You might not realize it, but you are both an audience member and a participant in the annual 4/20 Theater. You see, every year around the cannabis community’s favorite holiday, we get a bunch of performative speeches and statements from elected officials about cannabis reform. This year we are going to highlight the annual dog & pony show with our own 4/20 Theater and we’ve written a press release below for you to read, share, and, hopefully, sign up to participate. Our next 4/20 Theater Zoom Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 13 at 8pm and all tokin’ thespians (YOU!) are invited!
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Adam Eidinger, Press@DCMJ.org, 202-744-2671 |
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 |
Cannabis Activists Predict More “4/20 Theater” in 2023
Protest Street Theater to Expose President Biden and Congressional Inaction
WASHINGTON, DC – April 20th, better known as 4/20, is the day cannabis consumers celebrate the cannabis plant in our society, but every year the holiday passes without the federal government taking action. Across the United States there are large and small gatherings including smoke-ins, where cannabis users gather to consume cannabis socially. Every year there is, without fail, a news cycle around 4/20. American politicians, aiming to remain relevant to the cannabis community of voters, will issue press releases and statements highlighting their ongoing support for cannabis reform. However, repeatedly at the federal level nothing gets done – no new laws get passed, people still get arrested, billions of dollars are wasted on policing, and cannabis continues to remain the most consumed illegal substance in America.
The harm caused by the endless performative actions by politicians will be highlighted by DC Marijuana Justice (DCMJ) this April with their new protest strategy called 4/20 Theater.
“The public is tired of annual political promises around the 4/20 holiday that have proven to be elaborate dog and pony shows,” says Adam Eidinger, co-founder of DCMJ and proposer of Initiative 71, which legalized cannabis in the District of Columbia. “Elected officials must actually legalize cannabis or at the very least ‘deschedule’ it by White House executive order in order to make amends for their failed policy that has locked up tens of millions of Americans, disproportionately Black and Brown people, for no good reason for over 50 years.”
As a community group, DCMJ is inviting members of the public to participate in the planned 4/20 Theater to be performed at the White House and Capitol Hill on April 20, 2023. There will be a series of Zoom meetings through March and early April where the script and ultimately casting and rehearsals will take place for what is expected to be a no holds barred portrayal of how national political leaders exploit the cannabis issue but rarely change a thing while people continue to be incarcerated for the plant. The next Zoom is scheduled for Thursday, April 13 at 8pm. Members of the public and the media can register to attend by signing here.
“It’s a tragedy that elected officials have gotten away with faking reform, so we decided it’s time we shine a bright green spotlight on the federal government’s 4/20 theater of the absurd,” said Nikolas Schiller, co-founder of DCMJ.
ABOUT DC MARIJUANA JUSTICE Since its founding in 2013, DCMJ has led the nation in creative and high-profile cannabis reform activism. After introducing and passing DC’s Initiative 71 in 2014, which voters legalized the possession and cultivation of cannabis, DCMJ organized three large seed giveaways that provided all adults and Congressional staffers the means to grow cannabis for themselves, deployed giant 51-foot inflatable joints outside the Capitol, the White House, the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Times Square in New York City, the 2016 Presidential Debates, Annapolis Statehouse and Boston’s Freedom Rally, as well as distributing over 10,000 joints of District of Columbia homegrown cannabis at the Inauguration of President Donald Trump, and attempting to distribute 1,227 joints at the congressional “Joint Session” in 2017, where U.S. Capitol Police unlawfully arrested seven DCMJ activists (All charges were dropped the following day). On April 20, 2021, DCMJ distributed more than 4,200 joints at vaccination sites across the District of Columbia in conjunction with its “Joints For Jabs” cannabis giveaway, which was spontaneously adopted around the U.S., including by the State of Washington. DCMJ demands cannabis be removed from the Controlled Substances Act and all Americans are given the right to grow cannabis in the safety and privacy of their homes.