Hemp Growing

Though in North Carolina, U.S. government officials only used Google Earth to verify code violation complaints, in places like India, New York, Argentina and Greece, Google Earth was used in the active reconnaissance of committed crimes. Marine researchers have also used analyses of Google Earth to evaluate the veracity of fish-catch reports made to the UN. Spain’s Green Party has reported illegal bottom trawling of beaches for fish using Google Earth images, as well. Google Earth has also been used to detect illegal dumping. For example, in Florida, a sheriff’s deputy used Google Earth to apprehend an individual who dumped a large boat; in Mississippi, a landowner identified a stolen and illegally dumped truck on his property using Google Earth; while in Bangalore, Google Earth was used to identify unauthorized and illegal waste dumping site. Illegal logging is also actively identified using Google Earth by such groups as local police departments in the Philippines, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and their associated NGOs in Russia, the Amazon Conservation Team and associated indigenous groups. Amateur Google Earth users have reported potential body-dumping based on the imagery available, as well. Some of the issues associated with Google Earth arise from the fact that its images are made available by a privately-owned corporation and are technology driven. Thus, as Sheppard and Cizek note, the visualizations of the Earth made available by this interface are more geared towards “efficiency, convenience…entertainment value, popular demand, flood tray and profit” than they are towards “truth, deeper understanding, improved civil discourse, safer and more informed decisions, and other ethical considerations”. As these and other authors point out, realism in landscape visualization is not the same as accuracy or validity.

Virtual globes, like Google Earth, may suffer from low data resolution, interfering with image clarity and accuracy, missing data or inaccurately displayed data. Further, it is often impossible to know the exact date of the imagery available on Google Earth and whether all images in a scene are from the same date . Thus, a potential crime sighted on Google Earth may be months or even years old or may be exaggerated by differing image dates. Finally, these data may be manipulated by the producers of these virtual globes for various privacy reasons; some areas are intentionally blurred or objects are not displayed. More significant than spatial and temporal accuracy is the consumption and use of these images by untrained or informal interpreters. These informal interpreters may not understand the temporal or spatial inaccuracies inherent in these data. Goodchild points out that users of Google Earth may be misled to think it is more accurate than it is in reality. Despite the fact that Google Earth images’ absolute positional accuracy is sufficient for assessing remote sensing products of moderate resolution, errors and positional inaccuracies are still a problem. Trained remote sensing analysts understand these limitations and may be able to account for them, whereas casual users may not. For example, in the case mentioned above, where amateur Google Earth users reported a dumped body, their interpretation of the image was flawed. In this case, the “dumped body” turned out to be a swimming dog. The dog’s watery trail on the cedar wood dock and the dog lying on that dock appeared to be a bloodied body rather than a picture of a sunny day at a lake. Un-validated identifications of “crimes” using Google Earth images by amateur analysts unfamiliar with the inaccuracies of these images or the nuances of image interpretation may be problematic for several reasons. First, they may cause law enforcement officers to seek places or things that are not where they are purported to be, are no longer present or never existed in the first place. This may result in a waste of funds, resources and personnel hours. Second, the misidentification of a site as a place where a crime is or has occurred opens that place and its residents up to potentially needless intrusion, intimidation, surveillance or violence.

Despite the increasing ease with which satellite images and other spatially explicit data flow to us, ethical and scientific rigor should not be laid aside. Finally, as Purdy and Leung note, Earth Observation data like those used in products like Google Earth may have their evidential weight in a court of law seriously reduced if un-validated, because the medium by which it was taken, the data management systems used or even the date the image was taken may be unknown. Given the potential for amateur misinterpretation or overconfidence in Google Earth images, it is obvious that crimes detected in this manner must be validated to ensure appropriate, timely and safe responses by government of law enforcement officers. While there have been a few cases where crimes detected using Google Earth were validated, either by fly-overs or personal ground validation missions , in the majority of cases, there is no discussion of accuracy assessment or validation. This dangerous trend toward trained and untrained analysts taking Google Earth images as “truth” with no validation may have broad reaching potential impacts on law enforcement efforts and personal security. Despite the fact that cutting-edge technologies are being used to remotely detect crime, the accuracy assessments of those analyses lag well behind current remote sensing standards. Indeed, as we have shown above, some studies that attempt to remotely sense crime do not perform accuracy assessments at all, depend on the opinions of “experts” or “surrogate ground truth data”, all of which are deemed to be substandard by today’s remote sensing community. Many of the studies noted above performed no accuracy assessment at all; they did not even use Google Earth or Digital Globes to validate their data. Particularly, in situations that may have life-and-death implications or serious environmental effects , law enforcement officers must strive to be as accurate as possible in their targeting of crimes and criminals. Although drones or unmanned aerial vehicles/systems may present excellent options for accuracy assessment, offering up quiet, real-time, high resolution imagery of remote or distant areas without threat to human life, they are not ideal solutions in every situation. The equipment, licensing, training and maintenance required to acquire and safely maintain a UAV may be well beyond the means of many local police departments or underfunded government agencies. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has seriously restricted the use of unmanned aircraft in national airspace . Further, there are serious questions about the constitutionality of using UAVs for law enforcement. Critics of UAV use by law enforcement argue that these vehicles impede an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy as protected by the fourth amendment Despite these concerns, law enforcement is increasingly using UAVs to detect crimes and facilitate law enforcement . In the following section, we propose some alternate or additional means of validating remotely sensed crime. We hope that this initial thought experiment may help spark a conversation about the methods and ethics of remote sensing in law enforcement. We define “first order” accuracy assessments as those described in the accepted remote sensing protocol , which include ground-based validation or the use of imagery of higher resolutions than the imagery to be validated.

Since these first order assessments can be limited by security, funding and terrain issues and drone use presents funding and legal issues, we propose a “second order” level of accuracy assessment. This second order accuracy assessment analyzes the larger geographical and social context in which remotely sensed crimes are detected by remote sensors. Such assessments could utilize crowd sourcing, big data mining, landscape-scale ecological data and anonymous surveys to determine whether and how crimes are occurring and where remote sensing analysts think they are. Second order accuracy assessments may allow remote sensors and law enforcement officers to confirm that crimes are taking place where analysts say they are without facing rugged terrain, 4×8 grow tray insecure conditions or using costly overflight methods. Further, second order validation may enable analysts to gain better contextual understandings of those crimes, allowing for more ethical and proportionate responses by law enforcement. While these second order validation techniques may not be as reliable as first order techniques, they are better than no validation at all. Alternatively, these second order techniques could be incorporated into interdisciplinary crime detection techniques that may increase detection accuracy. Urban areas are well suited to second order accuracy assessments because of the amount of available social data produced and available at any given moment. For example, Oakland’s Domain Awareness Center plans to link public and private cameras and sensors within the city limits into a single hub for law enforcement use . While highly controversial, these centers present numerous opportunities to validate remotely sensed crimes with closed-circuit television , as well as readily available on-the-ground policing. Rural or more remote areas present more of a challenge, however. These places typically lack surveillance cameras and mounted sensors. It is also in these places that large-scale drug production, human and drug smuggling frequently occur. Thus, here, we use illicit cannabis production as a case study to think through three potential second order accuracy assessment techniques in non-urban zones. Though we acknowledge that each of these methods would require further development and thought and that methods may exist beyond those we propose here, it is our hope that this will be the first effort in a larger conversation as to second order validation techniques in the remote sensing of crime. Social media: Location-based social network analysis may be helpful in validating crimes remotely sensed in other ways through geolocated self-reporting or observations by others. LBSN has been shown to provide reliable spatio-temporal information about incidents occurring in a broad landscape. For example, researchers from the Institute of Environment and Sustainability in Italy used a Twitter application programming interface to retrieve tweets and related metadata for a specific topic, the 2009 Marseille forest fire. These tweets were then organized into meaningful summary statistics using data mining and web crawling scripts. These researchers found that the LBSN data collected were temporally synchronized with actual events and provided some geographically accurate reporting. They note that Twitter “could offer promising seeds for crawlers to collect event-related data where time and location matter”. Some products already exist to facilitate such second order validation of crimes. Products like SensePlace2, Twitter-based event detection and analysis system, DataSift, Gnip, SABESS, and others, enable those interested in crime or emergency detection to gather and aggregate publicly-available, geo-located, time-stamped information in real time about where and when an incident may have occurred, who was involved and how serious it was. Because these data are publicly available, issues that other forms of remote sensing bring up in terms of the invasion of privacy are avoided. Further, because reports are on the ground and produced by humans, they may offer information on the context of crimes and their perpetrators and an interpretation of the events that took place rather than leaving this work up to far-removed remote sensing analysts. While connectivity in rural areas is more limited than in urban spaces, the Pew Research Group has found that as of January 2014, 88% of rural Americans have a cellphone and 43% of rural Americans have smartphones, making such data gathering feasible in these areas. Landscape-scale ecological data: Remote sensing of large-scale cannabis production can be validated using landscape-scale ecological data, as well. Down-stream water quality is one way remote sensing of these grow sites can be validated, for example. Large-scale outdoor cannabis production can threaten water quality through water diversion, erosion and sediment deposition due to grading, terracing, road construction, deforestation and clearing; as well as the inputs of harmful chemicals or other pollutants, such as rodenticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, trash, human waste, gasoline, oil and insecticides, into local water sources. Using stream water quality analysis that picks up the chemical signatures of such pollutants may be one way to affirm that remote sensing analysts were correct in their characterization of given drug production sites. Though no studies using this approach to detect upstream drug growth exist to date, similar methods have been used in the early detection of sudden oak death. Stream monitoring efforts are able to detect Phytophthora ramorum even before signs of infection are even visible from over-flights.

Census tracts are convenient units of analysis because they have similar population sizes, their boundaries align with the physical environment, and they are intended to be homogenous with respect to population characteristics and living conditions . Thus they roughly approximate city neighborhoods. From a routine activities perspective, I argue that it is reasonable to assume in the case of densely populated cities like San Francisco that likely offenders, in choosing whether, where, and when to commit a crime—that is, in weighing the target suitability and guardianship of potential victims—are going to consider targets within an area roughly the size of a census tract. Maps presented in the forthcoming analysis should illustrate the geographic implications of this assumption. Another advantage to using census tracts as the spatial unit of analysis is that there is an abundance of demographic information available at the census tract level via the U.S. Census Bureau and ACS. This provides for an excellent range of control variables. But this approach is not without its disadvantages.The present model does not account for criminal activity in other tracts and therefore misses the “spillover effects” that a land use such as MCDs may have on crime in neighboring tracts. This presents a significant limitation for the present model—although one that could theoretically be corrected for, to some extent, through more sophisticated spatial analyses. Considering the lack of empirical evidence currently available with respect to this issue—and its significant implications for policy making and future research—I argue that, as a preliminary analysis, this study has tremendous value despite this and other limitations. It may not account for inter-tract crime, but it does provide new knowledge about the nature of intra-tract crime.

City residents probably are concerned about businesses in adjacent neighborhoods; but when it comes to crime they are concerned, first and foremost, grow tray with the people next door.In this paper I examine the relationship between MCDs and crime in San Francisco for the year 2010. San Francisco provides an excellent case study for analyzing the social impact of MCDs because, unlike most jurisdictions in which MCDs have emerged in recent years, the local government in San Francisco has been regulating MCDs effectively for years. In some other cities, local governments and MCD operators have undergone heated legal battles with one another. This has resulted in a “regulatory vacuum” with respect to MCDs in most jurisdictions in which they exist . Perhaps the most notable example of this is Los Angeles, where MCDs have been in legal limbo for years. In early 2012 the Los Angeles Times editorial board, responding to a recent motion to ban all MCDs in the city, described the L.A. city government’s approach to dispensary regulation as a “roller-coaster ride”. At one point there were an estimated 1,000 MCDs operating throughout the city, leading to the observation that medical cannabis was more popular in L.A. than Starbucks. By contrast, in San Francisco, MCDs are governed by a comprehensive municipal ordinance that has survived judicial scrutiny to date. The San Francisco “Medical Cannabis Act” sets up a permitting system for MCDs and places certain restrictions on their location and operation. The Act requires that all MCDs comply with California state law as well as guidelines written in 2008 by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown entitled “Guidelines For The Security And Non-Diversion Of Marijuana Grown For Medical Use”. Brown’s guidelines state that “a properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful under California law” if they meet certain requirements, including: operating on a not-for-profit basis, obtaining all of the relevant permits and licenses from state and local government, taking steps to verify that their members are qualified patients under state law, acquiring and distributing only marijuana that has been cultivated legally, prohibiting sales to non-members, and providing adequate security .

Regarding security, Brown states that MCDs must “provide adequate security to ensure that patients are safe and that the surrounding homes or businesses are not negatively impacted by nuisance activity such as loitering or crime.” Expanding on this theme, the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Act prohibits “any breach of peace… or any disturbance of public order or decorum by any tumultuous, riotous or disorderly conduct” within permitted MCDs. MCDs are required to submit security plans as part of their permit application. This study examines whether such security protocols amount to capable guardianship, which is an effective deterrent against crime according to routine activities theory . San Francisco is not the only municipality that has regulated MCDs. Other California cities have enacted similar ordinances, including two prominent examples that can be found directly across the water from San Francisco in the cities of Berkeley and Oakland. But as a case study San Francisco has several advantages over these and other alternatives. First and foremost, it is a major city with a large sample of MCDs in the year for which data are collected. By comparison, Berkeley and Oakland have smaller populations and “hard caps” on the number of dispensaries allowed. So although they present interesting pieces of the legal, social, and political puzzles presented by California’s medical cannabis law, their small sample size limits the extent to which they are useful cases for empirical study. In cities that do not regulate MCDs, it is difficult to determine when and where dispensaries operate, and for how long. It is also much harder, in the case of unregulated dispensaries, to infer whether MCDs implement security protocols amounting to capable guardianship against crime, from a routine activities perspective . Simply put, San Francisco is the largest California to have enacted meaningful legislation with respect to MCDs. It has done so in a way that reasonably controls for crime, at least in theoretical terms. Thus it provides an excellent case study for analyzing the spatial relationship between crime and locally regulated MCDs.

Crime data were collected from the San Francisco Police Department in late 2011. The Crime Analysis Unit provided lists of serious crimes reported in 2010 along with the date and approximate location of each crime. Here, “serious crimes” refer to those classified as Part I offenses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its Uniform Crime Reports. The crime variables used in this analysis include measures of “violent crime” as well as “property crime” ; both as total counts and as rates per 1,000 residents. The lists of crimes and addresses were geocoded and aggregated into census tracts using ArcGIS software. Geocoding refers to the process by which tabular data are attributed spatial components by a geodatabase. Geocoding resulted in a successful match for more than 98% of all crimes, which were the aggregated into census tracts using a “spatial join” analysis. The remaining 1-2% of crimes were discarded from analysis. In addition, some reported crimes were removed from analysis because their geocoding confidence ratings were below 95%. In the end 43,688 reported crimes were analyzed out of the original 44,422 for which the San Francisco Police Department provided 2010 data. For the purpose of analysis, these crime measures were aggregated together by census tract and transformed by natural logarithm to correct for a right-skewed distribution. Descriptive statistics for these various categories of crime are presented in their original form in Table 4.1. The primary independent variable under review is the density of MCDs. Lists of MCD names and addresses were compiled using information provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These MCDs were located across 16 census tracts primarily in the downtown area, as illustrated by Maps 4.1 and 4.2. The MCD addresses were geocoded to 100%. As with crime frequency, data for MCDs are presented in two forms. Descriptive statistics presented in Table 4.1 include MCD density as the number of dispensaries per square mile in a given census tract. For the regression analyses presented by Table 4.2, this variable is transformed by natural logarithm to address a right-skewed distribution. Crime rates by census tract are presented in Map 4.1 and Map 4.2 on the following pages. MCD locations are marked by green crosses. Property crimes include arson, burglary, larceny-theft, vandalism, and vehicle theft. Violent crimes include assault and robbery. Census tracts are assigned to one of five classes based on their crime rates. In addition to the primary variables already discussed, hydroponic trays data were also collected for several neighborhood characteristics that could potentially confound the relationship between MCDs and crime. These neighborhood characteristics are drawn from social disorganization theory, which associates higher rates of crime with socioeconomic disadvantage, family disruption, residential instability, and population heterogeneity . From these, the present study examines the criminogenic effect of poverty, unemployment, percent of single-parent households, percent of housing units that are vacant, and percent of the population between the ages of 18 and 24. Demographic data are collected from the American Community Survey database of the United States Census Bureau via the American FactFinder website, as well as the Demographic Research Unit of the California Department of Finance. With regard to the census data, variables are constructed from the ACS 5-year estimates for the year 2010.

Criminological research has found that indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage—including poverty and unemployment—have been associated with higher crime rates . In the present study economic data are collected from the ACS. The U.S. Census Bureau calculates the poverty status of individuals based on whether their total income in the past 12 months falls below the applicable poverty threshold, which is determined by age, family size, and family composition . The 2010 poverty thresholds range from $11,139 for a single individual living alone to $42,156 for a family of eight or more people living in the same household. For the present analysis, “poverty” means the number of individuals with incomes under their applicable poverty threshold in the past twelve months, divided by the total number of people for whom poverty status is calculated within a given tract.According to the United States Census Bureau, an individual is considered unemployed if he or she did not have a job and has been actively looking for work during the last four weeks and was available to start a job at the time of the survey . “Unemployment”, in the present analysis, means the unemployment rate in each tract as estimated by the ACS. Research examining crime rates in the United States during the 1990’s suggests that the job market can provide powerful explanations for criminal behavior . Poverty and unemployment are important measures in the model currently being tested, as they control for varying levels of socioeconomic disadvantage across city neighborhoods, which according to social disorganization theory affect crime rates in significant ways .In this study I use “family stability” as an inverse measure of family disruption. I calculate family stability by taking the number of individuals living in married couple family housing and dividing it by the number of people living in single-parent family households. Scholars of both routine activities theory and social disorganization theory predict that higher concentrations of married-couple families are associated with lower crime rates in urban areas, because more parents can provide more supervision and therefore more social control. From a routine activities perspective, both “family stability” and “residential stability” correspond with the notion of capable guardianship. According to social disorganization theory, residential instability weakens a community’s social cohesion and therefore its ability to deter and prevent crime within its territory. In this study I use vacancy rates as measure of residential instability. I calculate “vacancy” by dividing the number of vacant housing units within a census tract by the total number of units within that tract. Data for this measure comes from the Census 2010 Redistricting Plan. Another indicator of residential turnover discussed in the criminological literature is the percent of the sample population that is young . The idea is that neighborhoods with a high concentration of young adults will have correspondingly fewer older adults and children, which results in a lack of social cohesion and crime-preventive capacity much in the same way as the other precursors of “social disorganization” already discussed. The variable “percent young” was constructed using ACS population estimates by dividing the total number of individuals between the ages of 18 and 29 by the total tract population.

Both in vitro studies and animal models show that CB2R mediated anti-inflammatory activity may account for the neuroprotective action of the ECS by decreasing glial reactivity. Both natural and synthetic cannabinoids are neuroprotective after various types of CNS insults, such as stroke. Preclinical models show activation of CBRs can trigger removal of activated immune cells, down regulate pro-inflammatory cytokine and chemokine production, and inhibit HIV-associated synapse loss and neural injury. In vitro, THC treatment suppresses several pro-inflammatory factors, including TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8, and decreases monocyte-derived interleukin IL-1ß production and astrocyte secretion of MCP-1 and IL-6 from a human coculture system. We recently reported that more recent cannabis use was associated with significantly lower IL-16 levels in cerebrospinal fluid and lower soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor type-II and IP-10 levels in plasma. An additional benefit of cannabis, likely linked to its anti-inflammatory effects, is stabilization of the blood–brain barrier , which we demonstrated in a separate report, showing that more frequent use of cannabis was associated with better markers of BBB integrity in PWH. Recently, studies have determined that cannabis is associated with reduced markers of immune activation and inflammation in CSF. In sum, there is substantial evidence that cannabinoids display beneficial anti-inflammatory effects that are relevant to HIV infection. Anti-inflammatory effects of cannabinoids in the brain may translate to clinical bene- fits, particularly with respect to neurocognition. HIV causes T-cell and monocyte migration to the brain and subsequent interactions with astrocytes and microglia lead to the secretion of neurotoxic cytokines and chemokines. These pro-inflammatory factors are linked to worse neurocognitive performance in PWH , and lowering them might benefit neurocognitive function.

We showed that lower levels of the monocyte activation marker, vertical growing system monocyte chemoattractant protein type 1 related to better performance in tests of learning ability, and that lower IP-10 also related to better learning as well as delayed recall and motor skills. These cognitive domains frequently show deficits in virally suppressed PWH. However, not all studies support neuroprotective effects of cannabis. For example, a brain diffusion tensor imaging study suggested axonal loss in the uncinate fasciculus, which is involved in verbal memory and emotion, in cannabis users. This study also showed greater than normal age-dependent fractional anisotropy declines in white matter tracts and globus pallidus of cannabis users, suggesting reduced neuronal integrity in these regions. For example, a review of 107 case reports over a total of 55 years described strokes associated with intake of both raw and synthetic cannabis. Affected individuals were most frequently young males with chronic tobacco smoking and unusually high levels of cannabis and alcohol consumption just before their stroke. Ischemic strokes and much more common than hemorrhagic strokes with cannabis use. Proposed underlying mechanisms explaining a possible link between stroke and cannabis use, reactive oxygen species generation inducing oxidative stress, cerebral artery luminal stenosis, cerebral auto-dysregulation, cardioembolism, reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome and angiopathy. None of these reports focused on HIV infection, where effects of cannabis on chronic inflammation may counterbalance adverse vascular effects. An additional limitation of the historical literature is the many confounds associated with cannabis consumption that themselves are risk factors for stroke. These include concomitant tobacco smoking and intake of alcohol and synthetic cannabinoids, as well as a variety of other comorbidities. In the case of ROS, similar to tobacco smoke, these could be generated as a byproduct of marijuana combustion rather than a specific effect of cannabinoids.

Smoking involves inhalation of products of combustion that may be the source of adverse vascular effects. Thus, no strong link between cannabis and stroke has been yet established. These effects may be eliminated when using cannabis in oral or vaporized form. Ongoing trials may be found at clinicaltrials.gov. Finally, there is considerable evidence that, rather than being a risk factor for stroke, cannabis may be vasculo- and neuro-protective. Thus, cannabinoids may have significant therapeutic value in stroke, as suggested in a recent systemic review and meta-analysis by England et al. showing that all sub-classes of cannabinoids, cannabis-derived, synthetic, specific CB1R, and CB2R agonists significantly reduced infarct volume in transient and permanent ischemia and improved both early and late functional outcome in experimental stroke when given after stroke onset. In large mammals, cerebral vessels perfused with cannabinoids demonstrated relaxation rather than constriction. Cannabis disturbs cognition acutely, but its longer-term effects on brain function in HIV are not well understood. While there is limited evidence of increased cognitive impairment in some cannabis-using PWH, chronic exposure may also reduce inflammation, possibly resulting in improved CNS outcomes among PWH. Still, thedegree and pattern of cannabis exposure that may be therapeutic, neutral, or harmful is not understood. We hypothesize that an “optimal” level of cannabis exposure will improve some HIV-related outcomes. Studies of human and mouse cannabinoid systems in the context of neuroinflammatory exposures show that CB2Rs are highly upregulated during inflammatory insult and their selective activation reduces vascular inflammation, pathological microglial activation and BBB dysfunction, thus indirectly decreasing oxidative stress and subsequent cell death, and HIV-associated synapse loss. Taken together, this literature cumulatively suggests there may be some therapeutic potential of compounds that target the cannabinoid system through modulation of neurotoxic and inflammatory processes in HIV disease and other neuroinflammatory diseases.

To evaluate the effects of cannabis use in PWH and people without HIV and BBB permeability and soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor , a receptor for uPA, a matrix-degrading proteolytic enzyme that disrupts the basal lamina around cerebral capillaries. We found a statistically significant interaction between HIV serostatus and frequency of cannabis use such that more frequent use was associated with lower concentrations of uPAR in CSF in PWH, but not in PWoH. Within PWH, higher CSF uPAR levels correlated with higher CSAR values and more inflammation . These findings suggest that cannabis may have a beneficial impact on HIV-associated BBB injury and neuroinflammation, and since BBB disruption may permit increased entry of toxins with consequent CNS injury, these results support the potential therapeutic role of cannabis among PWH and may have important treatment implications for ART effectiveness and toxicity. In a recent report, we hypothesized that more recent cannabis use would be associated with reduced biomarkers of immune activation and inflammation in CSF. This hypothesis was based on previous research demonstrating that selective stimulation of CB2R suppressed neuroinflammation and microglial activation. We measured a panel of pro-inflammatory cytokines -16, C-reactive protein , IL- 6, CXCL-10, sCD14 and soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor type II in CSF and blood plasma in PWH and PWoH who did or did not use cannabis at various levels from none too heavy. Participants were 35 PWH and 21 PwoH cannabis ever users, 15 never users. We calculated factor scores of biomarkers using exploratory factor analysis separately for CSF and plasma. We used multiple linear regression to evaluate the association of factor scores with the effects of cannabis use, HIV status and their interaction. Of the three CSF biomarker factors identified, one that loaded on CRP, IL-16 and sTNFRII was associated with more recent cannabis use in both HIV status groups. In plasma, more recent cannabis use was associated with lower values on a biomarker factor loading on sTNFRII and IP-10. Thus, we found recent cannabis use to be associated with lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers, both in CSF and blood plasma, but in different patterns, consistent with compartmentalization of immune effects. Cannabinoids are highly lipid soluble and sequestered in brain tissue, and thus our findings are consistent with specific anti-neuroinflammatory effects that may benefit PWH with or at risk for neurocognitive impairment. However, other studies of cohorts differing in age and HIV disease characteristics have reported conflicting findings. Cannabis as a clinical intervention in HIV disease would be a significant contribution to the field. When ingested, inhaled, or absorbed, THC and CBD, along with other exoge-nous cannabis components, are anti-inflammatory and counter oxidative stress. Patients report that cannabis has less harmful effects than other drugs. However, how to dry cannabis cannabis used improperly can have adverse side effects. People who use cannabis frequently with heavy doses have a higher risk of developing psychiatric symptoms. Long-term users have a reduction in hippocampal volume, affecting memory and verbal learning. In areas with high cannabis use, hospital emergency rooms report increased prevalence of visits due to nausea/vomiting, cardiovascular, psychiatric complaints. Caution is recommended for adolescents using cannabis due to the effect of cannabis on the developing brain. Adolescents who used cannabis regularly developed deficits in executive function involved in planning and decision making, as well as memory loss. Cerebral white matter organization is altered, affecting neural communication, potentially leading to higher impulsivity in adolescents. Further investigations are needed to refine the effects of dose, timing, and cannabis compound on this relationship, which could inform guidelines for safe cannabis use among populations vulnerable to NCI, cognitive decline, and inflammation. Clinical trials are needed to support recommendations to balance the trade-offs between therapeutic benefits and harm.Sixteen states have legalized the medical use of cannabis, and several others may do so by the end of the 2012 election cycle. 

Medical cannabis dispensaries —storefronts that dispense the drug to qualified patients—have proliferated in several of these jurisdictions. California was the first state to legalize medical cannabis, and there are now hundreds of dispensaries serving an estimated 300,000 patients throughout the Golden State . In the legal grey area between California law and federal prohibition, a handful of cities have taken it upon themselves to regulate MCDs within their jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the debate surrounding medical cannabis tends to be intensely polarized, heavy on political ideology, and light on empirical evidence. In this paper I aim to contribute knowledge that can be used objectively by researchers and policymakers interested in the effects of locally regulated MCDs on crime. Using spatial data and linear regression models, I explore the relationship between MCDs and crime across 189 census tracts in San Francisco. In framing a land use question, this study strives to analyze dispensaries in the same way that local government officials and staff might analyze bars, retail stores, or any other business in their community. Some constituents may want them, and others may not. From a policy standpoint, I argue that the interesting question is not whether to allow for the distribution of medical cannabis, but how. Every other legal substance—from alcohol to azithromycin—is dispensed by some type of storefront retailer. In California, cannabis is a legal substance within certain medical contexts. In this study I investigate whether, and to what extent, storefronts that provide medical cannabis are associated with higher crime rates.Law enforcement groups have mounted organized resistance against the proliferation of MCDs, focusing their attacks first and foremost on California—the state that opened Pandora’s box, as it were. A 2009 report entitled Marijuana Dispensaries and the Federal Government: Recommendations to the Obama Administration stated that: “In, California, dispensaries have had 13 years to flourish, and it is in California that their abuses have become evident” . In 2009 the California Police Chiefs Association also published its White Paper on Marijuana Dispensaries. It alleges that dispensaries “have been tied to organized criminal gangs” and that murders and armed robberies occur commonly as “ancillary byproducts of their operation” . It goes on to relate a series of sensational anecdotes involving “hooded home invaders”, victims bleeding to death, and even poisonings . In neither report do the authors include statistical analyses indicating that MCDs attract these crimes at rates higher than any other business. Proponents of medical cannabis dispensaries contend that regulated dispensaries actually reduce crime and restrict access to cannabis by minors, and they point to several successful jurisdictions in making the case that regulation is preferable to prohibition. In a report released in early 2011, Americans for Safe Access, a non-profit advocacy organization representing medical cannabis patients and MCDs, cites agreement from local government and law enforcement officials representing municipalities as diverse as Kern County, Oakland, and Sebastopol. In Oakland, a notoriously high-crime jurisdiction, city administrator Barbara Killey was quoted as saying that since enacting its dispensary ordinance, “the areas around the dispensaries may be some of the safest areas of Oakland” . In this paper I aim to test these competing claims empirically using data collected for the year 2010 across 189 census tracts in San Francisco.

This system yielded 24 g/L of isobutanol, close to titers reported in microbes. However, the limiting factor of the system was identified as enzyme instability in high isobutanol, and the authors were able to determine precisely which enzymes were the least stable. Since, the lab has stabilized many of the enzymes in the pathway by either engineering the enzyme or using a more thermostable variant. Current titers in a 15 mL bioreactor have reached nearly 300 g/L isobutanol orders of magnitude higher than microbial production . While the monoterpene and isobutanol pathways required sophisticated methods for cofactor regeneration, that may not always be the case. You et al utilized an 5 step enzymatic system to convert starch into myo-inositol , which is co-factor independent. The enzymes were expressed in E. coli and purified using a simple heating step. The resulting biosynthesis of starch to myo-inositol yielded 95 g/L in 48 hours on an 18,000 L scale. This was a remarkable study because of the scale and final titers achieved. It demonstrates that it is possible to translate the enzymatic systems to an industrial scale. Synthetic biochemistry is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to be a powerful tool for the production of natural products. There are a few obstacles that need to be addressed before more complex systems are industrially relevant. First, since synthetic biochemistry does not use cell lysates or cells, so cofactors like ATP, coenzyme A and NAD+ need to be added to start the system. While recycling these cofactors and using them for several iterations would reduce the associated cost, it is important to find an inexpensive source for these molecules. Additionally, dry racks for weed the enzyme catalysts can also be an expensive component of these systems, however this cost can be overcome by recycling the enzymes and using them for several iterations.

The use of thermostable enzymes is a key factor, demonstrated by You et al. The thermostable enzymes are able to be purified by a simple heating step, reducing the cost associated with protein purification. Additionally, they are able to recycle the enzymes and use them in subsequent bioreactor runs. While the obstacles might take time to solve, they are definitely solvable problems, making synthetic biochemistry an alternative approach for the biosynthesis of natural products. Described above are several bio-based approaches for the production of natural products. When seeking a bio-based approach for natural product production, it is important to recognize that different systems will work better for different molecules. In the case of paclitaxel it is clear that plant cell culture is currently the best method, however for monoterpenes a synthetic biochemistry approach may be a better option based on titer. The focus of this thesis is to evaluate a synthetic biochemistry approach for the production of cannabinoids and other prenylated aromatic polyketides. Due to the low cannabinoid titers seen with metabolic engineering it is possible that an alternative approach may be more successful. The low titers are most likely due to competition for the precursor acetyl-CoA. It requires 9 acetylCoA molecules to produce 1 molecule of THC or CBD. In addition to the 9 molecules of acetylCoA needed for cannabinoid biosynthesis, there are other essential competing pathways like fatty acid biosynthesis. Additionally the 9 acetyl-CoA molecules are split between the isoprenoid pathway and the polyketide pathway , and engineering the yeast to express each enzyme at the level needed to balance the acetyl-CoA flux is extremely difficult. A synthetic biochemistry approach for this pathway may be the better option due to better control over reaction components, flux, and a sufficient supply of the precursor acetyl-CoA. Due to these advantages, synthetic biochemistry could be a useful tool for the sustainable production of cannabinoids.

Prenylated natural products are a large class of bioactive molecules with demonstrated medicinal properties.1 Examples include prenyl-flavanoids, prenyl-stilbenoids and cannabinoids . Cannabinoids in particular show immense therapeutic potential with over 100 ongoing clinical trials as antiemetics, anticonvulsants, antidepressants and analgesics2–6 . Nevertheless, despite the therapeutic potential of prenyl-natural products, their study and use is limited by the lack of cost-effective production methods. Plant-derived prenyl-compounds are difficult to isolate due to the structural similarity of contaminating molecules, and the variable composition between crops. These challenges are further exacerbated when attempting to isolate low abundance compounds. Many chemical syntheses have been developed to address the challenges associated with making prenylated natural products, but they are generally impractical for drug manufacturing due to the degree of complexity and low yields. Microbial production is a useful alternative to natural extraction for prenylated natural products, but comes with many challenges such as the need to divert carbon flux from central metabolism and product toxicity to name a few. For example, prenyl natural products like prenylnaringenin, prenyl-resveratrol and cannabidiol are derived from a combination of the metabolic pathways for fatty acid, isoprenoid, and polyketide biosynthesis. So high-level production requires efficient re-routing of long, essential and highly regulated pathways. Despite the challenges, many groups have engineered microbes to produce unprenylated polyketides, like naringenin, resveratrol and olivetolate, but at relatively low levels . Obtaining prenylated products is even more challenging because GPP is an essential metabolite that is toxic to cells at moderate concentrations, creating a significant barrier for high level microbial production. So, in spite of intense interest, to our knowledge there are no published reports of the complete biosynthesis of prenyl-flavonoids, prenyl-stilbenoids or cannabinoids in recombinant microbes.

Much recent effort has focused on alternative methods for cannabinoid production. Two groups have produced the polyketide cannabinoid intermediate, olivetolic acid at low levels in yeast or E. coli , but did not prenylate OA or produce a cannabinoid from the bio-synthesized OA . In other work, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid THCA was produced in cell extracts from either exogenously added geranyl-pyrophosphate and OA in a two enzyme pathway or from cannabigerolic acid using a single enzyme 17. However, it is unclear how GPP or CBGA could be obtained at sufficient levels for economical production due to the high cost of these molecules. Here we propose an alternative biological approach to prenylated natural product biosynthesis using a cell-free enzymatic platform we call synthetic biochemistry, which has shown great promise for the production of bio-based molecules. The synthetic biochemistry approach frees us from worrying about the toxicity of products and intermediates, affords rapid design-build-test cycles, precise control of all system components, and complete flexibility in pathway design. Nevertheless, building highly complex systems involving dozens of enzymes, associated cofactors and myriad metabolites on a large scale outside the context of the cell is an enormous challenge. One of the keys to making commercially viable cell-free systems is reducing enzyme costs by employing stable enzymes that can last for long periods of time. Recently Zhang and co-workers converted maltodextrin into inositol at a 20,000 L scale in a 5 enzyme system using thermophilic enzymes purified by simple heating step, vertical farming pros and cons demonstrating that at least simple cell-free systems can reach industrial scale. Another key requirement is designing systems that effectively generate and recycle high energy cofactors H so that they can be used many times. We have previously reported a flexible enzymatic purge valve and rheostats for the regulating the supply of reducing equivalents and ATP, allowing us to build systems that run for many days and produce high titers of isobutanol and terpenes. Here we employ these concepts to develop cell-free production of a variety of prenylated compounds. We use glucose as a feedstock to produce GPP and optimize the system for the high-titer production of the cannabinoid compounds CBGA and cannabigerovarinic acid .Our synthetic biochemistry approach is outlined in Figure 2-1 and Figure 2-5 and expands on a system we developed previously for terpene production. First, glucose is broken down via a modified glycolysis pathway to produce high energy cofactors ATP and NADPH in addition to the carbon building block, acetyl-CoA using an alternative pyruvate oxidation pathway. The acetyl-CoA is then assembled into the prenyl-donor compound, GPP, via the mevalonate pathway using the ATP and NADPH produced from glycolysis. Importantly, a purge valve introduced into the glycolysis pathway balances NADPH production and consumption while maintaining carbon flux. The prenylation module then uses the GPP to prenylate exogenously added substrate to yield the desired prenylated product. To expand the capabilities of our synthetic biochemistry platform we developed a prenylating system that employs a non-specific prenylating enzyme such as NphB, AtaPT, or NovQ to produce an array of prenyl-compounds derived from glucose.

We then further engineered NphB using Rosetta to specifically prenylate OA. As a first test of the system, we built the full cell-free system to generate GPP from glucose and employed wild-type NphB to prenylate its preferred substrate 1,6 dihydroxynapthalene . 1,6 DHN was added at the beginning of the reaction along with glucose. Up to ~400 mg/L of prenylated product was obtained from 2.5 mM 1,6 DHN. However, increasing the 1,6 DHN concentration from 2.5 to 5 mM, decreased final titers 2-fold suggesting that 1,6 DHN inhibited one or more enzymes . Enzyme assays revealed that pyruvate dehydrogenase was inhibited by 1,6 DHN, as well as olivetol, resveratrol, and olivetolate . Therefore, to engineer a general prenylation system, we sought to eliminate PDH. To remove the need for PDH, we implemented al PDH bypass . In the PDH bypass, pyruvate is converted to acetyl-CoA using a pyruvate oxidase to produce acetylphosphate followed by the action of acetyl-phosphate transferase . The PDH bypass had two advantages. First, PDH is a large enzyme complex that is difficult to work with, so bypassing PDH streamlines enzyme production. More importantly, initial experiments revealed that the bypass is not subject to the inhibition seen at higher concentrations of 1,6 DHN. Once we confirmed the PDH bypass improved 1,6 DHN titers, we began to optimize the system as a general prenylation system. We varied co-factor concentrations, protein levels, and environmental conditions such as temperature and pH to identify the ideal set of conditions. Throughout this process we found that ATP, NADP+ , phosphate and NphB concentrations had the greatest impact on the final titer. As shown in Figure 2-2A, when we employed the PDH bypass, we found a 4- fold increase in titers of 5-prenyl-1,6 DHN when starting with 5 mM 1,6 DHN . When utilizing the PDH bypass system, approximately 50% of 1,6 DHN was converted in 24 hours, reaching a final titer of 705 ± 12 mg/L . We then tested the ability of the PDH bypass cell-free system to prenylate a variety of aromatic substrates . Thus, it is possible to produce a variety of prenylated natural products using a cell-free enzymatic system to generate the expensive co-substrates GPP and DMAPP. Further, the ease with which an exogenous substrate can be added to a synthetic biochemistry system is a great advantage because it is often not possible to add co-substrates exogenously to microbes since they cannot enter the cell.16 To test whether we could use synthetic biochemistry to produce high levels of therapeutically relevant prenylated products, we focused optimization efforts on cannabinoids due to the growing interest in new ways to make these medically important compounds. As shown in Figure 2-2D the initial system produced the cannabinoid precursor CBGA at a constant rate of 2.1 mg L-1 hr-1 over 72 hours and reached a final titer of only 132 mg L-1 . Although the system produced CBGA, there were two problems. First, the turnover rate of the prenyl transferase NphB for CBGA production is extremely poor . Second, prenylation of OA by NphB is highly non-specific, generating a major side-product, 2-O-geranyl olivetolate16. We therefore sought to improve CBGA production by enhancing the activity and specificity of NphB by design. Redesign of NphB to improve CBGA synthesis Briefly, OA was docked into the active site of the NphB crystal structure 32, then Rosetta was used to predict mutations that would improve OA binding. We narrowed the Rosetta results to a 22 construct library , and screened for CBGA production . We made several key observations during the initial screen, Figure 2-12: Y288A and Y288N by themselves dramatically enhanced activity, as predicted by computation; The presence of Y288N in any construct decreased the enzyme yield suggesting Y288N may be a destabilizing mutation ; The addition of G286S in the Y288N background appeared to improve activity further over Y288N , suggesting that G286S could be another favorable mutation; We noted an activity improvement of Y288A/F213N/A232S over Y288A/F213N suggesting that A232S may also be a favorable mutation.

Feeding different fatty acids to our engineered strains yielded cannabinoid analogues with modifications in the part of the molecule known to alter receptor binding affinity and potency. We also demonstrated that our biological system can be complemented by simple synthetic chemistry to further expand the accessible chemical space. Our work presents a platform for the production of natural and unnatural cannabinoids, which will allow for more rigorous study of cannabinoids and ultimately the development of new treatments for a variety of human ailments. We initiated construction of the cannabinoid-producing yeast by focusing first on production of OA , an initial intermediate in the cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway. Two Cannabis enzymes, a tetraketide synthase and an olivetolic acid cyclase ,6 have been reported to produce OA from hexanoyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. To produce OA in yeast, we introduced a CsTKS and CsOAC expression cassette into S. cerevisiae to generate strain yCAN01 . The strain produced 0.2 mg/L OA from galactose , consistent with the fact that S. cerevisiae maintains low intracellular levels of hexanoyl-CoA. To increase the supply of hexanoyl-CoA, we fed 1 mM hexanoic acid, which can be converted to hexanoyl-CoA by an endogenous acyl activating enzyme , and observed six-fold higher OA production compared to no exogenous hexanoic acid feeding. A known byproduct of TKS, hexanoyl triacetic acid lactone ,6 was also detected . To optimize the conversion of hexanoic acid to hexanoyl-CoA, we introduced into yCAN01 an AAE from Cannabis , which is thought to catalyze this step in planta. The resulting strain showed a two-fold increase in OA titer when fed 1 mM hexanoic acid . To produce hexanoyl-CoA from galactose and complete the OA pathway, we introduced into yCAN01 a previously reported hexanoyl-CoA pathway.

The resulting strain produced 1.6 mg/L OA . CBGA, the precursor to THCA, CBDA, and numerous other cannabinoids, how to dry cannabis is produced from the mevalonate pathway intermediate GPP and OA by GOT. GOT activity was detected in Cannabis extracts over two decades ago, and a Cannabis GOT was patented ten years later. To enable in vivo testing of CsPT1, we constructed a GPP-over producing strain with an upregulated mevalonate pathway and a mutant gene of the endogenous farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase ERG, which preferentially produces GPP over FPP.However, we were unable to observe any GOT activity when we expressed CsPT1 or truncations thereof in yCAN10. To identify an enzyme with GOT activity that would function in yeast, we searched for candidate prenyltransferase enzymes from Cannabis and other organisms. These included NphB, a soluble PT from Streptomyces sp. with GOT activity in vitro, as well as HlPT1L and HlPT2, two PTs involved in bitter acid biosynthesis in Humulus lupulus, a close relative of Cannabis. In addition, we mined published Cannabis transcriptomes for GOT candidates.We set out to establish a biosynthetic approach for the production of this class of cannabinoid analogues from different fatty acids, hypothesizing that the observed promiscuity of our pathway towards butanoylCoA would translate to other precursors . To probe the analogue production capability of our engineered strains, we fed yCAN31 an array of 19 different fatty acids with various chain lengths, branching and degrees of saturation . LC-MS analysis revealed the production of OA and CBGA analogues from pentanoic acid , heptanoic acid , 4-methylhexanoic acid , 5-hexenoic acid and 6-heptynoic acid . Subsequent supplementation of yCAN40 with this subset of fatty acids yielded the respective THCA analogues . Furthermore, the functionalization of the pharmacophore with an alkene or alkyne terminal group enabled simple post-fermentation modification and thus the construction of side chains intractable to direct incorporation. As proof of concept, we performed copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition on the respective 6- heptynoic acid CBGA as well as THCA analogues with an azide-PEG3-biotin conjugate.

The corresponding products were detected by LC-MS demonstrating that the accessible chemical space of our process can be further expanded. Our results illustrate a novel avenue towards the production of cannabinoid analogues with tailored C3 sidechains. In summary, we engineered yeast strains capable of producing the major cannabinoids found in Cannabis from galactose. Pending the identification of novel cannabinoid synthases, we expect to be able to produce a large fraction of this class of natural molecules. Additionally, we further expanded the chemical space of cannabinoids by establishing and harnessing the intrinsic promiscuity of the cannabinoid pathway to produce unnatural cannabinoids including molecules with side groups amenable to further chemical derivatization. This work lays the foundation for the large-scale fermentation of cannabinoids, independent of Cannabis cultivation, which will enable the pharmacological study of these highly promising compounds and ultimately new and better medicines.Concerns about global climate change, energy security, and unstable fuel prices have caused many decision makers and policy experts worldwide to closely examine the need for more sustainable transportation strategies. Sustainable strategies include clean fuels, vehicle technologies, transportation demand management, and integrated land use and transportation strategies . Bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is one mobility strategy that could help address many of these concerns. In recent years, interest in this evolving concept has spread across the globe. At present, there are an estimated 100 programs in approximately 125 cities around the world with over 139,300 bicycles on four continents and another 45 planned in 22 nations in 2010. Despite rapid global motorization, worldwide bicycle use has generally increased over the past 30 years. Indeed, bicycling in Dutch, German, and Danish cities increased between 20 to 43% between 1975 and 1995 . While cycling growth and trends vary worldwide, bike sharing offers a transportation alternative to increase bicycle use by integrating cycling into the transportation system and making it more convenient and attractive to users. The principle of bike sharing is simple.

Individuals use bicycles on an “as-needed” basis without the costs and responsibilities of bike ownership. Bike sharing is short-term bicycle access, which provides its users with an environmentally friendly form of public transportation. This flexible short-term usage scheme targets daily mobility and allows users to access public bicycles at unattended bike stations. Bicycle reservations, pick-up, and drop-off are self-service. Commonly concentrated in urban settings, bike sharing programs also provide multiple bike station locations that enable users to pick up and return bicycles to different stations. Bike sharing programs typically cover bicycle purchase and maintenance costs, as well as storage and parking responsibilities . Besides individual user perks, bike sharing also offers environmental, social, and transportation-related benefits. For instance, bike sharing provides a low-carbon solution to the “last mile” problem. The “last mile” refers to the short distance between home and public transit and/or transit stations and the workplace, which may be too far to walk. Thus, bike sharing has the potential to play an important role in bridging the gap in existing transportation networks, as well as encouraging individuals to use multiple transportation modes. Potential bike sharing benefits include: 1) increased mobility options; 2) cost savings from modal shifts; 3) lower implementation and operational costs ; 4) reduced traffic congestion; 5) reduced fuel use; 6) increased use of public transit and alternative modes ; 7) increased health benefits; and 8) greater environmental awareness. The ultimate goal of bike sharing is to expand and integrate cycling into transportation systems, so that it can more readily become a daily transportation mode. In recent years, bike sharing also has expanded to college and work campuses throughout North America. Indeed, there are over 65 college/university bike sharing programs operating throughout North America and another 10 programs planned in 2010. Examples of college/university programs worldwide include “CibiUAM” at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain and “Velocampus Leeds” at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom . The focus of this paper, however, is on citywide systems that are open to residents and visitors, as opposed to closed systems that are only accessible to students and employees of a university or major employer. Furthermore, the authors do not address bike rental programs, best way to dry cannabis which also have expanded worldwide. Unlike bike sharing, bike rental traditionally targets users interested in leisure-oriented mobility and are most prevalent in areas with a high tourist concentration. Bike rental systems generally consist of a single or limited number of bike stations that are operated by a service attendant. A majority of bike rental programs also require users to return rented bicycles to the original bike station and are generally operated on an hourly pricing basis. Over the last 43 years, bike sharing’s evolution has been categorized into three key phases . These include the first generation, called “White Bikes” ; the second generation: “Coin-Deposit Systems;” and the third generation or “Information Technology -Based Systems” . In this paper, the authors propose a fourth generation, called: “Demand-Responsive, Multi-Modal Systems,” which builds upon the third. This paper is organized into seven sections. First, the authors present a history of bike sharing in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, focused upon the first two generations. Next, current bike sharing activities are discussed in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Third, bike sharing business models and vendors are described. Next, the authors summarize the current understanding of the social and environmental benefits associated with bike sharing. Fifth, lessons learned are presented. Next, a fourth bike sharing generation is proposed with an eye toward future developments and innovation.

Finally, the authors conclude with a summary and recommendations for future bike sharing research.Despite earlier experiences, the bike sharing concept caught on and led to the first generation of bike sharing known as “White Bikes” . In a free bike sharing system, the bicycle is the main program component. Other distinguishing characteristics of first generation bike sharing include that bicycles were usually painted one bright color, unlocked, and placed haphazardly throughout an area for free use. Other cities that implemented a free bike system were La Rochelle, France in 1974 and Cambridge in the UK in 1993, called “Green Bike Schemes.” Soon after Green Bike Scheme’s launch, the almost 300 shared bicycles in Cambridge were stolen, resulting in program failure . However, the La Rochelle initiative, called “Vélos Jaunes” or “Yellow Bikes,” proved to be successful and continues to operate today. La Rochelle’s Mayor, Michel Crépeau, created Vélos Jaunes. Similar to Amsterdam’s White Bike Plan, Vélos Jaunes was launched as an environmentally progressive measure. Through the strong support of La Rochelle’s Urban Community, Vélos Jaunes became the first successful bike sharing program in France. Problems with Free Bike Systems led the city government and the City Bike Foundation of Copenhagen, Denmark to launch a bike sharing service that was different from any previous system. In January 1995, “Bycyken” was launched as the first large-scale urban bike sharing program in Europe. This initiative included 1,100 specially designed bicycles that were locked and placed throughout downtown Copenhagen at designated city bike racks . Bicycles were unlocked with a 20 DKK coin deposit that was refunded upon bicycle return. Bycyken of Copenhagen is famous not only because it continues to operate with more than 2,000 bicycles and 110 city bike racks today but also because it led to the second generation of bike sharing, known as “Coin-Deposit Systems.” The main components of this generation are: 1) distinguishable bicycles ; 2) designated docking stations in which bikes can be locked, borrowed, and returned; and 3) small deposits to unlock the bikes. Soon after the implementation of coin-deposit systems, the Copenhagen model led to a series of European bike sharing programs including: “Bycykler” in Sandnes, Norway ; “City Bikes” in Helsinki, Finland ; and “Bycykel” in Arhus, Denmark . The experience of these coin-deposit systems demonstrated that second-generation systems were more expensive to operate than early systems. In many cases, local governments also provided bike sharing organizations with funding. The incorporation of designated bicycle stations and the use of coin-deposit locks in second-generation systems created a much more reliable bike sharing system that was both dependable and more theft resistant. While amounts vary by country, coin deposit fees are generally low . Also, these systems do not issue a time limit for bicycle use, which means that bikes are often used for long time periods or not returned at all. The major problem with coin-deposit systems is bicycle theft, which can be attributed to customer anonymity.

Do users in states where recreational cannabis is legal have different motivations than that of users in states where the practice is still considered taboo? Moreover, does legalization remove the status and prestige gained in certain social circles after it is legal? In the country of Portugal, following the decriminalization of drugs usage in many categories decreased. Likewise, HIV and Hepatitis B & C transmissions and drug related mortality have decreased as well . This is likely due to the fact that drug users have the ability to seek out treatment and clean needles without fear of arrest and prosecution. Many years ago, a professor I knew contended that if cannabis were legal we would see a drop in its use. He claimed that only a small percentage of people who use cannabis do so because they enjoy the high. He claimed that the vast majority of people who use cannabis do so because it is illegal and that removing the “forbidden fruit” aspect of the plant will make it less attractive. As documented throughout this dissertation, the motivations for cannabis use are varied. Many users and sellers claimed they used it for the purpose of “balling” and status. It is likely that legalization would remove that form of social prestige from the endeavor.Additionally, future research needs to look at the consequences of cannabis legalization, regulation and taxation and its impact on various social institutions. For example, the majority of research on legal recreational cannabis has pointed to the profound positive effects of cannabis legalization such as increases in state tax revenue, decreases in the arrest rates and easing the financial burden of the criminal justice system. In addition to this narrow focus, I believe it is imperative to study other aspects, both good and bad of legalization such as; money flows to legitimate organizations instead of gangs and organized crime, grow bench product quality and safety, wider access for medicinal users, increased personal freedom and reduced systemic violence related to the sale of cannabis.

Likewise, we should also study some of the negative unintended consequences of cannabis legalization to create safeguards against them. Some of these negative unintended consequences of cannabis legalization that we have seen so far are cannabis addiction, children being unintentionally exposed to cannabis products such as edibles and soft drinks, second hand smoke, respiratory issues, heart issues and triggering schizophrenia and depression for individuals that are predisposed.Adequately studying the positive and negative effects of cannabis legalization can help to shape cannabis policy in the future. For example, mandating that bud containers, edibles and other types of THC infused products contain an appropriate label such as the surgeon general warnings required by alcohol and cigarettes will do much to reduce some of the negative health consequences of cannabis. Likewise, adequate labels and correct information can inform and educate people about the health consequences of cannabis and suggest alternative routes of administration which are both safer than smoking it for the individual and for those around her/him. I wrote correct information because the anti-drug propaganda in the U.S. is so incorrect and laden with misinformation that many users do not seriously consider its information. And lastly, future research needs to consider how cannabis legalization may pave the way for the legalization of other drugs. One may not consider legalization of hard drugs to be a top priority. Yet it is important to understand how the racial and class politics of the criminal justice system and the war on drugs applies to all drugs, and even more so to the harder drugs. Drug prohibition much like alcohol prohibition and cannabis prohibition has been a failure of immense proportion. As of today, approximately fifty percent of inmates in federal prisons are serving time because of drug related offenses, and approximately fifty percent of those prisoners are non-violent offenders.

About three quarters of drug offenders were black of African American 39%, Latinos accounted for 37% and whites accounted for 22% approximately . Moreover, draconian three strike laws have created a situation where many prisoners are serving lifetime prison sentences for nothing other than a lifetime of untreated drug addiction.The first national drug law , was implemented over 100 years ago and after 100 years of drug prohibition the U.S. is the most imprisoning country in the world with only 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prison population . Moreover, the war on drugs and imprisonment has tremendous societal effects beyond locking away non-violent offenders. For one, as Alexander pointed out, released prisoners are relegated to a life as a second-class citizen. Offenders accused of felony are not allowed to vote, and can be legally denied access to jobs, housing, public benefits and education. This along with the fact that countless you black and Latino children will grow up in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods without a positive male role model and father figure in their lives. As addressed earlier, a breakdown in the family and neighborhood structure breeds anti-social and criminal tendencies in inner-city communities. Rather than solving the problem of crime and interpersonal violence, mass imprisonment and the war on drugs exacerbates this problem. The U.S. currently spends approximately fifteen billion dollars each year on drug law enforcement both domestic and internationally and another fourteen and a half billion for demand reduction including both treatment and prevention services . And, after a 100 years of drug prohibition, after billions of dollars spent each year and after millions of lives destroyed by drug prohibition, drugs are more widely available than ever before, they are more potent than ever before, and with changes in technology, communication and transportation, are more readily accessible than ever before. It is important to understand the racial and class politics of the war on drugs, in terms of both its intent and its function. The war on drugs has never, and will never, be about the drugs. The drugs are irrelevant. They are simply plants and substances that produce altered states of consciousness.

The war on drugs is not a war on drugs, but a war on the people that use and sell drugs and a system of racial, class and political control. The decriminalization of drugs in Portugal are starting show the amazing social benefits that drug legalization has societal wide in health, taxation, safety and regulation . Since Portugal’s decriminalization in 2001, drug usage has decreased in almost every category of drug, the number of reported HIV and AIDS cases among drug addicts has declined substantially and drug related mortality rates have decreased from 400 in 1999 to 290 in 2006. Moreover, the reduction in the amount of drug users arrested is astounding as well. In 2000 there were approximately 14,000 people arrested for drug-related crimes. Since decriminalization, the number has dropped to, and stay relatively consistent at about 6,000 per year. . These should be considered overwhelmingly positive social effects.Criminological and sociological understandings of drug using behavior have been tarnished by the ethnocentric and overly moralistic attitudes of American society. Considering the widespread use of mind-altering substances in both antiquity and modern society, and the widespread use of consciousness altering substances the world over, it is inappropriate to see mind-altering substance use as simply a product of biological addiction or deviance resulting from a corrupt social structure. Rather, plant nursery benches in order to understand mind-altering substance use, it is imperative to understand the viewpoints of the users themselves. My research has finds that individuals attach different meanings to their drug related behaviors. Unlike the general mainstream society that views drug use as a scourge of man, this group sees cannabis as a guide to spiritual enlightenment and meditation. This is in line with many other religious and spiritual groups throughout history. It is a common line of reasoning, however ethnocentric it may be, to believe that ancient primitive societies that utilized mind-altering substances for religious and spiritual journeys are, or were, unknowledgeable about the true nature of drugs. They claim that cultures like these were primitive and superstitious, and that our “modern” culture with its anti-drug stance is correct. This, I contend, is a wildly ethnocentric and Eurocentric view with no objective basis in reality. In fact, when one considers the historical and social significance that mind-altering substances have played in both antiquity and our own culture, we see that there is significant reason to reexamine our own perceptions of these substances. From a cultural standpoint, it is relevant to understand drug use as a social bonding ritual amongst the group members. As stated earlier, each member of the Kings understood that the consumption of cannabis was as much about the interaction amongst their friends as it was about the consumption of cannabis itself. TBC for example, explained that one of the main reasons to smoke cannabis was to “kick it with the homies.” He also expounded how cannabis smoking was an act that the group could doindividually and collectively without the physical ramifications that the consumption of alcohol and other substances produced. Likewise, Natty told me on more than one occasion, that High-C was a violent drunk and that they will not hangout with him if he drinks. Thus, while the manifest functions of cannabis use was for the group, to smoke and meditate about the world, smoking also served the purpose of maintaining group cohesion and solidarity. In addition to serving as a site of social bonding rituals, cannabis usage also served as a dramaturgical status symbol.

As previously discussed, smoking with the most people and growing the best cannabis were valued and fostered status within the group. This status may be linked to the semi-illicit nature of the drug in California. In states where medical marijuana use is legal, marijuana use in youth has decreased . Many theorists believe the reduction in teen use could be attributable to the “forbidden fruit” effect in which teens participate in illegal acts because their illegal nature makes them more desirable. The Kings themselves appear to echo this sentiment when discussing their early motivations for cannabis use and selling. Likewise, the Kings frequently claim that the feeling of being high is sometimes note pleasurable. Yet, “handling the trip” and being able to “hang” is considered a status symbol within the group. Likewise, the group illustrates Johnson’s subcultural deviance theory. Johnson acknowledges that there is a competition for prestige and status within peer groups and that status and prestige are attained by engaging in activities that depart from the normative demands of mainstream society. What is particularly relevant to this dramaturgical perspective is how the Kings frequently referred to “the trip” as uncomfortable. As a reflexive practice, the group uses the plant as a guide during meditation and critical thought. Although many in our society view the hallucination as nothing more than a stoner’s trip, the historical importance altered states of consciousness advises against such a belief. As was discussed in the history section, many cultures and religious denominations have used cannabis in some form or another for religious and spiritual mind-altering visions. Cannabis use in India for spiritual, religious and meditation purpose spans back thousands of years . In ancient China, cannabis was used as a form of medicine . Even in what we consider a strict religion like Islam, the Sufi mystics used cannabis for spiritual communion . The Rastafarians in Jamaica smoke cannabis as a religious communion and the American hippies use cannabis as an inward journey into oneself . The common themes among all these cultures and a common theme among the group I studied was the link made between drug use and a deep sense of communion with the divine and a belief in asceticism. As Natty explained, “Babylon always thinks about logic. A plus B equals C. But they can never get to the why and how we are here because the true nature of the world is beyond what they can see with their eyes.” The commonality of these different cultures as seeing cannabis as a path to spiritual enlightenment to me indicates a profound connection between the plant and spirituality. Although it may appear that this dissertation was an outright defense of drug use in American society, it is important to clarify that it is not my intention to promote drug abuse. Rather, the historical, cultural, and medical significance of drugs is that they engender altered states of consciousness and can promote health and stimulate feelings of spirituality.

My study focuses on a group that consists of members that are primarily in their late 20’s and early thirties. I did not see the same types of deviant behaviors that were seen in many of the other studies discussed such as ditching school or work, youth sexual activity and vandalism. Again, delinquency was normal with these individuals when younger, however, the Kings, as they aged, settled into more normal prosocial roles such as fathers and boyfriends and businessmen. Although the group was still heavily in to cannabis use and occasionally used other hard drugs and drank, there were no instances of other deviant behavior. Indeed, alcohol use may not be considered deviant considering its widespread use in the U.S.As one can see by this brief analysis of some of the major theories in criminology, criminological theories are woefully inadequate to understand drug use. There are a couple of reasons why this is the case. For one, much of the theorizing that has occurred on substance use did not differentiate between use and abuse. Moreover, theories tend to focus on poor communities of color. As a consequence, many theories, especially social structural theories explain drug use as a result of social disorganization within poor neighborhoods while rich upper class neighborhoods use drugs at the same rate as poor communities. Likewise, while social learning theories adequately explain the process of becoming a drug user and adopting a drug using identity, they ascribe overly moralistic ideas to the act and lump drug use together with other types of crimes that are not inherently associated with drugs. Thus, commercial plant racks given this situation, I propose below a sociocultural explanation of drug use.Often overlooked in the theorizing about substance use is the social and cultural meanings attributed to certain drugs by the user.

Coomber argues that our broader cultural understandings of drugs are so perverted by drug myths that we fail to understand anything beyond a criminal control view of drugs. Howard Becker’s now infamous study Becoming a Marijuana User, draws attention to the important social dimensions of marijuana use by focusing on how marijuana is learned to be appreciated, and the various mechanisms people go through in order to learn the appropriate behavior of marijuana use. Becker explains marijuana use through the emergence of motives and dispositions in the course of experience. Although a groundbreaking study in its emphasis on the social aspects of marijuana use, Becker fails to consider marijuana use as more than recreational in nature. While occasionally acknowledged as used for religious and cultural practice, marijuana appears to be regarded as a deviant juvenile practice utilized for recreation and fun. So ingrained is this perspective that when discussing marijuana use amongst Rastafarians in a discussion section I was conducting, a student asserted that the Rastafarian religion is a religion “made up” to justify their use of drugs. Criminologic and sociological understandings of drug using behavior have been tarnished by the ethnocentric overly moralistic attitudes of American society. Considering the widespread use of mind-altering substances in both antiquity and modern society, and their near universal ubiquitousness, it is inappropriate to see mind-altering substance use as simply a product of biological addiction or deviance resulting from corrupt and unequal social structure. Rather, in order to understand mind-altering substance use, it is imperative to understand the viewpoints of the users themselves. My research has found that individuals attach different meanings to their behaviors.

Unlike the general mainstream society that views drug use as a scourge of man, this group sees this plant as a guide to spiritual enlightenment and meditation. This is in line with many other religious and spiritual groups throughout history. It is a common line of reasoning to believe that ancient primitive societies that utilized mind- altering substances for religious and spiritual journeys are or were ignorant about the true nature of drugs. They claim that cultures like these were primitive and superstitious, and that our culture with its anti-drug stance is correct. This, I contend, is a wildly ethnocentric and Eurocentric view with no objective basis in reality. In fact, when one considers the historical and social significance mind-altering substances have played in both antiquity and our own culture, we see that there is significant reason to reexamine our perceptions of these substances. From a cultural standpoint, it is relevant to understand the behavior as a social bonding ritual amongst the group members. As illustrated in the previous chapter, each member of the Kings understood that the smoking and consumption of cannabis was as much about the interaction amongst their friends as it was about the consumption of cannabis itself. TBC for example, explained that one of the main reasons to smoke was to “kick it with the homies.” He also expounded how cannabis smoking was an act that the group could do individually and collectively without the physical ramifications that alcohol and other substances could bring about. Natty told me on more than one occasion that High-C was a violent drunk and that they won’t hangout with him if he drinks. Thus, while the manifest functions of cannabis use was for the group, to smoke and meditate about the world, smoking also served the purpose maintaining group cohesion and group solidarity.

Likewise, actions that undermined group solidarity such as getting drunk and wanting to fight each other or, being stingy with weed, or babysitting, or not passing in proper rotation that may break the ritual was severely sanctioned.In addition to serving as a site of social bonding rituals, cannabis usage also served as a dramaturgical status symbol. As was discussed, cannabis usage, and growing the best cannabis served as a symbol of prestige within the group. Some of the original motivations for selling when younger appeared to be to gain status. The creation of a collective and even their nicknames indicated an intense identification with cannabis and cannabis culture. Moreover, smoking with the most people, and smoking in high-risk situations were all valued and fostered status within the group. For example, on site use at a dispensary is illegal in most cities, yet the Kings would use openly and discuss instances in which they openly smoked at the dispensary. Likewise, the Kings would frequently tell stories about getting blazed before going to work, or showing up high to jury duty, or instances of hot boxing and opening the door right in front of a large group of people. Likewise, clearing chambers, although it wastes weed, provides status to an individual because it shows “lungs of steel.” This social status phenomenon is best illustrated in the fact that in states where medical marijuana use is legal, marijuana use in youth has decreased . Many theorists believe the reduction in teen use could be attributable to the “forbidden fruit” effect in which teens participate in illegal acts for no other reason than for its illegality. The Kings themselves appear to echo this sentiment when discussing their early motivations for cannabis use and selling. Likewise, the Kings frequently claim the feeling of being high as frequently un-pleasurable. Yet, “handling the trip” and being able to “hang” is considered a status symbol within the group. Likewise, the group illustrates Johnson’s subcultural deviance theory. Johnson acknowledges that there is a competition for prestige and status within peer groups and that status and prestige are attained by engaging in activities that depart from the normative demands of mainstream society. What is particularly relevant to this dramaturgical perspective is how the Kings frequently referred to the trip as unpleasurable, as their frequent references to being high as being in hell. I believe one of the major motivating factors in cannabis use is the social prestige, because, ebb and flow tray as TBC illustrates, the high is not always pleasurable. Natty likewise told me that many people would stop using cannabis if it was legal. He claimed the negative experiences would deter most individuals. This phenomenon of experiencing bad trips was also documented by Becker when discussing the importance of learning how to enjoy the hallucinatory experience.Discussions that took place in the meetings I attended were highly intellectual and heavily influenced by stoner culture. This is relevant because much of the theories and ideas they proposed seemed creative at best and borderline schizophrenic at worst. However, the factuality of the theories and ideas they proposed to me never seemed as relevant as the information gained from discussions about cannabis. In her article, The Power of 420, Halnon examines how discussions about the origin of 420 creates a collective identity for users and indoctrinates user into the ideas values and norms of cannabis culture. I argue that the discussion about the biblical origin of the plant, its ability to change consciousness, and the naming of their bong Shiva all serve the purposes of teaching other cannabis users, and teaching me about the culture of cannabis. Some of the stories and theories they told me about are nothing more than fantasy, such as the plant is hallucinogenic because it a water plant fused with a land plant; others are truisms or half-truths such as hemp seeds being the healthiest plant food in the world, or the idea that cannabis has the ability to cure diseases. And others can neither be proven or disproven, such as the idea that God’s consciousness resides in the plant, or the story that the Burning Bush of Moses is God. The factuality or infactuality of what they stated and what they believe about cannabis, its origins and its effects are only partially relevant. What is much more relevant is the meaning system they hold and how these discussions inform cannabis users about cannabis culture and ideology.

Discussions about God, Shiva, cannabis and the nature of reality all have the ability to cultivate, support and reinforce cannabis identity, community solidarity and reality itself. Moreover, knowing cannabis history, medicine and theories helps to create a mental and ideological explanation of cannabis use for those that are critical of the practice. As a reflexive practice, the group uses the plant as a guide during meditation and critical thought. Although many in our society view the hallucination as nothing more than a stoner’s trip, the historical importance altered states of consciousness advises against such a belief. As was discussed in the history section, many cultures and religious denominations have used cannabis in some form or another for religious and spiritual mind-altering visions. Such actors have the capacity to be reflexive, that is, to think critically about their social situations, and thus, change it . Likewise, rarely does one see a view of marijuana or substance use as a source of meaningful identity. Experimentation with drugs, in particular marijuana, hashish, acid, mushrooms and LSD is one such form of distancing and breaking away from the normative demands imposed by society. Although symbolic in nature, this form of rejecting normative constraints by society allows one the ability to be a free individual, to think on one’s own and feel the freedom to make decisions for one’s own life. One such reflexive practice is the Rastafarians’ use of Ganja as a religious sacrament for the purpose of producing visions, heightening unity and communal feelings, and meditation . The use of Ganja by the Rastas takes place in communal settings referred to as reason sessions where they gather to think and analyze society. Marijuana use by the Rastas can also be viewed as a reactionary response to oppression and a manifestation of an authentic form of expressing freedom from the establishment. Other uses of marijuana as meditation span back thousands of years as in the Hindu tradition . In various cities in India, especially in ones of religious pilgrimage, cannabis is used as a celebrant. In places such as these cannabis is regarded as “sattvik nasha” translated as “peaceful intoxication” . The common folk wisdom concerning marijuana is that if a drunken man is insulted he will easily fight, whereas the man who has taken hemp will walk away. Seen quite differently from the American context, marijuana in various Indian cities is viewed as a meditation practice that connects one with God. One of the few sociologists to approach drug use from a cultural symbolic interactionist perspective, Collins illuminates how feelings of euphoria and the meanings associated with drug consumption are shaped by culture. By drawing upon Durkheim and Goffman , he illustrates how drugs used within the context of rituals become sacred and profane objects by which members of the group identify.

Unrelated to status and reciprocity, many smokers believe that mixing various types of cannabis strains together in the same bowl produces unique highs that cannot be produced by one strain alone. Offering greens to another member is an important symbolic gesture of deference and reciprocity. “Hitting Greens” is prized by smokers because it produces a much cleaner and much smoother smoke than a bowl that has already been lit. Much like asking somebody if they want the last piece of pizza, or offering a guest a drink, it is expected that one offers somebody else the greens. TBC sat to the left of Dorian, and always sat to the left of Dorian, and the piece was always passed to the left hand side. The consistency in seating arrangement allowed them to easily observe the norms of reciprocity. It is expected in sessions that the Kings clear the entire chamber on each smoke. Not doing so would out a member as a weak smoker and the member would lose status within the group. After everybody smokes, they go on to taking entire bowl hits. Taking entire bowls at once typically waste the weed. However, taking a bowl in one hit shows other people that one is a serious smoker that can handle such a large hit at once. After everybody had taken at least one hit of Ganja, they typically begin to sip the Holy Soma. Taking entire bongs rips can make it difficult for many people to talk. For one, the rips inflame the lungs, and two, people typically tend to think more. Likewise, cotton mouth sets in and makes it somewhat difficult to speak. Holy soma, according to the group, clears cottonmouth and provides a long lasting high because the substance is ingested orally and is processed through the digestive system. As Natty explained, “When you drink it, it lasts so much longer, indoor grow light shelves it’s a strong and consistent high. And it wets the mouth. Smoking, vaping, waxing, that dries you up.” Each member takes small sips and passes it to the next member.

The cup they use is the size of a large coffee mug but the members only drank a small amount and pass it to the next member. I asked them why they pass it around so much and why it took so long for them to drink such a small amount of liquid and they explained that it was necessary so everybody can get some, and nobody wants to be the person to drink it all up. Consequently, it was drunk sparingly. In addition, since it helped with cottonmouth, the members would use it whenever it was needed to curb the dryness sensation. Another important aspect of drinking sparingly is that cannabis ingested orally takes up to an hour for its effects to be felt although liquid consumption is typically faster. Passing it around allows the members to taper their use and ingest it slowly. The smoking sessions according to the group, continues for hours. The group would start heavy with rips off the Shiva. It appeared ceremonial to the group to start with smoking out of the Shiva. And it would slow to a crawl once they began drinking Holy Soma. Some of the sessions began by smoking out of then Vaping, and then move to Vaping or Waxing through the Shiva. Various adapters allow vape to be funneled through a bong. Vaping is a consumption technique that heats the cannabis up to 365 degrees Fahrenheit to dehydrate the plant matter and release the cannabinoids without combusting the plant into smoke. Waxing uses a concentrated alcohol base to extract the Cannabinoids. When waxing, the group used a blow torch and nail attached to the Shiva to heat the wax. New mechanisms of smoking were always being tried by the Kings. To some degree, this was necessary as they tried to stay informed about the most recent developments in case a patient had questions about a consumption technique. Although the reason sessions fulfilled the role and served the purposes of acting as an informal board meeting, a bonding ritual and a reflexive practice, the sessions frequently transformed into smoking matches where one member of the group would try to out smoke the other.

Although never explicitly stated, there was an expectation that one would participate or lose social status as a member of the group. It was also necessary when outside members would join the group to place social pressure on the person to participate in the smoking match. An acquaintance of mine who made the mistake of trying to smoke with the group described it as tripping balls. He also claimed they got mad because he wasn’t smoking as much as them. It is implicitly understood that being able to hang was a status symbol on which the individual members of the group prided themselves. People that could not hang, or could not handle the trip were considered “soft” and never invited to smoking sessions again. For the group, knowing someone smoked, and could smoke a lot at one period of time meant that the individual was like them and shared similar beliefs and lifestyles. Other people were simply posers, not really down for the cause, and perhaps were not trustworthy with knowledge of their organization and practices. As stated previously, smoking sessions frequently turned into smoking matches in amongst the Kings themselves. Nobody would ever admit that one member could smoke more than themselves. Being able to “hang” the most was a symbol of prestige itself. Practices such as coughing after a big hit, babysitting , or skipping a turn were all frowned upon and sanctioned by the group. High-C would frequently bring up a time when TBC tried to take a snapper and began coughing his lungs up. The group looked at him and laughed as High-C recanted the story claiming, “He just popped his cherry” . Another member said he had “virgin lungs.” Visibly shaken and embarrassed, TBC, in an attempt to save face retorted, “These are whore lungs. I had been smoking the whole day. I was taking real hits, not like those baby hits you guys were taking.” In addition to smoking competitions, the Kings would frequently discuss their past smoking ventures.

As stated before, smoking, smoking a lot and smoking with a bunch of different people increased social prestige within the group. Although being able to smoke massive amounts of cannabis provided a level of social prestige, using other forms of drugs in the Kings eyes, lowered social prestige. High-C in particular liked to bring up old smoking buddies who went to hard drugs and screwed up their lives. Although no member of the group could be characterized as dirt poor, rolling tables all of the members dress in a ragged style that I would characterize as new age hippy. I refer to such style as new age because none of their clothes are particularly old or that worn. Many clothing companies such as Lifted Research Group , predominantly cater to the style employed by the Kings. I did not know the letters LRG stood for cannabis until Natty pointed that out to me one day. Dress is a vital component of their identity as it allows the group to express an anti-conformist identity. Their clothes hang loose and are far too big for their size. Sandals and bare footing are common features of the group. Although, considering Costa Mesa’s proximity to the ocean, it is not that uncommon to see many ordinary people spend the majority of their daily lives in sandals. Yet, the Kings adopt sandals for both recreational and social reasons. Shoes, according to the Kings, are a symbolic restriction upon the freedom imposed by those who have power. It leads, among other things, according to the Kings, to stress, a myriad of health problems stemming from unnatural gait and social conformity. Thus, the very process of enclosing ones foot with shoes is an enclosure of the multiple arrays of human social patterns. This fact is best exemplified to the group by the fact that when they work, they are required to wear shoes. Clothes are thus used as a sign of disconformity and protest. Anthropologists frequently contend food symbolism is an important index in assessing social groups. These dietary rituals, accordingly, reflect certain moral and social ideas with which social groups adhere. The King’s diet is another distinctive feature of the group. They are semi-vegetarians, as they will not eat any animal that is not fish. They do not believe that the consumption of animals is inherently wrong or bad. Yet, they believe, as Natty explained to me once, that all animals in our modern corporate food system are corrupted and polluted by the poisons of Babylon. Food from this corporate system turns oneself into a corporate person. You are what you eat according to the group. They believed fish on the other hand, could not be touched by the machinations of Babylon. Thus, in their natural wild state, fish are natural and unpolluted. Furthermore, they believe that the American meat system promotes deforestation and pollution on part with the automobile and they try to not partake in changing the earth. However, they all understand to some degree altering the physical environment is a necessity to a degree. Furthermore, there appears to be an association between cannabis and vegetarianism as Indian dietary science actually believes that ganja makes the body hypersensitive to the poisons and toxins that comes from meat consumption . Consequently, many ganja using cultures, including this one, place a high priority on a vegetarian diet. As a result, the group members, particularly Natty Dreads, are relatively skinny even though they follow their own regulations haphazardly, as I have been in the drive through line with them at Taco Bell many times. Yet, to be fair, the food they ordered was vegetarian food, such as the seven-layer burrito. Despite this, the Kings are in relatively good health. Although they are heavy pot users and sellers, they do not consider marijuana to be a drug. In fact, they believe the opposite is the truth. They consider the modern American drug industry to be the symbolic representation of everything that is wrong with American capitalism. As Natty explained to me, “Babylon tries to fight fire with fire and poison with poison. We don’t believe poison fixes illness. Herb fixes the body through fixing the mind. Herb shows you what is wrong and helps the body heal itself. We fight fire with water and poison with antidotes.” Most if not all illnesses, according to the Kings are either directly or indirectly tied to Babylonian diet and the modern condition of what the group refers as the human zoo . Each member of the group professes to be an independent artist. TBC produces music via a computer program. Dorian plays the ukulele and guitar. The term their music Rasta funk. It sounds as if it is a cross between island reggae, modern Hawaiian music, and trance. The lyrics commonly sung over the trance like music frequently express the joy of Ganja, the love of earth, and the healing power of the plant. It is clear; the group tries to blend elements of reggae with the Grateful Dead. Perhaps the most unique part of the music is their ability to sing and write about Ganja in coded messages. In fact, very few songs explicitly use the term weed or marijuana. As one verse from a song reads: Chant down Babylon be the lesson/ we bout to gain the truth from a reason session. While in their board meetings, the Kings would frequently play their music. They told me it should be listened to high. Moreover, they claimed they would only know if it was “Dank” or not if when they listened to it high. The production and quality was low, as would be expected of any amateur musicians that use a closet in a spare room as a studio. When I asked them if they ever thought they would get big, they claimed he had no desire to become a Jay-Z. Mainstream corporate music, according to the Kings is corrupted and limited self-expression and artistic creativity.

One can get lost in the various methods of consumption and cannabis substances that have flooded the market in the past decade. The bud tenders of the collective help to clarify which strain and which method of consumption may be useful for their condition and let them know what they may expect from each substance. Although Natty and the Kings were big proponents of the hallucination, however, they frequently told me one of the major reasons why cannabis is such a miracle cure for so many different illnesses, has nothing to do with the hallucination at all. They believed that simple consumption of the plant was enough to reap many of the benefits that cannabis had to offer. Cannabis is frequently smoked or baked into edibles to release the cannabinoids. In its natural state, cannabis contains THCA. When the cannabis bud is heated, or goes through another process that causes decarboxylation, the THCA is converted in to THC. Simple consumption of the plant does not produce the desired hallucinogenic effect that many patients desire. However, the hallucination is very powerful and too powerful for many people, and some people wish to get the medical benefits without the hallucination. This is the major reason The Corner sells hemp and raw cannabis products. Hemp is a cousin of the cannabis plant and has been estimated to have been cultivated by human civilizations for nearly 12,000 years. It contains miniscule amounts of THC. Although hemp does not produce the type of hallucination as its cousin cannabis plant, it is currently illegal under national law in the U.S. to grow hemp for commercial production. However, hemp can be imported and recently president Obama signed the 2014 farm bill into law that contains an amendment that allows for hemp production for research purposes. Thus, The Corner sells a wide variety of hemp products such as seeds, hemp seed oils, vertical growing racks and hemp protein powder. Hemp protein powder, hemp seed oil and hemp seeds are all sold at the dispensary.All of the Kings believed that cannabis was God’s gift to man.

Natty gave evidence of this by citing the plants nutritional profile. Cannabis, according to Natty, “has the most concentrated balance of nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, essential fatty acids, proteins and amino acids of any plant known to man.” On top of that, it has these nutrients in the proper ratio for the human body. The seeds of the hemp plant have a perfect blend of easily digested proteins, essential fatty acids, iron, phytosterols, Vitamin Bs, potassium, zinc, fiber and Gamma Linolenic Acid GLA. It is ideal for humans to get a correct balance of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids; hemp seeds are the only seed that has the ideal 3 to 1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3s. Hemp seeds have more omega 3 fatty acids than fish oils, a common supplement taken by individuals seeking to increase their omega 3 intake. Hemp seeds are also a source of all 20 known amino acids including the nine essential amino acids that body cannot produce on its own which must be consumed in a person’s diet. Hemp is also much more easily digestible than other complete protein sources such as meat and poultry. Additionally, hemp and cannabis have natural protective barriers against weeds so herbicides and other poisonous chemicals are frequently unnecessary when growing. In addition to selling hemp products, The Corner provides free leaves to anybody that wishes to extract the plant chemicals from the leaves. Again, the part of the cannabis frequently smoked by patients is the budding flower, frequently referred to as bud. The leaves also contain various chemical and compounds that have anti-cancer properties. Some patients go so far as to juice both the leaves and the bud. A Mendocino county physician named William Courtney recently popularized juicing and eating raw cannabis as a way to extract cannabis’ healing properties while avoiding what many patients consider to be an unpleasant high. Many patients I met claim, based on Courtney’s work, that cannabis in its raw, unheated, acidic form is much healthier than its converted THC form. They also claim that the amount of cannabis an individual can digest is increased nearly 100 fold.

They make this claim suggesting that in its raw unheated form, people can ingest up to 1,000 milligrams of THCA and CBDA as it will not produce a psychoactive effect. However, an individual patient could only ingest up to 10 milligrams a day of the psychoactive THC before an extreme paranoia and hallucination is produced. Others contend that in its natural acid form, the cannabinoids to do not operate on the endocannabinoid system and do not produce the same health benefits. When one uses the decaboxylated cannabinoids, one typically gets immediate relief from pain, nausea, intraocular eye relief or other ailments. The natural acidic form has no such immediate use. Indeed, Dr. Courtney himself acknowledges that juicing and eating raw cannabis takes days and sometimes even weeks before its health benefits become apparent . Others contend that eating raw cannabis is counter intuitive because it leads patients to believe they can achieve the same health outcomes without directly activating the endocannabinoid system, the system responsible for so many of the health benefits that cannabis provides. Debates rage in the medical marijuana community the same way debates rage in traditional medicine. However, the Kings stance on such acts is that cannabis in all of its manifestations is healthy and good for the human body and the world. Thus, The Corner attempts to provide various routes of administration to serve patients’ varying desires. However, the majority of people cannot afford to juice large amounts of cannabis. Thus, plant leaves and other plant materials are suggested as a way to consume large quantities of cannabis without losing a dramatic amount of money. When cannabis is ingested, the THC is metabolized in the liver. The liver converts it to a much more potent form named 11-hydroxy-THC . This form of THC is particularly effective at crossing the blood-brain barrier and brings on a very potent and effective high ; In addition to the high being much more pronounced, the high last much longer . Since cannabis if filtered through the liver, the digestive system slowly releases THC and other cannabinoids at a slow and steady pace.

Unlike some poisons that can be fixed by pumping the stomach, cannabis edibles continue to release and the only way to stop the high is to ride it out Some suggest that CBD pills could counteract the high . CBD has many healing properties other than counteracting a hallucination such as relieving convulsions, inflammation, anxiety and nausea in animal trials . Ironically, most marijuana growers sought to actively breed out the non-THC cannabinoids out of their plants with the hopes of creating extremely potent marijuana strains. The resultant effects were strains of cannabis that produced hallucinations and lacked some of the healing properties found in many other cannabinoids. A similar problem manifests when people unsuspectingly take marijuana edibles. Such is the case with many children that find brownies. Most edibles are disguised like regular candy, cookies, chocolate bars and drinks to not raise suspicion . Thus, the bud tenders make it clear how to take the plant and the appropriate context in which to use the plant. Because of their potency, and the possibility of accidental ingestion, Colorado health authorities suggested a ban on edibles . When the suggestion was made public, it was quickly shot down. The pro marking and ban camp suggested that banning or clearly marking edible products is the only way to ensure that children are not accidentally exposed to cannabis. Likewise, vertical grow room design they argue that banning or making sure edibles are marked outside of their wrappers is the only way to make sure accidental does not occur for adults as well. They point to the fact that at one Denver hospital, nine children have been admitted after accidental ingestion. Opponents of the regulations suggest that marking pot won’t prevent accidental ingestions. Moreover, they contend that it is not clear whether or not children that were admitted to hospitals for accidental ingestion ate commercial products or homemade items . Moreover, opponents of regulations claim that attempts to ban or mark edibles may lead to increases in smoking, which itself is the one of the most dangerous aspects of cannabis consumption. Likewise, many cannabis users cannot smoke cannabis for various reasons. The, most recent trend to hit the market is the use of waxes and concentrates. Concentrates are extremely potent forms of cannabis that are produced by soaking the plant in some form of solvent such as alcohol or butane to extract the cannabinoids and resin from the plant . Some people prefer this because it produces a stronger high without the burning smoke. Some of the concentrates sold at the shop are shatter, candy gummy, budder, solids and waxes. Waxes and concentrates are consumed in various methods referred to as dabbing. Dabbing can be dangerous when using a blowtorch because of the fire risk. The most recent methods use an electronic nail that heats the wax.Other trends are the use of cannabis tinctures. As was discussed in chapter two, tinctures were common in the early part of the twentieth century . The tinctures are consumed sublingually and allowed to absorb in the veins under the tongue. This is becoming an increasingly more common method among cannabis patients because it has many benefits with few of the drawbacks of edibles. Since tinctures are consumed sublingually, the effect of the cannabis is quicker than edibles and not as strong. Unlike edibles, the liver does not convert the THC to its more potent form 11-hydroxy-THC. Since the effects are felt almost immediately, patients are able to dose more accurately and do not have to wait an hour to begin to feel the effects as with edibles. Likewise, the high does not last as long as with edibles so the patient can medicate without being extremely high for the rest of the day.

Patients referred to it as a body high that would relieve pain without extreme paranoia or psychedelic hallucinations and delusions.Nevertheless, the main draw of the collective is always the bud. As Schauer et al’s article illustrates, combusted modes of cannabis use are most prevalent in the U.S. The bud is divided into three sections by type: Indicas, Sativas and Hybrids. The three sections are further broken down by quality and strength level. The best buds are typically referred to as top shelf; they tend to have the most THC, give off the strongest and sweetest smell, and have the most crystals and orange hairs. Mid shelf and bottom shelf are recommended for first time patients or patients that do not want the extreme paranoid trip that occasionally accompanies powerful cannabis strains. The tender typically attempts to describe the possible effect or high produced and the possible medical benefits of each strain. If the patient requests it, the tender occasionally helps the patient find a particular bud for a particular illness. Different strains are also used for different times of the day, with Sativas being stimulants and Indicas being sedatives. Although the distinction between Indicas and Sativas exist, most, if not all modern strains are some form of hybrid of the two with one, sativa or indicia, being dominant. However, regardless of what the tender may say, there is really no way to predict the effect or high produced within the individual, as each person is different and everybody’s high varies.Although the Kings have their own individual growing operation, the cannabis yield does not have the ability to meet the demands of the dispensary. In fact, the growing operation does not produce anywhere near the amount of cannabis needed. Because of this, The Corner collective relies on a series of cannabis distributors to stock the dispensary. As stated prior, collectives use aggregate possession of its members to confer large-scale growing privileges on behalf of the dispensary. Northern California growers and various others make shift-growing operations throughout California sell to the corner. Likewise, various representatives from companies such as Bhang Bars visit the dispensary to sell to the Kings. The relevance of the cannabis distribution system is that it illustrates that cannabis is a substantially different substance and operates as a substantially different market than other drugs.

Based on observations and data on the group, I suggest here that marijuana use is explained much more an analysis of cultural differences than through an previous criminological and sociological theories.This chapter is where I reiterated the main findings of the study. I reflected on what I learned, interesting and/or unexpected findings, and suggest what this study means for the discipline more broadly. Furthermore, given the recent changes in marijuana laws such as those enacted in Washington state and Colorado, this study has implications far beyond academia. Colorado amendment 64 and Washington State initiative 502 recently legalized the recreational use of small amounts of marijuana by adults 21 years and older. It could help to illustrate the motivations and reasons why people use drugs, and it can help to expand upon the meanings of drug use to individuals and people associated with drug cultures. My personal policy recommendations are legalization and taxation as the majority of problems associated with cannabis stem from societal reaction, and not the substance itself.Cannabis is the generic name for an adaptive and highly successful annual found growing throughout the temperate and tropical zones of the worlds. Cannabis is considered a part of its own botanical group Cannabacea, in which only it and the hop belong . Historically there has been debate about whether or not the plant is polytypic or monotypic . For the purpose of this study, we will treat Indica and Sativa as two distinct species as these are the generic names found in cannabis lingo today. However, doubts remain about the polytypic side of the argument, indoor vertical garden systems as the plant has been found capable of adjusting itself to the environment. It has been found that seeds taken from the European Cannabis Sativa plant and cultivated in India come to display some of the characteristics of the Cannabis Indica plant in just a few generations, and vice versa .

Likewise, there are no known physiological barriers to reproduction . However, physical and geographical barriers may have lead to divergent gene pools prior to human intervention . Scientific debate aside, the reason the study will treat the plant as polytypic is because growers and smokers frequently differentiate the two when discussing their potential effect. Indicas tend to be milder sedative effect, frequently referred to as a body high. Sativa on the other hand, for many, produces a more upbeat stimulating effect for the user. Many strains are hybrids that combine the two. Growers frequently combine the two to counter act the sedative negative effects of Indica and the overly paranoid and stimulating effects of Sativa. The main psychoactive component in cannabis is Tetrahydrocannabinol , although, there exist approximately 85 cannabinoids . In 1992, it was found that much the same way the brain creates opiate like substances called endorphins, the human body produces a cannabinoid like substance called an anandamide. Research shows that THC locks on to the same cell receptors as an anandamide . The endocannabinoid system is the site of much research into the medical uses of cannabis, and, like much of the rest of the human body, is not fully understood. Many researchers go so far as to claim that the fact that the human brain and body has specific cannabis receptors to claim that nature intended for humans to use the substance. Others, however, contend the substance hijacks the endocannabinoid system and disorients its users. This system is being found to be involved in an increasing numbers of pathological conditions such as neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, reproductive disorders and disorders of cancer .

Consequently, increasing research is being focused on how to influence this system. Cannabis is unique in its hallucinogenic properties. Plants that contain psychoactive compounds are archetypally separated into two categories. The first category, psychotropic drugs operate by affecting the central nervous system. The second, psychotomimetic, affect the mind, altering perception and reality. The cannabis plant and its cannabinoids fit neither classification properly , although some scholars contend it is of the latter . Most psychotomimetic drugs are alkaloids. However, cannabis is a non-nitrogenous substance that is unique to the plant itself. The fact that the cannabis plant operates upon the endocannabinoid system makes it non-lethal at any dose . Unlike, opiate derivatives, coca derivatives and alcohol, the cannabis plant acts upon receptors that do not control life support functions of the body or the brain such as breathing or the beating of the heart. Thus, no dosage of cannabis can cause death. It is estimated that an average individual would have to smoke approximately 800 joints to die from cannabis use, and the corresponding death would likely be the result of carbon monoxide poison rather than the THC or cannabinoids themselves. Alternative routes of administration would not produce death. The majority of the THC is synthesized in and found in the resin of the plant . The plant is frequently smoked with the bud resin and seeds intact, yet the resin can be separated from the plant and made into a highly concentrated version mixture termed hashish or hash oil. Both male and female plants produce the resin that contains the majority of the psychoactive cannabinoid THC. This resin is produced in much vaster amounts in the female plant than the male. Production of this resin in the female plants continues to increase until the female reaches maturity and it ceases brusquely. Modern marijuana growers frequently isolate male Cannabis plants from females to produce a more powerful, abundant and psychoactive resin.

The function of the resin in the cannabis plant is the speculation of heavy debate. Some scholars suggest the intoxicating resin operates to disorient would be prey. This theory seems unlikely as insects, humans, and other animals are frequently drawn to the plant. Likewise, the fact that THC is not present until the plant flowers makes this theory all the more unlikely. Others however, suggest the hallucinogenic effect of the plant was an evolutionary adaptation to induce human beings to spread the plant throughout the world, much the same way nectar producing plants induces the bumblebee to crosspollinate plants on its behalf . Origins of the Plant Since the plant predates written human history, the exact origin of the cannabis plant is unknown. The plant flourished widely in both Asia and Africa with most scholars contending the plant originated in the temperate zone of Central Asia . Such an area provided the perfect climate for the evolution of Cannabis as the winds provided a vehicle for pollination. Furthermore, the winds may have aided its distributions to surrounding areas. The fact that Cannabis plant was one of the first plants to be cultivated by humankind further complicates its origins as present-day areas of wild growth may have resulted from prehistoric cultivation and trade. What is certain is that the discovery of cannabis occurred early on in human history. For millennia, cannabis has been used for everything from clothing to paper to rope to food. Furthermore, it is logical to assume the hallucinogenic properties of the plant were discovered early on in its history. Humans were nomadic living off the land and would eat and experiment with all types of substances. It would not have taken long for humans to discover its mind bending and medicinal properties and turn it into, as many cultures did, a religious and spiritual sacrament. Although we conceptualize hallucinogenic plants and substances in a general negative light in today’s society, primitive man may have had a very different relationship with such an experience. It is plausible to assume the superstitious nature early humans may have lead them to believe it was a magical plant that had the ability to alter the very nature of reality itself . Although it is arguable whether or not the plant has the ability to alter reality, it certainly appears to alter people’s perception of reality, thereby altering an individual’s understanding reality itself. As various post-modern social constructivist scholars have pointed out, the reality we experience is as much a product of ourselves as it is anything external to us. The view of cannabis as a magical plant would likely have become a staple of religious practice and its medicinal value would have been learned not long after. Indeed, many cannabis users I have had the pleasure of speaking to argued that the plant itself, altering reality spurred human creativity and imagination, and was the reason human thought and human consciousness took such leaps and bounds approximately 12,000 years ago, plant drying rack although no scientific evidence suggest such an assertion. Stoner culture is actually abound with these types of theories. The first written records and archeological evidence suggest that the cannabis plant was being cultivated at the dawn of Chinese civilization.

The first semi-scientific investigation of the cannabis plant is attributed to the Chinese Emperor, and father of Chinese medicine, Shen Nung of the third millennium B.C.E. Shen Nung is credited with the testing of plants for the medicinal quality. It is rumored he turned green and died of self-administered accidental poisoning unrelated to cannabis. Shen Nung Pen Ts’ao Ching text was the first Chinese pharmacopeia . The Pen Ts’ao Ching recommended the use of cannabis to treat a wide range of ailments from gout to malaria. It has traditionally been documented in China’s pharmacopeia.The use of Cannabis spread west out of China to the Indian sub-content carried by traders. The ritual use of cannabis in religious practice in India spans back thousands of years and is a recurring theme in India’s history . Legend has it that the plant was created when the gods stirred the heavenly oceans with the peak of Mount Mandara. From the stirring, a drop of nectar fell to the earth and the cannabis plant sprouted. Other legends suggest that the God Shiva brought cannabis down from the Himalayas for the pleasure of mankind . In many traditions of Hinduism, Shiva is one of the five primary forms of God. Shiva takes on many forms, as he is frequently depicted as an omniscient Yogi that lives an ascetic life as well as a slayer of demon. However, above all, if frequently thought of as the destroyer of worlds. Shiva destroys the world to create a better one . Shiva is According to folklore, the god Shiva went into the fields and laid under a cannabis plant for shade. Then, being hungry, he ate some of it and it became his favorite food . Indian cannabis was originally reserved for Brahmin priests and Hindu holy men. Such men of creed and conviction believed cannabis took them closer to enlightenment and the gods. Likewise, cannabis was recommended as an aid in ritualistic Tantric sexual yoga. Cannabis was not considered an aphrodisiac, yet it was believed that cannabis had the ability to lift one into a higher state of consciousness that could enhance sexuality and sexual union. Gross described the Indians practice of smoking cannabis as, a symbolic ritual in which the sadhu4 absorb the substance and essence in order to become one with Him. For centuries it is believed that Cannabis was the plant used in the creation of Soma, a plant mentioned several hundred times in hymns and chants in the Rig Veda . Many claimed soma helped to spur the development of the Hindu religion. Modern scholars however, contend the actual substance was ephedra sinica or the fly agaric mushroom . Considering cannabis’ prevalence in Hindu religious practice, and the religious practice of so many cultures throughout the world, I suggest such a hypothesis needs reexamination. Furthermore, ritualistic cannabis use is still practiced in India in a form of a drink called Bhang. Moreover, some Shiva followers in South India still claim that the Vedic soma was the same as their current soma Bhang drink. Bhang is a tea made of cannabis leaves, milk, sugar and other assorted herbs and spices. The steps used in the preparation of Bhang are the essentially the same steps used in the preparation of the ancient soma. Cannabis in current context is commonly referred to as “sattvik nasha” translated as “peaceful intoxication” . Although highly contentious and open to debate, many scholars have suggested that Judaism, and as a consequence, the practice of the major three monotheistic religions , all have connections with cannabis. According to several scholars, Sula Benet being the most prominent, cannabis was an ingredient in the Holy anointing oil mentioned in the bible and other sacred Hebrew texts.