Full disclosure – I wrote this almost 20 years ago now, and even though cannabis is now legal in several US states and on a federal level in Canada and Germany, it’s more important than ever that the Drug War ends.
The current US administration is filled with alcoholics that are using the Drug War as a pretext to kill people of color. Those boats getting blown up in the Eastern Pacific aren’t too far away from my own doorstep.
How many people has the White Empire killed using fentanyl as an excuse? Meanwhile, the Sackler family walked free after agreeing to a meager settlement.
END THE DRUG WAR NOW.
The Emerald Circle
It’s been 79 years since the Marijuana Tax Act was passed in 1937. Recent decades have shown some progress and finally, the facade of Prohibition is starting to fall apart.
The Canadian legalization process took decades but was ultimately successful and recent rulings in Mexico have opened up the road to nationwide legalization. Success in the United States has mostly been at the state level. Efforts of anti-Prohibitionists to counter this alarmist and misguided social policy with facts, studies and logic are finally reaching the federal government.
As legalization progresses, what is the next step? Further education of the general public? Decades of misinformation have taken their toll. “Reefer Madness” continues to be a stumbling block to the commercial success of cannabis.
Proponents of cannabis legalization are heavily focused on the results of their efforts. The movement focuses almost exclusively on a result, the legalization of marijuana.
Instead of trying to break or damage the Prohibitionist ideology, the legalization movement should build another ideological system. This competing system will empower marginalized groups by demonstrating what they all have in common and appeal to even the most reefer-mad voter.
The Why, Not the What
Logically, the lies that prop up Prohibition should be successfully countered by the truth and hard facts.
Prohibitionists don’t care about the truth or the facts. They continue to ignore them. What exactly do they care about, and why?
Prohibition advocates are more focused on the efforts they make to achieve the result. This is why they are not affected by the logical assertion that “Prohibition simply doesn’t work.” The results of Prohibition are not as important as the efforts made towards achieving that end.
It is the effort that drives the Prohibitionists, not the result, and this effort relies heavily on a system of belief that will never be swayed by facts.
“It’s not WHAT they do. It’s WHY they do it,” Simon Sinek asserts in his TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action.
This lecture is more about marketing and product positioning than civil disobedience, but Sinek uses inspirational civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. to help illustrate his point. His “Golden Circle” is constructed based on what motivates people and why.
It’s the why that’s important, not the what.
Every lie the Prohibitionists tell themselves and the rest of us about pot aren’t really about pot at all. Every myth about cannabis for recreation or medicine that Prohibitionists use is connected to a bigger picture, and ideology driven by very basic human emotions, the greatest of which is fear.
When a Prohibitionist sees the green marijuana leaf, it is not a literal depiction of a plant to their eyes. It is a symbol their worst fears. Some common, non-specific fears are fairly obvious, like the fear of terrorism or poverty.
Other more intangible fears include the fear of competing ideologies. For example, environmentalism stresses a world that is not human-centric. Socialist policies stress the good of the group as opposed to the individual.
The leaders of the Prohibitionist movement insist that marijuana is the source of many, if not all, of these real or imagined threats. The anti-Prohibitionists have this backwards. Most of the dialogue of the anti-prohibitionist starts with the “what” – the legalization of marijuana, which is the ultimate goal.
But why are we doing it?
The Circle Template
We can view the Prohibitionist ideology of fear in a simplified form using Simon Sinek’s “Golden Circle” diagram as a template.
Why – to protect you from all the bad stuff in the world (crime, poverty, terrorism, sickness, sin),
How – by doing everything we can to eradicate this plant, which is the source of your horrors, and punish anyone who touches it,
What – marijuana prohibition.
As overblown as the “why” claim sounds, it succeeds by appealing to the most basic and childlike needs and desires of every human being alive. It simplifies complex problems and blames a single, outside entity for them, real or perceived.
The “why” encompasses the purpose, cause and beliefs of the Prohibitionists.
Because without marijuana Prohibition protecting us, terrorists and criminals would swarm over society in days, leaving us completely powerless. We just can’t take that chance!
Another fringe benefit of the fear factor is that it gives the Prohibitionists the impression that they are constantly being attacked by these malevolent and insidious forces, which justifies their aggression against their opponents as a form of self-defence. This is how Prohibitionists justify harassing otherwise harmless people who are clearly not criminals.
This also explains why a Prohibitionist can rationalize their own personal pot use. The effort to eradicate marijuana certainly won’t include them. They don’t include themselves in any of the groups typically associated with marijuana (liberals or “leftists”).
The Legalization Movement needs its own Golden Circle. We need to recognize and use our own powers rather than work within the framework the Prohibitionists have built.
Breaking Prohibition doesn’t mean only the legalization of cannabis. It will empower the entire human race. And that means everyone. Inclusion is important because Division is one of the Prohibitionists’ favorite weapons (they keep it right next to Fear in the Authoritarian toolbox).
Emerald Circles
The Emerald Circle is about inclusion, improving the quality of life of everyone, and freedom from fear, anger and exclusion. Historic context is also important, as the Prohibitionists bristle at the thought of a world that existed without them.
In a very broad sense, this is one all encompassing form the Emerald Circle can take.
Why – to improve the quality of life for every single human being on this earth,
How – reducing and even eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels by discovering and developing alternative fuel resources, eliminating corruption in police and government, saving millions in taxes and fees and delays in our court processes related to overcrowding and lack of funds, etc. (pretty much everything that farmers, doctors, economists and hippies been trying to say for the past 90 years),
What – LEGALIZE IT.
The Emerald Circle is just as supernatural in its claims as the Prohibitionist counterpart. However, every one of these things is possible with legalization even if in a tangential way.
It makes more sense to break down the Emerald Circle into specific categories and apply it to different ideologies. For example, for those concerned with factory farming or GMO seeds and crops the Emerald Circle would focus on a different aspect of Prohibition.
Why – improve food production, availability, affordability and quality,
How – lift the restrictions against hardy and versatile crops that farmers are currently not allowed to seed, grow or cultivate,
What – LEGALIZE IT.
The connections to the bigger picture here include industrialized hemp as well as any seed that has been genetically modified or restricted for farmers to use, like certain types of corn. The Legalization Movement stand firmly in solidarity with another group, one that opposes genetically modified crops and factory farming but has the same ideological goals.
The message is a positive one that focuses on inclusion, empowerment and appeals to those that are concerned about the quality of their food or, on a more extreme level, afraid of starvation. Groups like Monsanto use the fear of starvation and unemployment to coerce both farmers and consumers into accepting factory farming and genetically modified crops. Nor does Monsanto allow its customers to choose what they grow.
The message of the Emerald Circle is diametrically opposed to the one that Monsanto and their supporters use. It empowers instead of bullies. It encourages self-sufficiency as opposed to relying on corporations to curate our food supply.
Here’s another example that demonstrates the wider appeal of this philosophy.
Why – lessen the costs associated with health care while at the same time improving quality and delivery,
How – by allowing patients to use natural and holistic alternatives that are scientifically proven to be effective against a variety of ailments and have been quality produced and tested by experts,
What – LEGALIZE IT.
Concerns about the cost and delivery of health care are serious issues, so this appeals to anyone. This includes any and all patients (remember, inclusion is important) but can be applied to chronic patients that also need expensive prescriptions over long periods of time.
In this instance, we include anyone who is concerned about the costs in a general sense as well as the side-effects of prescription drugs that are distributed via the health care system and the ulterior motives of the companies that produce them. Government and insurance companies play on the fear of removing health care entirely when they insist that they must make cutbacks or increase premiums under the guise on improving or even saving the system from total destruction, depriving the frightened and vulnerable of a world entirely without health care.
The Emerald Circle combats this feeling of helplessness and empowers patients and doctors alike instead of threatening them.
One more example and perhaps the most poignant considering the driving forces in North American politics these days.
Why – eliminate our dependence on petroleum,
How – by researching and developing alternative forms of clean and renewable energy sources of plastic and other petroleum based products,
What – LEGALIZE IT.
This includes hemp, of course, but can apply to virtually any alternative fuel source. Hemp is an option for replacing petroleum either as a bio-diesel or an ethanol fuel.
This counters the alarmist claims of petroleum advocates who claim that without oil we would all have to go back to living in caves, appealing to the basic human fears of poverty or material loss. The general understanding is that petroleum is so important that we simply can’t live without it, even though we did so and thrived as a society and species for many thousands of years.
Just like the Prohibitionists who insist that making plants illegal is a normal practice and is common throughout human history when the contrary is true.
Fighting this false ideology that has been the Prohibitionist gravy train for almost a century by trying to challenge it with facts may seem like the obvious answer but it has proven to be futile. A competing ideology, one that uses the opposite tactics (inclusion where there is division, empowerment where there is helplessness) and appeals to positive human emotions instead of negative ones can succeed where raw data has failed.
The Emerald Circle is not a marketing ploy or a psychological trick. It is the natural evolution of normalizing cannabis. The Legalization Movement needs to remind humanity of the positive things they were capable of, and will be again, in a world without cannabis Prohibition.
References
Hemp Ethanol Saves the World: http://hemp-ethanol.blogspot.com/2008/01/economics-history-and-politics-of-hemp.html
“Mexico: February 22 Recreational Marijuana is Legal.” The Mazatlán Post. Last modified February 17, 2019. https://themazatlanpost.com/2019/02/16/mexico-february-22-recreational-marijuana-is-legal/.
Simon Sinek, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
“The Emperor’s Wears No Clothes”, Jack Herer, AH HA Publishing, 2007.
US Legal, Inc. “Marijuana Tax Act Law and Legal Definition.” Legal Definitions Legal Terms Dictionary | USLegal, Inc. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/marijuana-tax-act%20/.
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