My education and involvement with Drugs

                                                       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.