Knowledge

It's almost Candlemas...also almost Kitty's birthday.  Kitty and I have been friends since around 1995; we worked on the Prop 215 ballot initiative together. We mainly gathered signatures, sometimes just out front of the 1444 Market club/Prop 215 campaign headquarters....but other times we went to local gatherings, grocery stores and so on.  Anywhere we could get enough signatures to help send that election over the top.

Randi and Cannabis  circa 2005

Many of the signees were surprisingly NOT hippies.  A lot of them were senior citizens, facing days of pain and nights of no sleep with little to no relief from conventional medications.  They asked really good questions...about cannabis and it's effects, about the laws as they existed at the time....we answered best we could and also had plenty of little pamphlets chock full of information.

It really did feel like the front lines though...sometimes when Jack and I were hanging signs people would hassle us and call us druggies and drug dealers.  One particular time this fellow got downright aggressive and threw things at us and our little, sign laden car.   We managed to get away without much damage to us or the car, but it sure put things into perspective for us.

Not everybody was in agreement with Prop 215....in fact some people were downright unpleasant about it.
But somehow we got our message across; compassionate use for sick and dying Californians.  And the night that law passed, Kitty and I hugged each other and cried with relief that at long last we were not going to be labeled criminals anymore.

These days, big city Californians live in a bubble. They've forgotten what it was like to be truly frightened of being arrested for a seed, let alone a bag of medicine.  Some are even too young to know that people's lives were ruined because of Cannabis Prohibition. They hear stories but, thankfully, haven't had to face the sheer terror of it all.

There are still raids, still helicopters blazing over peoples' gardens.  There's a big hassle with the "southern cartell gangs" coming up north and trying to make money off of "medico mota."   Until the laws totally change, we're going to have this problem.

But anyway, for today Fifty Five Is The New Knowledge...the word that folks like Kitty and I tried to spread back then and still preach today... Cannabis is good medicine.