If you’ve ever cultivated a healthy relationship with cannabis then you likely know it can be used in many different ways.
Defining cannabis use as either medical or recreational creates a dichotomy that skips over a lot of the benefits people experience with this plant every day.
During the first-ever virtual Cannabis Health Summit, Industry leader Steve DeAngelo talked about how cannabis has the ability to:
- Spark creativity
- Extend patience
- Encourage wonder, play & openness to spirit
- Enhance flavor, sound & touch
- Open the mind
- Bring poetry to language
- Spontaneity to a performer
- Catalyze laughter
- Facilitate friendship
- Bridge human differences
Steve when on a deep-dive into all of this during his talk, and I have confirmed all of his observations through my own experience with cannabis over the past 20 years.
These benefits are so valuable and indeed…overlooked by many.
Respect the plant as you would any tool and it can add serious value to many aspects of a person’s life.
This ancient herb can inspire life-changing epiphanies, humility and self-correction.
The word ‘recreational’ skips over all of that, which we don’t want.
This is why the term ‘adult-use’ is much more accurate.
And it leaves greater room for people to learn, experiment, and discover these benefits for themselves. It brings a sense of maturity and respect to cannabis (the pharse ‘marijuana’ also has it’s share of prohibition-era baggage).
None of this is to say cannabis doesn’t have recreational value. It’s just much more complex than that. And indeed, why should we overlook the benefits (or drawbacks) of anything?
The benefits of cannabis are so important, which is why credible cannabis education is such a big deal.
Together we are clearing all those misconceptions and stigmas.
Phasing out the Term ‘Recreational’
As the writer Mark Twain once said, the difference between the right word and the wrong word is like comparing a firefly to a lightning strike.
Simply put: the term “recreational marijuana” or “recreational cannabis” does more damage than you might realize.
It severely limits the growing perception of this plant and the many ways people use it.
Using the term “adult-use” just makes for stronger rhetoric when talking about this plant. Same using “cannabis” over “marijuana”.
Imagine yourself adopting the more appropriate terminology, allowing you to engage in cannabis dialogues with a greater sense of confidence.
Imagine asking others to use the appropriate term: friends, family, colleagues, members of the press, policymakers.
I once heard Steve DeAngelo talking to a reporter. And the reporter’s first question, he used the words “recreational marijuana,” and Steve gently replied something like: I’d prefer you use term adult-use because the term recreational doesn’t fully represent all the benefits people gain from cannabis.
That’s a great example for us all to follow.
And really the main is thing that we all have a right to this plant, and the more we learn and educate ourselves, the better!
