Stuff You Should Know - How Medical Marijuana Works

Episode Date: April 26, 2012

Some quarters of the medical establishment endorse it, others abhor it. The DEA is cracking down on it, but the Veterans' Administration supports it as a treatment for soldiers. Medical marijuana is indeed a contentious issue. Learn all about it here. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who is seated across from me. Hello. And you put the two of us together,

you get a podcast called Stuff You Should Know, like it or not. Exactly. How are you doing? I'm well. I'm glad. Chuck, we're going to talk today about what I think is a pretty important issue, medical marijuana. We've spoken before about the potential health benefits of plenty of other drugs, ecstasy, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms. I feel like a tie time. Did you do that on purpose? No, sadly, no. Interesting. That we did medical marijuana. This article had a couple of those little puns that I thought were...

One strain of research. Yeah, that one in particular. Oh man, I bet Silverman thought he was so funny for getting that in there and just freaking the man out. So where do we start? Do you have an intro? No, I don't have an intro. I feel like this subject itself needs no intro. Sure. It's using pot, marijuana for medicinal purposes. And apparently, there is a pretty extensive body of research showing that it does in fact help that 730,000 people who have grave diseases and illnesses aren't really just faking so they can smoke pot. Right. That this stuff is helping. There's a lot of diseases that Jacob Silverman lists

that medical marijuana has been shown to help with. Do you know what they are? Can you recite them in alphabetical order? Well, I have two lists. The list in the article says nausea, especially chemotherapy, nausea, loss of appetite, chronic pain, anxiety, arthritis, cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, MS, or multiple sclerosis, insomnia, ADHD, epilepsy, inflammation, migraines, Crohn's disease, and if you're terminally ill to improve your quality of life. Sure. This is a list on the sign outside of the Kush doctor at Venice Beach, California. And there's a lot more things on this list. Yeah, I noticed. Do you suffer from, they also include in here sickle cell anemia, psychiatric disorders,

basically anything, autoimmune sleep disorders. And it says, I think either sleeplessness or too sleepy. Does it say that? Yeah. Well, it lists about 20 more things. And then at the bottom, it says, or any chronic or persistent medical symptom. Right. Anything. Does your fingernail hurt right now? So that's what the Kush doctor will, and that is an actual, I'm not just making that up at Venice Beach. I saw the picture. It says Kush doctor. And you can go in there with your little card and get you some pot. So what you just gotten at is the heart of this problem. Like there is plenty of legitimate bonafide medical research that shows that marijuana does help ease symptoms. It does a special double whammy on people who are nauseated and

don't have any appetite, which is a terrible symptom of several diseases. Sure. Cancer aids. So you have this part of the medical establishment saying, yes, pot helps. And then you have the the drug warriors, the DEA, lots of U.S. district attorneys, plenty of the square Americans saying, no, it's a drug. And there's going to be plenty of guys like the Kush doctor who are just going to sell it to anybody they can and use any medical marijuana laws that you enact as a shield to operate criminally from behind. Yeah, like don't don't take that drug. Take these drugs. Yes. So for a long time, the medical marijuana idea has been taken up by states. It's been a state's rights issue also. But the federal government apparently was the first ones to ever legalize

or sell or supply legal medical marijuana from a program that ran from 1970 to 1992. They kind of petered out in the states starting with California really took up the cause. Yeah. For a while, they did not sit very well, especially during the Bush years that did not sit well with the federal government and the feds used to routinely raid legitimate medical pot dispensaries that were operating within the letter of state law, right? Because federal law supersedes state law so the DEA can raid you anytime they want. Yeah. Because according to the federal government, pot's still a drug. It doesn't matter what your state says, right? Right. With Obama, he came into office saying, you know what, I'm not going to waste the resources of the DOJ

on cracking down on legal pot operations. Yeah, that was in 2009. Yeah. Yeah. The Ogden memo. Yeah. And things really launched after that, like more states passed legislation and more dispensaries like in LA at the time after that pass. Yeah. They say there could have been up to a thousand dispensaries in LA proper. Yeah. But then they counted and said, no, it was more like 600. Just a lot. Yeah, just a whole lot. Yeah. But what happened recently? Well, the the head of the DEA, a woman named Michelle Leonhardt was she was appointed by Bush and Obama reappointed her. And shortly after her reappointment, she rewrote the DEA's position on medical marijuana saying like, no, it's a drug and we're going to go after it. And her,

let's see, Leonhardt with the help of a district attorney, no, a U.S. Yeah, U.S. attorney. Yeah. By the last name of Hague, I can't remember her first name, Melissa Hague, maybe. She started basically prosecuting or sending sending the DEA to medical dispensaries and everything just totally changed. Like it just went backwards by years when it looked like it was all about to change. Yeah. And the media and especially the liberal media have held Obama's feet to the fire and they're like, dude, what is up with this? Yeah. Reversal. And isn't this probably just election year campaign strategy? Yeah. And they're like, no, it's not a reversal, really. It's sort of the same as it always was, really, but not really. No. And apparently with so and this is

Chuck and I both read a really good article called Obama's War on Pot in Rolling Stone. It's very thorough. Yeah. But the there is basically been a step up in the way that medical marijuana and the people who use it and prescribe it are being treated by the federal government with there. There's been a hundred raids so far, at least a hundred raids carried out under Obama's watch. So if it keeps up with this pace, then he will be worse than Bush as far as medical marijuana raids. Yeah. And this one guy, Rob Campia, who is executive director of the marijuana policy project said that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana. Crazy. It is just totally crazy because that's not what he said during the campaign. And the, I don't know. No,

when he was turning one of the residents of Colorado that was campaigning hard, you know, to keep this going against Obama, even though he voted for him said, yeah, he needs to watch it because quote, medical marijuana is twice as popular as he is. Yeah. So yeah, he says he's already lost that vote. Right. No matter what happens. So we'll see how this shakes down. Yeah, man. All right. So California has been studying this since about 2000 in earnest. They were given about nine million bucks to do genuine medical research on the effectiveness of marijuana for different, usually pain causing and nausea causing diseases. And it's always been hard to do these studies though, because the federal government, if they're going to give you money,

they're going to regulate like where the pot comes from. And this at the time was at UC San Diego. They would only let them get it from one place, one source. And then they would visit them federal agents would and the medical cannabis research center to verify that it was kept in a vault that was bolted to the floor. So they would, you know, they want to come by and make sure they weren't all sitting around smoking joints and playing ping pong, I guess. Which I mean, I guess if you are kind of hung up on testing with medical marijuana, that's cool that you're right to drop by and make sure that everything's sure and it's not being. Yeah, yeah, I'm not the federal government started like like the the head of the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms sent a letter to firearms dealer saying it's it's illegal to sell a firearm to a person addicted to marijuana. So if you are if you are receiving medical cannabis, you just had your second amendment right strip from you, right? Banks are worried about getting prosecuted for money laundering by dealing with dispensaries, medical marijuana dispensaries. So now it's starting to go to a cash only, i.e. more dangerous business, right, prone to robberies, sure, and tax evasion. That's just like definitely going backwards, huge, huge steps backwards. It's crazy. And by backwards, I should say, if you're pro medical marijuana, sure, let's talk about why pot might help. Okay. THC is in it's a cannabinoid in marijuana. And that's what makes

you feel high. And it's also where you find your medicinal properties. They're all locked in there together. Yeah, because we produce our own cannabinoids in the form of endocannabinoids naturally. Yes. So we have endocannabinoid receptors, right? cannabinoid. Yeah, cannabinoid. I like the way you said it's kind of pleasing phenomenon in our body. And when they are when they receive something when something is receptive to them, they release things like pain relievers. Yeah. Reduce the anxiety. It has a whole just a whole lot of effects on us. Yeah, mood, memory, sure appetite. Well, it has a negative impact on memory, I think. Well, it's just a risk. It regulates these responses. Right. Whether or not they're makes you sleepy or hungry or not. So,

yeah, with some with some diseases, the this combination of introducing THC to the endo can now I can't say it correctly, endocannabinoid receptor results in increased appetite results in less than muscle spasms if you have multiple sclerosis, right? Or if you're quadriplegic results in just a greater outlook or sense of well being if you're dying, all these things that have been studied and documented is actually working. I got one for you. Yeah. They did a study in mice that showed that the cannabinoids may protect against development of certain types of tumors, both benign and cancerous. And not only that, listen to this, it appears to kill only the tumor cells and may even protect the healthy cells from cell death. That is some pot. That's

pretty rad. That's all I'm saying. So, on the other hand, you've got people saying, okay, all right, I'm going to take the medical establishment at face value and say, yes, THC hits your endocannabinoid receptors and produces, alleviates a lot of symptoms of certain diseases. Right. Can we just not come up with something that doesn't get you high? Right. And some drug companies have been like, yes, we can. And they introduced shiny black pills called Maranol, which is synthetic THC. Josh, I have had a Maranol pill. Really? Did it alleviate your symptoms? It was a very mild thing, to be honest. And this was many years ago when I was living in Los Angeles, but yes, I've had a Maranol pill and it's- Did you get it from Dr. Cush? No, I didn't.

But it is funny how you just pointed out because I kind of debated off air. I was like, should I say that I've had a Maranol pill? We're like, well, yeah, it's an FDA approved drug. Like you can say that, but you can't say, yeah, I've smoked pot and not get, you know, the cross-eyed stairs. Sure. It's just interesting. Yeah, it is. That's, I guess, that's at the heart of all of this. It's kind of like this drug, this synthetic drug that you can get through a prescription and go to your pharmacy and they'll give it to you. You can have that, but this drug is plain. It grows in the ground, right? Yeah. That actually works better than this other drug, the synthetic version of it, supposedly. That's the big

complaint against Maranol is that it's like, it's a synthetic THC, but it's lacking some really important parts. Yeah. Well, and it absolutely is lacking. I mean, chemically, it's lacking. But you can't have that. Right. And I'm really reminded of this. This is where like witches and doctors came from, from the struggle of like the, I guess, the middle ages so where science was really starting to kind of come about and to basically maintain a foothold or create a foothold for itself over Western society. Yeah. It had to get rid of its rivals, which were traditional healers who very quickly became witches and outcasts and were ostracized as backward and possibly even evil. So don't go to them. Come

to me because I'm the guy with the beak on who can protect you from the plague. Look at you, Arthur Miller. But isn't that kind of an analogous? Yeah, I think so. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy, number one, is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready, set, slay. Squirrel Friends, the official RuPaul's Drag Race podcast, is taking you behind the scenes of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 15 on MTV. With me, Alec Moppa, and my co-host, Lonnie Love. Alec and I will recap the latest episode, The Best and Worst Looks,

and we'll even be joined by some of your favorite queens along the way. One thing's for sure, there is no shortage of queens this season. Because we are witnessing the biggest cast in RuPaul's Drag Race, Herstory. And the stakes are higher than ever with the largest cast prize in Drag Race, Herstory. So make no mistake, the competition is going to rev up. Watch Season 15 of RuPaul's Drag Race every Friday on MTV. Then join us on the podcast right after the show to recap the episode. Deep brief on all the looks and more. Listen to Squirrel Friends, the official RuPaul's Drag Race podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's also, that's very astute, Josh. Thank you. There's also Satevex, which is a pain reliever, and it is actually an extract of real marijuana administered by Spray. And I think they have this in England, Spain, and Canada, and it's in trials here in the U.S. Yeah. So that's not synthetic. That's actually an extract. Yeah. I'll bet everybody who uses it goes, no. Again, I don't feel any pain, but... I might as well just use this. What's the stuff you spray when you have tonsillitis? Oh, a sepical? Yeah, I might as well just use sepical. That's not the one I was thinking of, though. What is the other one?

Chloroceptor. Yes. Yeah. So like you said, most experts agree that Maranol and Satevex actually in clinical trials show to have less of an effect than actual the marijuana plant itself. Right. But the DEA points out, TS, this is legal. And they make a pretty good point here, that Maranol is the THC. What morphine is to opium. Yeah. Like, yeah, you might need morphine. We're not going to tell you it's okay to go smoke opium for your pain. Right. There's morphine. Go use the morphine. It's legal, it's regulated, it's taxed, and it's not going to get you landed in jail unless you get your hands

on it illegally. Yeah. So the feds are the ones who are definitely blocking this right now. I should say in a lot of states, there's 18 states, including DC, that have laws on the books that say, yeah, man, we've got legalized medical marijuana to some degree. Yeah. In Oregon is the King Daddy of medical marijuana. I thought it California was. No. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, there's probably more dispensaries and things like that. But in Oregon, you are allowed to possess up to 24 ounces of what they call usable marijuana. I almost just did a spit take. I know. Or 24 plants, six of which can be mature, 18 of which can be immature, which means they're like flowering budding plants. They were jean jackets.

So Washington's right behind them. You can possess 24 ounces or 15 plants. And not surprisingly, there are no states in the Southeast. And Michigan is the only state in the Midwest. So yeah, in these in these Bible Belt areas, you're not finding any pro marijuana, medical marijuana states going on and insert your own Detroit joke here. We shouldn't. Yeah, we don't have to read through just all those other hippie states. Plus Iowa in New Jersey. Yeah, that's so surprising. Yeah, I was surprised about having Maryland. Yeah. The thing is, though, is a lot of these, like you said, a lot of them rush to get laws on the books. Delaware, I think Delaware just wanted to be like, Hey,

oh, oh, Maryland. Remember us. We're really a state. But a lot of them have backed off, like Rhode Island's Governor Lincoln Chaffee is a vocal supporter of medical marijuana. Oh, really? And a big critic of the federal government for using like Goon Squad tactics to like fight it and basically overrule state law. Right. But even he's backed down because federal prosecutors have been like, Hey, don't make us come after your your state employees who are running these these dispensaries, because we'll put them in jail. Right. And they can do it. 34 states, Josh, have laws passed that recognize marijuana as having medical value.

And I think New Mexico is the first one actually in 1978. Oh, yeah, yeah, even before California. And however, you know, you know how these laws go. It's like the gay marriage laws. It's like, it's legal and then it's repealed and then it's legal and then it's repealed and you can do it here and now you can't. Yeah. So there's been a lot of back and forth over the years with states sort of on a roller coaster that duke it out with the federal government. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So let's talk about California. Let's take California as a state. Yeah, I love that place. I love California. So California was the I think they were the first state with legal medical marijuana, right? I think so. I think it's prop 215.

And they said, Hey, if you have a doctor's recommendation, because we should point out, there's no doctor that can legally prescribe marijuana, because even if they get it. Exactly. If you walk into your local drug store, they'll be like, get out of here. We got marital. You want some of that? But we don't have any pot. So a doctor can recommend it in a state where you have legal medical marijuana. It can say I doctor feel good. I Dr. Cush say that Chuck Bryant suffers from glaucoma and to relieve the inner ocular eye pressure associated with his condition. I recommend that he use medicinal marijuana. Right. And then that's that sign Dr. Cush, right? And you being a medical pot recipient would keep that letter on you at

all times. Sure. Depending on if you were in California, which also passed a supplemental law saying, you know what, this is you can lose your doctor's note or whatever. So let's just issue ID cards to people who have a doctor's recommendation. If you have an ID card or doctor's recommendation, you can grow and you can buy pot and possess. Yeah. And ostensibly use it. You know what Senate bill that was? Yes, I do. Can you believe it? I could not believe it. 2003 they passed Senate bill 420 in California, which stipulated the cards and that you could have eight ounces of usable marijuana, six mature plants or 12 immature plants Senate bill 420. That's crazy. Is that the 2003 bill? Yeah. Okay. Apparently even more than that, the state said,

by the way, let's take this down to the county level. You counties, if you feel like you want to expand upon this, go ahead. So some counties have been like, sure. Like what county? Like Humboldt is one that definitely expanded the amounts that you can have in the situations in which it's not okay. Boy, I had some Humboldt fog two days ago. What? Cheese. That's cheese. But it sounds like marijuana, doesn't it? It does. And now that you mentioned that, I think I've had that before too. Yeah. Humboldt fog is a really like yummy blue cheese. And we got some at the store down the street. But I laughed at Emily. I was like, it always cracks me up because Humboldt fog sounds like one of those marijuana strains. It definitely does. Yeah. You got me with that one. You're like,

you can't say that. Chuck. So California also has what's called a caregiver law. Yeah. A caregiver is somebody who basically takes care of you if you're sick, right? Yeah. In California, a caregiver can also refer to a person who supplies medical marijuana to people who have doctor's recommendations. Right. Right. It's like your grandmother has glaucoma. She doesn't know where to score. Right. So you could be her caregiver and get this for her. Or you can be the guy who's growing it for her. Right. Did you ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry got pot for his dad? He got medical marijuana for his dad because he had, I think it was glaucoma. And he smoked with him and showed him how to do it and everything. Yeah. And like went in the bathroom

and freaked out. It was pretty funny. Yeah. And the whole buying process, it was the guy from Lost. Hurley from Lost was the pot dealer. Haven't seen it. It was really, really funny. It was good. Oh, yeah. Did you ever see the Mr. Show sketch about medical marijuana? Oh, yes. The pharmacist who has the brownies. Yeah, yeah. And he always wants to play like the music he recorded on his four track for everybody. That was a good one too. Well, it's, it's funny you mentioned that though, because at some of these dispensaries, you can buy things like brownies and butter and cookies and smoothies and yeah, because not everybody wants to smoke pot who has medical care cannabis. Exactly. Okay, so

you have a recommendation. You have a caregiver that you go to. Yeah. And the caregiver, so this is where it gets really cloudy. Yeah, yeah. The, the feds don't go after patients even during the bush years. And now, which is worse than the bush years, they, they've never gone after patients. Yeah. It's basically don't go after patients. Caregivers used to be protected, but because caregiver is also basically synonymous for pot dealer and medical marijuana states that that's no longer your, if you are one of those caregivers who's really like spending, you live with your elderly grandmother and you're taking care of her and she has medical marijuana that she takes and you go get it for, you're in jeopardy now too,

because a lot of these operations have gotten very, very big. And though they may be bonafide and legitimate, they may not be making any profit, which is part of the law. They are considered caregivers rather than like dispensaries or anything like that. So that's what's clouded the issue. That's where a lot of the protections for regular people who are caregivers are being stripped away. It got out of hand and it was people like Dr. Kush sprung up and all of a sudden there were dispensaries that weren't co-ops where you have actually members growing the weed for the co-op. Right. They'd say weed instead of marijuana. Medical weed. Yeah. Medical weed. They supposedly, a lot of them were buying it illegally, making profit off of it and kind of screwed it up for

the legitimate ones. Yeah. So it is a cloudy issue. That's where we're at right now. Basically, it sounds like some, there were either some groups who just want pro or decriminalization of marijuana altogether. Sure. Who were using this issue to just force it through, hammer it through. Yeah, yeah. Or probably more realistically, there were just a bunch of pot dealers who found like a lot of very easy customers by supplying these co-ops. Yeah. Americans by and large, if you believe polls, are in favor of medical marijuana for people who really need it. CBS News did a poll last year. 77% of Americans thought doctors should be allowed to prescribe it for serious illness. And there was a Gallup poll in 2010 that said, do you favor or oppose

to reduce, to allow medical marijuana just to reduce pain and suffering for people with disease? Yeah. And 70% were pro. 27% said, oh, and 3% said, no, absolutely not. Wow. So it's pretty low percentage. It is. And again, we're pointing out this is for people who need it for their disease. It's not to be confused with pot legalization for recreation. Two different things. Did you know that the VA in 2010, I believe, said that recommended cannabis, medical cannabis for soldiers returning home. What for PTSD? I believe PTSD, I'm sure, all sorts of other things. It's a legitimate course of treatment for soldiers returning from the front lines. Wow. Isn't that crazy? It's interesting. Yeah. And speaking of LA, you know, they hit their peak in 2009-ish with, you know,

what they said anywhere from 600 to 1,000 dispensaries. And they said, you know what, the city said, this is getting way out of hand. Like you've got a strip mall over there with like three medical marijuana dispensaries in it. That's kind of ridiculous. So they ordered 439 of them to be closed. And I think what was the, it was only dispensaries that registered with the city after the council adopted the moratorium in 2007 were allowed to operate. So about 130 of the 600 roughly were allowed to stay open. Wait, that were registered after the moratorium or before? It says after, which- This doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense at all. It's like the most unfair law ever.

This is from the LA Times too. But now people are, you know, filing lawsuits and such on the patients' rights lawsuits and stuff like that. It's a wild ride, man. It's interesting to watch. I hate to see anybody who can use the help of something like medical marijuana be denied it and suffer. Well, and that's the point of one of the attorneys is he's like, why should we treat them any different than the Vicodin patient or the Oxycontin patient? They did do a study too when they closed down all those hundreds of dispensaries about crime. And it was a Rand Corp study. And they found that crime went down with the dispensaries and crime went up when they closed them. Sure. But it was a pretty hinky study, admittedly. Really? Yeah, they only looked

at 10 days before and 10 days after. And it was within three-tenths of a mile of the closed facility. There was a 59% increase in crime and 24% within six-tenths. It was a pretty hinky study. Basically, even the people that are for it were like, come on, you need to do a better job than this if you're going to study crime. Well, I will tell you this. In that Rolling Stone article, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union estimates that 2,500 jobs have been lost since the federal crackdown, starting in the beginning of 2011. Wow. 2,500 jobs in this economy. That's unconscionable. Yeah. Sure. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind

the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And on the prime example, okay. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Step out of piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset work. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Ready, set, slay. Squirrel Friends, the official RuPaul's Drag Race podcast is taking you behind the scenes of RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 on MTV with me, Alec Moppa, and my co-host, Lonnie Love. Alec and I will recap the latest episode, The Best and Worst Looks, and we'll even be joined by some of your favorite queens along the way. One thing's for sure, there is no shortage of queens this season, because we are witnessing the biggest cast in RuPaul's Drag Race Herstory, and the stakes are higher than ever with the largest cast prize in Drag Race Herstory. So make no mistake, the competition is going to rev up. Watch season 15 of RuPaul's Drag Race every Friday on MTV. Then join us on the podcast right after the show to

recap the episode, debrief on all the looks and more. Listen to Squirrel Friends, the official RuPaul's Drag Race podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, do you have anything else? No, I don't. Let's do a follow up on this in five years. Good idea. Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either. If you want to learn more about Medical Marijuana, you can type those words into the search bar at housestuffworks.com. That's M-A-R-I-J-U-A-N-A, I believe. And since I said handy search bar, it's time for listener mail. Actually, I did have one more thing. Brownie Mary, you ever heard of her? No. She was a famous medical marijuana activist in San Francisco, this elderly woman who would make brownies for people

and really went to the mat for people in need. Her name was Mary Jane. That was her real name. What was it really? I can't think of her last name. Why did they just call her that? I don't know. Brownie Mary, because she delivered the brownies, I guess. Brownie Mary, I think. Or Brownie Mary Jane. That's much better. She always laughed about her name, supposedly. She was like, hey, I guess I was destined to do this. But those of you who don't know, Mary Jane is a street term for marijuana, if it's 1940. Okay, Josh, I'm going to call this, it was just sort of a weird email from a dude in Minneapolis. Hey guys, I was just listening to the Mexican Wrestling Podcast and you called for something to knock your socks off. I thought I'd share this

with you. Please take a moment to aim your feet away from anyone's face unless they want a knocked off sock up in their grill. You ready for this? I was an anthropological expedition. I was on one into the heart of the darkest Iowa, researching archaeological and cultural leads regarding a Mayan prince who fell out of favor and may or may not have traveled up the Mississippi in 1270 B.C., setting up a kingdom in exile somewhere around the current town of Farmersburg. Ancient text also hinted that he appointed a monkey as his head of agriculture, which was particularly interesting to me because I think monkeys are hilarious. Anyway, I was excavating near Farmersburg their single stop sign when I was suddenly surrounded by a street gang. They all had

switch blades, so you knew they meant business. Their leader threatened me by saying, I only need to touch you once, like touching the wings of a butterfly. Then you're dead. To which I replied, actually, that's a myth. You can touch their wings without killing them as long as you don't break the veins. Clearly a reference to our show on iridescence, right? Or no, was that part of iridescence? Yeah. In this manner, I opened up a dialogue and we discussed briefly a butterfly anatomy, the difference between cumulus and cirrus clouds, and the way the sun works. They were so impressed by my knowledge, they not only let me live, but they gave me a gift certificate to Applebee's and made me an honorary member of their gang, the Lords of Lepidopter...

Lepidoptery. This is the study of butterflies. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you and share first name knowledge. It's truly power. Yours in nerditude, Matt from Minneapolis. Did you verify that? I don't think it's true at all, but I think it's hysterical and Matt took great time in crafting a very clever email. Oh, okay. So, uh, yeah, of course not. A monkey head of agriculture? I don't know, man. Maybe that part's true. The Mayans were awfully rich. Yeah, that's true. And they were, I guess, in Iowa. Yes. Well, let's see. If you want to take the time to craft a very clever email that captures our attention, we are always happy to read it. Um, you can, well, you can tweet it to us if it's really short. Tweet to S-Y-S-K podcast.

Hit us up on Facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House to work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being

robbed. They call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David Boreen. I'm probably on TV right now. David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting groundbreaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories. We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Kyle Goodman, Sam J. Quinta Brunson and so many more. New episodes around every Tuesday, many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you, the listeners conspiracy theories. Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.