There has been no self-realization of self-ownership.
That you own your blood and can sell it for a price, one not controlled by a large Canadian-monopoly union.
That your body’s sperm or eggs are yours for use. That no one, especially the state, can take that away from you.
That cannabinoids are in your body, and that cannabis is a plant that acts upon it in a non-toxic way.
Self-ownership implies free agency. We are free in a world of scarce resources capitalized by centuries of markets, taking us from the jungle to a technological world of tablets and space exploration.
Restriction of free action by state authority needs justification. The burden of proof is on the monopolist of ultimate-decision making.
Traditionally, and more ethically, people have used more peaceful means of conflict resolution than the central, democratic state.
For example: cannabis was once widely used as a medicine. Prior to 1937, there were over 280 manufacturers in the United States alone.
This was a problem for a certain class of businessmen, who bought legislators, promoted the journalism of fear and fallacies, and made cannabis illegal.
The conflict was over money and power. The resolution was for dishonest entrepreneurs to use their skills and manipulate the state apparatus, that bumbling hierarchy of career bureaucrats.
The market advanced, sans cannabis, but, eventually, medical cannabis became an accepted norm.
So a new conflict arose: a peaceful “unregulated” market of medical farmers and consumers. People who’d rather smoke weed than pop patent-protected pills.
Not to mention, cannabis grew from the ground and was easily harvested for consumption. Anyone could do it and, in the Cascadia region, a lot of people did.
What the corporate-state presented as a conflict, legality of cannabis, was actually a conflict for a free society of self-owning people.
Conflict resolution by the democratic state has always meant taking away people’s rights, not protecting them.
For, if every perceived or real conflict is a problem solved by legislation, and laws restrict free human activity for the supposed benefit of all, then what is a democratic government to do but pass more and more rules that restrain human freedom?
Is it really any surprise that large businesses have “captured” the process to ensure state power is never directed against them? But in fact, use its power to lead people into prosperity or poverty and war?
Cannabis farmers markets debunk any notion that states are required for conflict resolution.
In fact, it shows the complete opposite. Cannabis prohibition shows clearly how a democratic state perceives and resolves its definition of conflict.
Without contractual rights and freedoms, and the right to property, the state can practically do anything.
Cannabis was a victim of democracy, and the right to medical cannabis farmers markets won’t come from asking the state for permission.
Peaceful cooperation is a prerequisite in any society that has managed to develop its markets and maintain civilization.
State power is its opposite, with the legitimate power to steal, murder and enslave, its functions, if required at all, should be negligible for people who are otherwise peaceful.
Cannabis connoisseurs and patients don’t need federal regulation, nor do most Canadians.