Five years ago today I posted the first article on this blog. It was a very rudimentary article, one that I read for almost comedic purposes every once in awhile. If I had been told back then that I would still be posting articles five years later, I would have pinched myself because I would have thought I was dreaming. There would have been no way for me to fit my head around something like that.
But, despite the odds, here I am posting article number 8,529. In the last five years, this blog has accumulated 94,314,738 pageviews. I remember when we received our 1,000th pageview. I remember thinking to myself at the time, ‘1,0oo, that’s mind blowing!’ The Weed Blog has had a lot of ups and downs over the years, and likely will in the future, but hopefully we will be around for another five years. With fans like ours, anything is possible.
One of the biggest hopes I had when we started this blog was that someday we might help states legalize cannabis, and eventually end cannabis prohibition nationwide. That of course has already happened in four states and D.C.. We strive very, very hard to help the reform movement. We post more reform based articles than any other cannabis website on the internet, and will continue to do so as long as I can login.
Despite the fact that we don’t have the financial resources that other sites our size do, or have teams of people running the site (just two dudes in Oregon with two laptops and a vaporizer, and another good guy paying the internet bill!), we aren’t located in a significant metro area (mid-Willamette Valley of Oregon), or attend many events, or sponsor events, or in my case have all day to dedicate to the blog (I work an 8-5 job in a cubicle like any other person), or have a marketing campaign, or have any corporate backing (independent since the beginning!), or a number of other things, despite all that, here we are, churning out page views as good or better than anyone else in the industry.
How do we do it? How do we compete with the big dogs despite them having virtually every competitive advantage on us? The answer is simple. We have YOU, the reader. We have the most loyal, awesome reader base in the entire industry, and I can never express how thankful I am for each and everyone of you. Even the ones that post harsh comments in the comments section. The fact that you grumpies are even taking the time to bash me or something on this site contributes to the conversation in some way, and I love discussion, even when it’s someone saying I’m wrong. I’ve always said, since the very first post, that I would rather be wrong and facilitate discussion than be right and have no one ever talk about it or learn about the topic being discussed.
I want to say to each and ever reader we have ever had, to every person that has shared or tweeted our stuff on social media, to every organization and campaign fighting for reform that we have helped, and to anyone that has contributed to this blog via guest post or syndication, THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART! Keep fighting for reform and justice, keep fighting for compassion, and keep fighting to end harmful prohibition. We are winning the war against cannabis, and as long as we have your support, we will continue to help as much as we can!
