April is indeed one of the most exciting months of the year. On April 19 we have the pleasure of celebrating Bicycle Day, and on April 20 we follow it up with 420.
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April 20 has been designated as global cannabis appreciation day. It is a day to let the world know that this beautiful plant genus is part of our society and one of the most important bounties of nature. As our civilization expands and evolves, it has become essential for us to recognize and celebrate this day and share the wealth and knowledge that comes from harvesting and consuming what we have so generously been provided.
As for how this day came to be chosen as an official holiday for the 420 community, in the following 2002 interview, Steven Hager, at the time the editor-in-chief of High Times magazine, explains its origins.
“The earliest use of the term began among a group of teenagers in San Rafael, California in 1971, calling themselves the Waldos, because ‘their chosen hang-out spot was a wall outside the school’. The group first used the term in connection to a fall 1971 plan to search for an abandoned cannabis crop that they had learned about. The Waldos designated the Louis Pasteur statue on the grounds of San Rafael High School as their meeting place, and 4:20 p.m. as their meeting time. The Waldos referred to this plan with the phrase ‘4:20 Louis’. Multiple failed attempts to find the crop eventually shortened their phrase to simply ‘4:20’, which ultimately evolved into a codeword that the teens used to mean pot-smoking in general.”
Many changes have taken place on the global landscape since that interview, one of the most significant of which occurred on 6 November 2012. During the last United States presidential elections Washington State and Colorado join the fray by legalizing the recreational use of cannabis.
“’It’s very monumental,’ said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based group that advocates legalization. ‘No state has ever done this. Technically, marijuana isn’t even legal in Amsterdam.’”
So why did the residents of Washington and Colorado disregard the warning from the former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama Administration that “once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down”? The odds are that they realized that the war on drugs is complete madness. It’s a war that has gone through multiple mutations and over the last few decades grown into the monstrosity that it is today. A one sided war declared by nations on their citizens. A war sustained entirely due to fear, greed, and ignorance.
But the tides are turning and the times are changing. What we know for sure is that we’re moving in the right direction and our transformation is reverberating around the globe, to the dismay of some. Below you will find the most recent global map available from wikipedia on the legality of cannabis. Please pay special attention to the two dark blue areas shown in the United States of America. The 420 celebrations are bound to be quite festive in those regions, not to mention contagious.
click to enlarge – Source: ”Legality of cannabis by country”
So while dinosaurs like Canada’s Stephen Harper spew garbage trying to justify their stance on prohibition by getting lost in their own circular argument, some of the greatest thinkers of our time are pointing out the obvious, that the war on drugs is a War on Consciousness:
“I stand here invoking the hard-won right of freedom of speech to call for and demand another right to be recognised and that is the right of adult sovereignty over consciousness. There’s a war on consciousness in our society, and if we as adults are not allowed to make sovereign decisions about what to experience with our own consciousness while doing no harm to others, including the decision to use responsibly ancient and sacred visionary plants, then we cannot claim to be free in any way and it’s useless for our society to go around the world imposing our form of democracy on others while we nourish this rot at the heart of society and we do not allow individual freedom over consciousness.” – Graham Hancock, 12 January 2013, TEDx conference in Whitechapel, London
One of the most astonishing aspects of the war on drugs, specifically in relation to cannabis, is that even though the federal government has classified it as a ‘Schedule I’ substance, which means that according to the federal government the cannabis plant “has no currently accepted medical use”, in the United States there are at present 5 people who have a federal medical marijuana license.
“Rather than respond to public and political demands for marijuana’s medical availability, federal drug agencies are instead promoting bureaucratically sanctioned alternatives which are synthetic, expensive and often ineffective. It is ironic that after decades of pretending marijuana is medically useless, federal drug agencies are now aggressively pushing synthetic Marinol, the so-called ‘pot pill,’ by arguing it is as safe and effective as marijuana.”
The liberation of information that has come about thanks to the advent of the internet is reshaping our world, and one of the most important dogmas that is being challenged is the validity of prohibition. So while our centralized corporate governments enforce their archaic agendas by desperately waging war on this plant, we should keep in mind that there are countless benefits associated with ending prohibition. Benefits that we have utilized for much of human history, by developing a symbiotic relationship with one of the most beautiful creations of nature, trees (also known as cannabis, ganja, marijuana, weed, pot, herb, grass, Mary Jane, reefer, skunk, kif, Maui wowie, the chronic, and bud).
THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana, is concentrated in the flower of the cannabis plant, and since flowers are the sex organs of a plant, I cannot envision a better way to spend a day than enjoying some BC Bud. So yours truly will be taking the day off while enjoying this exquisite bounty of nature. However, below I have compiled some information on cannabis for those who wish to join in the festivities, as well as for those who wish to learn more about this plant. Consider it just a small list of some of the reasons why we should end prohibition.
While reviewing this information, the most important thing to keep in mind is that those who consume cannabis are not criminals. They are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, our grandparents and our children, and many have been sacrificed to further the agenda of certain individuals and organizations who feed off the profits from the criminalization of this plant.
Happy 420 everyone.
- History and Introduction (permalink)
- Health and Medical News (permalink)
- Politics and Economics (permalink)
- Famous Marijuana Smokers (permalink)
- Entertainment (permalink)
- Religion and Spirituality (permalink)
- Environment (permalink)
- Education (permalink)
- How to End Prohibition (permalink)
