This article is a collaboration between Nicole Kennebeck and Lauren Gibbs
The legend of 4/20 is a little hazy, but celebration of the plant has always been the throughline. It came in the form of music festivals, consumption events, social justice actions, or just toking with your circle of friends.
The culture of 4/20 long had a unified voice for the cause of legalization. Getting high used to be considered its own form of protest. And getting high with the buds inevitably was a consciousness raising event. Conversations would always return to a version of the refrain – Can you believe the government outlawed this plant? What is so bad about us laughing on the sofa together or entertaining a long winded soliloquy on the injustice of it all? The impromptu Ted Talk about the infinitely exciting potential of a future of full plant legalization. There was something sacred in those circles–not just in the shared joy, but the shared risk we took to be there, together.
We were high on vibes, not just weed.
4/20, in This Economy?
Along with legalization came regulation and commercialization. 4/20 became trivialized into a punchline, a clickbaity headline, a marketing scheme. It feels less about people who love the plant, more about can we make money off people who love the plant. Now folks are waiting for a coupon in the back for Westword to buy a bag. We should be getting high but we are just feeling low.
It didn't feel that way a decade ago, and those that have ridden the roller coaster of this industry know how removed we are from that excitement. We have all watched once darling businesses disappear into dust. We have witnessed the private equity takeover. We have friends who invested their lives in the green rush and lost it all. With regulation and excessive taxation, the margins are tighter than ever, making it hard for companies to grow, survive, let alone give back. In this economy, who can take a risk when they don’t know the price to keep the lights on tomorrow?
Business owners know their customers are financially stressed. They are looking for deals. They are buying less weed. When people are bargain shopping for weed, it's not about the celebration of the plant anymore. It has just become another commodity chasing the best bang for your buck. That's how we got into The THC Wars–an obsession with the most profitable molecule in the whole plant.
Along the way, weed has become this packaged product, and there is no way to get it without coming home with a pile of plastic. For as long as Gen Z has been old enough to buy weed, it has been something to pick up at the store, in a childproof mylar bag. They have no connection to the cannabis culture that many of us grew up with.
Cannabis businesses have long been able to keep hope alive because the light at the end of the tunnel of full legalization made the long game feasible. But the can keeps getting kicked down the road. Overturning the 2018 Farm Bill wasn't just a buzzkill for the hemp industry, it felt like the beginning of the end for the whole plant. It is tough to keep hope alive when the industry is on moving ground. There used to be a mission here, but we got lost in the side quest of commercialization and regulation.
We took the fun and the hope out of it.
We Lost the Plot and Killed Our High
In the beforetimes, someone had to know how to roll a joint. Now you just walk into a dispensary to get it in a plastic tube. “I know a guy”–didn’t just indicate you had a plug, it meant you had connections in the local community, the local economy. Back in the day, you had to be connected to a community to get weed, now you can literally order it online and pick it up with little friction, let alone human interaction.
That is where we lost the plot–we aren't even getting high with the buds anymore. It's about cheap and easy weed. But when we grew up it was never cheap, or easy, or a solo endeavor. It required a culture of sharing, and that community is what kept the culture alive through 80+ years of prohibition. You didn’t have to know the next person in the rotation, but you were in the same community, so you already had something in common.
We lost the plot. We lost the vibes. No wonder we are feeling low.
Take Back 4/20, Bring Back the Joy.
The loss of the 2018 Farm Bill was such a devastating blow to the true believers because we know our fates are intertwined–both in our community and the whole plant. The November 12th deadline looms large, but it is not here yet. We just need to find the damn lighter in time to reignite us!
It is time to re-spark the light at the end of the tunnel, this time with a new paradigm that unites the whole plant, centers research, patients, justice for those incarcerated, and community. There used to be a mission here, and rekindling that purpose could save us.
Chat GPT will never grow your weed. We will always need people power to grow the plant. Just like for our food, we will always need our farmers. We will always need each other.
This 4/20, we are taking time to be with our buds. We are taking time to share stories about what the plant means to us. We are taking time to cultivate community.
It's high time for the community to take back the mission of 4/20. It is not about coupons, it's about whole plant legalization. Together, with a renewed commitment to the mission, we could bring back the joy of it too.
