I have been smoking cannabis for just over 13 years now. It’s been a long journey with my dear companion. People may not be comfortable with someone referring to a “drug” they’ve used for 15 years as a dear companion. However, the description could not be more fitting. In that time the acceptance and openness about cannabis has really evolved, more than I ever dreamed.

When I was 18 years old smoking $50/oz.’s of crap, I never imagined I would be living in one of the first legal cannabis states and working in the middle of a flourishing, new age industry, surrounded by the best quality flower and concentrates maybe in the world.

But as luck would have it here we are living amongst such beautiful, healing plants. As nature intended, cannabis is being given another chance at life. Of course it never really went away, but now it can be cultivated, sold and shared in a legal, open manner and it is an amazing thing.

Cannabis has come out of the closet. In the process a flurry of innovation and creativity has come about. What was once a dry, dull green weed you crumbled in a dirty bowl or rolled in a joint is now a whole new world of possibilities.

Alchemy is at work in the cannabis industry. You almost have to see it to believe it. Delicious edibles, candy bars, gummy’s and caramels; topical, lotions, and patches; shatter, wax, and full melt. This is a world where so many of us don’t even smoke flower anymore. We actually have to remind ourselves to smoke flower every once in a while. It’s like “remember to stop and smell the roses”, we have to remember to stop and smoke some flower.

But of course it all starts with the flower, there would be nothing else without it. Within the flower is the power, the power to heal, the power enlighten, the power to relax, the power to spread knowledge and truth. All other extractions and infusions seek the same essential elements from the cannabis plant. They extract the elements in the flowers that engage the human mind and spirit.

A new friend recently made fun of us in the community for calling weed flower. But that’s what it is after all. It’s a flower like a beautifully cultivated rose not like an unwanted weed that you rip out of your yard and throw in the trash. A long time ago cannabis was given names that sent the message it needed to be discarded. The agenda being pursued back then has finally failed.

The power of the flower is too great. The truth has been revealed. In the end the truth will always come out. The idiocracy of “Reefer Madness” has been replaced with the knowledge that cannabis can help people tremendously. The only madness is that the actions of a few selfish people and the lies they told so many years ago have followed this magical healing agent like a bad reputation, a dark shadow.

Now is this time to let the light shine through. In the light is the truth, in the truth is the power. Luckily the light shines bright a mile high in the sky. Maybe that’s why the power in the flower is something we see so clearly here in Colorado.