She's little more than a foot tall. Still very young.
Today her life seems pretty quiet, a bit boring, but no doubt things were more exciting while she was still in the seed.
Maybe she was eaten by a deer, and then she passed through the animal's gut and fell in this spot. Or maybe she was similarly processed by a bird and so travelled much further. Who knows, maybe she was put there by a human. We don't know. She doesn't know. Such is not her business, getting to the sun is her business.
But the calm in her life is deceptive. She is a hunted organism.
Her unusual plight lies below the fold.
She is of the genus Cannabis, and for that unlucky virtue she is already guilty, just for being alive.
Still, in 2013, if law enforcement officials were to run across her and recognize her it would be their sworn duty to kill her. To destroy her. I think if they have "Washington" or "Colorado" engraved on their badges, along with a handful of other jurisdictions around the world, then they would no longer have the standing kill order, and that at least is a good thing. Regardless it would be their prerogative whether to actually follow through or not. I'd hope most otherwise sane people would just walk on by.
But if she were indeed seen and recognized, by any of the millions of other soldiers in the War, the majority of the time I fear that wouldn't happen.
US federal law, and UN treaty, are both quite clear: zero tolerance, straight to the bonfire. The War on DrugsTM. Insanity.
Mexican soldier guards the incineration of Mexico's all-time record marijuana seizure
If she was not a plant, and was capable of thought, she would obviously think this fact very unsettling. And strange. I'm sure it would puzzle her as much as it does me.
She would think about how she doesn't kill or permanently damage humans like some of her cousins and distant cousins do. If part of her enters a human bloodstream she will affect that human's brain, but not with malice. Indeed when her tiny, active innards enter that brain they find receptors at the ready; they snuggle in there, stay a little while and then pass through and out. Slipping away with relative ease.
She would think about her cousins, from the genus Coffea, that also substantially affect the human brain without causing vital damage in the short-term. She would wonder to herself: why do humans enjoy and embrace those cousins, and place almost no restrictions on them, but they hate and fear me?
She would think about the genus Nicotiana, and about a distant relation from the extended family of living beings, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or fermentation yeast. Those of my kin are demonstrably destructive to humans, she would think, why do the humans tolerate them, even revel in them, and they still look down upon me?
She would think about some other cousins from the plant world, like the coca or poppy plant, and about non-relations from the collection of chemical compounds, like meth-amphetamine, and ruefully wonder: how did I get lumped together with that terrible bunch?
How indeed.
She doesn't want to hurt anybody, her goal is to get to the sun; and in her time, with luck, to help to drop her own seeds.
Not to make humans lazy or stupid.
Not to cause humans to rape or kill or steal from each other.
Not to cause humans to be caged like animals.
Not to poison the mind of human society.
Although she is exceedingly tough, she is also very gentle, so I think she would hate being falsely accused of these crimes. She would wonder what in the greenish-blue world had led to this tarnishing of her name. If she knew anything she would know the answers; hate, fear and money.
Power and control most of all.
What a sad waste, she would think.
crossposted at The Hammershop