The Story.
Drugs and the Ventura Council of Drug Abuse
This story begins with a bus tour. This obviously involved finding and purchasing
a used Trailways Bus to introduce the Church youth group to America and our
Nation’s history. I said “I bought the bus” because the Church trustees would
not for fear of the liability. I begin with this bit of information because in
all of the preparation, there was not a word or thought about drug use before,
during or after the tour. It was the
last days of the drug innocent times for youth in America.
Two Church’s and ten years later, the Church
we were serving had a high school ski trip planed. I was very aware of the drug
culture which was very prevalent among teens culture at that time. This was
done with much concern and awareness as I could summons. Against my better
judgment, I said yes to a young man who had recently started to come to the
youth group, and wanted to join us on the ski trip. He of course swore he had
no drug habit and never been a user. At the ski dorm one evening we found that
he had brought with him his skis and a suitcase of drugs. He was a dealer.
It was a totally different world ten years
later after the bus trip because the drug culture was in full blown force. I
was now dealing with this as a City Council Crime commissioner, which allowed
us to turn the unused two story parsonage into a crash pad. Also the Church
hosted after school football games with dances. We had with the music of such
groups as Iron Butterfly, Grateful Dead, and Lead Zeppelin, all staring out,
but the kids knew who they were. I need to add that all of their music would
give an Excedrin tablet a headache. I
was catching up on what made up the drug scene.*
Being appointed to a new parish, meaning mostly
a lot, an ex real estate office now called a Church, and no parsonage, we began
building from scratch. The plan was to
attract kids and hoped the parents would follow. Sunday school teachers had to
audition for classes they would teach for 8 weeks and the youth chose which
class they wanted to take. The Church acquired a bus, the Brown Hound, for “Mystery
Rambles” and other high adventures, and it all began to work. But drugs were an
underlying issue all the time. I was taking kids with problems to the Free Clinic
in Simi Valley, including for abortion,* and I felt we should have a free
clinic in the area I was serving, namely housed in the Church. I faced an overwhelming fierce fire storm of
resistance to that bit of proposal to the Church board about which I am sure
the Bishop received several pointed calls about their Pastor running amuck.
What I found taking place was the Mexican
cartel was dropping off immigrants by boat but in this manner. While off shore
of our coast, and with a life jackets and one kilo of whatever strapped to
their back, with the immigrant saying their prayers and the high hope that the
tide would bring the them to the promised land, they were put over the side of
the boat. If they made it, they would un
strap the kilo, and leave owing nothing for their illegal entry into
California.
The drugs were then taken to a nursery and put
in the bottom of pots holding exotic plants and shipped to college
fraternities, and sororities who found out about this nursery service which
sold exotic plants with an extra. It was an operation below the detection
screen. I understand that this nursery was doing business nationwide. When
exposed, it was a scandal and quickly dealt with by the law and courts and
buried as yesterday’s news.
What was evident in the area was the number
of addicts who were going through rehab, and come back again and again to go through
rehab one more time. The addicted were being recycled and often back again in
months. This revolving door approach looked good for the numbers treated, but a
closer look at the clientele served,
there were a high percentage of repeats.
The Ventura Council of Drug Abuse was
organized. The plan was to stop the repeating of the rehab treatment, and end the
addicts life imprisonment to drug addiction for as many as we could.
The plan,
simply put, was to give the addicts a job following their rehab experience and
make the next step they could take to enter again into a normal life, a real
job, learn to handle money responsibly and be productive citizens. To make this
happen was to find a place we could do such a program and the key was that it
had to be without neighbors objection.
There we would raise specialty cactus
which is able to withstand neglect and abuse but is easily marketable thus profitable.
The sale of cactus would eventually pay for the ongoing program, not the tax
payers. The end product would be the persons could work their way through to
become drug free, keep a work schedule, earn money, and enter into normal life by
taking charge of their life again. This property came to us via a lease in the
Santa Rosa Valley.
This
meant our going up to Sacramento, and there we made our case. We did, and we
came away with one and a half million dollars to start the program. Land was leased, and with the innumerable
laws and ordnances met, the very restricted permits granted, and the most
difficult permit to obtain was a permit for a safe. The laws required that we have a class five
safe in which to keep methadone, as this was the alternative of choice for long
term addicts but used as a substitute till other factors had a chance to work.
So one of the goals was to wean such persons off of the use of methadone, but we
had to have it on hand and wean addicts off of methadone which was the
substitute for hard drugs.
The first shipment of the specialty cactus grown
was air freighted to Prairie Grove Arkansas, which is the national distribution
point for such, and from there on to the markets in Chicago, Miami and all
others. Red flag in my thinking, being
new to all of this, said to insure the shipment, (for ten thousand dollars) even though it was
air freighted, and the cactus was almost indestructible. It was sent with the
lowest rush possible, and because of that, it sat on the tarmac in Texas for
two days in the sun, and with the internal temperatures soring, the cactus
turned to mush. First disaster averted.
Things went much better after that. The
councilors worked with those who were having problems, because this was a whole
different life style than they had known and practiced. But the project had life
and promise.
One up tick was when there was an order for
a thousand bags of cactus planting material from K mart, they supplied the printed
plastic bags and we made a hopper system in order to fill those bags. A
measured amount dropped with each foot stomp on a pedal and we could fulfill
the contract.
A rototiller was purchased and added to a
used Ford Ferguson which made possible mixing major amounts of material. The ingredients
for cactus planting, as I now remember, was one third crushed volcanic rock,
one third horse exhaust, and one third whatever. The skip loader loaded the hopper, then the
hopper operator, tripped the valve, the plastic bag was filled, then the
operator turned and heat sealed it, and put it on a pallet. All was going so well, I later exercising
some privilege. As Chairman of the Board, I took home three of the sacks “to
insure quality control”.
Back at the Parsonage, I replanted some
cactus. After a bit I also found sprouting of a plant beside the cactus that
wasn’t cactus, but which had rather pointy leaves. The young man doing the
hopper duty felt he was a marijuana missionary and in his zeal was adding at
least one marijuana seed to each sack.
That was the item which ended the program. When that word got out, the
money dried up because basically no politician wanted to support it from that
point on.
The sad part was also dismissing the
incredible staff that had worked so hard to make this program go. With it went the 28 foot Columbia sail boat
that the manager had and which we sailed with authority. As owner he had the
authority, but I got to sail with him at nights when the Santa Anna’s
blew. He found employment elsewhere. The
foreman who knew cactus, and on his insight kept us in business also found
other employment. For a number of years we
were in touch, then for whatever reason we lost touch.
A number of years later, Ruth and I were
both retired and RVing. We landed late Saturday night in Spokane Washington. The next morning, being Sunday, I asked the
lot manager where the nearest Methodist Church might be, and he gave me
specific directions. It led us to a Roman Catholic Church. You might sometime drop into some such and
ask for directions to a Protestant Church and see what directions you get from
some. One kind person pointed out where
we were to go, and it turned out to be a Presbyterian Church, but we were not
ready to give up but rather settled for a high steeple Episcopal Church we
could see up on a hill, and on the way there found the United Methodist Church.
The Sunday was Laity Sunday, and when it
came time for the sermon a man in the choir rose in choir robe and went to the
pulpit. It was my long lost cactus wizard. His subject that morning was
“Fifteen Minutes in The Fireplace”. It
seems he had two sisters, one who had been a missionary, and the other sister’s
life’s had little meaning and purpose and lasted concluded with fifteen minutes
in the fire place. The last I heard from Dave was that he was on his way to
Africa to be a missionary, and I have never heard from him again.
*An
aside story of that bus tour.
While
returning and on a highway that ran parallel to railroad tracks, the country road
crossed over the tracks to the other side.
The bus being driven at highway speed, approached this cross over, and
at that moment, the steering column broke. Without steering the bus followed
the curve of the road, up and over the railroad tracks turning again by itself
to follow the direction of the road but now on the other side of the train tracts. The bus driver, a laymen, and profession
truck driver and member of the Church had the professional smarts to not touch
the bus brakes during this event, and using compression of the engine, the bus
came to a safe stop. The steering shaft
was welded and trip reassumed.
Epilog. While I was backing the bus in
the Church parking lot, the steering
shaft broke again in the same place. The
shaft was again welded and I sold the bus for the same price I had bought for
which it was perched.
*One more aside on the Sacramento trip.
We returned late at night, having flown up
and back to the State Capital to seek funding for the program. We were all rather ecstatic with the good news
that we had gotten the money, and for us it was a lot of money, but the program
we hyped was worth tax payer money. I
doubt I even at that time anyone noticed that it was raining hard, which I did
notice later for good reason. (For those who not remember what a heavy rain
storm is, it can be googled.) It seems
that we left in the dark, and must have been in a hurry because I had left the car
head lights of the MGB I was driving at the time. What awaited on our return
was a battery that was beyond dead, and to add to this, so was my flash light.
In the rain a really kind soul offered to
give me a battery jump. (I do not remember begging) and in the rain and dark,
he, not I, reversed the polarity by attaching the cables backwards and in so
doing, burned out the ignition, alternator, radio, and the unique fuel pump the
MG wiring has. So it was good news but
also for me, it came with a capital letters of a foot note of bad news and very
expensive parts to replace.
* One More Aside. The last, I promise.
The Church where this all took music took place
had a basement that searched half a block, and could handle large crowds. Our
biggest event was with the Led Zeppelins with an attendance of 998 kids, and 65
adults to keep control. Just for you the size of this Church building facility,
there were 54 pianos. Budging tuning was a line item for the finance committee.
During the week we had a youth drop in
center, decorated as a 1880s ice cream parlor, three pool tables, ice cream and
soft drinks. The Church hired a young
couple to run the program there, and look after things. I found they were
dealing drugs, and he disappeared but she said with tears that she wanted out
of the addiction. I took her to the
State hospital in Camarillo, and I drove back alone. I found that after I left,
she took a good look around, then climbed out of a window and may have been
back to her abode before I got back home.
I never saw her again.
