We’ve All Done It!
With the holidays fast approaching cannabis consumers know the deal. Sneaking off to take a “walk” before a family dinner or “taking a drive to pick up an item you forgot” just to spray yourself with Febreze and drop some Visine after a nice toasty little session. Then getting the obligatory dirty looks from The War on Drugs indoctrinated family members upon your arrival back to the family get together.
If you’re like most people you probably just keep to yourself to avoid any conflict. But as a cannabis activist, educator, grower and freedom fighter the question of “so Nik what are you up to these days?” can’t help but be met with honesty. If you grew up in a conservative Catholic Indiana family the way that I did then you know that indoctrination is what they love and that truth is their enemy. Armed with a plethora of information ready to combat the lies they believe in with cited sources I put myself in a great position to try to enlighten people.
The Endocannabinoid System
Lets start with the endocannabinoid system. If you’ve read my previous blogs you already know what the endocannabinoid system is, but for the purposes of this blog lets run through it really quickly. The ECS is how we absorb and metabolize the constituents of the cannabis plant, specifically THC and other phytocannabinoids.
What a lot of people don’t know is within this system we create our own endogenous cannabinoids, these are anandamide and 2-AG. These endogenous cannabinoids work directly with our bodies to help maintain homeostasis. So it begs the question (and I’ll ask the question to my relatives) if you are against cannabis why do you create it yourself? This always stumps people and exemplifies just how little they know about cannabis and therefore how little they can argue against it.
I love to reference specific sources when discussing the topic of cannabis with loved ones. If you have ever watched the documentary The Union by Brett Harvey or The Culture High also by Brett Harvey you know how well he documents the history of cannabis, the war on drugs and what it was really about. A race fueled campaign designed by the US government to keep their boot heel on the necks of African Americans and Mexican immigrants. A third source is The Emperor Wears no Cloths by Jack Herer, that is not only about cannabis, but how specifically hemp can change the world and in his words, save the world.
All three of these sources are going to have information that might seem foreign to conservatives. This foreign information is known to most as facts, evidence or proof. Because members of the US government have come out and admitted that the War on Drugs was anything but that, and in fact admitted the truth that it was and is a war on people. It is not easy to change the minds of people that are a slave to their own conformation biases, but we must. Because if you live and work in the cannabis space your very future and life may depend on it.
