NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Page 2A
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Actor Jim Belushi’s happy place is growing pot in Oregon
By DAMIAN MANN
The Mail Tribune
MEDFORD — Jim
Belushi has a lifetime
of memories shaped by
cannabis.
When he talks about
Oregon’s favorite weed,
he reflects on his family,
the fun times at “Saturday
Night Live” and, yeah, his
rocking 2018 harvest party.
The famous actor, singer
and community supporter
describes a spiritual con-
nection to the marijuana
he’s growing on his 93-acre
spread near Eagle Point,
known as the Belushi Farm,
and its 22,000-square-foot
state licensed grow.
He’s even got “Captain
Jack” on board cultivating
from seed the same strain
of “Afghanica” that he pro-
vided to help inspire the
cast and writers of “Satur-
day Night Live” — dubbed
“the smell of SNL.” Cap-
tain Jack, as he likes to be
called, went to Afghanistan
in the 1970s to bring back
the special seeds that pro-
duce a strain enjoyed by
Belushi.
“Where do you think
Coneheads came from?
That weed,” said the
64-year-old Belushi, his
voice hoarse from singing
at his party last weekend.
The Coneheads depicted
Jamie Lusch/The Medford Mail Tribune via AP
Jim Belushi checks out a plant at his pot farm on the Rogue River near Eagle Point.
The famous actor, singer and community supporter describes a spiritual connection
to the marijuana he’s growing on his 93-acre spread near Eagle Point, known as the
Belushi Farm, and its 22,000-square-foot state licensed grow.
He has painstakingly
restored old barns and out-
buildings, and built a dra-
matic timber-framed house
with views of the Rogue
River.
Besides a wide-ranging
career, Belushi has lent his
name to restoring histori-
cal buildings in the valley,
including the Butte Creek
Mill in Eagle Point and the
Holly Theatre in Medford.
With his ever-present
stogie dangling from his
an alien family with cones
for heads that was a popular
skit on “SNL” in the 1970s.
Belushi started his can-
nabis enterprise three years
ago with a 48-plant medi-
cal marijuana grow that has
expanded into the green-
houses, equipment and
manpower to compete in
an ever-changing cannabis
industry. He’s undergoing a
brand change from Rogue’s
Lair to Belushi’s Private
Vault.
mouth, Belushi jokes that
his day job pays for this lat-
est venture.
Belushi and other local
cannabis growers have
invested heavily in this new
industry, watching with
concern in a market glutted
with product and plummet-
ing prices.
“It’s worrying every-
one,” Belushi said.
But the worrying went
out the window last week-
end for his harvest party.
“We had 500 guests, and
490 of them were smok-
ing,” he said with a grin.
Belushi’s Private Vault
is being sold at dispensaries
in Southern Oregon, and
the label will feature his
1,200 pounds of premium
quality flower, includ-
ing Captain Jack’s Gulzar
Afghanica and Belushi’s
favorite, Cherry Pie, which
he said makes him a better
husband.
“It’s the marriage coun-
selor,” he joked.
Captain Jack said he
collected the seeds from
Afghanistan and brought
them back to the states for
cultivation. While many
growers prefer to clone
plants, Captain Jack grows
from seed.
“Most other people have
gone in a different direction
and hybridized,” he said.
Captain Jack describes
his plant as having a very
wide leaf, joking that it
resembles cabbage leaves.
“I defy most people on
this planet to tell me it’s a
pot plant,” he said.
When Belushi talks
about marijuana, he often
mentions his brother, John
Belushi, who died in 1982
after a battle with drugs and
was known for his outra-
geous comedic abilities.
“I wish we’d known
then about marijuana being
Forecast for Pendleton Area
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TODAY
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Nice with plenty of
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Pleasant with
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Plenty of sunshine
Plenty of sun
68° 41°
69° 40°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
69° 39°
68° 40°
69° 43°
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OREGON FORECAST
71° 40°
ALMANAC
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PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
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TEMP.
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Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
67/45
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72/43
68/37
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63/44
Pullman
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Portland
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The Dalles 69/37
Salem
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Yesterday
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La Grande
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John Day
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77/40
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24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
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Albany
75/40
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WINDS (in mph)
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0.00"
1.39"
0.56"
7.91"
12.55"
9.50"
through 3 p.m. yest.
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TEMP.
Pendleton 68/35
76/42
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
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HERMISTON
Enterprise
68/41
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63°
36°
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82° (2003) 23° (1897)
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Moses
Lake
68/40
Aberdeen
63/38
65/43
Tacoma
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Spokane
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69/49
Today
Medford
80/43
SUN AND MOON
72/31
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018
Fri.
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Boardman
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Klamath Falls
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Sunrise today
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Moonrise today
Moonset today
7:15 a.m.
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Full
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NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 95° in Tampa, Fla. Low -1° in Dillon, Colo.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Homeless woman sues
city over anti-camping
ordinance
GRANTS PASS (AP) — A class-action
lawsuit claims the city of Grants Pass is
running homeless people out of town, vio-
lating their constitutional rights.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports
the suit, filed Monday by plaintiff Debra
Blake, alleges the city’s anti-camping
ordinance and criminal trespass laws rep-
resent cruel and unusual punishment and
are selectively enforced against the home-
less population, violating their Eighth and
14th Amendment rights.
Blake, identified in the suit as “an invol-
untarily homeless resident,” says the only
shelters in the city are nearly always full.
Blake says Grants Pass police often tell
her to “move along,” and she has faced
repeated fines for sleeping in an alley or
for prohibited camping.
Blake argues there’s no alternative
housing or shelters where she can stay.
Grants Pass attorney Mark Bar-
tholomew and Mayor Darin Fowler did
not immediately return messages for
comment.
Police: Man ambushes
firefighters as they fight
blaze
SPRINGFIELD (AP) — Authori-
ties say a 60-year-old man in Springfield
ambushed firefighters who showed up to
put out a blaze at a house in a residential
neighborhood before he turned the gun on
himself.
Springfield police Lt. Scott McKee tells
The Register Guard Wednesday that police
believe the man set the fire, and then began
shooting at firefighters when they showed
up.
McKee says the suspect had the fire-
fighters pinned down behind their truck as
the blaze spread to three other homes.
A police officer who was under fire and
hiding behind a car had to be rescued by an
armored vehicle.
Three homes were destroyed and a
fourth damaged.
No residents were hurt.
It’s not immediately clear if the man
lived in one of the houses that burned.
Oregon dog survives
getting lost, shot in forest
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a medicine,” Belushi said.
He remembers his older
brother practicing for his
role as Samurai, trying to
get the character just right
while swinging a sword.
“He would literally exer-
cise his eyebrows in front
of a mirror,” he said.
Belushi thinks a lot
about his mother and father,
both of Albanian descent,
who raised him in Chicago.
“It’s funny, the older I
get the more I miss them,”
he said. “I miss my dad
more than anything, espe-
cially being out on the farm.
He would have liked riding
horses. He had a little ranch
up in Julian, California.”
Belushi has a lot of dif-
ferent views about the ben-
efits of marijuana as medi-
cine and his own personal
relationship with it.
He likens his affinity to
cannabis to the way flowers
attract bees, and some flow-
ers will actually enclose
their petals around the bee
to help it extract as much
pollen as possible.
“I feel like that bee that
is brought in and held until
I get everything about it,”
Belushi said. “It has come
really deep into my heart,
my body and my spiritual
nature. It’s brought me to
the medicine. It’s brought
me full circle to my brother
John.”
70s
80s
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
high
110s
low
PORTLAND (AP) — An 8-year-old
husky is recovering after being lost for two
weeks in the Mount Hood wilderness, get-
ting shot and possibly chewing off its own
injured leg.
KATU-TV reports Hatcher was found
Monday suffering from severe injuries.
Hatcher disappeared Sept. 29 when
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AP Photo/Don Ryan
A person dressed as a Tyrannosaurus
rex holds a sign during a rally by Or-
egon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown in
Portland on Wednesday. Wednesday
was the first day that ballots went out
in the mail for Oregon’s vote-by-mail
election.
Shae Kosmalski took him and 14 other
sled dogs on a trip to Frog Lake from
Southern Oregon.
Hatcher somehow got away from the
pack, prompting an intensive search.
Kosmalski eventually returned home,
but a volunteer found the dog Monday
about 5 miles from where Hatcher was
lost.
The dog was taken to VCA Southeast
Portland Animal Hospital where a vet said
it seemed Hatcher had been shot in the leg
and that Hatcher likely had chewed off
what was remaining of it.
Hatcher is expected to fully recover.
Ballots go out to
Oregonians for midterm
election
PORTLAND (AP) — Wednesday
marked the first day that ballots were
being mailed to Oregonians for the Nov.
6 election.
Oregon’s vote-by-mail system means
that ballots must be mailed well ahead of
election day.
Ballots will be distributed by the U.S.
Postal Service to registered voters until
Oct. 22.
Voters can return their ballots by mail
or drop them in designated ballot boxes by
8 p.m. on Nov. 6.
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