Stoned Perspectives - What the Truck is Up with Canada?

canadian truck protests cannabis

Stoned Perspectives: What the Truck is up with Canada?

Is it just me or should everyone chill out and smoke a little bit of weed these days. Lately, I’ve been noticing a greater divide in the tone of conversation about some critical things.

For one, we have this enormous Clusterbleep happening in Canada right now which has extended now to the entire globe. What’s interesting about this particular event is the extreme interpretations of what is happening.

For some people, the Freedom Convoy – as they are calling themselves – is about freedom. It’s about being able to exercise your bodily autonomy and continue living life without “special rules” brought on by the pandemic. Specifically, it’s about removing the mandates to be forced into vaccination. Ultimately, it’s a protest about the freedom of choice.

On the other hand, there are people who believe that these protests are “insurrections” or “occupations” and that the people protesting are racist, white supremacists that want to disrupt democracy. Justin Trudeau has continually banged this drum, calling anyone who participate “standing with swastikas”, however – when you look at footage of the protests you don’t ever see those flags in the masses. All shots of these alleged “racist” people are close shots showing perhaps a few outliers – but predominantly the footage from the protests seems to suggest an ambient of “togetherness”.

Nonetheless, both narratives are competing for fertile minds, to see who it can sway one way or the other. More importantly, whichever narrative wins in the end will set a tone for the world – because don’t be fooled when I say that the entire world is watching what is happening here.

Today, in “Stoned Perspective”, a new series I invented – we’re going to be taking a look at the Trucker situation through the lens of cannabis, and to theorize what would happen in the case either narrative wins.

Why Cannabis Users should predominantly be in favor of the protests?

Firstly, I should mention that most “old school cannabis smokers” would most probably lean in favor of the Truckers simply due to the concept of “bodily autonomy”. It’s been a long, principled argument for cannabis users that having the right to choose what goes in your body is critical within a free society. It’s why prohibition is such an atrocious violation of this fundamental human right.

In essence, this is what the Trucker Convoy represent, the ability to choose what you do and do not want in your body. Of course, I’m certain that many of the truckers would be opposed to completely decriminalizing all drugs and normalizing adult use due to their conservative ideals – yet even if they don’t share the same values over recreational drug use they do recognize the importance of bodily autonomy.

This is the principle reason why cannabis users – those who have felt the sting of prohibition especially – would side with the Truckers. Also, sticking it to the man is sort of like the ethos of the stoner, so whenever there’s an opportunity to stir up some shit to upset the status quo – stoner’s will probably play ball.

What those opposed to the protests believe

In essence, these people aren’t evil for opposing people’s right to choose what they do or do not put into their body. They aren’t looking at it from that perspective. The counter narrative to the protests is that, “Everybody is doing their part EXCEPT those small minority of Truck Drivers.” By doing their part, they refer to taking the vaccine and accepting the new norm of needing to provide papers that state your medical vaccination status in order to travel. They believe this because within this narrative, by doing this we “beat Covid” and get back to normal.

This is the narrative they choose to believe, and thus, the truckers and those that support them become an “enemy to the state”.

Trudeau didn’t help by invoking “emergency powers” which is essentially martial law to deal with the protestors. The Canadian government is also freezing bank accounts of anyone who is supporting the movement and essentially stole (seized) millions of dollars of donations destined for the convoy.

The Movement Spreads

People protesting against the Covid Mandates is nothing new. If you’ve been paying attention on social media, it’s been happening all over the world. Unfortunately, as we’ve come to learn from the pandemic – corporate media doesn’t give an accurate perspective of what’s happening. Stoners have known this for many decades, but now it seems that the rest of the world is also beginning to realize that the “news” comes either with a flavor of blue or red.

Nonetheless, there have been reports of similar protests to the Truckers happening all over the world and while the establishment would like to label these people as “extremist racist hateful” or any other derogatory term, the truth of the matter is that people from all walks of life have come out to support the movements. Many of the people are fully vaccinated making this not an issue of vaccination but rather an issue of choice.

All these Truckers really want is to have a decision on taking the vaccine or not. It’s not like the vaccine stops transmission. I remember in 2020 I mentioned a study about leaky vaccines to a few friends of mine and was ostracized by that community. A year later, and the vaccines are leaking and people who are fully boosted can still transmit the virus. The only real advantage to the vaccine is to give those who have a weaker immune system or with comorbidities additional protection against the virus. However, the vast majority of the people who will contract C19 will be fine and will have natural immunity – another term that was demonized for over a year.

As you can see, the Truckers didn’t appear out of the blue and they are not motivated by race. Interestingly enough, it’s Trudeau who has worn blackface more than he can remember – yet he’s the one pointing the fingers at them.

The bottom line

The reason I support the Truckers is simple – I believe each and every single human being should have full autonomy over their body and that if you give people choice, they would do what is best for them. However, the moment you give the government the legal precedent to forcibly administer whatever drug they want under “special circumstances”– is the moment you can stop calling yourself free. In that world, “you will own nothing” includes your own body.

Whether you feel that these Truckers are disrupting life for everyday citizens and they should stop – I sympathize with you, but when it comes to individual human rights – “comfort” comes secondary. Your bodily choice is literally the last line of individual liberty – those who don’t own their own bodies are commonly referred to as slaves.

Stoners have been fighting government powers for many decades now. Despite being ostracized, called lazy, stupid, anti-whatever. They kept on pushing because they knew that there is a fundamental truth – my body, my choice” and that the government was on the wrong side of history. In the 1980s, people would have laughed at you if you described to them the world we’re living in today where you can buy weed online and have it delivered to your home.

Yet because of these people who stood up to tyrannical policies – you, granny and everyone else can have access to cannabinoid-based medicine. Of course this is just an opinion and I could always be wrong about many of my conclusions.

Why not let me know in the comment section what you think and let’s evolve this conversation beyond the dynamics of name-calling. Let’s focus on establishing universal principles to avoid these kinds of scenarios in the future.