I am creating a series of entries that dive deeper into my thoughts on cannabis. Marijuana is more than a recreational drug that people use to get high. I want to write about how I have developed my belief in cannabis, the most common misconceptions about marijuana, and what needs to be done to legalize the most amazing plant on earth. I have been getting a lot of feedback from different people lately, and I want to explore the varying thought processes because I think they are more common than many seem to believe. My hope is that by the end of this series you will see why marijuana means so much to me and why it should be a priority.

I grew up in what I would now consider a cult: an extremely right-wing conservative church where music with a beat was considered to be of the devil. I followed the teaching of this church as I grew up. I was made to feel guilty about anything I did that I would now consider “normal boy behavior.” Masturbation was a sin, girls were meant for marriage and reproduction, sex was sacred, drugs and alcohol weren’t even a consideration. Although kids on my sports teams dabbled in drinking and a few tried weed, for the most part I was surrounded by people who didn’t use drugs or drink. I went off to college unprepared for real life. I had “sinned” in high school by having premarital sex, but that was easily the “worst” thing I had ever done.

My first semester in college was rough on me emotionally. My mother’s wish was for me to be a shining example of Christ to my entire baseball team. Instead, I was the weird kid who had been homeschooled and never done anything wrong. I remember vividly traveling to an away game during the fall of my freshman year. I was overwhelmed with emotion; I have always been someone who cares deeply about things. I don’t fully understand why it happened to me then, but I had a full-on anxiety attack and was never the same again. I was in tears in the dugout and I didn’t understand why. The whole team looked at me like I was crazy, which I really felt I was. I was playing catcher that day and I couldn’t even throw the ball back to the pitcher. I was nervous, shaking, and experiencing rapidly racing thoughts. The feeling in my stomach didn’t go away, and I was forever changed by that particular event. School has never been much of a challenge for me—I was always academically inclined—but my freshman year became difficult when the anxiety came in. I had no confidence, no swag, no belief in myself or who I was. So when my first year of college ended, I was emotionally broken.

The summer after freshman year was the first time I ever smoked weed. I remember getting stoned in my friend’s basement, smoking it out of a hookah all night. The next morning I had a baseball game, and I was still very high. From 100 yards away I could hear the guys on my team questioning, “Dude, is he high?” It was out of character for me because I had always taken sports so seriously. For the first time in years, I felt happy and relaxed. In my second at bat I hit a home run farther than I ever had in my life. Marijuana felt great and I knew I wanted to smoke more. The plant greatly enhanced my quality of life, calmed down my anxiety, and brought out a more confident version of myself.

Since that time I have been arrested for marijuana multiple times. How can something that I know helps my life be considered illegal? I am going to attack this issue with multiple posts based on personal experience and knowledge I have acquired through extensive research. One thing I have held onto since my days growing up in a conservative Christian home is to never back down when you really believe in something. When I make this statement many of you will roll your eyes. The first thought you might have will be, “It’s just weed, calm down, it’s not that serious,” because that’s what has been your programmed response.

I am a political prisoner incarcerated for what I believe in. The reason I claim to be a political prisoner is because a majority of Americans believe marijuana should be legal, and it’s politics that are getting in the way of that legalization. I believe marijuana is the best solution to the opioid epidemic, I believe it is the best anxiety medicine on earth, I believe it is the best drug for cancer patients to relieve their pain and make them able to eat, I believe its deeply spiritual and helps you find your inner peace, I believe its the best solution for veterans of war or anyone suffering from PTSD, and most of all I believe Americans should be free to decide for themselves whether cannabis is good for them or not. If my time in prison means my voice is heard on this issue, if these years I spend behind bars means no one else ever has to, if my voice means minorities stop being arrested and charged for marijuana offenses at a rate four times as high as whites, if the ones in prison for life because of a plant are set free, then that makes every day I spend here worth it.

I don’t see my trafficking of marijuana as a crime of greed because, in reality, I made less money doing it than I did last year moving furniture. I had connections in California who had the highest quality marijuana, and I created a way to get it back for my friends. Of course, I made some money off of it, but it was also the hardest job I have ever had. There should be a legal way for people like me to import weed and dispense it to consenting adults. There are people in this country “legally” making millions, there are even accredited college classes to teach you the business of it. Yet federally it remains illegal, a schedule one drug since the early 1970s. Mandatory minimum prison sentences for a drug 65% of Americans believe in should be legal.

My goal is to change your mind, to make you see that it’s not “just a little pot, no big deal.” This issue isn’t a throwaway cause not worthy of public attention, it isn’t something that “will eventually happen anyway.” Obviously, I am in prison for it, so the urgency for me is high, but the attitude that things just happen without action is frustrating to me. If you smoke weed, if your friends smoke weed, or if your family smokes weed, then this shouldn’t be an issue you don’t care about. If you are in a state where weed is legal and you think it’s all good now, you need to realize that there are still people in power desperate to use federal law to take down the entire industry.

2020 is the biggest year in the history of the fight to legalize weed. This is going to be the year our voices are heard. I truly believe in my heart that this is not a simple stoner issue. This is one of the most important issues in politics today, and the repercussions it has on the economy, the prison system, and society as a whole cannot be discounted. The tax revenue the country is missing out on mixed with the amount of money spent to prosecute and incarcerate marijuana offenders is astronomical. I will continue this series with a deeper look back on the “why” it was made illegal in the first place. In conclusion to this piece, I want to ask my readers this: Do you think you could go to prison for what you believe in and still fight for it?