Last week, a psilocybin research bill in Indiana was sent to the desk of Gov. Eric Holcomb. The bill was recently passed in the Senate in February (Senate Bill 139), followed by the House Public Health Committee shortly afterwards.

Following the end of the 2024 legislative session on March 8, bill sponsor Sen. Ed Charbonneau published a press release about his pride in working toward passing three different bills. The first would help make child care more affordable for Indianans, and the second included an expansion to health plans to include coverage for searching biomarkers for diagnosis or condition treatment. 

However, the third bill includes a mention of SB-139. “Another bill I worked on this session was Senate Bill 139, which would have established a fund to aid Indiana research institutions in studying the potential use of psilocybin in treating mental health and other medical conditions, especially in veterans and first responders,” Charbonneau wrote. “While SB 139 did not make it through the legislative process, the language was added to House Enrolled Act 1259, which would also expand the number of people eligible to provide health care services.”

Now the bill is being sent to the desk of Gov. Holcomb for final review. If SB-139 became law, it would create a therapeutic psilocybin research fund that would be managed by the Indiana Department of Health. The fund would provide financial assistance to research institutions to study psilocybin as a method of treating mental health or other conditions. The bill currently states conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, chronic pain, migraines, alcohol use disorder, and tobacco use disorder.

Additionally, it works to compare “the efficacy of psilocybin as a treatment for mental health and other medical conditions…with the efficacy of other current treatment options for mental health and other medical conditions.”

One requirement of institutions that apply to research psilocybin would include the use of veterans or first responders in their study as they “Evaluate and determine whether psilocybin is an effective treatment for mental health and other medical conditions.” After the study is concluded, the researchers would then submit a report of their findings to the Interim Study Committee on Public Health, the Indiana Behavioral Health Commission, and Human Services, as well as “state department and division of mental health and addiction.”

If passed, these processes to organize applications would begin starting on July 1, 2024.

Last year in November, the Interim Study Committee on Public Health, Behavioral Health and Human Services held its last meeting and issued a report recommending that legislators consider developing a psilocybin pilot program in 2024 “that strikes a balance between access, research, and prudence.”

At the meeting, Charbonneau explained that he’s already spoken with educational institutions that are interested in studying psilocybin. “I have had discussions with both [Indiana University] Health and with Purdue University,” said Charbonneau. “I spoke to 150 pharmacy students at Purdue, and afterward had a chance to speak with the dean of the pharmacy program…and he texted Dr. Jerome Adams, who’s now at Purdue University.” Adams previously served as U.S. surgeon general under former President Donald Trump.

The report made a distinction between medical cannabis and psilocybin, and described psilocybin-assisted therapy as more beneficial. “Many people conflate increased access to psilocybin assisted therapy with the issue of increased access to medical and recreational cannabis,” the report said. “However, the committee hearing made it clear that the evidence for psilocybin assisted therapy is promising and significantly more robust and the two issues are unrelated.”

Indiana’s neighboring states of Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio all have some form of cannabis legalization now. The only remaining state is Kentucky to the south, which currently has legalized medical cannabis but won’t officially launch until 2025.

However, Sen. J.D. Ford told WFYI Indianapolis in January that the lack of progress is due to legislators refusing to discuss legalization. “You’ve got the elected officials who are unwilling to have the conversation and you’ve got some of these other powerful lobbying groups that are continuing to block conversation, block bills from getting a committee hearing,” Ford said.

In a press event in January, Senate Pro Tempore Rodric Bray shut down inquiries from reporters regarding cannabis decriminalization or legalization. “Are we going to legalize cannabis this session? That’s not going to be the case,” Bray said. 

Previously in 2019, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has previously stated that he will not take action on any cannabis legalization bills until it has been legalized on the federal level. “If the law changed, we would look at all the positive or adverse impacts it would have,” Holcomb said. “I’m not convinced other states have made a wise decision.”

In 2023, he did admit that decriminalizing cannabis in small amounts makes sense. “I do not believe that simple possession at certain limits should derail someone’s life,” Holcomb said.

A bill, introduced by GOP state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, would establish “the therapeutic psilocybin research fund,” which would be “administered by the Indiana department of health (state department), to provide financial assistance to research institutions in Indiana to study the use of psilocybin to treat mental health and other medical conditions,” according to the official text of the legislation.

Additionally, the measure would require a “research institution that conducts a clinical study to prepare and submit a report to the interim study committee on public health, behavioral health, and human services, the state department, and the division of mental health and addiction.”

According to the Evansville Courier & Press, the fund would subsidize research institutes to study whether psilocybin could make for an effective treatment for those with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, chronic pain and migraines, and it would “require the studies to prioritize veterans and first responders: groups with a higher likelihood to suffer from the above disorders, especially PTSD.”

“Before taking part, participants would undergo mental evaluations, the bill states. After the studies wraps, researchers would then determine how mushrooms stack up against currently accepted treatments for the targeted issues,” the newspaper said. “They would then ship the results to an ‘interim study committee,’ as well as the state health department and the division of mental health and addiction.”

The bill is the byproduct of the Indiana interim study committee on Public Health, Behavioral Health and Human Services, of which Charbonneau serves the chair.

In the fall, the committee recommended that the Indiana legislature authorize a psilocybin pilot program. 

According to Cannabis News, the committee was tasked in June with studying “a number of topics related to mental health matters, including psychedelic-assisted therapy.” 

“Specifically, they were charged with studying alternative treatment options that had been given ‘breakthrough therapy’ status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and examining policies ‘enacted and under consideration in other states’ that allow psilocybin-assisted therapy ‘for veterans, first responders, and others experiencing mental illness,’” the outlet reported.

Cannabis News said that the panel ultimately recommended that the legislature authorize “state research institutions ‘to conduct a pilot clinical study utilizing established therapeutic protocols as a starting point to explore the efficacy, safety, and feasibility of psilocybin assisted therapy in Indiana.’”

Charbonneau said at the time that he had held discussions with both Indiana University Health and Purdue University about the research program.

“I spoke to 150 pharmacy students at Purdue, and afterward had a chance to speak with the dean of the pharmacy program,” the lawmaker said, as quoted by Cannabis News.

Charbonneau said that the dean texted Dr. Jerome Adams, a former United States surgeon general in the Trump administration who is now Presidential Fellow and the Executive Director of Purdue’s Health Equity Initiatives.

“We’ve had a talk,” Charbonneau said at the time, regarding his conversations with the universities. “They’re interested in possibly moving forward, but that’s just a preliminary talk.”

As the outlet Benzinga noted, the clock is ticking for the bill to be approved.

The proposal was “filed as an emergency measure, meaning it would take effect immediately upon passage, which could come as early as this week,” according to Benzinga, noting that officials “would need to establish fund administration and application processes by July 1.”

“While the bill creates the fund, it doesn’t initially allocate any money. Donations, gifts and state appropriations would fill its coffers. After completing research, the funded institutions must report their findings and recommendations to various entities, including the Department of Health and an interim study committee on health issues,” the outlet said.

Psilocybin’s therapeutic benefits have long been touted by advocates, but the substance has only recently been championed by elected officials and policymakers. Emboldened by the shifting public opinion, activists have also tried to usher in reform themselves. 

In California, a campaign to get a psilocybin proposal on the state’s ballot this year said this week that it had fallen short of that goal. 

According to Marijuana Moment, this marked the “the third election cycle that Decriminalize California has made a play for the ballot, only to fall short amid what organizers say is a variety of complicating factors, including voter confusion over a failed legislative push for psychedelics decriminalization and separate reform campaigns also seeking to put their measures before voters.”

“As exhausting as this process has been, we’ve learned some extraordinary techniques that we’re going to put into effect for something much larger than this as it was, because psychedelics was basically a delivery mechanism for a better society,” Ryan Munevar, campaign director of Decriminalize California, said. “That was the goal, at least.”

A variety of hemp plant genetically modified to produce little-to-no THC has been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture as safe to grow and breed on U.S. soil. 

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) released a notice about the plants last week, created and submitted by Indiana-based Growing Together Research, a biotechnology company specializing in cannabis, hemp, psychedelics and agriculture. APHIS regulates the “movement of organisms modified or produced through genetic engineering.”

“APHIS found this modified hemp is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk compared to other cultivated hemp,” the USDA notice said. “As a result, it is not subject to regulation under 7 CFR part 340. From a plant pest risk perspective, this hemp may be safely grown and bred in the United States.”

Growing Together Research announced in June of this year that they had achieved the ability to modulate how much Delta 9 THC is expressed in plants. They credited the reasoning behind their experiment with attempting to help US hemp farmers whose crops test “hot,” or over the allocated .3% THC limit at which point the law requires the whole crop be destroyed. 

The same announcement by GTR also hinted at experiments underway in trying to get cannabis plants to produce more THC than normal, a feat I can only surmise will resonate much more positively with a majority of the High Times readership. 

“Based on its demonstrated ability to turn ‘down’ or ‘off’ the genes coding for THC expression, now GTR is applying the same techniques to turn THC expression ‘up.’ GTR will soon commence an effort in collaboration with Canada-based academic and commercial partners to create a cannabis cultivar with enhanced expression of THC. An initial set of high THC cultivars are expected to be created by the third quarter of 2023,” GTR said in June. 

An announcement for the super-weed has not been released yet but GTR estimated that almost 10 percent of the American hemp crop had to be destroyed between 2018 and 2020 due to testing too high in Delta-9 THC. They also suggested that current testing methods may be leading to inconsistent levels of THC and other cannabinoids in hemp-derived products. 

GTR explained their ability to modulate THC levels up and down as the “Delta 9 dial” which they activate by editing particular genes. They likened the process to a menu of genetic traits that they could essentially pick and choose from with their genomics platform. This supposedly allows them to block or encourage the production of Delta-9 THC, which is the compound traditionally associated with the “high” in cannabis. 

“Understanding the mechanics of the THC pathway are perhaps the most important component of truly unlocking the promise of cannabis and hemp,” said Sam Proctor, chief executive officer of GTR. “We are very excited about our results to date and look forward to further innovating for the benefit of stakeholders across the cannabis and hemp supply chain.”

It was not immediately clear based on the USDA announcement if these new hemp genetics will contain altered or reduced levels of hemp-derived cannabinoids like Delta-8 THC, which have skyrocketed in popularity since Donald Trump legalized commercial hemp production under the 2018 Farm Bill. 

Hemp-derived gummies, vapes and isolates can now be found in head shops all across the country, even in certain states where cannabis is still medically and recreationally illegal. This includes the sale of “THC-A flower” otherwise known as regular cannabis flower tested a certain way to skirt Delta-9 THC regulations by keeping the THC in its decarboxylated form, THC-A. 

More clarification will potentially come soon regarding the new hemp plants as the USDA was tasked primarily with determining if the genetically modified hemp plants posed a “plant pest risk” rather than regulations concerning the compounds contained in the plant, which are largely left up to the FDA and DEA. This is due to the Plant Protection Act which gives the USDA the “authority to oversee the detection, control, eradication, suppression, prevention, or retardation of the spread of plant pests to protect agriculture, the environment, and the economy of the United States.” 

After thorough review the USDA decided GTR’s new diet hemp plants are not a plant pest risk so unless any further clarification comes down the chain from other federal agencies, the plants can be freely grown and bred all throughout the continental United States. 

A bill decriminalizing the possession of two ounces, or less, of marijuana received a hearing before a House committee Wednesday but isn’t expected to get additional consideration.

Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Evansville, chairs the House courts committee and said the dialogue needed to be heard but didn’t call a vote on the bill — which would have possibly advanced it to the full House Chamber.

“I’ve been asked why,” McNamara told committee members. “The answer is: we haven’t had this conversation and I think it needed to be had.”

The Hoosier State a holdout for cannabis reform

Among its peers, Indiana has been resistant to decriminalizing marijuana or legalizing it for either medicinal or recreational use. Both Kentucky and Ohio have allowed their residents to use it medicinally while Illinois and Michigan have legalized it recreationally.

Especially for those Hoosiers living close to state borders, legally obtaining the drug is no longer a challenge but Hoosiers can still face consequences in their home state.

“Indiana has an estimated $2 billion cannabis market with no quality control standards in place,” bill author Rep. Heath VanNatter, R-Kokomo, said. “While regulations are the ideal outcome, decriminalization provides our judicial and law enforcement (systems) an opportunity to reprioritize their resources to meet the community’s needs.”

[Read more at Indiana Capital Chronicle]

A Republican lawmaker in Indiana is putting his weight behind a pair of bills that would bring legal marijuana to the Hoosier State.

GOP state Sen. Jon Ford “recently signed on to support two bills this legislative session related to cannabis and its possible future use in the state,” according to local news station WTWO/WAWV, with the legislator saying “he wants to begin to have these discussions … due to the area he represents being on the border with Illinois, where recreational marijuana is legal.”

Ford indicated that he was driven to support the measures after conversations with members of law enforcement, who said that the discrepancy between Indiana and other bordering states has led to confusion.

“It’s hard for law enforcement to understand where we are on the issue, so I really wanted to support the bill so we can have that discussion,” Ford told WTWO/WAWV.

Ford authored the two bills with a pair of Democratic lawmakers.

Senate Bill 336 would establish “a procedure for the lawful production and sale of cannabis in Indiana.”

Senate Bill 377, meanwhile, would establish the following: 

“Permits the use of cannabis by: (1) a person at least 21 years of age; and (2) a person with a serious medical condition as determined by the person’s physician. Establishes the adult use cannabis excise tax, and requires a retailer to transfer the tax to the department of state revenue for deposit in the state general fund. Exempts veterans from payment of the sales tax on medical or adult use cannabis. Establishes a cannabis program to permit the cultivation, processing, testing, transportation, and sale of cannabis by holders of a valid permit. Establishes the Indiana Cannabis Commission (ICC) as a state agency to oversee, implement, and enforce the program, and establishes the ICC advisory committee to review the effectiveness of the program. Requires that permit holders take steps to prevent diversion of cannabis to unauthorized persons. Requires that cannabis and cannabis products be properly labeled, placed in child resistant packaging, and tested by an independent testing laboratory before being made available for purchase. Prohibits packaging cannabis in a manner that is appealing to children. Authorizes research on cannabis in accordance with rules set forth by the ICC. Establishes a procedure for the expungement of a cannabis related conviction if the act constituting the conviction becomes legal. Makes conforming amendments.”

It is probably a long-shot for either bill to become law this year, however. 

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, has said previously that he isn’t keen on the state legalizing marijuana before the federal government. 

“The law that needs to change is the federal law,” Holcomb said in 2021. “It is illegal right now for recreational use, for medicinal use. There are states that have ignored that law. I will not ignore any law whether I agree with it or disagree with it or disagree with it so that’s the law that needs to change.”

But last year, after President Joe Biden announced that he would issue pardons to all individuals with federal cannabis convictions, Holcomb said that Indiana would not be following the White House’s lead.

“The president should work with Congress, not around them, to discuss changes to the law federally, especially if he is requesting governors to overturn the work local prosecutors have done by simply enforcing the law,” Holcomb said at the time. “Until these federal law changes occur, I can’t in good conscience consider issuing blanket pardons for all such offenders.”

Only, unlike the rest of those shackled in servitude, I’d venture to say that my job probably doesn’t suck nearly as bad. I am a freelance writer, the smut and weed correspondent for various national publications across the country, including this one. There’s no one at the office where I work to hassle me if I show up late, walk around without pants or use the crapper eight times before 9 am. In other words, I am the king of the castle. This also means that I am fully responsible for the whole damn kingdom: Rent, bills, and any legal matters that may come up, that’s all on me, pal. Nobody is going to swoop in and save the day if I happen to get caught in a jam. 

Don’t get me wrong, though. There are plenty of perks to the job. Free weed is one of them. Public relations agencies are always sending me the latest, greatest pot products in hopes that I’ll give them a rave review. I get a slew of packages every week. It’s like Christmas all year round. Sometimes it’s a brand-spanking new, expensive smoking device—not yet released to the public—other times it’s CBD, and often enough it’s marijuana. While this might seem like a pretty sweet deal to most people, all of this complimentary cannabis can actually cause a bit of a problem on my end. For starters, I live in the prohibition state of Indiana—getting caught with a small amount can lead to thousands of dollars in fines and jail time. It’s also a federal drug offense to get cannabis through the U.S. mail, a felony, so Uncle Sam could bend me over big time. 

But when I sat down at my desk last Thursday morning, I didn’t anticipate any such trouble. With the holidays rapidly approaching, my only concern was getting all my assignments turned in before my editors shut down their emails and took the rest of the year off. So, without a moment to waste, I sucked back a lethal dose of caffeine and started typing.

As with most writers, I tend to get distracted. In between thoughts, I sometimes jump on social media and see what’s going on in the world. One of the pages I follow is this independent news watchdog based in my hometown that monitors local scanner traffic and reports incidents in real time. It’s usually a lot of “shots fired,” crackheads taking dumps in public, and unruly McDonald’s customers, that sort of thing. It’s more entertainment than news. But as I scanned the page, something interesting caught my attention. The most recent post reported that the local police department was en route to FedEx to investigate a package containing marijuana. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, other than “Oh man, somebody is in deep shit.” But then, it hit me. 

What if the person the package was addressed to was me! 

“Yikes,” I thought, sending the link over to my significant other to gauge her reaction. 

“Is it possible they’re coming for me?” I asked. 

“Yes,” she replied. “Definitely.” 

It was conceivable that I was the one in deep shit.

The situation, as most of you might imagine, had me on high alert. If police showed up at my office waving a search warrant around, I was inevitably going to jail, and fast. There’s enough weed in this place (from all of those public relations packages) to get me jammed up in the criminal courts for a long time. Let’s see, there’s flower, concentrates, edibles, you name it; it’s in my possession. I could start a small dispensary if this writing gig doesn’t pan out. Those bastard cops would storm in here on a mission to find pot and pot they would find. I’d be sitting in a police cruiser within five minutes of answering the door, en route to the Vanderburgh County jail to spend a very long weekend camping out with petty miscreants and alleged murders. I’d have to make up some ridiculous story, too, on why I was arrested to keep the ruffians from trying to steal my blanket. Considering all the violence and madness that has erupted lately in the United States, pot offenses just aren’t respected in the slammer like the old days. 

I’d surely be fighting in a cell, in court come Monday and probably for years to come as I paid steep fines, enduring drug classes and everything else the system would put me through to teach me a lesson. My anxiety was through the roof. I mean, I’ve been to jail enough times to know that it’s no place for me. So, the thought of police standing around a FedEx warehouse looking down at a package containing marijuana with the name MIKE ADAMS branded as the recipient, marked with an address that would lead them straight to me, did not give me an easy feeling. The jig was up. I always knew there’d come a time when I’d either have to flee the country or kill myself to escape one of the buried indiscretions of my past. I just didn’t think that day would come so soon. What should I do? What would I do? I was, as far as I could tell, a sitting duck. 

But I wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for the cops to show up and have their way with me. I’d been there before. I knew if they did in fact discover a package of marijuana at the FedEx with my name on it, a search warrant would take time. I just wasn’t sure how much convincing a judge would need to sign off on it. Working in my favor was the fact that the cops didn’t know that I knew they were onto me. I had been tipped off. So, for an indeterminate amount of time, I still had the upper hand. With that in mind, I was going to make sure that if those fuckers came a knocking, they were going to have to work damn hard to bust me. I had time to dig myself out of a hole that a dimwitted public relations agent had tossed me in. It wasn’t like I was getting any work done anyway. Although I typically don’t suffer from writer’s block, it has a way of striking when all you can ponder is that a convoy of police cars and SWAT trucks are hauling ass toward you with loaded weapons. Thinking they might just kick down the door when they arrived, I quit writing and did my darndest to formulate a plan to avoid being detained. 

Cue the Mission Impossible theme song, now! 

I packed up all the pot in the office into a large box and began to think about all the places I could hide it. My office is in a building with several other companies. So, while I considered stashing it in the utility closet down the hall, that probably wasn’t the best option. The cleaning lady could find it and either claim it for herself or call the cops. I couldn’t risk luring them any closer than they already were. I even thought about pushing away the tiles in the ceiling somewhere in the building and storing the box up there. But that was probably one of the first places the cops would look. And if they got the dogs involved, I was screwed no matter what. They’d be howling like they just reached Pablo Escobar’s house as soon as they pulled up in the parking lot. Nope, if I was going to survive the day, that is avoid arrest, stay out of jail and make it home for dinner, getting the weed as far away from my office as possible was the only way to go. 

I moved on to phase two of Operation: Deep Shit. 

I tossed the box in the trunk of my car, but not without first scanning the parking lot to make sure police didn’t have me under surveillance. I then peeled out of there, on a hell-or-highwater quest to take back the freedom that had presumably been ripped from me. My plan was a simple one. Park along the side of the road near my house—a mile away from my office—walk back and play dumb. That way when the cops showed up flashing a search warrant, I wouldn’t have a panic attack and they wouldn’t find jack shit. But I had to get it there first. My nerves were already rattled, so I, as much as I tried not to, was driving like someone with something to hide. 

If I passed a cop, the look in my eyes was going to tell him that I either had a body in the trunk or was traveling with a big old box of pot. All of my attempts to act casual were failing miserably. I stopped twice at a green light; used the wrong turn signal to go left; drove slower than the elderly, and even swerved like I had just left the bar drunk to avoid hitting a squirrel. Nope, I would never make it as a drug smuggler. I did, however, make it to my destination. I seriously considered lighting the car on fire before hoofing it back to the office, but I thought that may be a bit overkill. I didn’t need an arson charge on top of the one I was going to get for drug trafficking. Of course, on the walk back to my impending doom, my mind was spinning. I was overwhelmed with all of the possible scenarios that could arise even though I was a step ahead.

The cops were probably going to inquire as to the whereabouts of my car. They would surely want my home address too. If they came up empty handed at the office—and they were going to—their next move, aside from bending me over the desk and strapping on some latex gloves to see if my colon contained any weed or weapons, might be to raid the house. Cops hate to fail and if there’s any chance they can spend the day busting someone for a drug-related offense rather than dangerous, violent criminals, that’s what they’ll do. What was going to prove problematic for them was the search warrant. It would only be for my office address. They’d have to get another one with the location of my home on it, if they had any intention of ripping apart my underwear drawer. That was a detail I would just have to deal with when the time came.   

For the moment, I took solace in knowing that there wouldn’t be any illegal substances in my office if and when the cops started poking around. Still, all the time I was running around town trying to avoid getting locked up, I couldn’t help but think, why am I the one out here trying to throw the police off my trail like Joe Pesci in Casino, when these public relations firms are the ones responsible for sending me weed? Why was I suddenly at risk of jail when these companies put the weed in the mail? The cops were gunning for the wrong guy. I was innocent! Rather than continue wallowing in paranoia, I decided to pick up the phone and call cannabis law attorney Aaron Pelley with Seattle-based firm Cultivia Law. Aaron’s been getting real-deal cannabis outlaws out of trouble for years. If anyone was going to help stop the cops from crawling up my sphincter, it was him. His advice: If the postmaster calls, or if the cops show up at the office door, don’t say a word. As long as the sender or recipient doesn’t fess up, they have no case.

“They can’t do anything or prove anything if you don’t fucking talk,” Pelley told me. “So, all you have to do is shut up. It’s not a complicated situation because they can’t prove that you knew or should have known cannabis was coming to you. There’s been some situations where they’ve put cameras in the package so they can see the person open it. So fucking what? I don’t know where people get the idea that that would somehow implicate that you knew or should have known cannabis was being shipped. I suppose after you open it, if you say ‘awesome, they sent me the weed I asked for,’ but none of that ever actually happens. I’ve had people shipping basketball sized amounts of weed and getting it intercepted. And as long as everybody didn’t respond to anyone, including the senders, nothing ever happened. They can’t necessarily prove the sender sent it and they don’t want to go through the trouble of pulling video footage for prosecutors.”

Although sending and receiving weed through the mail is a federal offense, Pelley says Uncle Sam rarely gets involved. He’s only known one incident where they sent in the hounds, and it was for a four-foot-tall pallet of weed. As for the local cops looking to get a pot bust, “nobody is home,” Pelley asserts. “Local cops want headlines. But it’s a federal crime that has mandatory minimums. Prison time,” he continued. “That said, if people don’t respond to the communications (from the postmaster or the police), the burden of proof is quite heavy, and the interest is quite low.”

For the next two days, I still remained a little paranoid. Those bastards were going to show up any moment and at least try to give me that cannabis colonoscopy, I just knew it. It wasn’t until the following Sunday that I stumbled across a news article from one of my local television stations showing that $180,000 worth of marijuana (90 pounds) was found in my hometown. It had been shipped from California to Evansville, and a woman named Hua Hou was in custody. It was her, not me they were after. They got their headline. After being scared shitless for days, I found some semblance of relief knowing that someone else other than me was shacking up with blanket-thieving felons. But if what Pelley said was true, I began to ponder, and the interest is low, why was this woman arrested? “Ninety pounds is a lot of weed,” he said. “I suspect that she picked up the packages and got busted, and then she probably sung,” Pelley added, saying that she would have had a leg to stand on if she had just lawyered up and stayed quiet.

Point blank, police need someone to talk. 

“Even if it’s true that you didn’t have any idea that weed was coming, you don’t have control of the narrative,” Pelley explained. “The cop can write down anything he wants. If the only thing a cop can write down is that they exercised their right to remain silent and asked for an attorney, they’ll have to figure out their evidence from there. As soon as you shut up, their job becomes infinitely harder to prove or say that you had something to do with it. But it gets a lot easier as soon as you start talking.”

As for me, I wasn’t saying shit!

Still, I felt I was deserving of restitution for pain and suffering. Perhaps the public relations firms owed me a stack of cash for nearly becoming the scapegoat for their dipshitery. The whole affair must have sawed five years off my life. I now have PTSD: Postal Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ll have to ask Aaron about a lawsuit. So, please, for the last time, stop sending me pot through the mail (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). And if you do—again, don’t—make it a reasonable amount.

“They’re not looking for one ounce of weed,” Pelley demands.

Pardons are still a hot topic after President Joe Biden announced on Oct. 6 that he would be pardoning citizens who have federal convictions for cannabis, and asked that state governors do the same to provide relief for people in their regions. However, Indiana Gov. Holcomb recently stated that he would not be pardoning simple cannabis convictions.

“The president should work with Congress, not around them, to discuss changes to the law federally, especially if he is requesting governors to overturn the work local prosecutors have done by simply enforcing the law,” Holcomb said, according to ABC57. “Until these federal law changes occur, I can’t in good conscience consider issuing blanket pardons for all such offenders.”

Holcomb added that his state already offers expungement programs. “What Indiana has done, is act proactively, not reactively, by creating an opportunity for those who have maintained a clean record since a conviction of simple marijuana possession and a number of lower-level offenses, to apply for—and receive—an expungement which seals their record,” Holcomb said.

However he did confirm that many people who currently hold cannabis convictions on their record deserve to have an opportunity to have it removed. “I do agree that many of these offenses should not serve as a life sentence after an individual has served their time,” Holcomb added. “Expunged convictions cannot be disclosed to employers, to those who grant licenses, or when seeking housing.”

At a luncheon on Oct. 12, Holcomb shared his opinions on favoring expungement over pardons. “If you are busted for simple possession of marijuana and stay clean for a number of years, five years, then you can pursue expungement. That is never disclosed and that will never be in the way. If you do the crime and pay the time, then you can move on,” Holcomb said, adding that he does not believe cannabis should be in the same Schedule category as substances such as heroin or morphine. “But that’s Congress’s job.”

In December 2021, Holcomb began ramping up for the legislative session which began in January 2022. Although at the time, the Indiana Democratic Party stated that adult-use cannabis legalization was a top priority, Holcomb explained his support for medical access instead. “The law that needs to change is the federal law,” said Holcomb in December 2021.

News outlet WSBT asked Indiana legislators about Biden’s recent pardons, and many were supportive, but leaned toward federal descheduling. “I think this does reveal that legalization is inevitable in our future and whether or not Indiana wants to set that up at the state level or wait for the federal government to do that,” said Rep. Maureen Bauer. “So, for us, it’s still [a] schedule one drug. And I don’t see the state of Indiana changing the legalization of the drug until federally it’s descheduled,” added Sen. Mike Bohacek.

Possession of cannabis is a misdemeanor in Indiana, as of 2014. Currently, the state of Indiana has not legalized adult-use or medical cannabis. According to The Indiana Lawyer, over 94,000 people were charged with a cannabis possession misdemeanor between 2018-2021.

A pardon isn’t enough to release people from prison, partially because many people’s sentences are more complicated. According to Marion County Sheriff’s Office Captain Mitch Gore as of Oct. 13, the Indianapolis Adult Detention Center only had one inmate who was convicted for cannabis possession, while 320 others were convicted both because of possession as well as other non-cannabis related charges.

Allen County Sheriff’s Office Captain Steve Stone also confirmed that not very many people could be released immediately. “It would be a very, very low number. We wouldn’t even arrest you because you’d be out before we were even done doing the paperwork,” Stone said.

But tomorrow would have to wait. It’s not often that a band as aggressive as a cranked-up badger being held against his will by his tiny, little nutsack comes barreling through the cornfields of Southern Indiana on a wild-eyed mission to clobber its inhabitants and prove themselves worthy of the next level of metaldom. No way I was missing that. Newfangled bands like SNAFU are always the hungriest of the breed, the euphonious equivalent of a snarling, junkyard dog with nothing in their pockets but guts, a tendency for ruination and an inflamed liver.

Since their latest tour was dragging these poor bastards through the armpit of America – a place where music is often stillborn, unoriginal and uninspired — it was clear the foursome wasn’t being given any preferential treatment. Nope, just like the black and white predecessors of punk, they were being shot out of the sphincter of some foul beast, forced to pay dues upon dues before they’d ever be allowed to pass through any gate where their souls weren’t inevitably doomed to be sucked dry by unaffectionate crowds. Did this gang of heretics understand what they were getting themselves into when they pulled into town?

We’d find out soon enough.

Last year, SNAFU partnered with Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Records for the release of the band’s long-awaited full-length album Exile//Banishment. The record is loud, raw and often hauntingly unhinged – the way any bombastic blend of punk and thrash should go BOOM! At times, it sounds as though it was recorded inside the drug-ravaged brains of Jeffery Dahmer’s victims while he rammed a power drill into the top of their skulls in a psychotic quest for zombification. Songs like “Eyes of Your God” and “The Pear of Anguish” are an unabashed nod to a rabid generation of metal fanatics, back when anyone who made a derogatory comment about some head’s jean jacket because it was branded with a Hell Awaits backpatch had better be prepared for war. Indeed, the songs are a sonic allegiance to the good ole days. Damn straight! Finally! Every tune is one rip and shred right after another. No, you won’t hear any of nu-metal’s flaccid pseudo-crooners on this offering – this isn’t some crunchy rendition of the glam crybaby culture – nor will you be insulted by some feeble attempt to reinvent Meshuggah. Stop doing that! SNAFU is like snorting shards of glass covered in formaldehyde while perched atop a large horny electric eel. Don’t bother giving me a Rorschach test. Even if the music may cause permanent damage to vital organs – and if the song “Bring Suffering” has anything to say about it, it just might – basking in this abhorrent ensemble until it becomes second nature is possibly the only way to ward off a snuff. 

These guys have support, too, the kind that would prompt many of the would-be starving riff masters of the world to put their eternal soul in hawk with the Devil. After all, Anselmo’s label, while just a vocational launching pad for musical miscreants and visionaries, is responsible for helping a number of bands carve out modest careers. Author & Punisher (Tristan Shone), for one, was out there obliterating smaller clubs until his one-man mechanically engineered noise construct got the attention of Tool, landing him an opening spot during the band’s 2020 arena tour. Point is, SNAFU could go anywhere from here. And that should scare the ever-living shit out of them.

There are so many questions when a young band like this emerges onto the scene and reveals even the slightest hint of potential. Did they have a fighting chance? Would the booze and drugs get ‘em? Would a key member knock up some Podunk princess during the tour, forcing him to take a job at a Detroit 7-Eleven to make his child support payments? Or would they instead borrow a chapter from the book of Harley Flanagan, start eating right and taking jiu jitsu while continuing to punish crowds well into their fifties? A choice, whether they knew it or not, was about to be made. Although these tours were small, the stakes were high. How this band continued to fare over the next few months would inevitably set the tone for their entire career. 

I, for one, was eager to watch. Drunk, stoned, it was all par for the course as far as I was concerned. I was going to that show, even if there was an air of impending violence. All the better.

At the venue, the scene was the typical black hoodie revival, full of beer guts strapped to old white dudes and slaves to mediocrity. Life can be unkind to those unaware of how time passes while they’re busy wasting it. They were all sucking down shots as if they were hanging out backstage at a Pantera concert circa 1994, reminiscing of days less, well, now. Parts of the crowd made sense, while others seemed to have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque. That was typical in a place like this – a bar and grill style atmosphere that moonlights as a multi-genre music venue. Nobody fits in, yet everyone does. Abnormalities are ever present, as were true marvels of society, and that can sometimes, as the hippies might say, really discombobulate the vibe, man.

It was during the opening band when I was approached by Scott Curnow, one of SNAFU’s guitar players and vocalists. I didn’t recognize him. At first, I thought, “Oh fuck, my number is up.” It was distinctly possible that the large, strange dude headed in my direction from the other side of the room was on a seek and destroy mission to take me out. And I probably deserved it, too. Perhaps I had boned his girlfriend years ago, or maybe written some disparaging remarks about the derivativeness of his band – whoever the fuck they were – back when I was penning reviews for a local radio station to make ends meet. One can never tell in this business. Needless to say, I was relieved to learn that the man soon towering over me wasn’t on the unfettered prowl for retaliatory violence. Whew! Curnow is a colossal 8’13” tall, all dressed in leather, bearded up like a bloodthirsty Viking with dreadlocks. He’s a true monstrosity on genetic stilts. I was just hoping, praying actually, that the entity creeping up on me wasn’t into leisurely disembowelments for sport. “Holy shit, you’re a big dude,” I said during our introduction. “Yeah,” he snapped back, adding that the band’s size (none of these dudes are small) may have something to do with the water. 

We moved on, discussing the new record. Curnow doesn’t mince words when it comes to who’s responsible for the uniqueness of the band’s latest release. It is a unified effort from beginning to end. “There’s a few different elements that make the album awesome,” he told HIGH TIMES. “One would be our song writing process. Unlike most bands, all four of us (Curnow, Rian Staber, Patrick “El Toro” Saldivar, and Mike Jurysta) contribute equally to the process and I believe that is what gives us our distinct sound that’s packed full of lots of different elements of extreme music.” 

The production team, Curnow asserts, was also key.

“We were lucky enough to track this entire album down in Richmond Virginia with Josh Hall and Phil Hall of Cannabis Corpse,” he continued. “They were amazing to work with and gave a lot of great pointers throughout the recording process. We also had our good friend Adam Shepherd help with vocal tracking and mixing. Then we went to Joel Grind of Toxic Holocaust for the mastering. Everyone knocked it out of the park and made the album sound beyond what we could have imagined.”

Although some of metal’s elite may have played a significant role in the creation of Exile//Banishment, Curnow says those riffs are largely due to cannabis. “It definitely played a crucial role in the writing process,” he declared, crediting Sour Tangie and Jack Herer as his go-to strains. “I personally love to use cannabis when it comes to the creative process. It really helps me think of things in a different way. Sometimes when I smoke there’s like a symphony of guitars in my head and I need to stop what I’m doing and grab a guitar to make notes of the riffs.”

Then he was gone.

One thing was certain, if Curnow had been looking to exact his revenge against my loose moral fiber from years past, I would have had to produce an extra set of testicles to get out of there alive. “That guy, as nice as he was, would fuck you up,” I told my photographer as he walked away from us to prepare for the show. She agreed. Everyone knows, and if they don’t, they should, that you have to be careful about who you mess with from Detroit. Outside the dive bar scrappers on the streets of NOLA, even the scrawny ones with no teeth, folks from the D can be equally hard to handle. The Motor City masses, most of which are in a constant state of survival within an economic apocalypse, have nothing left to lose. So, above all, you’d better watch your mouth. 

Moments before SNAFU hit the stage, I was standing in the front row screaming at the top of my lungs, “let’s fucking go!” This reaction caught some a bit off guard. Although the sleepy Evansville crowd has grown accustomed to just loitering idly with their thumbs up their butts as touring bands bleed, sacrifice, and starve onstage, I wouldn’t be party to such trumpery. The howls spewing from my beer-drenched lips were not that of impatience, only anticipation, as I was pretty damn sure, gauging from what I had already seen, that SNAFU was going to rain down a savage display of decimation, and I wanted, no I needed in.

Listen, SNAFU has been butchering towns like this one alive for years, opening for the road-proven thrash band Municipal Waste and sludge masters EYEHATEGOD, just to name a couple. In that domain, where pros are pitted against pros, you are going to get squashed without either summoning a gnarly ghoul with seven peckers before showing up at the venue or, at the very least, hiring an Ouija board player to conduct a pre-show black mass. A band like SNAFU, built on belligerence, needed something vile, disgusting and inherently evil to leave on that stage – and it damn sure better be an honest representation, too – or else they’d risk being devoured by mightier forces and shat outside the venue into a puddle of dumpster juice. If they weren’t tight and combative in the eyes of both peers and idols, they’d be labeled hack jobs and slop artists – dead band walking! The band would ultimately be cursed to play podunk venues like the one Friday night where requests for Skynyrd would haunt them from here to eternity. 

SNAFU had been through the wringers to some degree, far more than anyone else on the bill, so I felt confident that the prematurity of my metal-adorned war cries wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

The lights went down. 

My stomach, for some odd reason, was all knotted up like one might experience during a heated argument, just seconds before someone throws the first punch. Could it be a sign that the proverbial shit was about to hit the fan? Swimming around in the billows of beer lingering in my gut was a hefty cocktail of anxiety and adrenaline fighting for a main artery. As far as I could tell, it was a power struggle to see which one of them could strike me dead from a massive coronary before the second song played. Bets were being taken as the band made their way to the stage. All I had to do, I kept telling myself, was keep breathing at 12-1 odds. “Man, I hope one of those bastards used to be an EMT,” I thought. But that was unlikely. Judging from their sordid appearances, the only thing these boys could assist with was funeral services. Drain, embalm, and smile. I began to consider that I might have to take what I could get. This could be it, and my driver’s license would surely reveal to these sadistic fiends that I’m an organ doner. Oh well, they’d surely be thrilled to get themselves a spare liver for when one of theirs goes on the fritz. 

Perhaps the band would ultimately seize the opportunity to preemptively avenge their reputation following this review – Scott appeared borderline suspicious of my intentions anyway and probably warned the rest – blasting me square in the noggin at full throttle with their guitars, and with the breakneck intensity of a sawed-off shotgun, guaranteeing that my wake, if my family opted to give me one, would be a closed casket. Only, the joke’s on them. I refused to die in this godforsaken place, even if by means as brutal as being brained to a pulp by a Gibson Korina Explorer. Being carted out on a slab, cloaked in a blood-drenched white sheet just miles from my apartment was not to be my fate. I wouldn’t give my hometown the satisfaction. 

It was me against them. 

From the unleashing of the first chord, it was clear that I was going to lose the battle, maybe even the war. But everyone else would too, so I didn’t take it personally. This powerful four-piece arrived hellbent on slicing everyone in their doe-eyed faces with a rusty razor covered in hydrochloric acid. The production, however, wasn’t steeped in malicious intent – well, maybe it was for drummer Mike Jurysta, who I suspect is an actual serial killer. They were just conjuring whatever wicked spirits necessary to ensure they weren’t the ones who ended up in the dumpster. Although the show, for this group of guys, was just an exhibition fight, keeping the chops up, no matter what the cost, is paramount to success. For the entirety of the band’s blistering thirty-minute set, they embarked on a violent incursion of auditory mutilations and feral breakdowns, all of which were compounded by the clamors of madmen pitted against the repugnance of a nation. All these components were packaged up and stuffed inside a tight black hole that presumably leads to the Seventh Circle. The violence I had caught a whiff of as soon as we set out on this adventure had finally arrived, and it did not disappoint. The crowd, judging from their arms-crossed attitude, seemed bewildered by such a crude, tawdry display. “Shit,” I thought to myself. “That’s how you know these guys are doing something right.” It occurred to me following the show, as I made the journey home, that if tinnitus was a sexually transmitted disease, everyone in the venue was going to need to see a doctor come Saturday morning. Just a few decibels louder, in fact, and I was convinced that the ghost of Hellen Keller was going to rise up from wherever she now resides and tell us all to keep it down. My ears are still ringing blood. 

SNAFU is currently in the process of writing their next album while continuing to tour in support of Exile//Banishment. They go back on the road in November with Mutilation Barbecue, so be sure to check them out if they come through your city!