Normalizing cannabis in white elephant

[Dugan]

My company had a white elephant gift exchange and they said alcohol was an acceptable gift. I live in California, so I decided to shake things up by gifting a nice bud from my last grow. It came out to 3grams and looked really sweet in the mason jar.

Being a responsible person, I printed a warning and taped it to the jar:
Proposition 64 Warning
Contains THC
Must be 21 years of age or older.

Then I stuck a note on the top of the jar that said:
On November 8, 2016 the people of California voted 57% in favor of proposition 64. On November 9th the Adult Use Act of 2016 took effect. The statute allows adults to gift other adults up to one ounce of dried cannabis flower.
Enjoy a safer alternative to alcohol this holiday.

It was half way they the exchange when I broke the spirit of the event and picked my own gift. I wanted to see who would steal the gift. It shook the room when I opened it and read the note. A lot of gasps and disbelief. Meanwhile there was a bottle of vodka and several bottles of wine floating around the room. Several people took pictures and were very curious.

Finally a quiet grandma showed the courage to steal the gift. The room burst into applause. That moment made my Christmas. A younger woman eventually stole it from her after her wine was stolen by someone else. The white elephant had a two steal maximum so I won’t know who else was 420 friendly.

People were talking about it the rest of the day. I loved pushing people out of their comfort zone.

 

[Dugan]

Well I was too quick to gloat, or was I? The Human Resources manager hit the roof when she found out about my gift. She called me on the carpet with my manager and the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and scolded me like a child. It was particularly enraging because I'm probably 20 years her senior and I'm not even an employee. I'm a contractor to a contractor. I was never told their company policies. When I saw a list of items permissible and one of them was alcohol, I thought, hay it's 2017 and it's legal in California. She accused me of trafficking and reminded me it was not legal at the federal level. I'm well aware of the law and I'm also aware of the Cole memo.

I didn't bring up the Cole memo, but I did remind her 57% of the voters said what I did was legal. I also took the opportunity to say that I just had Cancer surgery and did NOT fill my opioid perscription. I told them that opioid deaths are 25% less in legal states. It may have fallen on deaf ear, but I said it anyway. So now I have to await my fate until the new year because the president of the company will make a final decision on my 16 year relationship with the organization.

I'm self employed so I don't have to deal with HR bullshit and here I am a couple of days before Christmas dealing with HR bullshit. I pay my own payroll taxes (Company portion of Social Security (6.2%), Medicare (1.45%), unemployment), health insurance, computer equipment, software, Workmans Compensation insurance, Corporate taxes. I get no vacation pay, no sick pay, no family leave. None of those burdens have to be shouldered by employees.

Oh well, at least in 2017 in California I won't be arrested for carrying those 3 grams on my person. I also hope the person who ended up with it rolled a nice fatty and had a relaxing evening.

 

[FoNz]

Damn, hope all goes/went well and I applaud your course. I stopped in because normalizing cannabis is a goal of mine too, found your story endearing and hope your HR department makes/made the right call.

Best of luck!

 

[420 Warrior]

It's certainly going to take some time before the stigma of Cannabis being viewed as being the "devils weed" completely dissipates.

You also have to think that "Refer Madness" has been a thing since the 30's and that completely undoing the damage caused by so many years of false propaganda is not going to go away until it dies out completely with the baby boomers that grew up being brain washed their entire lives.

You also have to think that just because 10 states and DC are now recreational friendly, we have the rest of the country still imprisoning people for the herb, so it should come as no surprise that refer madness still exists to this day, even in the legal states.

So for any of us to push the envelope and put it in the faces of a mixed crowd of fellow coworkers like that, you can almost certainly expect some backlash from making such a bold move like that.

That being said, I certainly do applaud you for having the balls to put it out there like that and test the waters to see where people stand on Cannabis, but if someone loves their job and doesn't want to loose it, I'd personally advise against being so "in your face" with it as it's still a very new concept at this point and time in history. On the other hand, If you hate your job and want to move on anyway, I'd say by all means do it! There's nothing to loose at that point anyway!

 

[scrogster]

My company had a white elephant gift exchange and they said alcohol was an acceptable gift. I live in California, so I decided to shake things up by gifting a nice bud from my last grow. It came out to 3grams and looked really sweet in the mason jar.

Being a responsible person, I printed a warning and taped it to the jar:
Proposition 64 Warning
Contains THC
Must be 21 years of age or older.

Then I stuck a note on the top of the jar that said:
On November 8, 2016 the people of California voted 57% in favor of proposition 64. On November 9th the Adult Use Act of 2016 took effect. The statute allows adults to gift other adults up to one ounce of dried cannabis flower.
Enjoy a safer alternative to alcohol this holiday.

It was half way they the exchange when I broke the spirit of the event and picked my own gift. I wanted to see who would steal the gift. It shook the room when I opened it and read the note. A lot of gasps and disbelief. Meanwhile there was a bottle of vodka and several bottles of wine floating around the room. Several people took pictures and were very curious.

Finally a quiet grandma showed the courage to steal the gift. The room burst into applause. That moment made my Christmas. A younger woman eventually stole it from her after her wine was stolen by someone else. The white elephant had a two steal maximum so I won’t know who else was 420 friendly.

People were talking about it the rest of the day. I loved pushing people out of their comfort zone.

That's so awesome .