The Marijuana Chronicles

Then Julie read an article in the Washington Post about Jonathan Magbie, a paraplegic arrested for marijuana possession, who wound up in a cell where he couldn’t communicate with the guards.

“They found him dead, soaked in his own urine,” Julie says. “Are you kidding me? This is what we’re coming to? Someone who doesn’t have fully functioning limbs can’t take something that helps him? It’s just insanity. Well, I have use of my limbs, I have use of my voice. I am Julie Falco and it makes me feel better.”

Julie began to visit every legislator in Springfield, making trips once or twice a month to tell her story, which back then not a lot of people were doing. Still, in the ensuing six years, as state after state passed laws legalizing marijuana for medical use, Illinois did not. The Marijuana Policy Project would set up a hotel room and transportation, and she would pretty much have to pack it up, spend a few days down there, bring her wheelchair, going through every office in the capital. It was taxing—she would get tremors just from the noise and the crowd, her nerves were so sensitive she couldn’t process it all. It got easier over time. She’d bring a little container of brownies or ginger snap ca

Over the years, as Julie’s condition deteriorated, advocacy work became physically harder. Getting out of the house took its toll. She did as much as she could, but newer patients were more physically able and could take up the charge.

But year after year, the law would get passed in the Senate and stymied in the House. They were about two votes short. She would hear the same objections every year and the same anxieties about what would happen if the bill did pass: “Look at California,” people would say to her, referring to the chaos that ensued there as dispensaries got shut down by the feds, since federal law doesn’t recognize the state laws.

But according to Julie, the problem with Illinois is that it doesn’t have a referendum. The states that have gotten it passed have had a referendum; the people could vote it in. And yet it’s a hard issue to get people to rally around.

“How do you get chronically ill people to storm the Capitol about ca

Last December, Julie was falling a lot. She had what she calls a “mini exacerbation,” a relapse of some of her symptoms, and had to go into a nursing home and the hospital. She returned home at the end of March.

What Julie knows about California is that in the dispensaries, there is a much greater level of sophistication about which brand of pot treats which ailment. With all those crazy brands—Lemon Skunk, White Diesel, Maui, Alien Dawg, Girl Scout Cookies, White Widow, Purple Urkle, Northern Lights—which in Illinois are hard to grow, it’s easier to cure yourself. Plus, people are just throwing leaves away because everyone’s focusing on the buds.

She sighs. “Get me to California right now.”

P

HILIP

S

PITZER

worked from 1966 to 1969 as a literary agent for John Cushman Associates, then the American affiliate of Curtis, Brown, London, representing hundreds of British writers. In 1969 he formed the Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency, representing a wide range of fiction and nonfiction writers, as well more than a dozen French publishers. He specializes in general fiction and literary crime fiction, as well as the nonfiction subjects of politics, sports, and works of sociological interest. This is his first

written

work of fiction.

tips for the pot-smoking traveler

by philip spitzer

My wife and I rarely travel without weed. In spite of all the risks and possible consequences involved, it’s nothing next to traveling without it. After all, my wife and I met in Paris—but we might not have without the weed. Since that worked out positively, why change it?

Our prescription still reads, Take two a day or as needed.

Like anyone else, we have had our share of close calls whether alone or together. And this story is about close calls, although the episodes are not intended to be a deterrent.

Last Exit to Brussels

or

Tip #1: Check Your Weed’s Potency

In 1984, I was traveling to Paris to visit my family. I had to find the most reasonable fare, which turned out to be round-trip to Brussels and a train from Brussels to Paris. I was only going to be in Paris for a week, and so I brought along one ounce of pot, which I casually slipped into my jacket pocket. While still at JFK airport in New York. I had plenty of time to roll a joint, step outside, and have a smoke. The ounce being a last-minute addition, I wasn’t certain of its strength. It turned out to be high-voltage pot, enough to induce paranoia, which I was not used to. During the night flight I imagined that someone of authority had seen me smoke, followed me to the plane with the intention of making an arrest in Brussels, where the consequences would surely be more severe. Unlike the usual calming effect of the drug, I was unable to sleep, one eye open the entire flight. As I arrived in the Brussels train station, I was still sca

My train ticket put me in a compartment with three other travelers, each of whom left at various stops in Belgium, and I soon found myself comfortably alone and finally relaxed.

Just as I was dozing off, there was a knock on the compartment door. It opened up to reveal a police officer standing in the corridor, mumbling something about drugs! Had I really been followed, after all? Had one of my fellow passengers, smelling the weed in my pocket, turned me in? Or was I experiencing the lingering paranoia of the joint I had smoked hours earlier? All of these possibilities (along with the rest of my life behind the bars of a Brussels prison) flashed before my eyes, ending with my bulging, odiferous jacket pocket no more than a meter from the police officer’s nose.

It took me awhile to come to my senses and understand that the officer needed to use my compartment to strip-search a passenger suspected of having drugs. I welcomed the officer, but not until I had already fled to the relatively fresh air of the corridor where I managed to stop shaking and consider the irony of my situation

(Rule #4: Never confess until asked.)

Would I even put myself in such a situation again? But of course!

Club Med or Bust

or

Tip #2: Talcum Powder Is Best Applied Dried

Like everyone else, my wife and I have discovered all sorts of ways of concealing our pot while traveling, just about everything short of disabling dogs at the airport. But one of our best efforts came close to landing us in a Mexican jail.

It was 1990 and we were traveling to a Club Med in southwestern Mexico. We knew that the nearest village was as tiny as it was remote, and we suspected that the Club Med (especially this one, focused on middle-aged guests and families with children) would not be a likely place to score drugs. My wife had rolled a dozen joints and buried them in a container of talcum powder. Safe enough, it would seem, especially if you considered the profile of the passengers: Screaming children and fat, middle-aged fathers wearing basketball jerseys and sneakers that looked to be size Shaq. A motley middle-class group that the authorities would surely ignore.

Customs was situated outside the terminal building (“terminal,” in this case, seeming like the operative word). We disembarked and took our place in a line, which snaked back almost to the plane. The building was hidden from our sight by various types of shrubbery, as if intentionally camouflaged. When the station itself finally came into view, we were shocked to see what was taking place. As each passenger took a turn before the agents, he or she was asked to press a large button of sorts, in plain view of everyone else. If the light that came on green, the passenger could pass through without inspection. If the light was red, the passenger was ushered to the side and his baggage was inspected. But not just inspected. Every item of clothing, every pocket, every gadget or container, was taken apart and pored over. Was a cavity search next? Possibly. Probably.