Bridging the chasm in cannabis
Being an 80’s baby – exposed to the war on drugs – I was told marijuana was bad. As a creative kid, who fully embraced a “why be normal” mentality before my teens – I didn’t find weed early like many in high school. I was high on life – a late bloomer.
Fast forward to early my early 20’s while working two jobs and going to college, it helped me tame my “busy mind’ – relaxation and meditation worked well, but when combined with some quality cannabis, it seemed to set me up for a long productive day. Raised and influenced by my mom who always used alternative and holistic medicines, educating me on Native American traditions, plant medicine made sense. Why is it illegal?
I started to become more vocal in my late 20s, being exposed to several people who used cannabis in a healthy lifestyle or as an alternative to other medications. During this time, the opiate epidemic was rampant, losing friends to synthetic, prescribed drugs.
I started educating myself on cannabis and it really opened my eyes to much of this country’s history, the construction of certain racially charged programs, and the propaganda on which this country was born. I wanted to learn more, I wanted to understand the politics, history and uses, I attended Oaksterdam University – a cannabis college, one of the only ones during that time that would openly talk about the benefits of cannabis.
I found I needed to use my voice, to not only be an example of a conscious cannabis consumer but to be an advocate. As I learned early – the propaganda that was used in the early 1900s to demonize human beings was wrong. Based on racial motives, the prohibition of this plant since 1937 is inhumane. The “War on Drugs” only perpetuated the divide of people, filling prisons through mandatory minimum sentencing. Ripping families apart for generations with federal charges targeting specific races, largely in disproportion.
It was hopeful to find others who felt cannabis should be legal, that we should not be prohibited from this plant, and that the laws created around this plant and other drugs were and are just wrong.
Thus began the next chapter, decriminalization allowed for a louder conversation, as more and more began to speak about this plant, we saw states begin to create medical programs, then legal “adult-use” programs.
I wanted to create a space that allowed anyone to have a safe, comfortable, and digestible conversation about this plant, its history, it’s uses, or whatever questions someone like my nana might have. I wanted to create a program that anyone could access, as well as be a part of. I saw the cannabis “industry” as an opportunity to do things differently. A commodity that could essentially change the trajectory of humankind and the planet for the better. Imagine, a happier world, with less inflammation….just one of the potential positive effects for our health (insert US patent for antitumoral- antifungal properties found in cannabinoids) or fewer pollutants and using hemp to heal the world ( The Emperor Wears No Cloths – my favorite movie to have anyone watch who doesn’t know where we came from with cannabis and the car Henry Ford created that ran on hemp and was made out of hemp fiberglass) I am naive and some may call me a dreamer – but I’m not the only one.
Thanks for taking the time to read through and I hope you stop back to the blog as I start to document some of the stories and experiences I’ve had through my “professional weed career.”