Sorry, folks, I just couldn’t make it happen – I could find no transportation to Madras.
I’m pleased to announce that we will be taking the day off tomorrow from our regularly scheduled live show to attend a Statewide Marijuana Summit being sponsored by rehabs and drug cops here in Oregon.
My one non-pot smoking friend, Dr. Kevin Sabet, will be speaking at the event. Sheriff John Trumbo and Shirley Morgan will be there as well, two anti-marijuana zealots that our own Jennifer Alexander has researched in depth (I’ll update with her comments soon). We’ll be there all day, video recording panel sessions, live tweeting, and interviewing as many people as we can for replay on Friday’s show.
At this event, which is free, we will be able to enjoy a free lunch and maybe win some prizes. If we had children, free child care will be provided. If we spoke Spanish, there will be translation services. And I know flying Dr. Kevin Sabet in from Florida, putting him up in a hotel room, covering his rental car, and paying his honorarium can’t be cheap. This is all paid for, mind you, by US Department of Justice grant money, one day before our state election ballots are mailed to Oregon voters.
Our gas money to get there will be paid for by the VIP Members of The Russ Belville Show. Thank you.
But my favorite part is the confirmation email I got in response to my pre-registration from Edgar Pineda, a Prevention Specialist for BestCare Treatment Services. After thanking me for registering, his email concludes with the following quote:
‘We accept what life gives us good and bad, as gifts from the creator, we try to get through hard times, stressful times with a good heart… the gift is the lesson we learn from overcoming it.’ ~Jim Clairmont, Lakota Sioux elder
This more than made up for my daily requirement of irony. I once interviewed leaders of the Lakota Sioux as they pressed for their tribal nation’s right to cultivate industrial hemp. According to the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1898, these First Nations people’s right to cultivate any crop was supposed to be recognized. In 2000, DEA agents stormed the land of Alex White Plume to eradicate his crop of industrial hemp. Stressful times, indeed.
