woodstock in 1969.

“One account suggests that almost everyone at Woodstock was consuming cannabis,” Stoner wrote in an email.

Harris Miller, a 1971 Pitt graduate, said the campus was politically and socially conservative during his time in college. Many students commuted to campus or returned home on weekends,

so they didn’t partake in the campus drug scene.

Since many of these students were the first in their families to receive a college education, they didn’t want to get involved in the drug scene, Miller said. They chose to focus on their studies and work hard rather than try to “discover themselves” or goof off, he added.

While Pitt got a taste of the ’60s and ’70s counterculture, its influence was restricted to students’ fashion choices rather than the entire culture of the campus, Miller said.

“Most students dressed nicely for class. So, when kids started dressing up in blue jeans and tie dye for class, it was seen as rebellious,” Miller said.

A quick dig into The Pitt News’ archives offers another perspective on campus drug use.

In the Oct. 16, 1968 issue, The Pitt News devoted an entire section to discussing students’ personal experiences and opinions on drugs in relation to the law.

“The Pitt News feels that in light of the available evidence, the so-called drug laws are far too strict and should be abolished,” read the section, “Drugs on Campus.”

In another article from the Octo-

then&now

ber 1968 issue, students Faye Peters and Jennifer Abernathy openly discussed their experiences with marijuana. They said that it was overplayed, overcondemned by society and overrated by students who used it. While their friends revelled in their positive experiences with the drug, Peters and Abernathy said that pot “detracted from reality” and made them lose touch with themselves.

An article by Bill Yetto from the same issue discusses the prevalence of drug use on campus. He conducted a survey with students who smoked pot and found that, on average, students who smoked had already been smoking for two years, and that they smoked about once a week. Fifty percent of those interviewed had not tried any drugs besides marijuana or hashish, a cannabis derivative.

Students smoked marijuana in a variety of ways and places, according to Yetto, ranging from Schenley Park to a car parked in front of then-Chancellor Wesley Posvar’s house.

In contrast to the dreadlocked, skateboarding stereotype of stoners today, Yetto wrote that, “it would have to be said that marijuana users would be clean-cut , conservative, ‘All American’ types.” Most of the students that Yetto surveyed came from conservative, middle-class families.

But midway through the 1970s, pot became more widely accepted. More students began to smoke it, and the drug became less taboo.

Cris Hoel, a previous editor-in-chief for The Pitt News, graduated from Pitt in 1975. He said that “perhaps most” of the students on campus smoked pot in dorms, off-campus apartments, on Flagstaff Hill and on the Cathedral lawn. Pot use was similarly lax on the Carnegie Mellon University campus, he added.

Nixon declares War on drugs

woodstock 1970 1969

Natalia Blewonska and Elana Zachos The Pitt News Staff

controlled substances act declares cannabis a Schedule I drug

1976 1971

’70s

cheech and chong’s “up in smoke”is released 1978

decriminalized in the Netherlands

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THE HOW AND WHY OF Lauren Rosenblatt Staff Writer Spreading peanut butter on a block of cheese or dipping a banana in a mug of Swiss Miss sounds like five-star cuisine after hitting a bowl for a reason.

The THC’s effect on the brain can explain the post-pot urge to rummage through kitchen cabinets for unconventional concoctions. Marijuana impairs the ability to analyze ideas, rationalize impulses and inhibit inappropriate behaviors, according to Ethan Block, a Pitt professor who teaches a course called Drugs and Behavior.

“This can lead to taking risks and outbursts of creativity,” Block said.

“Where food preparation is concerned, one tends to do strange and impulsive things that seem like an amazing idea at the time.”

The sudden craving for snacks is popularly known as the “munchies,” which Block defines as “being really hungry, but with a few twists, after smoking marijuana.”

The drug, he said, travels through brain pathways until it hits a cannabinoid receptor. At this point, THC, the principal psychoactive chemical in marijuana, tricks the brain into perceiving hunger — and the illusory appetite begins, according to Block.

But a simple case of the munchies is more than just an impulsive culinary concept.

“Your body has a natural way of signaling hunger and fullness,” Bita Moghaddam, a Pitt professor and researcher of neuroscience and psychiatry, said. “There are a whole bunch of neurotransmitters and a very compli-

cated system that regulates appetite and appetite suppression.”

Block attributes this hunger signal to THC, which mimics the neurotransmitters that send chemical messages throughout the nervous system, affecting processes such as pleasure, memory,

Biobehavioral Reviews Journal.

“One can sort of get stuck in the repetitive act of grabbing Cheetos, crunching Cheetos and swallowing Cheetos until all of the Cheetos are gone,” Block said.

This repetitive eating process has

ETHAN BLOCK, Pitt professor

Even if you purge all the decent snacks, and all you have is a jar of pickles and a few stale Red Vines, you’re probably gonna go ahead and dip the Red Vines in that pickle juice. thinking, concentration, movement, coordination and sensory perception.

“THC works like these natural brain chemicals, except in a bigger dose,” Block said. “THC activates the part of the brain that controls hunger, and it also affects the way we think and feel.”

In addition to activating the pathways that control hunger, marijuana stimulates the part of the brain that controls repetitive behavior, the “basal ganglia circuitry,” which is a network of nerves in the brain, according to a study published in the Neuroscience and

triggered the false belief that people crave certain types of foods to satisfy their “munchie” desire, according to Moghaddam.

The only consistent impact that marijuana has on users is “enhanced appetite,” Moghaddam said, but food choices are usually based on personal preference connected to genetic structure.

“There’s a huge individual variability when it comes to drug-taking behavior. The same goes with appetite, food processes and appetite suppression,”

Moghaddam said.

People may reach for sugary and fatty foods, Block added, because carbs and sugar quickly refuel the body.

Despite the excessive desire to consume unhealthy foods, the “munchies” have some benefits as well.

A 2010 study in the Current Treatment Options in Oncology journal titled “Cancer Cachexia: Traditional Therapies and Novel Molecular MechanismBased Approaches to Treatment,” suggested that marijuana is an effective way to counteract the loss of appetite that comes with chemotherapy.

Medical practitioners can apply the same idea to achieve an opposite effect.

Rimonabant, an anti-obesity drug, acts on the same cannabinoid receptor in the mind, but serves an appetite suppressant, according to David Volk, a Pitt psychiatry professor and researcher.

“Rimonabant was studied as an antiobesity drug, an appetite suppressant,” Volk said. “But it was withdrawn from the market due to harmful side effects.”

Volk’s research focuses on the relationship between marijuana and schizophrenia, but he was not able to comment on the relationship between marijuana and appetite further.

The only way to prevent excessive eating, Block said, is to “purge” the cabinet of anything that one would eat on impulse.

Yet, even then, a snack-happy smoker might still get in touch with his or her creative culinary side.

“Even if you purge all the decent snacks and all you have is a jar of pickles and a few stale Red Vines, you’re probably gonna go ahead and dip the Red Vines in that pickle juice,” Block said.

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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Running High

Some athletes seeing beneficial side of the pot leaf

N

ot everybody pays extra at- ‘ah, I’m tired. I don’t Jasper Wilson tention to birds singing or want to run anymore’,” Senior Staff Writer the texture of the dirt while said Davis, a senior who they’re running. But Billy Davis said regularly runs and plays smoking before working out makes you soccer while high. “When I smoke, I’m wake myself up a little bit — to more attuned to life’s simple pleasures. not focused on that as much. I’m more veer off course and not really think Davis and Tim Smith, who ran cross focused on making strides and every- about what I’m doing so much, which is country in high school shortly after he thing because my thought process is ‘I not really what I want,” he said. “I want started smoking, said the possibility may be tired, but I want to keep going. to think about, obviously, what muscles of combining the two intrigued them. I want to keep pushing myself. I’m not I’m using and what I’m working.”

“Everything is different in that state, really that tired.’”

When Michaels uses before going to so you wonder,” Smith said.

Increased awareness of his natural the gym, he takes a pre-workout suppleBut Smith isn’t alone. People often surroundings adds pleasure to the activ- ment to lessen the drug’s effect, ending use the term “experimentation” to de- ity, which Smith felt as well. He runs on up in what he described as a sort of scribe recreational drug use, but some trails to optimize this sense. enhanced middle ground. Some of the physically active people take the conOn the soccer field, Davis finds his senior’s best workouts have come out cept further. Curiosity of this mix. leads them to find out “It’s like tunnel viTIM SMITH, the answer to this quession, and you really foPitt student tion. cus on what you’re doing, The Pitt News spoke and you can feel all the with a few current and muscles working,” Miformer students about chaels said. the practice, all of Davis added that it whom requested anoalso leads to increased nymity because of emcreativity on the field. ployment concerns, “I may try a certain given the drug’s illegal pass to find someone status. They appear unthat ’s open that I der aliases in this story. wouldn’t try usually.

Before anxiety issues I’m more open to trycaused Smith to stop using marijuana ability to maintain focus increases ing difficult things or crazy passes 10 months ago, he occasionally ran high while high, as the drug slows the game ’cause I like the creative side of soccer,” recreationally. down. he said.

“When you’re running sober, you’re “I focus more on the stuff that I want Jane Greene said she felt enhanced familiar with how your body reacts to be doing, as opposed to everything senses while biking across the United to certain thresholds of exhaustion,” else going on around me,” he said. “So I States in 2013.

Smith said. “And then when you’re high, focus more on the ball when it’s coming “In the morning, we would smoke just the fact that you’re in a different in. My head’s not all over the place. I’m a lot and start biking, and then smoke mental state, it’s confusing to be feeling just focused on ‘make the touch, make more and keep biking,” she said. pain and causing it for yourself. ‘Why the pass, make the shot.’”

Greene, a sophomore, said she does am I doing this again?’”

The increased ability to focus helps not consider herself to be a frequent Smith felt like he was a worse runner others, like Ben Michaels, who wears smoker. She added that smoking alwhile high, but Davis said he hasn’t no- headphones to block out what’s around lowed her to sustain her bike rides for ticed a difference one way or the other him. Despite that, Michaels said he still longer. in his physical ability. can find his mind wandering.

“I didn’t notice my legs hurting as “I used to hate running because my “It’s easy for me — if I haven’t taken much, which was really nice,” Greene mindset was always focused on how any sort of pre-workout [supplement] said. “We just kept going.” tired I was getting. And then it was like or even a cup of coffee or something to Bob Jones, who played club Ultimate

Everything is different in that state, so you wonder.

Frisbee all four years he attended Pitt before graduating in 2013, doesn’t get high before competitive games, not smoking a week or more in advance of them, because it has a negative effect on his energy level.

A 2006 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine supported Jones’ concerns about energy levels.

“As the dose increases, the user may experience hallucinations, an alteration of the perception of reality and a marked reduction in concentration,” the study said. “THC also engenders

Athletes

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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

WHICH WEED IS WHICH:

Experts compare pot strains Mark Pesto Staff Writer When Ken Estes, a marijuana grower based in California, crossbred Purple Urkle and Big Bud in 2003, he made Grand Daddy Purp — now one of the most popular strains of marijuana in the United States.

But Grand Daddy Purp, known for its cerebral euphoria and physical relaxation, is just one of thousands of strains. According to Leafly.com, a site that reviews marijuana strains, users rated Grand Daddy Purp an average of 4.2 out of 5 stars. As growers across the

Comparison

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Data from Nightingale and Douathy | Graphic by Alex Ryan

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The death of the stoner-boy comedy Shawn Cooke Co A&E Editor Cocaine is the new weed, and blunts are the new cigarettes — on the silver screen at least.

The stoner comedy has been a reliable subgenre for ages, man, but it could be on its last breath. We can’t expect to see new movies from a stoner duo like ’70s and ’80s icons Cheech and Chong or their new-millenium counterparts Harold and Kumar anytime soon.

Throughout the past half-decade, raunchy, R-rated comedies have consistently upped the crazy quotient to the point that smoking weed bears the modesty of sipping a cup of tea.

Blame modern overstimulation or the crawl toward marijuana legalization for our heightened tolerance, but weed in the movies just doesn’t pack the unpredictability of cocaine, acid or HFS (Holy F*cking Sh*t, from “21 Jump Street”).

Much like workplace scotch in the world of “Mad Men,” marijuana lingers in the background of most Judd Apatow or

R. I. P.

Seth Rogen flicks — aside from “This Is the End,” which was covered by a wall of smoke.

As for when this shift toward adrenaline-infused drug comedy began, it’s a little hazy, but 2009’s “The Hangover” could be a turning point. When every joke is a “you’ll never believe what happens next” Upworthy moment, we become desensitized to the simple thrill of watching our protagonists get high.

Although the film’s hook depended less on drugs than on a wild night of drinking, “The Hangover” established a twisty, action-movie approach to comedy — while grossing $277 million and spawning two downgraded sequels. In “The Hangover,” screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore throw Mike Tyson’s tiger, a lost baby and roofies at us, so why bother with getting the gang toked up?

This high-stakes approach sets most comedies on the potentially self-destructive path of outdoing and one-upping their screwball predecessors (and in the case of “The Hangover,” it was the whole franchise’s undoing). Take 2012’s abysmal party orgy “Project X” — a few teens want to throw the caps-locked “best party ever,” so they buy some reefer as a party favor. They steal a lawn gnome from their drug dealer’s house, which, of course, contains enough Ecstasy for an army of high schoolers.

A mind-numbing series of montages follow that look more like an extended Lil Jon video than a feature film. The trove of hijinks maintains a hyperactive pace with nonstop “wish I were there” moments — assuming that you want to attend a suburban frat party, overrun with bros and bad Kid Cudi remixes. Years from now, we’ll need an overload of HFS to forget that Miles Teller and

Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar

Thomas Mann were involved with this disaster.

But when over-the-top moments of drugged-out bliss are isolated, it works like gangbusters.

The video gamestyle unveiling of HFS in “21 Jump Street ” ranks among the movie’s funniest Stoner comedies old and new are going out of fashion. scenes. When Mark Wahlberg and the teddy bear snort coke in “Ted,” it sets off a jittery and surreal delight of a party in Ted’s apartment — with a special appearance from Flash Gordon.

Even a couple years before “The Hangover” rewrote comedy’s playbook, “Knocked Up” featured a need to seek out stoner comedy for these delirious, paranoid trip to Cirque du Soleil thrills. Functioning outside of the sub— courtesy of psychedelic mushrooms. genre tag, these scenes contain even more A madcap hard drug scene can be ri- shock value. otous, but only if the movie doesn’t deSo perhaps this is the blueprint for the pend on stringing together a dozen of future of “stoner comedies” — as long these scenes. The aforementioned scenes as weed isn’t the centerpiece, they might work, partly due to the creative teams survive. Smoking was an integral aspect to behind each film, but also because the “Pineapple Express,” “The Big Lebowski” movies aren’t about partying or drugs and even last year’s “Inherent Vice,” but it exclusively — they’re about undercover built toward a primary crime or mystery cops, talking teddy bears and unplanned in each film. pregnancy, respectively. Because outraMuch like sex and drinking, drugs on geous, drugged-out moments can come their own can’t bring the laughs — but from any subgenre of comedy, we don’t they can earn a best supporting role.

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

17

Smoke across the water

Pitt study abroad students adjust to weed culture shock Photo by Theo Schwarz, Visual Editor

Jack Trainor Staff Writer When Kative Crivellaro smoked a joint last summer in Amsterdam, she was nervous. Not because marijuana is illegal in the United States, but because she “was desperately trying not to come off as an American tourist.”

Before they go abroad, Pitt’s Study Abroad Office warns its travelers about the possibility of culture shock — even if the destination is an English-speaking country. For places where marijuana has become part of the culture via decriminalization or legalization, this could certainly be jarring, given the substance’s stigma in the United States.

Despite its legalization in Colorado and Washington, marijuana is still a

Schedule I drug in the United States, meaning that it has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website. The call to end this prohibition has gained traction with Colorado and Washington’s historic legislation, which has accelerated the discussion on nation-wide legalization.

In accordance with Pitt’s student conduct policy abroad, students must follow the laws of the host country and are responsible for knowing what is and is not legal while there. Further, the policy states that abuse of any legal substances, such as pills, is cause for involuntary withdrawal from the program.

With this in mind, Crivellaro, a ju-

nior communications major with a certificate in gender, sexuality and women’s studies, lived in Amsterdam for the fall semester as part of the Council of International Educational Exchange.

CIEE is an American nonprofit that offers alternative Pitt-recognized study abroad programs to college students.

When she arrived in Amsterdam, Crivellaro could smell pot in the streets as soon as she stepped off the train “like a greeting,” she said.

According to Dutch law, residents can hold up to five grams for personal use. In Amsterdam, dealers sell pot openly, and, misleadingly, so do coffee shops, which are known more for their pot sales than for actual coffee — for that, patrons have to seek out a cafe.

Crivellaro visited a coffee shop on her

third night, when she purchased and smoked a pre-rolled joint with some friends.

Even though pot is more easily accessible in Amsterdam, its streets aren’t clouded with smoke.

For comparison, Crivellaro attended the Amsterdam Music Festival, she said, a two-day electronic dance music event that attracts approximately 140,000 people from all over the world, and “it still wasn’t as hazy” as Wiz Khalifa’s 2012 concert in Pittsburgh.

Similarly, junior Adam Curley traveled through a Pitt program to Prague last May, where up to four grams of pot is decriminalized. Prague’s relaxed laws

Abroad

24

18 FROM PAGE 13

COMPARISON characteristics of the plant — or simply on marketing their product successfully — they create varieties of cannabis with names like Sour Diesel, OG Kush and Girl Scout Cookies.

All of these strains fall into one of the two main categories of cannabis: cannabis sativa and cannabis indica, according to a distinction initially made

by London’s Natural History Museum in 1922. Because of the difference in chemical composition between the strains, their effects are not always consistent.

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com Antoine Douaihy, a professor of psychiatry at Pitt, said while sativa and indica are two distinct subspecies of cannabis, the different chemicals within the plant produce varying effects for users.

“There’s been a lot of ridiculous claims,” Douaihy said. “Honestly, I do not believe there’s any kind of evidence to support these effects.”

Varying ratios of the two major cannabinoids — tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, or THC and CBD, respectively — cause marijuana to affect the brain and cause the different “highs,” Douaihy said.

“The effects really depend on wheth-

er there is more THC or more CBD,” Douaihy said. “When you have higher THC levels [in hair samples], you see more depression, more anxiety.”

But, regardless of the amount of THC and CBD, there’s little to no correlation between the plant’s ratio of the two chemicals and its strain, according to Patrick Nightingale, a Pittsburgh criminal defense attorney and the executive director of Pittsburgh’s National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Growers can breed both sativas and indicas to have high levels of THC or CBD. “A plant grown to have high THC content can be a sativa or an indica,”

Nightingale said, adding that the issue is complicated due to “a wide variety of hybrids where growers try to get the best out of both strains.”

Though both strains can contain both THC and CBD, sativas often have a higher CBD-THC ratio, while indicas often have a higher THC-CBD ratio, according to a 2004 study published in the American Journal of Botany.

On the outside, though, sativa and indica plants look different from each other. Sativas have thinner leaves and grow taller, biologist Loran Anderson wrote for the Harvard Biological Mu-

Comparison

26

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

19

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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 5

LEGALIZATION position on medical marijuana, according to a 2015 report that Baker forwarded to The Pitt News, calls “for further adequate and well-controlled studies of marijuana and related cannabinoids in patients who have serious conditions,” for which no other evidence suggests “possible efficacy.”

Baker also stands with the American Epilepsy Society, which believes there has not been enough research to support the medical effects of cannabis.

In a letter to Baker that he forwarded to The Pitt News, AES President Amy Brooks-Kayal said, “We need to accelerate clinical research and wait to act until we have results to support decisions.”

“If the harmful aspects of cannabis outweigh the therapeutic benefits, we need to find out now, before medically

fragile children have been exposed to cannabis products that are not effective and may risk damage to vital organs,” Brooks-Kayal wrote.

Brooks-Kayal and other doctors at Children’s Hospital Colorado provide a paper titled “Medical Marijuana and Epilepsy” to families with children diagnosed with epilepsy. In the paper, Brooks-Kayal states that doctors in Colorado currently don’t prescribe or recommend medical marijuana for epilepsy treatment. Despite a “huge need,” according to Brooks-Kayal, for research, early studies with young patients haven’t been entirely positive.

Brooks-Kayal wrote that of the more than 75 children, only approximately one in three patients has shown any improvement in their seizures based on parent’s reports. Almost half of the parents reported some type of side effect, including an increase in seizures, according to a 2014 study by Kevin Chapman, associate

professor of pediatrics and neurology at the University of Colorado.

However, Brooks-Kayal found recent successes in children taking cannabidiol, a marijuana derivative that doesn’t have the psychoactive effects of THC. These cases, she wrote in the paper, “give reason for hope and should encourage further studies.”

Brooks-Kayal was not available for comment by time of publication, but wrote that obtaining research for marijuana’s medical benefits will be “uniquely challenging” because of its designation as a Drug Enforcement Administration Schedule I drug.

Marijuana’s drug classification remains one of the biggest obstacles to widespread medical use according to proponents. On April 13, activists and the general public held a panel at the Hilton Garden Inn on Forbes Avenue in Oakland to discuss the negative stigmas surrounding medical marijuana.

21 Among the speakers was Patrick Nightingale, a criminal defense lawyer and a member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

At the meeting, Nightingale spoke against “shopping,” which is the fear that patients will use their medical cards at multiple dispensaries to illegally obtain more than their prescribed dose.

Nightingale said there is no clear solution to the loophole, despite members of the industry currently addressing the problem.

“At the moment, can I assure you this won’t happen? No,” Nightingale said.

“Third-party tracking may infringe on personal rights.”

Nightingale added that legislation is important because more doctors need premission to conduct medical marijuana studies.

“We need more academia, people willing to study and research [marijuana],” Nightingale said. “These people exist.”

22 FROM PAGE 7

LINDER Hippies had an arsenal of words to refer to their main drug of choice. “Mary Jane” came from the Spanish name “María Juana.” “Grass” originally referenced the Hindu text Artharva-Veda which called marijuana “sacred grass.” In the 1980s, they called marijuana “the giggle plant,” “dope” or “hooch.”

In the ’90s, “weed” gained linguistic

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com prominence because the youth wanted to distance themselves from their parents’ use of “dope” and “grass,” according to Slate.

“Weed” is still the overriding modern word for marijuana. Confining Google Books searches to 2013 publications, “smoke marijuana” pops up 69 times, “smoke pot” 94 times and “smoke weed” 149 times, according to Slate.

Today, teens and young adults have their own words for the greenery. A quick browse through the popular subreddit

/r/trees on Reddit, a social community site, turns up words like “bud,” “loud” and “dank.” “Bud” refers to the part of the plant that’s smoked, while “loud” and “dank” are references to the strain of marijuana and intensity of THC, the psychoactive componenet of marijuana.

Cultural norms will continue to shape the way we think and talk about marijuana. With the upsurge of medicinal and recreational marijuana legislation in the U.S., our pot patois may evolve once again.

Maybe in 30 years, post-millennials

won’t endure health class that asserts marijuana is an illicit Schedule I drug.

They won’t listen to their 60-year-old teacher awkwardly lecture about the perils of “reefer” or “loud.” Instead, classes will discuss the benefits of cannabis for medical marijuana users. Or, at least, we can hope that this reefer madness will finally end.

Courtney Linder is the Assistant Opinions Editor of The Pitt News and primarily writes on social issues.

Write to Courtney at cnl13@pitt.edu.

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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FROM PAGE 17

ABROAD laws in comparison to the U.S., he said, “changed [his] whole perspective of America.”

Curley, a general management and supply chain management dual major, had long disagreed with U.S. marijuana laws, especially after returning from Prague, which showed him that “it can be legal and that it’s possible to have a functioning society with [decriminalized] pot.”

In 2013, Colorado’s first full year of legalized marijuana, sales topped $700 million. After visiting Prague, Curley, a business major, sees the weed industry as a lucrative business opportunity.“I’m just waiting for the next [state] to legalize,” he said. Seeing all the money Colorado has made already, Curley’s dream is to someday start his own medicinal marijuana distribution service, “so people can get their medicine without having to leave the house.”

Like alcohol in the States, marijua-

na has a reputation abroad as a social icebreaker. When trying Amsterdam’s legalized cannabis, Crivellaro found it

had varying social effects on her relationships with other students. She bonded with other Americans studying

abroad over the substance, she said,

Abroad

26

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

25

Weighing the options: Pot in the pros Alex Wise Staff Writer Professional athletes smoke pot. We know this. It’s not a big secret, nor should it be.

But even as state after state legalizes marijuana, major league sports officials continue to classify the drug in the same category as cocaine, Ecstasy and other legitimately dangerous substances.

To understand why professional leagues refuse to budge on drug policy, let’s examine where the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL individually stand on marijuana.

Per Major League Baseball’s official drug policy, any player who tests positive for a “stimulant” — the league’s classification for any Schedule I or Schedule II substance — is subject to follow-up testing. A second positive test could subject the player to a 25-game suspension. A third positive test warrants an 80-game suspension, while a

fourth (and any subsequent) positive test is left to the discretion of the commissioner, who could enact a ban from the league.

Professional basketball is a bit more lax. The NBA’s drug policy for marijuana is, first and foremost, specific to marijuana, and it puts first-time offenders in a program that treats and cares for their “abuse.”

A second positive test will result in a $25,000 fine from the league, but still no suspension. That suspension comes at the third test, which earns the smoker (or eater — Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins looks like he could put away his share of special brownies) a five-game suspension.

Each positive test from then on results in a suspension five games longer than the previous one.

The NFL has recently modernized its policies. Fortunately for Browns wideout Josh Gordon, there was a grandfathering effect to limit his full-year

suspension in 2014 to only 10 games.

The National Football League, similarly to the NBA, now enters first-time offenders in a rehabilitation program. A second positive test earns the player a two-game fine, followed by a four-game fine for getting caught a third time.

The fourth positive test for marijuana results in a suspension (four games, followed by 10 games for a fifth positive test).

The four-game suspension is in line with the league’s other punishments, such as a four-game ban for performance-enhancing drugs and a six-game suspension for abuse.

Fitting with the stereotype that all Canadians are grass-fed hippies , the NHL does not include marijuana on its list of banned substances. Pot is a-OK for hockey players, as long as the cops don’t catch you.

So what conclusions can we draw

Wise

28

JOSH GORDON (TOP) AND LARRY SANDERS (BOTTOM) HAVE BOTH GOTTEN INTO TROUBLE DUE TO THEIR RESPECTIVE LEAGUES’ DRUG POLICIES.

| TNS

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April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 18

COMPARISON

seum in 1984.

Comparatively, indica leaves are bigger than sativa leaves, and the plant is shorter. According to Anderson, indicas are “short, compact plants that [are] densely branched.”

“They both have very significant potential medical benefits,” Nightingale said.

According to a 2014 survey published

in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, medical cannabis users prefer indica to relieve pain and to help with sleep. Specific conditions that sufferers alleviate with indica include headaches, glaucoma, neuropathy, seizures and joint pain.

“Sativas alleviate pain, depression and PTSD without causing lethargy,”

Comparison

27

FROM PAGE 24

ABROAD who aren’t used to its open consumption.

However, Crivellaro found that smoking distanced her from her Dutch friends, who are used to legalization.

“It just made me lazier,” Crivellaro said.

Another Pitt junior, who asked that her name not be published due to marijuana’s illegal status in the U.S., lived in Berlin from February to August of last year, where possessing up to 15 grams of the plant is legal. She said that, theoretically, “the [marijuana] policies in Berlin make it easier to make friends, since a lot of people are trying new things for the first time.”

Her professors took her class on a tour of the city, which included Görlitzer Park, a local park where public pot consumption notoriously coexists with family picnics.

Crivellaro and Curley agreed that pot can attract college students to study abroad programs with liberated weed laws, especially as marijuana remains in the American public’s consciousness as nationwide debate on legalization rages on.

While easier access to pot may attract some students, “it shouldn’t be the only reason to go [somewhere],” said Crivellaro, especially in Amsterdam, whose museums, festivals and culture are “so beautiful.”

Much like traveling outside of the host country every weekend, spending the whole trip in the clouds might leave students with a sense of detachment from the very place they chose to visit.

So while some countries’ pot may be legal, “When you’re continuously smoking,” Crivellaro said, “you miss out.”

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 26

COMPARISON Nightingale said. “Sativas have been found to elevate mood and to be effective in pain management.”

The survey also found that medical cannabis users prefer to use sativa to FROM PAGE 10

’70S

In the ’60s and ’70s, most students accepted the widespread drug use, and a few possessed the drug. Hoel said that a small but vocal unorganized number of students opposed the drug’s use on campus.

“Pitt police were slightly more attentive to marijuana than to alcohol,” Hoel said. They “appeared to have a policy that required an aggravative factor [and] customarily would not take action.”

If students were rowdy with pot — if they were high and urinating in the quad, or unreasonably loud — only then would the Pitt police take action.

Although it was still legally criminalized, “[Pot was] generally disregarded so long as it wasn’t annoying others,” Hoel said.

FROM PAGE 3

CARTOON horizon ahead for cartoons. Quintel, who has quickly emerged as Cartoon Network’s next creative juggernaut, has also written for “Adventure Time” and “The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack,” two shows that share “Regular Show”’s reputation for spontaneity and tongue-in-cheek humor.

This recent wave of cartoons has helped define a new generation of television for younger viewers [that connects] with older ones by blurring what can and cannot be said.

Though I’d be the first to sign a petition to bring back “Courage the Cowardly Dog,” I’m also perfectly content watching Mordecai and Rigby recover from a night of heavy “soda” drinking, completely secure in the knowledge that a seven-year-old would do the same.

induce euphoria and to enhance their energy. According to Nightingale, morning cannabis users prefer sativas because, unlike indicas, they don’t cause drowsiness.

“We have a saying at our dispensary, indicas are ‘in-the-couch,’” said Jessica, an office manager at Compassionate Pain Management, a dispensary in Louisville, Colo., who asked that her last name not be published. “They give a body feeling. Indicas are more likely to induce relaxation and make you ‘veg

out.’”

Nightingale said cannabis users should choose indicas “if [they] want something that will cause [their] mind to relax.”

“Indicas encourage sleep and relieve anxiety,” Nightingale said, adding that many cannabis users prefer to use indicas in the evening.

In Colorado, where adults over 21 years of age can legally use recreational marijuana, some dispensaries, like the dispensary in Louisville, have defined

27 the strains they sell based on customers’ preferences.

According to Jessica, sativas’ energyinducing properties can be overwhelming. “[Sativas] are more likely to induce panic attacks,” Jessica said.

But, she said, other customers use the energy from sativas to get creative.

“Sativas are very cerebral. They’re going to get your mind going,” Jessica said. “Artists and writers tend to prefer sativas.”

28 FROM PAGE 12

ATHLETES a certain heaviness, marked relaxation and excessive fatigue of the limbs.”

But Jones has smoked before informal pickup-type games, and, like Davis, he found himself playing with more freedom.

“Five hundred times in a week I catch a throw in a certain place and I make a certain throw to the next spot because

April 20, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com that’s what I have the muscle memory to do,” Jones said. “When you’re high, you experience everything differently.

So instead of making that throw, I might do something different.”

While Michaels uses stimulants to better control the range of the high, he said consuming the drug via vaporizer helps additionally.

All four described vaping as allowing for a more mild and clear-headed kind of high, allowing a person to stay functional.

Jones and Davis use glass pipes for the same reason. None use edibles.

“I’m not trying to get super stoned before I go and play. I like to get it to the point where it mellows me out a little bit and my thinking is still clear,” Davis said.

Just as their experiences combining exercise and marijuana differ, so does their advice and overall view of the practice.

“It’s fun to be stoned and it’s fun to be playing sports, so if you put the two

together I figured it would be good,” Jones said. “It is. It’s great.”

But not everyone feels that way.

Smith wouldn’t recommend it to others as something to do more than once.

“I used to try it, thinking it could be better than it was,” Smith said. “But then eventually I realized, just keep them separate.”

There is one thing they all agreed on.

“There are a lot of people that take care of everything in their life and are extremely healthy and also enjoy the benefits of marijuana,” Davis said.

FROM PAGE 25

WISE

from these penalties? For starters, don’t mess with the MLB. They’ll revoke your fun privileges instantly; 25 games is no joke, nor is 80 for a third test. Compare that to the NFL, where a player doesn’t get suspended until his fourth positive test. This is an extreme downgrade from the NFL’s former policy, which was notoriously — perhaps overly — harsh.

Ask Gordon.

Second, if you sense from a young age that you’ll be a pothead down the road, take up hockey. You’ll never have to worry about those pesky urine tests keeping you off the ice and away from your paycheck, and you’ll get to hang out all day with a bunch of people who talk funny.

If I’ve accomplished nothing else today, I hope that you at least have a better understanding of why your favorite player got fined and suspended when he did. But, of course, the leagues will likely amend these policies by the time we all figure out what they are.

For homework, go on the Internet machine and find a video of an Evgeni Malkin postgame press conference.

Then rewatch it, imagining Malkin high.

I don’t know. Just do it.