A general lack of ethics and near-universal exhalation of the “greed is good” philosophy in America is currently the primary driver behind its current obvious state of decline.
I don’t think this is a particularly political hot take because regardless of what side of the tribalist aisle you may sit on, everyone can pretty much agree war is bad; things are too expensive. Our health (mental and physical) is collectively in poor condition.
All this can be reflected in facts like over 1 in 8 Americans is prescribed antidepressants before COVID, according to the NYT, and this ratio is increasing rapidly, with an increase in prescriptions of 5.6% between 2021 and 2022 alone and a whopping 36% increase in just the last six years, according to the Pharmaceutical Journal.
On the whole, including other psychiatric-centric prescriptions, we’re looking at a ratio of 1 out of every 6 Americans.
Man, this got heavy real fast. The point I am trying to make here is there are few metrics better at evaluating whether or not things are going “well” in a society of social animals than their mental state.
What’s the Cause?
When things aren’t going well on a grand scale, such as a society the size of America, there are undoubtedly going to be multiple factors contributing to such outcomes.
One of the most obvious to me today, and which has a direct driving force on the abovementioned prescription rates, is human greed.
Greed is what burns friendships. Greed is what tanks brands and businesses. Greed is what is currently destroying our only habitable planet.
I don’t want greed to destroy The Hallowed Gram, either. This is my passion project. I write these reviews on weekends and late at night after working my 9 to 5. I want this blog to grow with me on my cannabis self-discovery, and I want to put that message in a bottle to share with other similar-minded people out there like you!
To help prevent the premature death of this blog, I want to publish his ethics page right away as a standing promise to myself to prevent greed from corrupting anything. If I’m going to fail, it’s going to be by my own conscious choice to quit, not because of the poisonous tentacles of rampant crony capitalism.
Greed Control Mitigation
1. Being transparent in my intentions to share my cannabis journey in a human light, complete with snafus and gaffs galore because, hey, life’s a journey, and I’m barely past the trailhead!
2. Sincerely trying to connect with the cannabis community at large not only to stay abreast of where things are going in the future but also to sound check myself and draw inspiration.
3. Be forthright in how I decide what to write about and the motivations behind anything I’m writing.
There are other factors here, like not wanting to disappoint people I love, including my wife, my mother, my friends, and ideally, my further-enlightened future self.
How I Choose What to Review
Put succinctly, I will only review things that I feel personally motivated to study. It takes a lot of time to sit down and compose any half-decent blog post and including preparation, cost of the review material, taking pictures, and updating things along the way.
As such, I never want to dread writing for this blog and to ensure that will only write about things of genuine interest.
This means I will review strains that I’m excited to smoke, edibles I’m excited to eat, and use gear that I think will improve my experiences.
If I don’t like a product, whether it be flower or edibles, or gear, I simply won’t write about it or publish on it. This should result in a win-win where you, the reader, get only the good stuff, where I, the writer, can stay positive and not have to trash something that I personally don’t like.
Most of my posts will fall into two categories; things that I really like and think more people should know about and things that were so disappointing. I want to give other people a heads-up so they can potentially avoid wasting their own time or money.
For example, I have multiple Fox Hollow Flora flower reviews because they’re one of my legit favorite farms in Oregon.
Do I smoke more than the growers featured on this blog? Yes. But many simply don’t impress enough to warrant hours of work in writing up a review.
If I do find a serious problem that I don’t think is being covered adequately, I do reserve the right to publish on that. It’s not my aim to trash talk or be negative; I simply want to help my readers avoid any potential pitfalls I might have stumbled upon myself.
For example, I have a post on the expensive Levo II decarboxylator and infusion machine that I think seriously needs some more engineering refinement and quality control improvement to be recommendable.
But on the whole, you’ll find mostly words of positivity on this blog because that’s how I’d very much prefer to live my life.
Do I Accept Product For Review?
Yes, I accept product for review HOWEVER reserve the right not to publish it if I don’t like it. Them’s the terms. As such, if you want to send me something, you have to consent to this possible outcome as well as the abovementioned outcome, whereas IF your product is garbage, it may very well be stated as such.
On the flip side, if you’re a brand I already love, or you’re a new brand with some absolute fire that I end up loving, then we might be able to blossom a bit of a relationship.
The best way to know if I’d be interested in reviewing your product is to contact me beforehand to share a little bit about who you are, what you got, and why you think I’d like it. CBD white-labelers and fly-by-night seed companies, you can please fuck right off. Thank you.
Do understand, though, that providing review product does not guarantee glowing coverage. If I’m not digging what you’re laying down, then I simply won’t write about it. This blog only features things I personally enjoy. Integrity is important.
Additional Considerations
If there are any paid promotions, say an event organizer pays for coverage of their cannabis event, I will disclose that in the post itself so readers are aware. As with product, my coverage will contain my own personal opinion, so take this into account before reaching out.
My ultimate aim is to help destigmatize cannabis by presenting it in a digital medium that reflects my own personality and my own relationship with cannabis in an effort to connect to similar-minded individuals out there, hopefully.
Community is one of the most beautiful hallo effects of liking to get blazed and what initially drew me to the plant in the very beginning. Of course, being able to make a living as a cannabis journalist is an absolute dream as well.
Still, even if that never happens, I intend to enjoy this blogging journey of self-discovery regardless because, hey, trying new things and writing is fun!
Like any other human, though, I will naturally get things wrong. Heck, I’ll likely get more wrong than the average Joe, as there are far more people out there with far deeper knowledge sets in literally everything I’m writing about.
I don’t consider this a bad thing, though, because I’m excited to learn. If you’re a blackbelt in cannabis history, science, or cultivation, then I want to learn from you. All you OG hippies and basement blazers, I recognize the path you blazed and simply want to help fan the flames or de-stigmatization with you.
If you vibe with what I’m laying down I hope to see you in the comments and ideally, in real life one day as well.
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