Taking Back Our Choices

Happy 4/20.  Whether you celebrate the day or not, today is a good day to talk about how we are influenced in our daily lives by what happens when big business, government and media meet and we are caught in the middle.  This happens every day, and most of us do  not realize just how prevalent it really is.  Or becau, se it is so prevalent, we don’t want to accept it.  And it is hard to accept that we have been given very little choice in many of our day to day choices.

A century ago, there was a very successful businessman named William Randolph Hearst.  Most people are unaware of who his, much less exactly how much he affected his times, and how much he is still affecting us every day.  Mr. Hearst, much like many of our corporation heads today, owned companies in several different industries:  media (newspapers, movies and movie theaters), lumber (paper), mining, and politics. That’s a pretty potent mix, and he was not afraid to use it.

Historically, marijuana was not illegal.  Our forefathers grew it on their plantations.  However, hemp, which is a particular strain of marijuana, is not friendly to a rich businessman/politician who makes his money from newspapers printed on paper made from wood pulp from his lumber mills.  During the 1930’s along comes a movie called Reefer Madness.  And since our good friend, Mr. Hearst, was not just in the paper business, but the movie business as well, and had no scruples about lying to advance any cause that would benefit him (he is known to this day as “the Father of Yellow Journalism”), and he was involved in politics, who better to advance the anti-marijuana agenda?

Does any of this sound familiar?  It is the exact same thing that corporations, billionaires and politicians are continuing to do  to this day.  The same system that we have counted on, is the same system that has failed us, and continues to do so.  So today, 4/20, I’m not just advocating for a right to medicate as I choose.  I’m taking back my choices.  I’m taking back my rights, and what the Spirit has granted me, and granted to all of us.