Twelve years of trying to fix cannabis money

The original message, recovered

“Defund the War on Nature”

That was the banner across the top of this site a decade ago, under the Latin motto abusus non tollit usum — abuse does not remove use. The argument ran like this: cannabis and hemp were part of civilization for thousands of years, mandated by law in colonial America for rope, cloth and sails, and only criminalized in the twentieth century once industrial, chemical and banking interests found the plant inconvenient. Prohibition then became its own industry, with billions a year flowing to police, prosecute and incarcerate people over a plant.

The conclusion was the part that still matters here: the same dollars the trade is forced to run on are the dollars that fund the raids, the seizures and the enforcement. So the most direct action available to a farmer, a dispensary or a customer is to move value outside that system — silver, copper, gold and crypto. Every dollar taken out of the banking network is one that can’t be seized or spent on enforcement.

Ditch the dollar and defund the war.

CAN is that idea grown up. The old version asked people to hold something volatile as a protest. This one gives farmers, dispensaries and customers money that holds a dollar, settles in minutes, and never touches a bank that can close the account on Monday morning.