Crowd of Cannabis Day Vancouver 2015

4/20 a Perfect Excuse for Skipping School

By the time you’ve learned basic math and how to read and write, school becomes an exercise in futility.

School, especially “public” school, is more about indoctrinating kids into the statist culture than it is about education.

State-funded school has its origins with the Prussian empire. The point was to make children obedient to the state, to come between them and their parents.

So, unless you plan on becoming a lawyer, or doctor, or an engineer, or something requiring tons of skill, there’s really no point to school after a certain grade.

As well, entrepreneurs are perfectly able to provide education services, there is no need to rely on tax-funded bureaucracies to educate your children.

But, considering that one cannot become even a janitor or garbageman without a high-school diploma, school is a necessary evil until free-and-fair markets become the norm.

In the meantime, the 4/20 Farmer’s Market is a great excuse to skip the indoctrination centre and head to the Art Gallery or Sunset Beach to enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

One day out of the year won’t hurt, and there’s much more to learn from witnessing free farmer’s markets and engaging with activists than sitting in a classroom getting lectured at.

But the Vancouver School Board doesn’t see things that way.

They’ve issued a statement to students and parents that 4/20 is not an excuse to take the day off school.

“Attendance will be taken, and students WILL be marked absent as on any other day,” the statement reads.

Good thing skipping school isn’t like skipping work. With the latter you’re costing people money, namely, the people who’ve hired you as well as the customers who depend on you for goods and services.

But, by skipping school, students are making a concerted effort to take control of their own lives.

Smoking cannabis is an exercise in self-ownership, defying prohibition demonstrates that you own your own body.

Teenagers are at the age where they’re beginning to make their own choices, based on their own value systems, and not based on whatever their parents believe, or what bureaucratic teachers tell them to believe.

Skipping school to smoke pot is an honourable tradition that has been going on for decades.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I would have loved to celebrate 4/20 in Vancouver.

I hope Vancouver students realize how lucky they are to live in such a beautiful place, the epicentre of Canada’s cannabis community.

And I hope they take the rules issued by their authorities with a grain of salt.

4/20 in Vancouver is an annual tradition worth booking time off work, and it’s definitely worth skipping school over.

If only the Vancouver School Board would chill out, hit a dab, and join in on the festivities.

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