A plaque on a wall of Spain’s Alhambra Palace celebrates the American writer Washington Irving (1783 –1859), who wrote his best seller Tales of the Alhambra there in 1829. Construction of the palace-fortress, located in Granada in the heart of Andalusia, Spain, was begun nearly 800 years ago. It’s the finest example of Islamic architecture that I’ve seen, well worth a day trip from Madrid in the north or Malaga in the south. Go early! When I visited in 1983, I was one of only a dozen tourists, but I hear it’s now crowded, especially at weekends.

I’d barely heard of Washington Irving back then, not having been raised in the U.S., where I understand such classics as Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are essential reading for young people. My first real encounter with Irving was when I was researching the myth that Christopher Columbus was warned that the world was flat and he might sail off the edge of the world. The first record I ever owned (remember 78s?!), a present from my sister in 1951 (I was nine), cemented the facts in my mind. Guy Mitchell sang:

Queen Isabella she gave heed
Said go buy the ships you need.
Take my jewels but travel slow
‘Cos you might fall down to the world below.

I blame Washington Irving. Before his stay at the Alhambra, he lived in Madrid, where he wrote A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, published in January 1828. According to Wikipedia, it went through 175 editions before the end of the century. In it, Irving spins the yarn that scholars believed in a flat Earth in the medieval world of Columbus’ time, and that we should thank the Genoese navigator (who was actually a conquistador, in the worst sense of the word, once he reached the Americas) for proving that the world was round.

Daguerreotype of Washington Irving (John Plumbe, public domain)

Not only was the shape of the Earth well known to the ancient Greeks nearly two thousand years before Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” but they even knew the approximate size of it — to a better approximation than that assumed by Columbus, who confused the units used by the Greeks. Around 200 BC, the head of the Library of Alexandria, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, estimated Earth’s circumference to within a few percent of the actual value. (Probably — historians are unsure about the modern equivalent of his unit of length, the stadion.) He did this by famously measuring the difference in angles of shadows cast by vertical rods in Alexandria and Syene (modern Aswan), knowing the distance between them.

So yeah, Columbus knew the Earth was round, even if he did underestimate its circumference (by a whopping 33 percent — hence “Indians”). And Washington Irving knew that he knew, but he was a writer, a teller of tales. Someone who practically invented the genre we now call “historical fiction.”

“In God We Trust”

In greed we trust.

In power we trust.

In politics we trust.

But God? Not so much.

I am desperate for a shift in the religious winds. I was recently asked why I think so many people have left the Church in America. “Oh my friend,” I said, “the list is like a Venn Diagram with circles overlapping and connecting. It’s hard to say what is the catalyst.”

Maybe sex abuse scandals from Church leaders. Maybe Evangelicals gleefully supporting a master manipulator for president. Maybe the pandemic took Church away and replaced it with hobbies and laundry. Maybe people can’t stomach another sermon about hell when it feels like their life is hell. Maybe the obsession with women’s bodies and the shame culture that cycles through. Maybe the “love” they have for LGBTQ folx that feels a lot more like rejection. Maybe the quest for Christian nationalism in a country founded on religious freedom that feels more like controlling shackles. 

I am desperate for a shift in the religious winds—a Holy Spirit groaning wind of peace—and I believe it’s possible.

Late Church historian, Phyllis Tickle, wrote about some markers in Church history. About every 500 years the Church holds a “great rummage sale” of all the extra accumulated junk to figure out what needs to stay and go in regards to doctrines, traditions, rituals, and practices. Decades of theological disagreements might pass, causing instability in systems and institutions until the last straw occurs and leaders become pressed to determine the future of the Church. In painful and sometimes violent outcomes, the Church splits, relationships severe, hearts break, and ways of religious practice die. 

But God tends to move through dead things to bring about life. And life can’t occur without death.

(A word about “rummage sale;” I can see how limiting this phrase is. Rummage sales are meant to sell off what is no longer wanted, however a lot of what needs to go, REALLY shouldn’t be given anywhere else. Maybe dumpster fire is a better term, but for consistency, we’ll stay with “rummage sale.”)

A first rummage sale came around 500 years after the birth of the Church and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Obviously the birth of Jesus was a significant historical shift, and about 500 years before that was another significant historical shift with the last prophetic writing—Malachi). During this time, the Roman Empire was being dismantled. Christianity had become an accepted religion without much pastoral oversight or doctrine, so defining what it meant to be a Christian and follow Jesus had to happen.  

Phyllis Tickle wrote in her book, The Great Emergence, that “During the long decline of it’s civil governance, the population of Rome was increasingly composed of illiterate barbarians who had grown weary of raiding the Eternal City and decided instead to take up residency and stay awhile. Because Christianity was the religion of the Empire, many, many of these new raiders-turned-citizens adopted it; but they also and inevitably adapted it as well.” 

Around 500 years after that, in 1054, was the Great Schism. In the most simplistic terms, after years of arguing and debating over some beliefs like whether communion bread should or shouldn’t have yeast in it as well as questioning if the Pope had ultimate authority over the Western and Eastern Church, they went their separate ways. The Western Roman Catholic Church insisted on unleavened bread and Papal authority while the Eastern Church broke away and continued as the Greek/Eastern Orthodox Church with a different structure. 

500 years after that another rummage sale broke out with the Great Reformation. German Catholic monk, Martin Luther (along with others), began deeply questioning some of the Roman Catholic Church’s practices, like indulgences, where Christians could pay the Church money for alleviation and forgiveness of sins or a deceased loved one moving from Purgatory to heaven. Because most people were illiterate and couldn’t study scripture for themselves, they believed what the Church decreed was what God decreed. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther wrote out 95 things needing to go in the Roman Catholic Church and implored people to strip everything extra away to simply focus on Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, and Sola Fide — Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone.

In the biblical book of Acts, we find this early church community. They met in the Temple courts. They met in each other’s homes. They broke bread and shared meals together and listened to teachings on scripture and prayed together. They made sure everyone had enough and there was equality and equity among them. Maybe this is idealistic today, but it sure sounds nice (although reading into Acts we find squabbles and arguments existed then). But, how did we get so far from this early example? Going from this early church, simple and inclusive, to an Empirical Church, to a split and another split and now thousands of Christian denominations splitting and starting and arguing and dying. 

The printing press had recently been invented before Luther broke away. People began having access to Bibles written in their own languages. These variables, plus a rise in literacy, created more Protestant denominations out different interpretations 

In the 500 years since the Reformation, the Church (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant…) has picked up some good stuff along the way. But some of what we’ve collected is embarrassing. 

Colonialism. Indigenous boarding schools. Slavery. Purity culture. Patriarchy. Christian Nationalism. 

I believe it’s time for another rummage sale! (Or dumpster fire!)

Statements of Belief pages on church websites or denominational Books of Disciplines are long and thick, making sure to list out every little thing so no one gets God wrong. We fight about what we think it means that “God so loves the world” instead of simply believing that God so loves the world! We are more focused on upholding what we believe is “correct theology” than we are at loving people.

I believe we are on the precipice of new movements of Love but we live in a fearful world. Church leaders worry about the amount of people leaving and in a post-pandemic world, so many people never came back. We don’t know what the future of the Church looks like with more churches closing than opening. Fear-based questions make Christians either give up or get aggressive: What if our generation is the last Christian generation and this ends with us? What does this mean for our children and grandchildren? What are we leaving behind for them? Dilapidated buildings and some religious trauma?

I think there’s a lot of good old religion in the way of new Holy Spirit movements.

So I wonder, what needs to go in the rummage sale to create spaces for the Holy Spirit to breathe into our lives, to hover over our humanly hopelessness, to direct the way forward in greater love with awe and curiosity? What needs to be removed, stripped away, and what needs to stay? You might say, “Burn it all down.” And I get that sentiment of wanting to see it all go into the proverbial dumpster fire. But I ask you, have you sat in Mass lately or prayed the Lord’s Prayer alongside others? Have you engaged with your precious soul, recognizing your and your neighbor’s beloved worth? Have you been challenged to love your enemy and forgive others as you have been forgiven? 

I don’t believe the answer is to burn it all down, but I do believe when the church bravely sifts through all the old good and helpful stuff, is honest about what’s no longer helpful or even good, and humbly releases it, what we’re left with is Jesus and I believe there’s nothing better in the whole world than him. The constant throughout each of these profound historical movements is Jesus. So my friends, if your faith feels strained, if hope feels bleak, if it’s hard to be faithful along the way, know that God is faithful to you. God will make a way forward and it’s probably not the way we would have imagined, but there’s nothing to fear. 

May we let go of the religious vice grip.

In God we trust.

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Bethany Cseh is a pastor at Arcata United Methodist Church and Catalyst Church. 

The Smith River needs your help. Agricultural operations along the estuary are polluting the river with high levels of pesticides. This pesticide pollution is impacting coho salmon, tidewater goby and other wildlife that rely on the river, as well as the human residents that live amongst the pollution.

Greg King, executive director of the Siskiyou Land Conservancy, joins the show to discuss his organization’s new report detailing the 40 year history of pesticide pollution in the river and what needs to be done to restore it.

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Press release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) this week successfully released approximately 500,000 juvenile salmon into the Klamath River just below the Iron Gate Dam.

On Tuesday, April 16, joined by leaders from the Karuk, Yurok, Shasta Indian Nation and the Quartz Valley Indian tribes, CDFW released about 90,000 yearling coho salmon. It was the first major release of coho salmon, a state and federally listed threatened species, into the Klamath River since dam removal began in earnest late last year.

The fish were trucked about 7 miles from CDFW’s new, state-of-the-art Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County and released following remarks and a Tribal blessing.

“We’re all here for the same reason. We’re all here to pray for these fish to make it and to see justice for our people down river,” said Kenneth Brink, Vice Chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “It’s a different time we are living in now. Our kids no longer have to see our river die. We are watching our river heal now. It’s a great time.”

“These baby fish represent hope,” said Yurok Tribal Council Member Phillip Williams. “The Klamath was mistreated for more than a century, but now the river is healing and so are we. Through dam removal, habitat restoration and hatchery augmentation, we are building a brighter future for the next generations.”

Jason Roberts, Inland Fisheries Program Manager for CDFW’s Northern Region, said, “These will be the first fish from the hatchery that will come back to a free-flowing Klamath River. They will help repopulate the newly opened habitat above the dams and provide us with brood stock for future years of coho releases.”

The following day, April 17, CDFW released more than 400,000 fall-run Chinook salmon fry from the same location below Iron Gate.

The coho and Chinook salmon released this week are expected to return to an undammed Klamath River in two to four years after life in the Pacific Ocean with access to hundreds of miles of new spawning and rearing habitat as a result of dam removal.

Roberts said river conditions were ideal for the salmon releases this week with water temperatures at 51 degrees, high dissolved oxygen levels and low turbidity.

In the two weeks prior to release, CDFW further tested river conditions by placing “sentinel” juvenile salmon in holding enclosures for 48 hours at various locations in the Klamath River. All 200 salmon in the sentinel study survived showing no ill effects from their time in the river.

Later this spring, CDFW will release about 1.75 million fall-run Chinook salmon smolts into the river. CDFW varies the ages of the fish and release strategies to improve survival. All future salmon releases will take place below Iron Gate until dam removal is complete. The Iron Gate Dam is scheduled for removal later this year.

PREVIOUSLY:

• HUMBOLDT HISTORY: Studying and Not Studying at Humboldt State During the Second World War, When Young Women Made Up Most All of the Student Body

Humboldt State exploded with veterans on the G.I. Bill in the fall of 1945. Excitement filled the classrooms and hallways of Founders Hall, as enrollment more than tripled. Many of these students were not boys any longer, but men with wives and families, serious about getting an education.

The state bought homes near the school to house classes and offices. Redwood Hall, a new men’s dorm, was built. The Co-op outgrew its space and was moved to a large, gray house across the parking lot from Founders Hall. A sign over the door read “Coop” instead of “Co-op.” Vera Walters, the mother of one of the students, ran the snack bar, and made the most delicious tuna sandwiches. Her secret — a little squirt of lemon juice in the tuna.

Joe Forbes came to HSC with his football team from Compton Junior College in Southern California, a far different world from Humboldt County. Among the team members were Gordon Schroeder and Tom Viracola. They had been best friends at Iwo Jima in the South Pacific during the war, where Gordon had saved Tom’s life. They arrived with Joe and the other football players and played left guard and left tackle. They worked as a team to win. Girlfriends of some of the players tagged along from Southern California. Blonde. Tanned. Beautiful.

Dane Clark in 1946’s “Her Kind of Man.”

In the 1940s, the ultimate goal for most girls was marriage. I was the first in my group of friends to take this plunge. Tom Viracola swept me off my feet. Not only was Tom a veteran of the war in the South Pacific and a star football player, he looked like the movie star Dane Clark, with dark curly hair and big brown eyes fringed with curling eyelashes. We were married in the early fall of 1947: Tom, a 21-year-old street-wise kid from Long Branch, New Jersey; me, a quiet, small-town 19-year-old girl from Eureka.

When my mother and father were married, my grandfather told my mother, “You’ve made your bed, now you lie in it.” When my sister, Pat, got married, our father told her if she ever needed help she could come to him. My father had died the Christmas of 1944, so before Tom and I were married, my mother took Tom aside and told him the story. Tom informed me my mother had told him I had made my bed and I would have to lie in it. I carried this pain like a blister on my heel for four years. On top of that, a few days after the wedding, I realized had made a big mistake.

Housing was difficult to find right after World War II. For a month, we rented a room in Eureka and either walked a mile to catch the early bus on Harris and California Streets, caught a ride to school with friends who had a car, or hitchhiked on Highway 101. Mother didn’t like to see us living like this, so she bought a big old house on Sixth Street in Eureka, converted it into apartments, and rented us the downstairs, demonstrating her willingness to help, although I had not asked for help. From Sixth Street we could easily catch the bus on Fourth as it headed out of town.

Then, housing became available at the newly constructed married students’ housing project at the college, Humboldt Village, which was down the hill from the College Elementary School playground. We were extremely lucky to get a studio apartment. How inconsiderate, though, to go live in Arcata and leave Mother with that apartment building. But it was much better to live on campus. No more running to catch a bus. No more hitchhiking back to Eureka in the dark and the rain after late classes or a football game.

A road ran from the entry straight across the middle of the Village to a fence where there were garbage cans that were usually filled to overflowing. Four U-shaped courtyards, two on each side of the main road and outlined with wooden sidewalks, faced grass that had seen better days. Some of the buildings were long, with two two-bedroom apartments back to back in the center, and a studio apartment at each end. A few tiny one-bedroom houses edged the perimeter.

The laundry building stood in the middle of the compound, with two sets of laundry tubs and two wringer washing machines. Yards and yards of clotheslines were strung behind the building. One day all my bras were stolen, probably as a prank by some boys in a dorm. I couldn’t afford to buy new ones. I posted a notice in the laundry room asking for them to be returned, but I never saw them again.

A pay telephone booth across the road from the laundry building stood against our apartment and served the entire complex. Living next to the phone meant answering it at all hours of the day and night and running all over the Village to find the person being called.

The G.I. Bill barely provided enough to live in abject poverty. Veterans had tuition and books paid, and married vets received a living allowance around of $97 a month. I carefully budgeted $20 a week for groceries, although some married students managed on $15. But the G.I. allowance was not enough to cover food, rent and incidentals, let alone clothes.

I paid my $25 semester tuition with War Savings Bonds I had bought before the war at Marshall School on “Stamp Day.” Every week during the last year or two of elementary school, I had paid ten or twenty-five cents to buy stamps. I’d paste them in a book to redeem for a bond when the book was full. When these bonds were gone, I saved enough from my part-time job for tuition. There never was enough money to buy books, so I paid close attention in class and relied on my notes.

Tom and I both worked Saturdays and every school vacation. Sometimes Tom worked a night shift in a service station. One summer he worked the swing shift at the California Barrel Factory in Arcata. Most of the married men with children worked a full-time job as well as going to class and studying.

Some veterans had no children, but had wives who worked. Many of these lucky guys spent their afternoons hanging out in the Village drinking beer and playing cards, or tossing a football around.

At college, a dead silence would fill the room if I walked into the women’s lounge. My old friends didn’t seem to want me around. So instead, I worked, cleaned house, did laundry, studied, and went to class. Once in a while, Vicki Short (Hartman) would walk to the Village with me, and we’d share a can of soup for lunch.

Tom’s world revolved around football, so mine did, too. At the games, wives and girlfriends shivered on the bleachers in nylons, high heels, thin coats and thinner dresses while we watched our men play. Immediately after a game, we all went to a dance or a party.

Tom considered himself a ladies’ man. Since I was only on campus long enough to attend class, many students did not know he was married. That suited him just fine. One night at a football game, I heard a girl say she thought he was “so cute.” She didn’t know that his wife sat in the row behind her. By that time, I really didn’t care, but thought I had to keep my vows “for better or for worse.”

The day Tom and I were married, John “Spider” Klingenspore, a college basketball star put an 1886 silver dollar into my hand, and said, “Keep this and you’ll never be broke.” I treasured my silver dollar for three years, until one night when Tom grew restless and demanded my dollar. He wanted to go to a movie, which cost forty-five cents. He pestered me until I finally gave him the coin. He went to the movie without me.

Many wives with small children in the Village became despondent. Humboldt Village must have seemed like a squalid ghetto to them. Working mothers were just beginning to emerge from the housewife cocoon. Day care was nonexistent, unless one had a willing grandmother. But one of my friends in the Village, Betty Preston, was the exception. She loved being a homemaker and a mother.

When I met her, Betty had three little girls. She spent her days happily sewing dresses for them on her brand new Elna sewing machine, cooking, or washing down the walls of her two-bedroom apartment. Plywood sweats and becomes moldy without good care, but I don’t remember anyone else in the Village who washed walls. I do remember shoes getting moldy if they sat too long in a Village closet. Betty’s husband, Ed, held down a full-time job as a truck driver at night while going to school days. Whenever I became discouraged, I went to see Betty Preston.

Halfway through my college years, Daly Brothers, the department store in Eureka where I worked part time, offered me a full-time job in the office for $100 a month. It sounded like a million dollars. Sick of scraping along, never having anything to wear, I was tempted to take the job. But even with all the hardships, I still loved college. I decided to stay in school.

Somehow, we managed to save enough - maybe $60 — to buy a car, a 1931 Chevrolet Coupe. Tom painted the Chevy baby blue and trimmed the wooden-spoke wheels yellow. Mother gave us a new blue and yellow plaid seat cover for Christmas. I could see the pavement through a hole in the floor where a rod poked up to connect to the missing accelerator pedal. The car had to be parked on a slight hill and pushed a little bit to start. Once it was rolling, you hopped in and shifted into second gear, with the clutch in. As the car picked up speed, you let the clutch out a little until the motor caught. Later I realized we needed a new battery, but who had money for batteries?

Just before Christmas of 1949, the country was in a slight recession. Part-time work was hard to find. The G.I. Bill allowance and what I made at Daly Brothers on Saturdays wasn’t enough. Tom needed work, too. Joe Forbes had told his football players if they got into a financial hind to go see the loan officer at the Bank of America in Arcata. He had already made arrangements with the bank, just in case. We were down to our last 87 cents. No food in the cupboard. Tom had a lead on part-time work at the post office in Eureka, so he took the Chevy to apply for the job.

I walked down the hill and past the Plaza to the bank. The bank manager was very kind and loaned me $100. I don’t remember the interest rate or how long we had in which to pay it back. I was so relieved that now we could eat again, I went directly to the Safeway store and did a week’s grocery shopping, using $19.50. I couldn’t walk back up Humboldt Hill to the Village carrying all the bags by myself, so I used the rest of my food allowance for that week, fifty cents, to hire a taxi. The remaining $80 went into four separate envelopes, $60 earmarked for the next three weeks of groceries; $20 for gas and incidentals. If we ran out of something like mayonnaise, we did without until time to do the next week’s shopping.

By June of 1949,1 had earned an elementary teaching credential, but went back in the fall for student teaching at the College Elementary School. Margaret Telonicher, the wife of my zoology professor, was my supervisor. She was a wonderful teacher, a sympathetic mentor, and a caring person. Still afraid of speaking in front of a group, I froze when she told me I could take over the class. I asked to observe a little longer — and then, and a little longer.

One Sunday I was called to the Village telephone booth. Mrs. Telonicher had run a hand drill through her finger as she prepared pine cones for a Christmas wreath. I had to take over her class the next morning. Many classrooms in the College Elementary School had screened viewing rooms above the front chalkboards, entered by a separate door in the hall. People sitting in the viewing room could see the classroom, but people in the classroom could not see the person in the booth. At the time, I was so busy it did not occur to me that someone might be watching how I handled things — but now, I’m sure someone from the Education Department, maybe Mrs. Telonicher herself, was sitting up in the viewing room. I did. From that day on, I was fine. I found I loved being in charge of the classroom. I loved the children and I loved teaching. In January 1950, after completing student teaching, I was hired by the McKinleyville School District to teach a combination fourth- and fifth-grade class on an afternoon shift.

Tom graduated in June 1950. That fall, we both taught in the Whitethorn Valley near Garberville. Before that school year was over, I knew my marriage was over, too. It no longer mattered that I had promised for better or for worse. It no longer mattered that I had made my bed and had to lie in it. But it did matter that I had signed a contract for a year and could not break it if I ever wanted to teach in Humboldt County again.

Tom and I finished the school year, moved back to one of the studio apartments in the Village, and registered for summer school. He was rarely home — only to get clean clothes. We filed for a divorce. Mother asked me to move in with her, and I found out then that Tom had not told me the truth about me being able to go to her for help. My life was like a photograph album with four years of pictures missing.

Maryellen Keating (Householter) and Lola Austin (Larson) were home from nurses’ training that summer. One Saturday night, they invited me to go with them and some other girls to the Fortuna Rodeo Dance. A nice boy from Humboldt State asked me to dance. When he heard my name, he thought I was Tom’s sister — like most of the other students — although he had heard all about Tom, he didn’t know Tom was married. That nice boy was Ken Gipson. We were married two years later when he graduated from Humboldt State with a degree in business administration and majors in accounting and economics.

Humboldt State College is now Humboldt State University. Founders Hall still sits at the top of Humboldt Hill like a beacon guiding young people to a better life. The bench from the class of 1933 is still there, as is Nelson Hall, now the psychology building. The Co-op and Pop Jenkins’s workshop with the creaky wooden floors are gone. The six-cent sundae is only a memory. Humboldt Village has disappeared. Last time I was there I couldn’t remember exactly where it had been.

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The story above was originally printed in the Winter 2004 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

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It has been nearly three decades since California legalized medical marijuana cannabis, and in the intervening years, as 24 states and counting have legalized recreational use, the humble little plant has undergone a major rebranding – and not just the above-referenced name switch (back) from a Spanish-sounding moniker to a more scientific (and marketable) tag.

The herb once demonized as a corrupting vice among jazz musicians, beatniks and other degenerates has been transformed into a bonafide superstar of the wellness industry, with a diversified portfolio of tinctures, tonics and topicals; strains, concentrates and edibles that promise all variety of body-and-mind-enhancing benefits.

Head to a dispensary and your (ahem) ganjier might recommend a sativa-dominant strain to boost your energy and creativity, or an indica hybrid if you’re looking to zone out and relax. Does weed make you anxious? Well, your budtender might say, try the anti-anxiety properties in cannabidiol, aka CBD.

Alas, as it turns out, those claims may all be bullshit. 

According to recent scientific research conducted in Canada and the United States, and profiled on an episode of the podcast Science Vs, much of the most commonly touted weed wisdom doesn’t hold up under the microscope of peer-reviewed scientific scrutiny.

Now, that’s not to say that cannabis has zero proven health benefits. According to the National Institutes of Health, an overview of the past 20 years of research found that there’s “conclusive or substantial evidence” that cannabis can treat chronic pain, nausea and symptoms of patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity (muscle spasms).

There’s also moderate evidence that it can improve sleep for people with obstructive sleep apnea and ease symptoms of fibromyalgia, chronic pain and multiple sclerosis. And there is limited evidence that it helps a variety of other conditions, including appetite loss associated with HIV/AIDS, symptoms of Tourette syndrome and post-traumatic stress.

But a pillar of the commercial cannabis sales pitch is the ability for consumers to customize their high by selecting just the right strain to deliver their desired effects, whether that’s an energizing head high, a zonked-out, full-body couch stupor or a soothing sleep aid.

Until recently, though, very little genetic sequencing had been done on the plant – in part because cannabis’s status as a Schedule 1 narcotic severely limits the kind of research that can be performed in the United States.

But Sean Myles, an associate professor in agricultural science at Dalhousie University in Canada, set out to do just that. He and his team of researchers got a variety of strains from multiple Canadian growers – some White Rhino, some Dr. Grinspoon, some King’s Kush – and sequenced the DNA to see whether two different supplies of an allegedly single strain would be a genetic match.

In theory they should, just as two Honeycrisp apples bought at different grocery stores will be genetic twins. Instead, Myles and his team found no such resemblance. 

“[W]ith a lot of the samples, he couldn’t find much in common between them,” podcast senior producer Meryl Horn said. “And a third of the time, the White Rhino or whatever was more similar to a completely different thing than it was to the other White Rhino in his data set.”

He got the same results in other strains he studied. [Download the study here.]

“So in cannabis, you go to the store and they say, ‘this is Bubba Kush,’” Myles said. “And that’s the biggest piece of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. Cause that name means absolutely nothing.”

Okay, but what about the revered twin uber-ancestors: sativa and indica? Even a casual connoiseur can tell you that sativa tends to be invigorating and uplifting while indica gives a relaxing body high that might make you sleepy.

Myles studied this, too, analyzing samples both chemically and genetically, and found that while there were some minor differences in surface characteristics, like smell, the two allegedly distinct strains were indistinguishable scientifically.

His initial study was done with samples obtained from the Netherlands, but he repeated the study using Canadian weed and got the same results. A group of American researchers later performed similar tests on strains from California, Washington and Colorado and got the same result.

Myles theorized that decades of intensive cross-breeding are likely to blame.

“We’ve been using this plant like crazy and moving it around the world like mad, and it’s been shuffling and we’ve been mixing the genomes together like crazy, and then it goes underground and nobody’s allowed to talk about it,” he said. “And the only people who are able to go and do all this breeding are, you know, dudes smoking a ton of weed and, you know, breeding a bunch of cannabis. Things were flying around everywhere.”

He’s arguably besmirching the revolutionary work of the Emerald Triangle’s brave, pioneering cultivars, there, but evidently the results have held up in multiple studies.

What about CBD, though? This non-psychoactive compound is marketed everywhere these days, in gummies, topicals, toothpaste, even butt moisturizers and infused sports bras. The chemical is frequently touted as an effective treatment for anxiety, among other things.

Amir Englund, a research fellow at King’s College London, set up a double blind clinical trial to study CBD’s effects on relieving paranoia. He gave subjects varying levels of THC (the main psychoactive compound in cannabis) and CBD and had them report on their feelings of anxiety and paranoia.

The results indicated that CBD has no impact whatsoever. 

“And I was like, no, that can’t be true,” Englund told the hosts. “It was really depressing. It was just really, really consistent that CBD did not have an effect on pretty much anything that we studied.”

Except coughing. For some reason, the testing subjects who received higher levels of CBD coughed more.

Anxiety levels, Englund and other researchers say, are largely determined by the amount of THC consumed. So if you tend to get paranoid on weed, try consuming a bit less next time.

We should note, here, that the National Institutes of Health has left that research door open a crack, saying there is “limited evidence” that CBD can help alleviate anxiety in people with social anxiety disorders, as assessed by a public speaking test. And of course, the placebo effect can be powerful.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is reportedly reviewing the classification of cannabis, which would make it easier for scientists to conduct more scientific testing to enhance our understanding of cannabis and its effects. 

In the meantime, you can click here for a link to the Science Vs episode discussed in this post, and here’s a transcript of the episode complete with footnotes to the various studies referenced.

Feel free to comment below with observations on how the science discussed above is flawed or corrupt or otherwise bogus.

And here’s wishing all LoCO readers an excellent 4/20.

Have you written an obituary that the Lost Coast Outpost has published? Steven Hadley — formerly a star student at Eureka High, currently at the University of Chicago — would like to talk with you.

Since he’s been a little bit homesick in snowbound Chicago, Steven has become an avid reader of the Outpost obituaries. It helps him connect with the places and people he calls home. Now he has an oral history class, and as a project for that class he’d like to talk with an obituary writer about their relationship with their loved one.

Steven says:

I would like them to know that it would be a two-hour audio interview conducted on Zoom, they would receive an unedited copy of the interview as well as the edited version when it’s complete, and that it would only be played for my oral history class unless they permit me to play it elsewhere.

Sound appealing? Such a recording might be a nice thing to pass on to your kids and grandkids. You can reach Steven at shadley1@uchicago.edu or 707-407-5255. He would love to hear from you.