Weed is Magic: A Rant in Two Parts

Can we bring back the magic? Can cannabis be “the plant that will save the world” again? I know that the scientists will tell you that cannabis isn’t “magic”. They will say something like, “actually, it’s the CBD in combination with the Limonene and the Delta 9 THC and yadda yadda that create the ‘magic’ you ascribe to this plant.” To that I say: Phooey. The cannabis plant will always be relevant and should be held sacred and treated with reverence and respect. For serious. I almost got in a fight (okay, that’s an exaggeration; I had a really heated debate) with a scientist that told a room full of people that “one day we won’t even need the plant. We will be able to synthesize the relevant compounds and the plant will be inconsequential.” What the fuck. Pardon my French, but ain’t no way you can tell me that the plant that has served as good medicine for thousands of years, the plant that makes better paper than trees and better fabrics than cotton, the plant that replenishes the soil as it grows, the plant that has inspired creativity from Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby to Willie Nelson, Cypress Hill, Rihanna, and countless others, is inconsefuckingquential? Have you lost your mind? Cannabis is magical. It brings people together. You stand in a circle when you smoke it, making everyone in the circle equal for at least as long as it takes to smoke a joint. I’m friends with people that I would have never thought to talk to if it weren’t for weed. That’s magic. Weed loves it when people work together to make things better for Everyone. So please, remember the plant and keep it holy. Reread Jack Herer’s book and get re-inspired. HEMP CAN SAVE THE WORLD. 

PART II

Have y’all figured it out yet? If you haven’t, please allow me to break it down for you: CANNABIS HATES CAPITALISM. There. I said it. And you need to listen. If you haven’t been paying attention, cannabis stocks are in a freefall. Medmen stocks are worth zero cents each. Tilray can’t make any money. And there are more multi-state operators swirling the drain as we speak. Why? The answer is simple: CANNABIS LOVES FREEDOM, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND DECENTRALIZATION! I know, it probably sounds weird to all the stock-slinging, block-chain-loving, Artificial-Intelligence-embracing, NFT-chasing people reading this, but weed doesn’t care about your market share. Pot doesn’t give a shit about your EBTIDA. Trust me. I talked to Cannabis last night (and this morning) and she told me that people in the cannabis business need to stop being such greedy capitalist hogs (remember: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered), and get back into the more hippified way of doing well by doing good. And before you get all upset, understand this: Cannabis likes money. Cannabis has been in the money game longer than money has been around. Cannabis doesn’t like greedy people. And that’s not science, it’s magic. 

Some of you are very young, so you weren’t around in the early days of the cannabis legalization movement. Some of you didn’t get into the cannabis business space until after legalization, so you think of cannabis as just another commodity, like seed corn or sugar beets. Some of you may have forgotten, or you weren’t around for the glory days of one of the best decentralized business models the world had ever seen. There used to be more than enough money to go around. Growers made good money. Sellers made good money. Hell, even the trimmers made good money. Now, mom and pop farms are floundering, and trimmers get paid by the hour. And that’s because we have allowed the single-minded pursuit of profit to keep us from our goals. Here’s a quick refresher on The Goals: legalize weed, help the sick and infirm with medical cannabis, and make a little cash to be comfortable while we’re at it. I’m old enough to remember when people weren’t trying to corner the market. In fact, if your operation got too big, the feds would show up and take you to prison. Most of the early cannabis dispensary owners operated in defiance of federal law, risking their freedom every time they opened their doors. Ask Luke Scarmazzo. Ask Virgil Grant. Activists gave up their freedoms and sometimes their lives for this plant, and now folks that had nothing to do with legalization want to own every dispensary in every state,  siphoning all the money away from local communities. “Sure we grow average weed and sell it at inflated prices, but hey, the stock price went up by two cents, so we only lost 100 million dollars this year!” You don’t have to be a scientist to realize that this business model isn’t good for anyone involved. And once again, there are plenty of ways to make good money in the cannabis industry without making things worse for everyone in a desperate attempt to control the entire space. You can figure it out. So please, make money. But make good money. Make money unselfishly. Can you do it? I bet you can. Good luck.