• The League of Women Voters of Lane County
meets at 11 am Thursday, Feb. 18, at the Valley
River Inn. Joy Marshall, director of Stand for
Children for Lane County, will talk on “How Can We
Improve Oregon’s High School Graduation Rate?”
Open to the public and free. Call 343-7917.
• The city of Eugene Public Art Committee will
meet at 3:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 18, at the Eugene
Public Library, Singer Conference Room. Call 682-
2057 or email isaac.r.marquez@ci.eugene.or.us.
• “Racial Categories and Statistics: Can We
Achieve Justice Without Them?” is the topic
of a free talk by associate professor Kim
Williams of Portland State University at 6:30 pm
Thursday, Feb. 18, at the UO law school Room
110. Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center on
campus. Call 346-3700.
• Initiative Petition 28 to tax Oregon
corporations to fund public education will be
the topic at City Club of Eugene at noon Friday,
Feb. 19, at the Downtown Athletic Club, 999
Willamette Street. Speakers will represent
A Better Oregon, advocating for the ballot
measure, and Grow Oregon, advocating for other
options to close the gap in education funding.
$5 for non-members, buffet lunch available for
$12. See cityclubofeuegene.org.
• Israeli anthropologist, author and activist
Jeff Halper will speak on “War Against the
People — Israel, the Palestinians and Global
Pacification” at 7 pm Monday, Feb. 22, at the
Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645
N.W. Monroe Ave. in Corvallis. Free. Email caps-
info@riseup.net for more information.
• The new Coalition for Local, Alternative and
Independent Media is meeting in support of
returning Alternative Radio to KLCC programming.
Email zupandavid@gmail.com. An online petition
can be found at change.org (search for KLCC).
• Lane County is now recruiting for the
Performance Audit Committee, which will
be composed of four citizen members and
one county commissioner. The deadline for
applications is Feb. 29. The panel will provide
input to the Board of Commissioners on audit
matters and is responsible for “ensuring the
performance audit program functions well.” Email
shanda.miller@co.lane.or.us for information.
• Oregon author Kathleen Dean Moore has a
new book, Great Tide Rising: Finding Clarity and
Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change,
and she will be reading from the book at 7 pm
Thursday, Feb. 25, at Tsunami Books, 2585
Willamette Street. For more information visit
world.350.org/eugene.
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS
In last week’s News section we wrote that Emily
Semple was arrested at the Federal Building for
protesting for the rights of homeless people,
but she tells us, “Although I am an advocate for
the homeless, my arrests were to defend our
right to free speech on any topic.”
8
February 18, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
DEEPAK CHOPRA
DEEPAK CHOPRA TO TALK
ON BRAIN SELF-REGULATION
“I’m looking forward to it,” Chopra says about the event.
“It’s a new audience for me and I’m really excited.”
— Mohammed Alkhadher
Oregon State University is hosting doctor, author and
New Age spiritualist Deepak Chopra in collaboration with
the I Am Genie Foundation at the LaSells Stewart Center
across from Reser Stadium in Corvallis Feb. 23.
“I’ll be speaking about the topics from my last two books,
which were called Super Genes and Super Brain,” Chopra
tells EW from the Chopra Center for Well Being in Carlsbad,
California.
Chopra’s latest two New York Times bestsellers are
coauthored with Rudolph Tanzi, the Joseph P. and Rose F.
Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University.
Chopra is the author of more than 80 books and advocates for
alternative medicine with a focus on the connection between
the body and mind.
The India-born American author may be familiar from
his appearances on television, and he frequently teams up
with Oprah Winfrey on projects, including a recent 21-
day meditation weight-loss challenge. Chopra has millions
of followers around the world, but he also has a host of
detractors. “Scientists and doctors have criticized his views
about science and medicine as being unscientific,” according
to Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post, who has written
about Chopra’s scientific controversies.
Chopra says that at OSU he’ll be talking about
neuroplasticity, “how you can rewire your brain for optimal
well-being and higher consciousness” and on expanding the
relationship between our genes and microbiology for self-
regulation and healing.
“I’ll also be speaking about a broader aspect of being,”
he says. “How to be more fulfilled with your work, spiritual
well-being and self-awareness.”
“You will always have the genes you were born with, but
genes are dynamic, responding to everything we think, say
and do,” Chopra writes in Super Brain. “Suddenly they’ve
become our strongest allies for personal transformation.”
Chopra adds, “When you make lifestyle choices that
optimize how your genes behave, you can reach for a state
of health and fulfillment undreamed of even a decade ago.”
He will also speak in Corvallis about medication,
movement, emotions, sleep and food as social interaction,
about how they can all be understood as changing our
biology. He will also discuss “self-direct gene expression in
the brain through lifestyle changes.”
According to Chopra, this is the first time the author has
visited Oregon in 15 years. He says it’s important to reach the
students at OSU because students are the nation’s future leaders.
“Our leadership is in crisis,” Chopra says. “We need
younger people to have a higher vision, to be action oriented,
to take responsibility for their lives, to understand things
with context and creativity.”
The event is 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 23, and tickets can be
found at picatic.com/deepakatOSU. Prices range from $49 to
$175 for Gold Circle seats with the opportunity to attend a
meet-and-greet with the guest speaker.
TOXIC PESTICIDE DETECTED
IN EUGENE MARIJUANA
Hey, hold on just a second before you fire up that weed —
it could be toxic as hell.
A shiver ran through Eugene’s marijuana community
Feb. 5 when the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)
ordered the stop-sale of Guardian, a popular pesticide, after
it was discovered the product contained abamectin, an
insecticide that is highly toxic to bees and marine life, and
which in high doses may lower sperm count in men.
Widely used by cannabis growers for its apparently all-
natural ingredients like cinnamon oil, Guardian Mite Spray
came under suspicion at a local lab when repeated tests of
marijuana came up positive for abamectin. “In each of
these cases, the cultivator claimed the only pesticide they
were using was Guardian,” says Bethany Sherman at OG
Analytical in Eugene. “With the third client, we urged them
to bring in the pesticide itself for analysis.”
OG Analytical alerted the ODA, which confirmed the
presence of abamectin in its samples of Guardian. The pesticide
has now been pulled from grow shop shelves nationwide. The
product itself had received a FIFRA [Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act] exemption, meaning the
Environmental Protection Agency “cleared it as exempt from
standard pesticide tolerances,” Sherman explains.
“It’s possible that the manufacturer, All In Enterprises,
added the abamectin to the product formula after the FIFRA
exemption was approved, but this information hasn’t been
disclosed,” she adds.
Sherman points out that the state of Oregon’s legal weed
program currently doesn’t require testing for abamectin, and
as far as she knows, OG Analytical is the only cannabis lab
in the state that routinely tests for the pesticide. “To be clear,
despite the relevant toxicity of abamectin, because abamectin
is not regulated by the OHA [Oregon Health Authority], a
finding will not cause a failure. If we find it,” she adds, “the
dispensary can still sell it.”
What this means is it’s possible, if not likely, that Eugene
retail dispensaries are currently selling marijuana laced
with abamectin. Adam Jacques, lead grower at Oregon
Microgrowers Guild, says the discovery of abamectin in
a product commonly used in the industry is a “big deal”
because a lot of so-called safe pesticide sprays might be
falling under the radar. “The newest guide for acceptable
spray use in cannabis gardens is pretty vast,” Jacques says.
“Lots of nasty stuff in there.”
Jacques, who prefers using diluted hydrogen peroxide
as “spot” pesticide when necessary, says that labs like
OG Analytical go “above and way beyond” the standard
in letting growers and consumers know what’s in their
cannabis, and he cautions growers and consumers alike
to beware: “Trust your dispensary and trust your grower.