--Memories of people who tried to preserve culture and dignity
Ideals that cannot be protected
will be taken away again and again.
The issue is not whether or not you have power.
It’s whether you can simultaneously have the resolve to protect them
and the rationality not to pull the trigger.
Hemp is not just a plant.
It was cloth, medicine, and prayer,
and a culture that connected people to the land.
Despite this,
hemp has repeatedly been labeled “dangerous” and “a backward culture,”
and has been quietly cut off from society.
What has been lost each time is not hemp itself,
but the dignity of the people who have lived with hemp.
奪われたのは、植物ではない
A look back at history makes this clear.
Where hemp has been eliminated,
the next step always follows.
The culture is labeled “inefficient,”
the land is labeled “uncivilized,”
and finally the people are labeled “unnecessary.”
This is not unique to hemp.
Indigenous cultures and mountain people have also
always been discarded in the same order.
There were people who tried to protect
However, there were also people who made an entirely different choice.
They
did not “manage.”
They did not “control.”
They did not “rush to make a buck.”
Instead, they chose
to take their time and watch over the situation.
They listened to the voices of the mountain people,
respected the local ways,
and tried to “protect” the crop rather than “change.”
As a result,
hemp was revived as a culture before it became a commodity.
Where legalization succeeds and where it fails
Hemp legalization is currently progressing around the world.
But not everywhere is a success.
The systems are in place.
The laws are in place.
The markets are in place.
But where it still fails,
there are commonalities.
There’s no one to preserve the culture.
There’s no one with the courage to stop it.
No one is prepared to take responsibility.
As a result,
quantity only increases,
quality declines,
and the land and people become exhausted.
Hemp is not a symbol of "freedom"
Don’t get me wrong.
Hemp is not
a symbol of “anything goes.”
In fact, it’s the opposite.
The constraints of living in harmony with nature.
The constraints of not lying.
The constraints of not stealing.
Only when we are prepared to accept these constraints
can hemp exist as a culture.
What music brings
It’s no coincidence that the Rasta spirit,
along with its music, has traveled the world.
It wasn’t an act of rebellion,
but an attitude of maintaining one’s dignity.
Even though they were stolen,
trampled upon,
there was one thing they never sold.
And that was their culture.
This is not exercise
We don’t need flags.
We don’t need slogans.
We don’t need to mobilize anyone.
All we need is one thing.
We won’t sell from this point on,
We won’t let anyone take from this point on.
We just need someone to draw that line.
Remaining questions
What if there was a place where hemp could be preserved as a culture?
What if people who choose dignity over short-term profit came together?
What if there was someone who could say, “I will take responsibility” when things go wrong?
Is that really idealistic?
Or is it the bare minimum of resolve needed to take back what has been stolen from us so many times?