Sarah McCulloch.com
Writer-activist-entrepreneur-geek-hack-generally-creative-thing
Guest post by ElectroPig™ Von FökkenGrüüven.
Overgrow the world.
Several years back, after watching one, two, three…more…too many decent, honest people dying of cancer, I created “Overgrow The World” (OTW) as a way to help educate and inform others of the benefits of cannabis for medicinal purposes, and to serve as a “central clearing house” of sorts, where information would be available to help this idea along. Shortly after starting the site, two of the most important global events in the cannabis community occurred. The “vacation raid” of Rick Simpson’s home (November 25th, 2009) while he was in Amsterdam receiving the Freedom Fighter of The Year award from High Times Magazine, and the heart attack (September 2009) and eventual death of Jack Herer (April 15th, 2010).
OTW was the first site to publish anything seriously about Rick’s
home being “raided”, while few agreed to publish anything. I had
friends in Amsterdam at the time, so I got the news within hours of Rick himself finding out about the situation back home.
One of the things that OTW was created to do was to serve as a “launchpad”, where all honest cannabis information web sites would be linked, so that if we didn’t already have the specific information needed, we would have a link to the site(s) that did, and we could send visitors wherever they needed to go.
OTW was not designed to generate revenue nor fame. Unfortunately, the vast majority of web sites out there don’t want to be linked to anyone who wants to see prohibition REPEALED. They don’t want to allow anyone else to “steal their thunder”, as their incomes and/or egos rely on “credit taking”, rather than actually achieving concrete results for the people who provide those web sites with their income streams. In effect, a situation has arisen where there are more people profiting off prohibition today than who honestly want to see it ended. This needs to be shifted back in favour of the good of The People.
I’ve been rather vocal about this, and in the process I’ve been attacked repatedly by a few “big names” in the cannabis/hemp community. I can live with that. I understand that these “big names” are just like the corrupt police, politicians and courts: their livelihood is based on the fact that prohibition exists, so if I were successful in getting people to think about all aspects of the situation, I might lead enough people into making the right decisions, and we could finally move towards the repeal of all these failed statutes.
One of the things that OTW was created to do was to serve as a “launchpad”, where all honest cannabis information web sites would be linked, so that if we didn’t already have the specific information needed, we would have a link to the site(s) that did, and we could send visitors wherever they needed to go.
OTW was not designed to generate revenue nor fame. Unfortunately, the vast majority of web sites out there don’t want to be linked to anyone who wants to see prohibition REPEALED. They don’t want to allow anyone else to “steal their thunder”, as their incomes and/or egos rely on “credit taking”, rather than actually achieving concrete results for the people who provide those web sites with their income streams. In effect, a situation has arisen where there are more people profiting off prohibition today than who honestly want to see it ended. This needs to be shifted back in favour of the good of The People.
Alcohol vs. cannabis
I’ve been rather vocal about this, and in the process I’ve been attacked repatedly by a few “big names” in the cannabis/hemp community. I can live with that. I understand that these “big names” are just like the corrupt police, politicians and courts: their livelihood is based on the fact that prohibition exists, so if I were successful in getting people to think about all aspects of the situation, I might lead enough people into making the right decisions, and we could finally move towards the repeal of all these failed statutes.
Over the last few years, I’ve been asked to attend so many events
that when someone came up with the idea of buying an RV and just going
to all of them, it struck me as a valid concept…if enough
support can be found to get it onto the streets where it belongs. The
idea sitting in your head does nobody any good.
So the idea of the Overgrow The World 2012 North American Tour is simple: To get on the roads all across North America, providing the public with honest, accurate information about why the “war on drugs” needs to end, and the benefits of simply not doing the wrong thing any longer.
Most people believe that the hemp festivals and medical expos are the only way we’re going to help educate our fellow citizens, but the problem is that most people never attend such events. Either they don’t know the event(s) exist at all, or they’re simply too far away to make the trip. The simplest answer is to put that information on the road, a mobile billboard travelling from one coast to the other, from the top of the continent to the bottom, and all points in between, helping to inform people by providing providing information and web links, including on the side of the bus, providing information everywhere it travels.
The main difficulty is that there are too many competing interests out there, not only outside, but within the cannabis/hemp marketplace who only want to see their specific self-fractionalized faction get what they want, regardless of how many people continue to suffer.
So the idea of the Overgrow The World 2012 North American Tour is simple: To get on the roads all across North America, providing the public with honest, accurate information about why the “war on drugs” needs to end, and the benefits of simply not doing the wrong thing any longer.
Most people believe that the hemp festivals and medical expos are the only way we’re going to help educate our fellow citizens, but the problem is that most people never attend such events. Either they don’t know the event(s) exist at all, or they’re simply too far away to make the trip. The simplest answer is to put that information on the road, a mobile billboard travelling from one coast to the other, from the top of the continent to the bottom, and all points in between, helping to inform people by providing providing information and web links, including on the side of the bus, providing information everywhere it travels.
It would probably look something like this.
The main difficulty is that there are too many competing interests out there, not only outside, but within the cannabis/hemp marketplace who only want to see their specific self-fractionalized faction get what they want, regardless of how many people continue to suffer.
The “medical only” people don’t care about hemp farmers, since they
don’t grow “medicinally viable varieties”, and they can’t stand the
“casual crowd” since many medicinal cannabis users aren’t using cannabis
“to get high”, and they take offense at those who do.
Casual users don’t care about medicinal uses, since their prevailing doctrine is “I got mine.” They also have no feeling whatsoever for the hemp market, and for the same reasons as the medicinal users: farmers don’t grow medicinally beneficial varieties.
Hemp farmers, of course, don’t want to be associated with “dumbass potheads” for the obvious stereotypical and propagandized reasons, and they also don’t want anything to do with medicinal cannabis, even though they would stand to benefit most, as under a full repeal of cannabis/hemp prohibition, farmers would then be able to grow whatever strain of cannabis they wished, making a single crop available to multiple markets. Logically, if a farmer grew medicinally beneficial varieties, they could then sell the bud for medicinal uses, the seed for food and/or fuel, and the stalks for fiber and fuel (cellulosic ethanol), and the leaves could be tilled back into their fields as free fertilizer. Three crops in one would enable them to earn a better living, while helping lower soil toxicity, reducing the amount of toxins in their soil and in subsequent crops, and helping to lower the overall pesticide levels in the food supply.
But we will not repeal prohibition fully unless and until we all understand the benefits of this plant, and this requires the education of hundreds of millions of people out there that don’t already know what we know, and understanding that we’re all fighting the same fight.
Nobody else is out there doing this, even though we all realize that we need to reach a critical informed mass in order to get the job done, so when the suggestion came to just “get it on the road”, I figured it would be worth a shot. I’m willing to put in the time…now all I need is the backing. We need to get the RV, to collect the best information from the best sources, and simply start driving and give it all away to anyone who sees the bus on the road, or at an event.
Casual users don’t care about medicinal uses, since their prevailing doctrine is “I got mine.” They also have no feeling whatsoever for the hemp market, and for the same reasons as the medicinal users: farmers don’t grow medicinally beneficial varieties.
Hemp farmers, of course, don’t want to be associated with “dumbass potheads” for the obvious stereotypical and propagandized reasons, and they also don’t want anything to do with medicinal cannabis, even though they would stand to benefit most, as under a full repeal of cannabis/hemp prohibition, farmers would then be able to grow whatever strain of cannabis they wished, making a single crop available to multiple markets. Logically, if a farmer grew medicinally beneficial varieties, they could then sell the bud for medicinal uses, the seed for food and/or fuel, and the stalks for fiber and fuel (cellulosic ethanol), and the leaves could be tilled back into their fields as free fertilizer. Three crops in one would enable them to earn a better living, while helping lower soil toxicity, reducing the amount of toxins in their soil and in subsequent crops, and helping to lower the overall pesticide levels in the food supply.
But we will not repeal prohibition fully unless and until we all understand the benefits of this plant, and this requires the education of hundreds of millions of people out there that don’t already know what we know, and understanding that we’re all fighting the same fight.
Non-hippies also welcome.
Nobody else is out there doing this, even though we all realize that we need to reach a critical informed mass in order to get the job done, so when the suggestion came to just “get it on the road”, I figured it would be worth a shot. I’m willing to put in the time…now all I need is the backing. We need to get the RV, to collect the best information from the best sources, and simply start driving and give it all away to anyone who sees the bus on the road, or at an event.
More information about the tour here.
Subscribe to SarahMcCulloch.com via Email! (or via RSS!)
Subscribe to SarahMcCulloch.com via Email! (or via RSS!)
No comments:
Post a Comment