UNDERCOVER
RE: The President’s recent visit to Portland, where he addressed a crowd at Nike headquarters.
DEAR MERCURY—Why should President Obama visit Nowheresville to raise $110,000 and then give a speech he could just as easily give back in DC? I’ll guess there was some sort of fat cat meeting going on at Nike HQ, surely one of the most secure meeting environments on the planet. The agenda? My favorite would be getting the okay from Russia, China, and so forth to blast Iran back to the Stone Age. More likely finalizing key concepts of the trade deal, but hey, maybe it’s space aliens.
Jerrold Richards
FIRING SHOTS
RE: “Liquor Shots” [News, May 6], regarding OLCC agents’ desire to carry guns while on duty.
Let’s just militarize every agency out there while we’re at it. Everyone knows the judicious application of firearms fixes every possible situation imaginable.
Posted by disastronaut
I love how these dipshits try to hype the danger of going into an unknown situation where a bar patron legally carries a concealed weapon, yet by their own admission, they’ve never been attacked. So basically they want the ability to escalate an otherwise peaceful encounter into a use of deadly force encounter to justify the need to have a gun—to protect themselves with. Go home, OLCC! You’re drunk!
Posted by David A. Pope
WATER RIGHTS & WRONGS
RE: “A Thirsty Company and a Hungry Town” [News, May 6], regarding the efforts of Nestlé to bottle water in Cascade Locks.
The water here will be for sale sooner or later, face it. And we could do with making some money off of it too, as long as it doesn’t hurt our wildlife.
Posted by frankieb
Nestlé won’t be given any water rights. They will have to buy water from the city like any other business. The city currently loses more water through their old water lines than Nestlé will use. The water lines are going to be replaced so the community will experience no net effect on water use/loss. If people want to fight this project they should battle against bottled water—without a market, there is no need for a water-bottling plant.
Posted by Gorge Resident
DO NOT TRUST NESTLÉ! They want to own the rights to ALL WATER on the planet; it is a stated goal of theirs. The owners do not believe that water is a basic human right and [believe] that they can better control it.
Posted by Tyler Ray Lucas
I THINK WE’RE DEAD
RE: “Pain, Pills, Pot, and Progress” [Cannabuzz, May 6], comparing the benefits and dangers of cannabis and opioids.
I am a pharmacist who has been working with chronic pain patients in rural Oregon for the last seven years. I can confirm that medical marijuana has provided a safe and effective alternative to opioids. However, I feel compelled to stress to your readers that just because marijuana is safer, it is a complete myth that marijuana is not a drug and is 100 percent safe for every person at every dose. Of course it is impossible to overdose via smoking marijuana. It is, however, quite easy to overdose by ingesting marijuana orally, especially via marijuana edibles prepared using decarboxylated (i.e., already active) marijuana extracts, which are basically 98-99 percent active THC. First of all, the dose of THC that constitutes an oral “overdose” is quite individual, depending on the person. Second, while oral overdoses of edible cannabis products have not killed anyone directly, they have certainly made many, many people feel like they are dying due to overdose symptoms, which directly affect neurotransmitter transmission and the cardiovascular system. Please, everyone, remember that when we go recreational, we will be presenting marijuana as a product for consumption to a huge new portion of the population that has never had access to marijuana before and has no experience with it. It is irresponsible of those of us who want to see this drug used happily and safely, both for recreation and medicine, to imply to the general public that marijuana is not a drug and is 100 percent safe.
Posted by MKW
THANK YOU for the professional perspective, MKW! You win this week’s Mercury Letter of the Week, and two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater—purely for recreation.
Thank you MKW, I agree that:
“It is irresponsible of those of us who want to see this drug used happily and safely, both for recreation and medicine, to imply to the general public that marijuana is not a drug and is 100 percent safe.”
However, “…marijuana extracts, which are basically 98-99 percent active THC.” These numbers are simply incorrect. Extracts that have 80%-85% “active THC” (scientifically known as delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol) are about the highest concentrations available, and those are the rarer extractions. A search of local dispensaries menus will show that, on average, most extracts contain around 70% THC. There are no extracts available that are 90%+ that I can find. I think the more accurate statement would be that cannabis extracts often contain 70%-80% delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol.
Additionally, cannabis contains 483 chemical compounds, of which 83 are cannabinoids, of which Delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid is one. Decarboxylation occurs naturally in the drying and curing process of cannabis and can be accelerated by applying more heat. Not all cannabinoids need to be “activated” by decarboxylation; but you are correct, Delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid needs to be decarboxylated into delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol in order to have a psychoactive effect. Since any drying, burning, vaporizing, baking of cannabis will decarboxylate it, non “activated” cannabis pretty much refers to fresh flowers. Medical patients have experimented with and anecdotally studied juicing fresh flowers, which would not be decarboxylated, but most cannabis consumed recreationally and medically is decarboxylated at one step or another.
Not to get all long worded and scientific, but as we learn more about cannabis and become more socially accepting of it, I think it is important not to exaggerate THC percentages or use terms that can be confusing or misleading without context.
The herb, Cannabis is no more a drug than is the herb, Poppy, irrespective of pharmacological effects. There is an unfounded hysteria about falsely alleged harmful effects of Cannabis, which is non-toxic. Even concentrates, no matter how strong, are not toxic.
If one is wealthy enough to consume vast quantities of expensive, concentrates, the likely result will be sleep. In fact, most concentrates are made from Indica, which is mostly CBD. However, concentrates from Sativa are available and much more psychedelic and stimulating, which might cause paranoia and panic attacks, as can also result from smoking lots of Vietnamese Black.
Big deal.
Just smoke something with more CBD to counter it. You’ll be totally loaded, but much more relaxed.
Vitamin A is toxic and will kill you if you take too much. If one drinks too much water, they will become drunk and die from diluted blood. Eating too much sugar can result in a hyperglycemic attack which could put you in a diabetic type coma.
The hidden agenda of the pharmacist, MK Welch, is to condemn Cannabis with faint praise.
With Cannabis legal, nobody needs to consult a physician or buy from a pharmacy. Consumers can simply grow their own, and teat themselves with home remedy.
Prozac and other Serotonin reuptake inhibitors are essentially Fluoride, a substance so toxic that Federal law prohibits it being dumped in the Willamette. Prozac type drugs are as popular nowadays as dangerously radioactive cell phones.
Cannabis is a safe alternative to Prozac.