It doesn't belong to any of us

If you've lived here for any length of time, you realize you hear a lot more talk about stewardship of the Earth lately.

You are stewards. We are stewards. All of us are.

Not the best ones yet, apparently; but stewards nonetheless. We must care for this place.

Stewardship is something you must learn. You try things; see what works.

So the fact there has been cannabis farming and cannabis use throughout recorded time says history might be trying to tell the world something. Something all of us should be listening to now. Something about stewardship. Something good.

This is likely the most useful, most utilitarian plant in the whole world and might even resolve our world's warming if we let it. It might be used soon as a solution for pretty much everything. But our United States; our government, says it is bad; so very, very bad. Illegal too.

Nonetheless, you can make nearly everything from it. The uses range from a cannabis product called hempcrete which hardens for much longer periods than conventional concrete and is clearly superior to any traditional concrete. Hempcrete actually continues to remove carbon for decades after it is used to build a structure. Some estimates say a wall made of hempcrete could last 600 to 800 years. Cannabis stalks and cannabis seeds can be used to produce a literally endless variety of higher quality products like shampoos, oils, inks, papers, foods, composites; and the whole gamut of functional to high end clothing that really lasts. Some of the highest quality products in practically any market segment are made from cannabis. As you might have guessed, this type of cannabis is commonly called hemp. Cannabis classified as industrial hemp can be used for all these things and; generally, has less than 1% THC.

It is the most balanced food source on the earth. It doesn't require lots of fertilizers and actually enriches the soil because of long thick roots that detach each time it is harvested, which could be several times per year given proper conditions. And it grows anywhere.

Does that sound like a plant that we should not be allowed to grow ourselves in an allegedly free country?

It is a fair question. I chat strangers up all the time and ask them.

Most older people get a little mad at me at first when I point all these things like this out to them. “Its bad,” they say.

The ongoing propaganda efforts by our government and its bureaucrats are tied to corporate interests. This is one of those self-evident things. It is not an accident that so much money, time and effort have been invested to demonize all forms of cannabis.

This propaganda effort began earnestly in the United States in the early twentieth century. But those efforts got interrupted by Hemp for Victory when World War 2 came around. Suddenly, it was all good again. But just for the duration of the war.

Woody Harrelson narrated a well crafted documentary in 1999 called “Grass” that recounts what you have been told by our government and its proxy media for the past hundred years about cannabis and how absurd it all looks now.

Our country used to say cannabis was good.

You used to even be able to pay your taxes with it.

Be well.