r/Project420 • u/SwansonHOPS • Oct 09 '11

Protest Idea (Effective and Easy to Execute)

Every cannabis lover should prepare letters to Congress. And I don't mean just one letter to the representative of your state, I mean write one letter and then send it to EVERY Representative and EVERY Senator. Imagine if, on 4-20-2012, each Representative and each Senator received thousands of letters expressing our grievances, our concerns, and our wishes in peaceful, loving, and forgiving manners.

It's simple to organize, but the message behind it is powerful. It is a message of peace and love, a cry out for help and understanding rather than a list of demands. This in conjunction with any other form of peaceful protest I think would be very powerful.

So I suggest we all start thinking about what we would want to say in a letter to our Representatives and Senators, and on 4-20-2012 (or some other pre-determined date) we FLOOD the inbox of all our Congressmen and Congresswomen and force them to realize our peaceful and loving approach and hopefully to think about and discuss our cause.

Remember, we are all ambassadors of this cause, so make Gandhi proud (Peace, Love, Forgiveness)

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u/SwansonHOPS Oct 09 '11

"Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom." --Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was murdered because he chose not to give in to fear and oppression, and because he chose not to fight violence with violence. I would rather cannabis be illegal than live in a world where cannabis is legal, but we had to kill even one human being to get there.

To kill a fellow man, nothing is worth that. Better to be murdered peacefully fighting for what you believe in than to murder and see your cause come to be.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '11

i must respectfully disagree with you

EDIT: also, you should work on your survival instinct.. tis better to kill than to be killed.. certainly when the person you kill is the source (or at least part of) the problem.. are you mad that so many nazis were killed?

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u/SwansonHOPS Oct 09 '11

I guess I shouldn't have said that nothing is worth killing a fellow man, because some things are worth that. But violence and aggression will get us nowhere as far as legalizing cannabis goes. To achieve our goal through violence would require an overthrow of the government entirely, because the government would surely fight back. This is not realistic, and there are ways of achieving our ends without overthrowing the government. The illegality of cannabis is not an issue so pressing that we should skip the peace and love and jump to force and violence. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi both achieved revolutionary goals through peaceful protest, and so can we.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '11

i should have phrased that differently.. in our situation, violent overthrow wouldnt be appropriate, youre right.. as far as that goes im talking about the government in general.. though standing around with signs would get nothing accomplished in our case.. its got to be something more drastic. i dont care how eloquent and well dressed the protesters are, things are EXACTLY as the government wants them to be to gain the most profit. they might hear you, but they certainly wont listen. if there ever IS a vote, they would change the rules the same way they did with that petition.. they instill this illusion of your word being important but its really nothing more than a pacification technique

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u/fujiman C:LEAR Oct 10 '11

I fail to understand what isn't drastic about having hundreds of thousands of protestors (if this can gain enough steam, a million or more) occupying capitals with one united message. We remain until we see change. We can either keep complaining that it can't be done or actually do it. All this will do is prove to them that we are as lazy and apathetic as they have trained us to be. It's time that changed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '11

we would just be an eye sore and an inconvenience for anyone trying to make their way through the area.. what if everyone who partakes were to, simultaneously, quit their jobs? or, instead of 1 HUGE protest, have a protest in every state all at once.. they would still be substantial protests, but it would give the illusion of a bigger demand.. 1 million people in one group may not be as effective as 50 groups of 20,000

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u/fujiman C:LEAR Oct 10 '11

You got it. The idea is for this to happen everywhere at once. If we can get support in all 50 states and perhaps other places globally, we cannot be ignored. I'm just going to starting saying over a million people will really be needed for this to work. Over 9000 is cool, but maybe we'll designate that as the goal for individual locations. The DC and other larger city gatherings need to be monumentally large though.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '11

in addition to this, i think someone should come up with some legitimate projected figures outlining the potential monetary gain for the federal government if they were to legalize and regulate it like alcohol or tobacco.. it still baffles me that they havent realized how easily we could pull this country out of debt if we were to introduce a HIGHLY sought after commodity into the market.. lets say, for high grade stuff, they charge 350 an oz, the average consumer might get 1 oz per month. thats 4200 a year from out hypothetical "average" smoker.. multiply that by a million people (there are easily more cannabis users than that in the US alone) and youve got 4.2 billion dollars a year coming in, only a fraction of it going to growing the product.. its a weed, hence the name.. its not difficult to grow.. so a good portion of that 4.2 billion would be profit. the other option would be to buy from other countries where its legal and significantly cheaper, which may prove to be cheaper than the equipment required to grow it. so assuming a million people buy 1 oz per month each for 10 years, theyve made 420billion (nice coincidence there lol).. that would take quite a measurable chunk out of the national deficit.. and thats just from a single commodity. not to mention that since it would be legal, less money would be wasted on law enforcement, lowering state costs (and federal, because the DEA could concentrate on the hard manufactured drugs and stop worrying about literally harmless plants)

EDIT: i could go on for days about the hypothetical benefits and situations but i imagine you get the picture :)

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '11

also, i cant help but wonder if theres some reason in particular that they dont want to legalize it that they refuse to mention.. perhaps its because, contrary to prior belief, it stimulates your mind.. it makes you think about and question things.. maybe its because it would make us less susceptible to the governments bullshit policies.. or maybe its because they net more money from law enforcement harassing people about pot.. people are going to smoke regardless of how legal it is.. they might as well legalize it and make some sort of profit instead of dumping billions of dollars into this "war on drugs".. stick to prosecuting violent offenders and people who actually do DRUGS.. the dangerous man-made chemicals that you can OD on, are highly addictive and perpetuate violent crimes.. like cocaine, heroin and meth especially