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Oaksterdam’s Retrograde Message PDF Print E-mail
Written by Fred Gardner   
Those enduring buildings in the historic center of Oaksterdam were built in our grandparents’ era, a time when medical marijuana could be ordered at any pharmacy. That is the history and the future encapsulated into one dream of safe access and social justice for cannabis users.

Scientists have learned in recent years that cannabis affects the body because THC and other plant components act just like some of the body’s own neurotransmitters (dubbed endocannabinoids).
    It turns out that endocannabinoids send messages to all other neurotransmitters (GABA, norepenephrine, serotonin, dopamine, etc.) They are like orchestra conductors, facing the instruments and signaling them to quiet down or get stronger, speed up or slow down.
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The art deco on the front of the Paramount Theatre looms high over broadway near 20th Street.
Retrograde messaging is the scientists’ term for how the cannabinoids operate. As retrograde messengers, cannabinoids modulate many systems within the body, which explains why their effects are so wide-ranging.
    Even before the biochemists reached their current level of understanding, Tod Mikuriya, MD, inferred from the effects cannabis has on people that its mode of action was unique and that it modulated multiple systems within the body.
    Mikuriya proposed that cannabis be categorized as an “easement” and grandfathered into the US formulary on the basis that its safety and efficacy had been established prior to its prohibition in 1937. “Back to the future,” is a slogan he often employs — a perfectly retrograde message.

A link between two eras
    You may be wondering what this has to do with Oaksterdam.
    Start at the Bulldog Coffeeshop and take a walk. Look at the buildings. Some have style and grace, high ceilings, windows that open, distinctive architectural features.
    You can see that the builders were trying to achieve something beautiful and enduring; that they were craftsmen who took pride in their product.
    Turn down 17th and look at the Floral Depot building on the corner, “flashing a silver and cobalt blue exterior,” as Ishmael Reed describes it in Blues City. Built in 1931, the building stands because the Oakland Heritage Alliance fought to keep it from being torn down for a mall. Today its spacious main room is the setting for one of Oakland’s four permitted medical-cannabis clubs (so, it’s still a flower mart!)
    Among the buildings within walking distance that architects consider classics are City Hall (1914); the Fox Theatre and Office Building (1923); I. Magnin (1931), a beautiful green terra cotta building at the corner of 20th and Broadway; the Paramount Theater, a masterwork designed by Timothy Pflueger; the First Church of Christ Scientist (1902) 17th and Franklin, a small stone building in Romanesque revival style; and the YWCA on Webster St. (1915) designed by Julia Morgan. There are many, many more.
    Plunked among old Oakland’s architectural gems are stark cubes made out of steel and glass in which the air is recirculated.
    Which buildings are more pleasing to the eye? Which draw you in and look like inviting settings to work or shop or eat or watch a show? Which pique the interest? It becomes obvious that progress is not synonymous with improvement and can sometimes mean the exact opposite.
      Freeways cut and slash through Oakland neighborhoods now, half the land is devoted to cars, but prior to World War II Oakland (and every other major American city) had electric light rail lines connecting it to the suburbs efficiently and without pollution. General Motors and Standard Oil conspired in 1937 to secretly subsidize Greyhound Bus Lines to offer lower prices than electric rails and drive the lines out of business. The tracks were torn up in the 1940s, under the eyes of our parents and grandparents, and the choking of our cities by cars commenced in earnest.

Bring past and future together
    To think “retro” is to question progress itself as it has occurred in every field (medicine, architecture, public transportation, the school system, the environment) and to figure out how to restore sanity, balance and fairness to our society.
 
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