4/20 2021: Your DIY Guide to Protest Under Lockdown
CANNABIS CULTURE – Liberty through street art.
This is an article about what I think pot activists should do to honor the now-traditional April 20th day of cannabis celebration and protest, given that, in some places, there are a surging number of cases of COVID-19, and in some cases, more deadly variants circulating.
To understand the full nature of COVID-19 and the safety and efficacy of various proprietary and non-proprietary treatments, please check out these articles at Cannabis Culture and this show on Pot TV.
https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2020/03/30/covid-19-cannabis-herbal-medicine/
https://www.pot.tv/video/2020/11/12/sars-cov-2-natural-medicine-and-marijuana/
As a cannabis activist for 29 years who has studied the issue carefully, I have come to the conclusion that continued post-legalization prohibition of cannabis and over-regulation of industrial hemp threatens the existence of humanity, through climate destabilization by denying carbon-negative hemp ethanol the ability to compete with fossil fuels, by the brutality against (and – in some places – genocidal war against) the herbally autonomous, and by the crushing poverty enforced through the prohibition and/or cartelization of the cannabis economy.
As activists, we have a duty to draw attention to these injustices in any effective way possible – even if it means risking arrest in acts of civil disobedience in order to draw attention to the issue. My first inclination during the current pandemic was to skip rally season for the year 2020, and as the case rate fell, start them up again on a smaller scale.
Image from: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102
But in BC, the case rate is surging – we have more new daily cases than ever – and even if rally attendees were to be completely responsible and mask up and keep 6 feet apart and not share joints (as unlikely as that seems, given how many idiotic anti-maskers there are in Vancouver) – the media would definitely spin the event as being criminally irresponsible, and further proof that the pioneer cannabis community is too irresponsible to be allowed to grow and distribute cannabis for a living.
So, after having created a rally poster to promote a smaller version of 4/20 at the art gallery, I created another poster canceling the event.
This, of course, does not mean that rallies will forever be vanquished by COVID, nor does it mean that activists can do nothing in their area, even if cases are surging.
Along with event posters such as the one above, I like to put up educational posters, to explain why the event is being held. Having done this for years, I usually make a new poster with the latest information, as well as having dozens of these types of posters in storage, ready for the next rally season to commence. This year was no exception. I recently did a night of postering in Vancouver – unrelated to any particular event – just to educate the general population on why it was important to protest the current cannabis regulatory model. This is the latest poster I created for the educational campaign:
And here are some photos of the posters I put up around Vancouver in the Commercial Drive and Hastings Street areas:
Poster photographs by Signe Knutson
I personally use a mixture of 1 part wood glue and 10 parts water, with an extra bottle of glue and an extra water bottle to adjust the mix to perfection while doing the postering. I have a few rags with me to wipe the glue off the front of the poster, and an extra brush duck-taped to a pole for higher up spots. I usually have some large-text posters to be read more easily for the higher spots, and a variety of sizes to match with a variety of surface areas to poster on.
Poster photographs by Signe Knutson
With a basket mounted on a bicycle, one can cover quite a large area in a short time. I like bus stops and high-traffic areas that people are stopped at anyways. I usually poster facing towards sidewalks and away from streets, to make it even harder for clean-up crews to spot. And I always do some off the beaten path, to make sure my messages stay up for a while.
Poster photographs by Signe Knutson
Postering in this manner has achieved great success – the size of the rallies is relative to the amount of postering done, and the success of the acts of civil disobedience (and the growth of the rallies) is dependant on having good attendance in the first place. With big rallies come other things like good reporters and good judges and good politicians being able to rationalize good work done in cannabis-regulations reform.
Poster photographs by Signe Knutson
But I would not limit the activist community to postering as a COVID-aware protest activity. Banner-hanging, chalk graffiti, stencils, road painting, and other urban art techniques are justified, given the stakes. And if one has the means, statues, plaques, billboard “improvement” and other installations involving intestinal fortitude may attract additional media attention, thus propelling our messages further. Anything that 1) doesn’t harm people or 2) doesn’t utilize personal property and doesn’t permanently damage public property 3) gets our anti-cartel, pro-human-herbal-autonomy messages out is justifiable. Just don’t be a dick about it … and try to avoid getting caught.
Poster photographs by Signe Knutson
Rally attendance in Vancouver is constantly in the tens of thousands, and, around the world, numbers in the millions. If even one percent of those who attend rallies began to utilize these other forms of protest, our messages would be impossible to ignore, and our power would soon become apparent to those who both rely on support from the public for their own positions of power and responsibility, and who have the ability to remove the obvious injustice we are protesting against.
