Endless Thread - Busted

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Weed, dope, kush, reefer -- whatever you call it, marijuana is quickly becoming legal across the country. It's also bringing people together, on Reddit.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the ILAP at WBUR, Boston. Emery, I think we should start this episode with Joe. Good old Joe.

Came through in a tight spot. So this happened a few weeks ago. My daughter was just going off to work. Blots twist already, Joe is a lady. Lady Joe, as in Joanne, from Western Australia. Joe lives with her daughter. Her daughter smokes pot. Joe does not anymore, but she's, quote, cool in the parlance of our times.

The parlance of our times. Come on, Ben. It sounds like ancient times. Emery is not cool, guys. Amory is probably a narque. Another word that only old people use. Fair enough. Anyway, cool Joe's at home one day.

I was sitting here all on my own with my very large dog, watching TV, and I hear a car pull-up. Joe's daughter is at work, but because Joe is cool, she has a feeling of who this might be. There's a big knock on the door. So me and my very large wolf dog went and opened the door and there's this big, scary looking dude, no hair, tattoos. And he sees me and he goes, oh, is his daughter there? And I went, no, she's not. Well, and I just put my hand out and I said, hand it over. And this poor guy, I'm pretty sure he shit himself.

a little bit, throws a little bundle in my hand and then runs off back to the car. Did he run? Really? I mean, Joe says he trotted. He was scared. I love the idea of Mother Joe and her wolf-tog scaring off a big tattooed drug dealer

in Western Australia. Yeah. After accepting her daughter's package, of course. Of course. What is family for if not accepting your pot dealer's delivery? We know that Joe posted this on Reddit, but if a mom accepts some pot for her daughter and no one but the wolf dog is there to see it.

Did it really happen? Well, I did call Joe up on Skype and try to get confirmation from her daughter, who was still in bed with her boyfriend. It was kind of early morning Australian time. I'm talking to the nice people in America. Can you just cooperate? Please say hello and yet she did. Go out. Hello, no, she didn't.

That's the boyfriend. Please. Just say I did it. Maybe we'll just take Joe at her word. Yeah, I think we better. And if that's not a great example of the dynamics between a mother and her daughter in some ways, I don't know what it is. Yep. Today we've got stories about family, community, mythology, legend. But most of all, weed, pot, broccoli, trees, cannabis, marijuana. The devil's lettuce.

The devil's lettuce. Why the devil's lettuce, you ask? Because there's a reality coming home to roost in the U.S. The budding recreational cannabis industry is not dangerous enough. and two potentially lucrative in tax revenue for a growing number of states to turn away. But also because the day this episode is released is the national, if not officially recognized holiday for marijuana enthusiasts. 420, as the kids say. Do the kids say that anymore? Oh, boy. One thing I know the kids still say, when you get caught, let's call this one, busted. I'm Ben Johnson, and this is Endless Thread, a show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of

online communities called Reddit. I'm here with my producer and co-host, Amory Sievertson. We're coming to you from Boston's NPR station, WBUR. Here's a question. Where did the significance of 420 come from? Like, why is that number associated with pot? Okay, so what I always heard was

that it was like the police radio code for a marijuana bust, and there's like a million myths in stories about this, but I asked someone who might know a little better than me. This is a guy who would like for to refer to him, or should I say refer to him? Sorry.

Oh, no. Had to. He wants us to refer to him by his Reddit username Live Beef. Yep, rolling. Live Beef is a moderator of R-slash trees, a community for marijuana enthusiasts. This is kind of funny, actually. There's Our Trees, which is about weed, and then the actual

tree enthusiasts who needed a place but couldn't use Our Trees. Started this other community called Our Marijuana Enthusists, which is actually a place for people who just Love regular trees. Good one, guys. So Live Beef is maybe not a pot historian, but a trees expert in a way.

His answer to the significance of the number 420 has something to do with some kids in California. There was a back in the 70s or so, there was a group of students who were marijuana users at a high school, and they would get detention all the time, and they would get out of detention at 420. And, of course, as soon as they did, they would go outside and get outside the school zone and spark up together. True or not, I'm going to say, California high school kids in the 1970s, me, seems legit. Sure.

But let's get to the rules of the R-slash-trees community. Okay. No selling weed. No asking where to buy it. No spamming the community with your Etsy water pipe business. No harassment. And if you're under 18, then you're not permitted in the subreddit. What's the reasoning behind that?

So the main reason is that there's a kind of, the bulk of the evidence out there is that if you are under the age of, I would say, early 20s, then cannabis has a especially negative effect on your brain development. And we want to further the cause of cannabis. We want to put it out there that cannabis is a good thing. I asked Live Beef what the culture of a community of over a million cannabis enthusiasts is like. Actually, I would say the culture is very open, is very welcoming. You'll have users who kind of post everything from edibles they made that are,

cannabis infused to, you know, asking for support that something's going on in their life and they're using cannabis as a way to cope with it. You'll have people kind of comment in those threads and be supportive of them and trying to help get them the help they need. Can you tell me a little bit about sort of activism that happens or doesn't happen on there? No, it's a fairly frequent activism, actually. Last year, we had one of those for Germany where there was a petition on the subreddit to go to the German parliament, I guess, to decriminalize cannabis or legalize it. And we helped push that petition on our subreddit to 80,000 signatures. And anything over 50,000 meant that it would force debate on the German parliament floor.

So it ended up being the most successful German petition in 2017 based on the number of signatures. So that's one thing that we are proud of that we have this platform and we're using it to the full extent we feel as possible. Do you have a favorite story you've ever seen told on the Artreys subreddit? Yeah. So my favorite story that I've seen on the subreddit happened, I think back in December last year. This user posted a picture of his uncle from back in the 70s, and his uncle in the picture is getting arrested for growing cannabis in his backyard. So Ben, you know what this music is, right? This is like, we found these people music. It totally is, and we totally found these people. One of whom is a Redditor, we will just call by his username. Metaman X.

I'm not opposed to that. So Meta Man X saw this photo a little while back, maybe almost two years ago. An aunt he didn't know very well posted it on Facebook. You know, Facebook. That place where you're sometimes connected to members of your family that you don't really ever talk to in real life. The picture was kind of amazing. It was taken in 1975, just a few years after President Richard Nixon first used that term, the war on drugs.

On the left, a grinning, long-haired teenager with his hands cuffed behind his back. On the right, a tan, mustachioed cop, holding the kid's arm in one hand and a pot plant in the other. And the picture just has this kind of vintage look to it. The kind of look that is now applied via Instagram filter, but this was the real thing. So Metaman X posted the photo and immediately it got tons of attention on Reddit. Thousands of upboats, lots of comments. And the thing is, Metaman X didn't really know this guy in the photo, his uncle. Partly because Meta Man X's dad wasn't really in the picture when he was growing up. You know, I wasn't close with my dad's side of the family, and it was interesting because

after this reached the front page of Reddit, someone sent me a message in my inbox, and they said, hey, random Redditor, you're my cousin. How did you get this photo, and who are you? The person messaging Metaman X was his first cousin, a woman he didn't know. She was the daughter of that teenager getting busted in the photo. And the conversation that followed led a very... Eventually to that teenager, now a 61-year-old man named Johnny. Well, my full name is John Grandizio.

Obviously, that's Italian. Johnny's the guy, the guy on the left in the photo. More from the guy on the left in the photo, how he took the fall for his mom and made friends with the cop who busted him after the break. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories.

Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

Radio Lab, Adventures on the Edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast. So we're hearing from this guy named Johnny Grandizio, who was, in a photo taken in 1975 of a briefly famous drug bust in Huntington Beach, California, Surf City. Okay, well, it's a picture of me in Officer Weinstein, and I'm about just turned 18. I'm wearing a brown T-shirt and blue corduroys, and I'm standing next to him who's holding like a little cropping of indica plants. It looks like a bouquet of flowers the way he's standing there holding him.

It does kind of. And behind us is an apricot tree. This photo went down in Grandizio family history. But even not counting a barely minted adult being arrested during the war on drugs, this day in Huntington Beach in 1975 had already been stressful for the Grandizios. The whole thing started with a minor domestic dispute. Yes, that's correct. I had just drove up with my girlfriend at the time.

We were there to pick up my mom, and my sister and him were going at it. And at the time, he was doing some painting work on the house, and he was just about finish. And I kind of butted in was, you know, like, what's going on here? You know, and next thing you know, him and I are throwing blows, and it just got out of hand. The boyfriend eventually leaves, but Johnny's worried about him.

The guy's kind of an LSD burnout, and he owns a gun, and he's pissed off at Johnny's family. So Johnny's like, hey, let's just let the police know. Because I thought it would be a good idea just to put it on record, so to speak, you know, kind of document what just happened in case something later happens, you know. And it turns out that the cops went to his house in full force, and he turned around and maybe we could say he dimed you out or he sold you out a little bit because... Yeah, he did. He threw my butt right under the bus.

The soon-to-be ex-boyfriend of Johnny's sister tells the cops that Johnny's growing pot in the backyard. In fact, this being Southern California, Johnny is also sleeping in the backyard. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I had a tent set up. It was about the size of, I think it was about a 12 by 10, had a little coffee table in there and a lamp. And I ran an extension cord out of my bedroom window for lighting, you know, and to have some electricity out there. And I had a little wooden stack.

dash box in there that I had made in woodshop in high school. I was really proud of. And that's where I kept my paraphernalia in and I had a pot leaf tape to the top of it. Tipped off by the angry boyfriend, Officer Bob shows up at the house and asks to see the backyard where he finds the plants. He looked at me and he looked at my mother and he says to my mother, do you know what those are? And she's like, aren't they tomato plants? But she played it off. She was like, yeah aren't those tomato plants and he's like no no and he goes you want to tell your mother what they are and i go mom they're their their their marriage you want a plant she goes what and i go they're they're they're it's weed mom it's pot she goes oh my wow and then at that point you know

he he said well i could look i got two choices here i could either arrest your mother which you probably don't want and or i could arrest you and i said well i guess uh i guess it's to be me, you know. But first, a backup officer shows up to take photos of the contraband. This is when the picture happens. And that's when the one cop that was holding the plants, after they were pulled up out of the ground, handed them to the officer, Bob Weinstein, and directed me to stand next to him, and voila, the picture was taken. Okay, I want to encourage everyone to check out this picture. It's on our website, WBUR.org slash endless thread, because Johnny's smile is

just delightful. Like, he's so pleased with himself. I love the top comment on the Reddit post. This is the smile of a man who regrets nothing. Oh, and remember, this is a guy who just a little while earlier gets into a fistfight. Oh, yeah. And there's this other thing that happened this same day. I just found out when that picture was taken that my girlfriend and I were going to be having a baby. We just found out she was six weeks pregnant. He's going to be a dad. That is a proud Papa. smile. Aw, a Papa who's about to go to jail. Yeah, so Johnny gets booked, but he's released on his own recognizance, and some days later, the case gets thrown out because Officer Bob from the photo didn't technically have a search warrant. Okay, but I just want to acknowledge Johnny gets off

real easy here. He does, and the court even gives Johnny his stash box back, and a few days later, an envelope full of photos shows up at his house. Then a few years later, something truly great happens. I discovered one day one, driving through the newer part of the neighborhood where I used to play and hang out when I was a kid and riding my dirt bike and all that. There's Bob out in the front yard watering his lawn. I recognized him. I pulled up and got out of the car and I said, Officer Weinstein. And he looked at me. He goes, he was kind of shocked. And I go, you remember me? And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He goes, how's it going? You know, and then we started talking about the events that unfolded and I told him what happened. He said, whatever became of that. And I said, we got thrown out, man.

I guess the DA decided it wasn't worth prosecuting. You know, good for you, good for you. And then he offered me a beer. And after that, we were buddies. I had a 1967 Chevy 2 Nova SS, a really nice, really fine muscle car that I bought when I was in California. And I had fixed it up and everything. And he loved it. And he had a vet in the garage. And, you know, We would go for rides in it, you know. As soon as we'd get out of the neighborhood onto the main avenue, he'd open it up and, you know, lay some tire down. And I'd be like, well, man, slow down. You're going to get us pulled over.

And he looks at me and goes, you do know I'm a cop. We just crack up laughing. And it was so funny. He was a blast to be around. I'd stop by from time to time, pay him a visit. And I'd go in and we'd have crack open a beer. He'd make some popcorn. We'd watch, we'd watch some flip.

Bob passed away about 10 years ago. One day Johnny was in town and rang the doorbell and a relative answered the door instead of his old friend. But Bob's daughter, who had never seen this photo, got the chance after Meta Man posted it. She'd heard about it for years, but had never seen it. Then one day there was her dad, Officer Bob, in this legendary photo on Reddit. So says Meta Man. How did she know that it was the picture that she had heard about but never seen? I mean, there's not many pictures of someone hoarding a bouquet of marijuana plants arresting someone with a shit-eating grin on his face, you know.

More importantly, the great Surf City pot bust photo of 1975 brought the larger family back together in a way. I think I have a closer bond with my brother's son, who's him and his fiancé are planning a trip to SoCal in early June. And he's going to go out there and meet other members of his family that he, you know, has now. You know, there's still a lot of them that I haven't met my, you know, my aunts and uncles. You know, it kind of sucks going so far in my life, but never really get having that opportunity to meet or connect with that side of the family. But now I do have that opportunity. And I guess Reddit has kind of helped me get there. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's

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dot org slash creative studio. Ben. Yes. I think we need to tell one more story on 420. I think we should introduce our listeners to Dave. Yeah, we should. Hi, all. I'm in favor of pot legalization, and I believe that anyone who wants to smoke should be welcome to.

This is how Dave, known on Reddit as subduction, started a post he made on Our Trees a while back. Sounds pretty trees-like so far, right? It sounds very trees. But it goes on. But as a recovering addict with 12 years clean, I also know that there are some people who want to stop and are finding it difficult. Addict. Not a word you hear every day associated with marijuana use. What do you say to people who think marijuana addiction is BS?

I say first of all, it's good that it's not something they can relate to. So, you know, if it isn't something they're experiencing, then that's fine. But for those who can relate to that experience, Dave created a new subreddit called Leaves. The name of the subreddit is, yes, a pun, but I hope a bit metaphory too. Leaves being something that can make the tree stronger, which I think a candid discussion will do, and ultimately something that can fall off once the time is right without hurting the tree itself. You even put in, like, threw in a, like, kind of stonery metaphor there. Yeah, I'm a copywriter, so I can, you know.

I was a casual user for a lot of years. Up until I had the opportunity, because I moved into an apartment by myself, to use as much as I wanted to use. And that turned out to be really quite a lot all the time. I was always a nighttime user, so I would go to work during the day, and then I would go home and smoke as much as I possibly could before I had to show up again the next morning. But Dave couldn't just show up for work.

He ran the company. Actually, at the height of his marijuana use, he was a creative director running two companies. So how was he doing it? The truthful answer, in hindsight, was not very well. You know, for a long time, I was fitting, smoking in between, you know, work and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, over time, it just, the habit just grew and grew to where I was, you know, fitting work in between smoking sessions.

And so I really started beginning at that point to know it was a problem, but wasn't sure at all what to do about it. Did you have, like, a clarifying moment? Not that I can remember. Like there wasn't, you know, there wasn't a moment where, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, okay, this is all got to stop. You woke up inside a dumpster covered in Domino's pizza boxes. Exactly. You know, for me, I finally decided, you know, I was experiencing so much depression and so much anxiety that I ended up going to a therapist to try and fix that. And much to her credit, she said, look, I can't treat you if, you.

you're an active drug user, because I'm treating the drug. I'm not treating you. So Dave did something he never thought he'd do. He checked himself into rehab. That was almost 20 years ago, and it worked for Dave. But not everyone goes the rehab route, hence, Leaves. We are just about 61,000 subscribers now. So we're certainly quite a lot bigger than even I was expecting when we got it started,

or I'd ever even been able to imagine it. And Leaves has gotten so big. in part because it has the support of the trees community. They boost Dave's posts to reach people who might be questioning their relationship to marijuana. About five years ago, I would guess, a user came on and was sort of the prototypical thing that we see, which is we can't, you know, I can't believe this community exists,

I never saw this, I've never tried this before, so I'm going to try it. And, you know, a lot of times I think as people get better, they say, okay, leaves has been great, and then they move on with their lives. But this user has stayed on the group, even after being cleaned for five years, and will often post two or three times a day, which is both amazing and incredibly encouraging to me, that people have decided to both make this change in themselves,

but then after that change happened in them, they decide that they are part of this community. And because the Leaves community is so dedicated, Dave says he spends two to three hours a day on top of his full-time job running companies moderating it. You know, honestly, I think it's something that will always be one of the proudest things that I've been involved in in my whole life. The whole community is just one of the most supportive, friendly places where people are really trying to achieve a goal.

and actively reaching out to other people to help them. So, Ben, you know what 420 is, but do you know what 421 is? Is it the day after 420? Correct. It's also our leaves day. Oh, really? Not really, but Dave is hoping it'll catch on. I support it.

All right, Ben. I think it's time to make like a tree and leaves. Ooh, after that kind of joke, I agree. By the way, we have links to all the posts that inspired this week's episode. Find it all at WBUR.org slash Endless Thread. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station, in partnership with Reddit. Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, who, when we ask if she likes the episode we've put together, she says, WTF.

Iris Adler is our executive producer, and she makes sure our stories meet the bar of mildly interesting. Mix and sound design by John Parodiac. and Paul Vicus, who whenever we go to record in the field with them, they remind us... Nature is f***. Our web producer is Megan Kelly, who looks at our attempts at writing web copy and goes... Aw. Our intern is Chris Yulian, who when we put him on a task, he politely says...

Oh, my dear. Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and whenever we try to have a serious meeting with him, he's all... You, I'm a toddler. Our theme music is by Squelcher. This week's episode, Art, is that epic photo discovered and posted by user Meta Man X on Reddit. We are endless underscore thread. If you want to contribute art for an upcoming episode or give us a juicy story tip

so we can tell it like we did today, hit us up. This show was produced by Josh Swartz. Also my producer and co-host, Amory Sieverts. I am senior producer and host Ben Brought Johnson. I'll let myself out.