By Margot Izard

Sunday Citizen,
Duncan, British Columbia

RHODODENDRONS, CANNABIS HEDGES

If there’s anything to this yarn at all, the fish might have been attracted by the outstanding nutritive values hempseed offers humans. Unsprouted and untreated hempseed contains Omega fatty acids, very high quality proteins, but no narcotics. Ground into a "butter", it leaves the peanut equivalent far behind. Hemp butter once kept Russian peasants healthy while the nobles, who only ate dairy butter, because they wouldn’t dream of eating what peasants ate, got all the nuisance diseases. My pets and I are denied proper hemp butter, because untreated seed is illegal.

Contrary to the wacky fantasies of people like Frank Walker, smoking (or chewing on) hemp rope or a hemp shirt or even the dreaded hempseed, does not produce a high. His 1963 "hemp" rope may have been sisal or Manila hemp, not made from Cannabis fibre at all.

About this time last year, students who brought toasted hempseed to school for lunch provoked calls to the police, and truly absurd statements from the various authority figures who waltzed into the spotlight. Wasn’t it the head of the school board who seemed unable to determine whether toasted hempseed was viable or not, and therefore declared a zero intelligence policy on all hempseed? Does he plant baked potatoes and roasted beer nuts in hope of a bumper crop in the fall? What are young people to do but grin at such a circus?

Now that we have the legalization of hemp for industry and agriculture, isn’t it time we grew hedges of it around our gardens for privacy, shade and nutrition? Supposing I, a crusty middleaged spinster, were to dare do this. The first people to point out that deviants and delinquents might smoke some of the "deadly" buds, the first people to dial 911 and blither into their cellular phones, would very likely be growing far more potent psychoactive substances in their own gardens.

The best example would be Rhododenron ponticum, wait, better still, Lady Chamberlain hybrid. Many members of the heath family produce varying quantities of the rhododendron drug: Grayanotoxin I. The written history of rhododendron intoxication goes back 2500 years, and includes chemical warfare, hallucinogenic honey for export, medicinal teas and smoking mixtures, the story of a prominent horticulturalist who licked two drops of Lady Chamberlain nectar from his fingers and imagined himself flying through space, serious medical research into the potential of grayanotoxin as a specialty anaesthetic (lab animals had their paws cut off while they were otherwise conscious, showed no signs of pain), and provides, by implication, an interesting theory as to where Christ went after the crucifixion. While a small dose numbs the extremities and provides, in some cases, a hallucinogenic experience, a larger does makes people appear to be dead, although they recover completely within 24 hours. It’s all there, starting with Xenophon and Strabo, and it’s the stuff of the late Kenneth Lampe’s excellent editorial printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (vol. 259, p. 2009, 1988).

This should make it clear that most members of Duncan’s anti-drug contingent are growing drugs --- ditto the municipality, the CVRD, the provincial government, churches, schools, any institution making a respectability statement along lawns and driveways with: rhododendrons, azaleas, sheep laurel, mountain laurel, bog rosemary, certain types of heather, and many other lovelies currently being potted up and flogged by supermarkets and garden supply centres.

So if we must have a so-called War on Drugs, it is only logical and fair to start an RCMP Rhododendron Squad and harrass the smug for a change. Let’s spread hysterical rumours about nectar sucking orgies on over-manicured lawns --- or would they be hysterical rumours? The story of someone stoned on rhodo honey who recovered ---with a new, utterly unnecessary artificial pace-maker ---- is true. So is the one about Pompey’s legions. Would Strabo tell a lie?

Warning (serious): the literature on grayanotoxin includes a few cases of people suffering convulsions and excruciating chest pain as side effects, particularly a very old man who was given rhodo tea day after day, week after week, by an extraordinarily persistent doctor in the late 1700s. Also, although rhododendrons may have something that quells asthma, the initial response may be an aggravation of the problem, which could put serious asthmatics at risk. Finally, shredded rhododendron mulch is believed to have affected dogs running on it in England; they behaved so oddly, one of them was put down before the symptoms were compared and finally explained. Goats have been severely harmed after feeding on a pile of rhododendron clippings a neighbour tossed to them over a fence.