The Premise

I recently purchased a paperback copy of The Cannabis Manifesto and began going head first into the world of Steve DeAngelo, a leading Cannabis advocate.

Blocking time in my calendar for a good read is hard at the moment. Family and a 40+hour job tends to take up a majority of daylight so barreling through a book in an expedited fashion is just not in the cards. I’ve slowly edged my way into chapter 4 titled Choose Cannabis for Wellness, Not Intoxication.

Since I haven’t turned the final page yet, a true product review (inserting shameless plug now, #puffprovisionsreviews) is still in the making.

However, I wanted to bring light on a certain thing he said.

Since the passage of legalization in Colorado and Washington, the term “recreational use” has become the catchall phrase to describe “just getting high”—or intoxication. This is unfortunate, because the phrase obscures more than it illuminates, and it perpetuates misconceptions about cannabis that have kept it illegal for decades.

Steve pushes even further with the overall interpretation of recreational vs medical use and provides a self evaluation on how he classifies his own usage. At the end of the day, I interpreted his critique of modern day terms for Cannabis usage as misguided. It made me think that we as a Cannabis community are starting to reveal our own values toward this plant and that every person’s story is different.

The Reflection

As I look back on my own Cannabis consumption (18 years and counting) I can definitely say that my usage has evolved since that very first puff. My journey started out by way of curiosity. I then started using it regularly throughout my undergrad years and into my young adult life. I took my life into unexpected turns by way of misdemeanor DWI (alcohol) and even further with job loss via 08’s Great Recession.

Figuring out those obscure life obstacles required my sobriety and I consciously chose to go cold turkey on several libations (Cannabis, tobacco, alcohol) in order for me to regroup.

10+ years later, things have evolved yet again. I went back to school, got into software development as a career, got married and had a kid. I also value my health and wellness a lot more than I did renegading in my 20s. Life continues to move forward and I find myself in open arms with Cannabis again. Alcohol not so much.

I use Cannabis as a way to destress, as a pain management alternative to aspirin/ibuprofen or more pill popping extremes. But for the most part, I use it to simply calm everything down.

I’m 4 chapters into this read with 4 more to go. But I had to take a moment to stop and ask…what’s your relationship to Cannabis?

Feel free to drop a line in the comments section below.