While we here at Twelve High Chicks try to keep current events that don’t directly involve the cannabis freedom movement out of our articles, sometimes the world can’t be ignored. What happened in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend is one of those times. And the best way I can express what I’m feeling is through cannabis, with puff’n’pass poetry.
The world’s cannabis freedom movement is changing. Groups always change as they grow. Whether subculture or activism, group dynamics mean nothing stays the same. There are always disagreements within any progressive movement about what their goals are, how they should act, and whose ideas or opinions they should accept. As those movements grow, so do the disagreements.
I’ve been banned from crossing into the USA since May 2016. So instead, my friend Dixie and I went on a different trip, to BC’s Sunshine Coast. It may not have been the trip we had planned but we still got to have our getaway — and some really rare one-on-one time — doused in a cloud of pot smoke.
Life is viewed by many in many ways: as a gift, as a curse, or even as a mission. But whatever views of life one might have, in it we all have one thing in common that we deal with everyday, and that is our health. And whatever the case may be regarding one’s health, we can all agree that “good” health is important simply because without it, we may as well throw in the towel and forget about those life views altogether.
Having been raised in the mid-west, Kansas, Shona Banda’s upbringing was in a very typical, American conservative environment where cannabis is known as a highly dangerous illegal drug, and is socially and morally frowned upon. This, later in life, ultimately left Shona feeling like she was a “druggie” when she decided to treat her illness with cannabis.
As a part of good health, what we put into our body is as equally important as how we treat it. To have the freedom to treat ourselves with naturally grown plants, nuts, seeds and fruits we have depended on the earth since man has existed. Nutrition from the earth is here for a reason, so why not utilize its given resources, including cannabis, to optimize our overall health?
I adore the Overgrow Canada movement. The message is powerful and peaceful: overgrow Canada with cannabis. If people have the courage to grow cannabis plants in their front yards, window sills, and parkways, we show our leaders that we are no longer waiting while people’s lives are destroyed by pointless criminal records but black market activities and shady grow operations continue. Overgrow Canada is a revolution I can get behind. It feels like an art project: how beautiful seeing all those plants growing in the wild could be.
Amazing! We did it Canada, we voted for change this election with 68% of Canadians stepping out and making their voices heard. And more, the youth of Canada spoke. I couldn’t be prouder to be a Canadian today!
I volunteered for the Liberal candidate in my riding and met with Don Johnston and his wife Jeanette early in his campaign. I threw the question out about cannabis at him and asked what he thought about gardens and dispensaries. His answer was very much what I wanted to hear: ‘Marijuana has been beneficial medically for years and the science is there, never mind the fact it is safer than alcohol and is prohibited and that is ridiculous. People shouldn’t get criminal records and lives ruined over a bit of pot.’
It’s hard not to notice these days that there is something not right about the state of affairs in our country.
We are supposed to be living as free people in a free country — we long ago shed the dictators, kings, and tyrants that ruled the masses for tens of thousands of years, subjecting people to their whims.
For most of us, we learn to obey at an early age. Parents use a variety of methods and will go to great extremes to teach this lesson; it’s important for the survival of the child and for the sanity of the parent. It also serves the child well with respect to getting what they want while they grow up. The problem is that it does not always serve us so well in society after we have grown up.
All my life I have heard references to us living in a ‘free country’ but as my life continues it becomes more and more clear to me that it is much more accurate to say that we are living in a country where we are ‘free to obey’.
This is not the freedom that our forefathers fought for and it is far from acceptable to me. Perhaps it’s because I had issues with bullies growing up or perhaps because I have a strong sense of right and wrong, in any case it is frustrating to see the way our ‘dumbocracy’ has been co-opted by corporate and private interests at the public’s expense.
It’s not always easy working in the marijuana industry. We tend to have a large, outspoken crew of coworkers who come from different cities, economic statuses, and lifestyles. And I say this with love, but sometimes we butt heads because all of us have strong personalities. The solution? Team building days. Nothing official, but this specific crew wanted to reconnect.
We don’t do team building days like a typical company; instead, we figured out how to pull up our socks to get needed work done so we could head out to the beach the next day. And not just to any beach but the world-famous, clothing-optional Wreck Beach — because that is the kind of people we are (or may become, depending on the staff member).