Stay Lit This 4/20

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Kerri Connor, author of several books, including the new CBD for Your Health, Mind & Spirit and the new Conjuring with Cannabis.

One of my favorite holidays is upon us: April 20th, aka 420. This is the day when stoners across America…well, get stoned. It’s pretty much like every other day, but on 420 it’s not only more socially acceptable, it is now capitalistically encouraged with promises of huge sales.

It’s a day when dispensaries give away cheap, logoed products to get you to do their advertising for them, but offer no real discounts that would cut into their profits and bottom line.

There are approximately 40,000 Americans for whom 420 is not a holiday at all. These people aren’t receiving free branded frisbees nor vape batteries. These people, many being BIPOC, are still sitting in jail for cannabis-related charges. These people are still being punished for something millions of others are finally allowed to partake in.

The history of the United States has clearly laid out the path taken by local, state, and the federal government to ban marijuana, cannabis, and hemp: to not only control the BIPOC population, but also to wipe out the hemp industry while protecting and boosting the lumbar and petroleum industries (along with their investors).

This year, when you are getting ready for 420, be sure to plan accordingly:

• Donate and sign up for the email list for The Last Prisoner Project at www.lastprisonerproject.org.
• Research your state laws. Have people serving time for cannabis charges been released? Have records been expunged? Write to your elected state elected officials to support release and expungement.
• Write letters to federal elected officials and demand cannabis be removed from Schedule 1 classification under the Controlled Substances Act.
• Light up the phone lines of your elected officials—along with your own bowl.

As a mostly white woman who lives in state that now allows both medical and recreational cannabis, I have been able to benefit from this plant in all areas of my life: physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. I understand the importance of people like me fighting for those who have been punished for using the exact same plant.

As a pagan, I understand the importance of fighting for NO government control over a plant that has not only been used medicinally and spiritually for thousands of years in pre-Christian eastern religions and practices but was also used in the United States for medicinal purposes until greed won out.

This 420, whether you partake or not with cannabis, be sure to partake with your heart, mind, and, most importantly, actions.

Stay lit,
Kerri Connor

Our thanks to Kerri for her guest post! For more from Kerri Connor, read her article “Signs, Symbols & Synchronicities (and Cannabis) for Shadow Work.”