I’ve known Tom Howard, the cannabis industry lawyer, for over 13 years. Since bands were getting famous from MySpace and Obama’s first term, we both have a love and fascination for tech and cannabis. He understands connections in the backend of the internet, and I know the boxes the internet runs on. Throughout our friendship, both of us have advocated for a change in the cannabis laws, fighting the injustices brought upon by a bad law.
He’s seen me partake in various cannabis media startups, and eventually, he saw his opportunity to apply his law banking to cannabis businesses; this is how we participate in what is known as the cannabis industry.
The way we take in information varies; some people read the fine print, while others say fuck it and sign; I’m of the latter.
Before the podcast, before any form of recreational legalization, Tom started a page to share the message that prohibition is unconstitutional. The Facebook URL is FreeThc, and the page’s name is Marijuana Prohibition is Unconstitutional; this has been converted for the podcast.
The page serves the same purpose, but now you can see the people behind it.
As I write this, the page sits at 400k+ and growing. My point for this content is to show the complexities and lack of support on the backend of a thing with a large audience; I’m managing thousands of messages, let alone billions. Our subject matter gets us overlooked, but a program blocking spam, bots, and Nigerian Princes would protect all.
I started by sharing memes after Tom’s video on the law. When a picture is posted promptly after a video, the video catches more eyeballs. The trick to promoting something is finding that fine line between information and entertainment. Things that make people click the share button, really any engagement.
As the page grew from 420 likes to over 420k+ now, a good portion are genuine, but because of the internet, many are bots or scammers waiting for the next opportunity to try and scam someone with money but no internet street sense.
The page started with, and my contributions will end with activism. We went from being a faceless page with the occasional lawyer video to a podcast and website. People consume information in various ways, and if you’re trying to start a business or change the world, you have to hit them all.
As the page grows, so do bots and scammers. Some days it’s overwhelming, but on others, it’s a pleasure to bring a smile and a thought to others. My point is that Facebook’s code is broken, and other social medias are too. I’m seeing the same spam behavior on YouTube; it’s just the same. This is where I’ll end this: be safe on the internet and the streets.
