A Tuesday Tantrum brought to you by SMK

I occasionally I spend so much time with people who are pro-Cannabis I forget there are people out there who don't understand. For instance today I went to see my nail tech. He's asked me before what I've done for a living, and I've answered him that as he's Vietnamese and English is the cyclic language he didn't quite understand until today. Once he figured it out his response was to tell me “you're crazy”. For the next hour, he cracked jokes about me on a pot smoker  even questioning if I had tried crack? Don't get me wrong I nail tech isn't a bully he's a funny guy. Nevertheless I could tell that the propaganda and stereotype of Cannabis that he held in his head was negative.

How is it that people can be so easily convinced that Cannabis is harmful? Was I ever convinced? I think back to my days in D. A. R. E. It was an overcrowded classroom with one teacher and one police officer to supervise nearly to 40 kids. The handouts were like a coloring book and officer stories were so mild I don't think anyone was convinced. I don't remember him mentioning harder drugs or legal drugs like alcohol and pharmaceuticals. Which together rack up death tolls around 175,000 annually in the United States. I don't remember considering it as truth for even a moment when he told me that plant Cannabis was a drug either. In fact, what I remember most about that D. A. R. E. class was the segment that covered AIDS. Maybe some of the kids had never heard of drugs before as I'm pretty sure many have never heard of AIDS. After the officer gave a brief description, he attempted to shake the hand of the boy sitting in the desk behind me. The boy would not extend his hand to the officer. As I had already had this discussion with my parents, and knew it wasn’t transmitted by a handshake, I eventually leaned back over his desk and took the officer's hand. Perhaps some people just believe the first thing they hear. Especially as children who are taught never to question anything.

After discovering tons of immensely ridiculous ads making outlandish claims that Cannabis can: kill you, be shot up, trigger you to switch teams, drain your beauty, ruining your teeth, etc. The propaganda and how it influences our society is in the forefront of my mind. To those of us who are in the Cannabis industry or on the edges of it, know people in the industry, and/or are inclined to read actual empirical evidence find these outrages blatant lies are nothing more than something for our amusement. Aren't we outnumbered though? If more people buy into the misleading campaigns against Cannabis than have the ability to recognize it as nonsense, why should we let that be a joke? Should we not stand up and call for blackout of such misinformation? It seems to me that our tolerance is every bit as liable for the gap in communication, understanding, and knowledge between anti-and pro-sides of the issue.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it stems from the belief that humans are capable of sharing a unanimous opinion. It blurs the line between ‘we’ and ‘I’. It allows right and wrong to pose as a reality inside my mind when in truth there is only ‘is’. So how can this thing that bothers me change? Since I can only lay claim to my own actions and since I am such a tiny piece of a large puzzle how can I make an impact?

I don't know. Maybe it can't be changed. It is probable there will be little to no impact from my immediate action is anyways. I'm not the kind of girl who backs down from a fight though. So what am I going to do? The same thing that I've always done, which is write letters to the people that are responsible when something upsets me, only now I'm going to do it without sharing the actual propaganda itself.