Mayoral Candidate Nobody and City Council Candidates Ian Freeman and Robert Call toke up at the 420.
In September of 2009, liberty migrants and New Hampshire natives gathered in Keene’s Central Square to commit mass civil disobedience in violation of the state’s prohibition against cannabis. They did this heroic act despite the risk of misdemeanor charges that could have resulted at the time from the simple possession of cannabis.
The 420 rallies were historic and made local, state, national, and international headlines. They started small, with just a handful smoking cannabis in the iconic New Hampshire town common and quickly grew to upwards of 150 participants at their peak. The celebrations of cannabis freedom went on daily and lasted for weeks, despite desperate attempts by Keene police to crack down.
Once the events grew to a crowd, Keene police arrested a couple of the perceived leaders of the event in hopes of intimidating the peaceful tokers into calling it quits and going home, but the police aggression had the opposite effect. Instead of scaring away the protestors, dozens marched down to the Keene police headquarters and smoked cannabis behind the police station and later smoked up inside the lobby!
After that, the police never returned to the daily 420s and they eventually died off due to winter weather setting in. Though the rallies were revived the following Spring, we had clearly won the ground as a demilitarized zone for open cannabis use. It was a beautiful thing. Beginning in 2010, on April 20th the 420 rallies continued as a yearly event at the Concord state house steps and participants even came to include multiple state representatives.
Last weekend, the 420 rally returned to the place where it began – Keene’s Central Square. The founder of the rallies, then known as Rich Paul, now known as Nobody and running a campaign for mayor of Keene had the prior week announced a special rally to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the historic events. Held on Saturday September 28th at 4:20pm, the 10th anniversary rally was attended by locals, liberty migrants, and even included Robert Call and me, who are both candidates for city council in this year’s Keene municipal election.
Here’s a music video I made from footage of the original rallies in 2009, footage from the Concord rallies, and fresh footage and photos from last weekend’s 10th anniversary 420 rally:
In the past decade, we’ve seen some political progress in New Hampshire, including medical cannabis passing in 2012 and decriminalization of less than 3/4ths of an ounce of cannabis and 5 grams of concentrate passed in 2017. However, prohibition is not over and it continues to be a felony to grow or sell cannabis – an amazing plant that has helped countless people.
As long as prohibition exists, expect the 420 rallies and the civil disobedience to continue.
It’s 420 at 4:20pm Saturday 9/28 at Keene’s Central Square!
Ten years ago, in September of 2009, a group of liberty activists and NH natives made history by gathering every day in Keene’s Central Square at 4:20pm to smoke cannabis in an act of mass civil disobedience protesting New Hampshire’s insane drug prohibition. You can watch a bunch of videos of it here. The group grew larger as the days went by to where, at its peak, there were at least 130 people in the tiny little common in the heart of Downtown Keene. The Keene police were unsure of how to handle the situation after a couple of arrests they made at the rallies resulted in a bunch of protestors smoking cannabis inside the police station lobby!
After that, the police simply ignored the ongoing civil disobedience, publicly stating that they investigated and had found no one was smoking – which was a lie. The historic events garnered local and even international headlines and most importantly got a conversation started among the community about ending cannabis prohibition.
Eventually, the weather got too cold for most to bear, but the following spring, the daily rallies returned! Over time, people went back to their regular lives and the rallies continued yearly at the Concord, NH state house steps. We’d won the territory of Central Square and had essentially turned Keene’s little town common into a demilitarized zone where cannabis prohibition was not enforced!
We have made a lot of progress in 10 years, but we have a long way left to go. We have gained medical, we have gained decriminalization, we have, most recently, loosened the cruel and pointless constraints on medical marijuana. Most importantly, we have won the hearts and minds of the people but we are not done. We must serve notice that the people will not be satisfied until the crime against humanity that is the “war on drugs” is over and those responsible brought to justice, or at least to peace.
Cannabis users are not disposable people. Whether we use it for medical, spiritual, or recreational purposes, we retain our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if we seek that happiness through unapproved chemical means.
Nobody has invited people to bring cannabis to smoke and share, though in case of a police crackdown, avoid having over three quarters of an ounce, since that is the decrim limit in New Hampshire. As of 2017’s overwhelmingly passed slight decriminalization, possession of under 21 grams of cannabis or five grams of concentrate will only net the first time offender a $100 ticket. Whereas previously it would have been a misdemeanor arrest. So, now the risk to participants at 420 rallies is lower than ever.
However, if the police do show up to attempt to confiscate your cannabis and you end up with a ticket, I highly suggest you don’t take the plea deal! Take the ticket to trial and make them work to get their conviction, and even when you’re found guilty, refuse to pay the fine and instead do community service. Or just sit in jail for a day, since NH allows you to sit off fines at $150 a day. Whatever you do, don’t pay the fine, as that only encourages them to target peaceful cannabis users for fundraising purposes. If the police know they can’t get money out of people for cannabis “violations” and the police’s victims will instead clog up the courts via their right to trial, the cops may just stop ticketing people for cannabis entirely.
I look forward to seeing you out this Saturday, 9/28 at 4:20pm on Keene’s Central Square for the return of the 420 celebration rallies! If it goes well, we might even come back the next day…
This week, Nobody was interviewed about his campaign for mayor at Keene State College’s radio station, WKNH 91.3 on “Wake Up Call” with host Vincent Moore. I was there to record video of Nobody’s first media interview, so you can watch the full interview here:
Wake Up Call airs every Wednesday 9-11am on WKNH 91.3 FM in Keene and at WKNH.org and WKNH on the TuneIn app. You can learn more about Nobody’s campaign for mayor of Keene at ElectNobody.com.
My Campus Convenience, Keene – Now Accepting Cryptocurrencies!
As of last week, Keene now has two well-known and busy convenience stores that are accepting multiple cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), DASH, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Corner News, the Main Street icon for over 100 years has been accepting crypto since 2013 for various convenience items and smoking accessories, but they now have a crypto-accepting competitor in the form of My Campus Convenience.
“CampCo” has been in business a long time and is very conveniently located to the Keene State College campus, located at its northwestern end, at 152 Winchester Street in Keene, right across from Thirsty Owl, a crypto-accepting bar. Thirsty Owl’s owner, Darren Humphrey, recently took over management of My Campus Convenience and immediately implemented accepting cryptocurrencies as one of his first changes.
It’s a no-brainer. Humphrey has obviously had a good experience with cryptocurrency acceptance at the Owl. Taking crypto from customers means a business gets 100% of every sale, unlike credit cards that take away about 3% of every sale, and an even larger percentage of your profit. Unlike US Dollars or other fiat currency that go down in value due to constant inflation, Cryptocurrency also has the potential of going up – or down – in value, so many local business owners like Humphrey are holding it for the long-term. Though it’s not difficult to turn cryptocurrency into US Dollars, if that’s what the business owner wants to do.
The new addition of Campus Convenience to the growing roster of crypto-accepting Keene-area businesses solidifies our place as one of the top few cities in the world for businesses-per-capita that are accepting crypto. We beat even the “Bitcoin Cash City” of Townsville, Australia where a conference will be held this week to promote that area.
Crypto Stickers at My Campus Convenience
There’s no doubt what Townsville’s crypto community have accomplished is impressive, but their city’s population is over 178,000, while Keene’s is about 23,000. That means with 78 BCH-accepting businesses, according to the “Marco Coino” app, Townsville has one business for every 2,293 people while Keene’s 14 BCH-accepting locations gives it a ratio of one business for every 1,642 people. That’s great, but we are bested in the Bitcoin Cash acceptance category by Ljubljana, Slovenia where a payment processor called Elipay is having tremendous success getting allegedly as many as 220 area businesses including at least one grocery store to accept cryptocurrency including Bitcoin Cash. With 279,631 in population, that gives Ljubljana a ratio of one business for every 1,271 people.
The other main crypto spent on-the-ground here in Keene is DASH, which has been accepted by businesses across Keene since 2017. It was with DASH that New Hampshire-based Anypay pioneered their “DASH-Back” program , which pretty consistently gives instant 10% rebates to customers making a purchase at merchants who run the Anypay system. In Keene almost every business that accepts cryptocurrency from customers in real life is using Anypay’s point-of-sale. Eventually, Anypay launched a Bitcoin Cash-back system as well. Both of their crypto rebate robots are funded by donations and are active at the time of this writing.
Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest from Crypto Mecca, as more liberty-loving crypto fans move here thanks to the ongoing NH Freedom Migration, the crypto economy here will keep getting better. And don’t forget to drop in to Campus Convenience for smoking accessories, CBD, alcohol, snacks, and more – all for cryptocurrency. Plus here’s a cool map from Anypay that not only shows you where crypto is accepted in Keene, but also when the last time was that someone bought with cryptocurrency.
When I heard the first ever Straight Pride Parade was happening just an hour from my house, I knew I had to go. I brought along my video camera and a microphone with the goal of conducting as many interviews with interesting people as possible. No gotchas, just straight questions: “What brought you out today,” and “What do you think of the event?”
While I am pouring through yesterday’s footage, I came across 4 minutes of particularly defining footage. A man walking down the sidewalk gets blocked by a woman, and then a group of people, and prevented from moving. He yells for help but his calls are unanswered. The masked thugs revel in their positions of power and his vulnerability. They have deemed him the enemy. Why? That is unclear. But they have him. And they are going to project all their anger and hatred onto him. He smiles. He does not relent.
