LOS ANGELES -- A San Francisco man told his drinking buddies he wanted his ashes flushed down the toilets at his favorite bars -- and they obliged.
Surfers often paddle out and scatter the cremated remains of a fellow wave rider. Nature lovers sprinkle human ashes along redwood-lined paths.Those are just a few of the ways folks remember the dead in California, where the cremation rate is nearly twice the national average.
It's all illegal but not for long.
A new state statute taking effect Friday means survivors won't have to skirt the law to grant their loved ones' final wishes. The measure allows cremated remains to be scattered or buried on land or dumped at sea more than 500 yards from shore. Under the old rules, the ashes had to be dropped at least three miles from the coast.
"For families, it's liberalized to the extent that cremains can be placed in a favorite spot such as the side of the road, any special place that holds memories," said Ron Hast, publisher of the national Mortuary Management magazine and Funeral Monitor newsletter.
The measure decriminalizes something that has been going on for years in California, the only state that had prohibited the scattering of ashes on land.
"There is no reason to make criminals out of people for scattering the ashes of their loved ones in any meaningful location, so long as the property owner provides written consent," said Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, who wrote the law. Scattering is still prohibited from piers and bridges.
No experts interviewed had heard of anyone being prosecuted for holding a furtive funeral with the substance known in the industry as "cremains."
The cremation rate in California is 45 percent, compared to the national average of 23.5 percent. The Cremation Association of America projects the U.S. average will jump to 41.8 percent by 2010 and California's will be 55 percent.
There were 101,725 cremations in California in 1997, and the majority of those human remains were given to family members.
Shoebox-size containers of cremated remains -- which are actually 6 1/2 pounds of ground, shell-like bone or calcium phosphate -- often are stowed in closets, rest on a shelf or rattle around in car trunks as relatives decide what to do.
After all, choices abound in California.
The cremated remains of LSD guru Timothy Leary and "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry were rocketed into space. A California firm puts them in fireworks for a dazzling finale, and jewelers use bits of human remains for earrings, necklaces and lockets worn by relatives.
"You're running into a generation that says just because it was done a certain way for so long doesn't mean it has to continue that way," said Jack Springer, executive director of the Chicago-based Cremation Association of America. "Old-fashioned tradition doesn't mean anything to baby boomers."