The Ongoing Saga of the Cannabus

Many of you who have been in the cannabis activist community for a while have probably heard of the Cannabus. Yes, that name is used a lot for everything from party/tour buses to medical marijuana dispensaries, but I’m talking about a very specific Cannabus, one that has been from one side of this country to the other and back again. The Cannabus has recently fallen on hard times, so I reached out to Stacey Theis, a cannabis activist and the owner of the bus, to find out the latest and see if the Cannabus will ever ride again.

“Myself, my cousin and friends were working together to educate the masses to help end prohibition of cannabis,” Stacey told The Marijuana Times about the origins of the Cannabus. “There were two guys in North Carolina that owned the bus and converted her to the Cannabus to help end prohibition on the east coast. Drama happened for the owner and he had to put the bus up for sale only 4 months after starting.”

Friends of Stacey were getting ready to move to Hawaii and they sold their vehicle to help her get the Cannabus. “I had a NORML conference to attend in Cali before flying out to get the bus,” Stacey told us. “At the conference folks across the map made plans with me for the travel back. Mary Jane Smokewear sent their back stock to Kentucky to help us make it back, and orgs across the map teamed up with us to educate and inspire as many folks as we could on the way back to Arizona. We made a 14 day tour out of picking her up in North Carolina to AZ.”

Since that first trip, Stacey and the Cannabus made several more educational excursions, visiting more than 35 states. And then the trips came to an end. “The bus is in Ohio needing an engine,” Stacey said. “She got sabotaged and torn apart in Michigan. There were mechanics that tried helping but were not successful.

“I had her towed to a shop in Toledo and the mechanic just ended up taking over 1200 bucks from me and never touching the bus. I got her towed to much better place in Cincinnati this past July. I have a friend that is a master diesel mechanic willing to take time off work to go fix her when I get an engine to fix her with. The day before Hash Bash will be 2 years since she’s been on the road. Breaks my heart!”

The place in Cincinnati that Stacey refers to is Hemptations in Sharonville, Ohio. I do a weekly hemp show with the owner of Hemptations and we talked about the fate of the Cannabus a few weeks ago; that clip can be seen below.

Stacey also has a GoFundMe page for the Cannabus that can be found here.

Hopefully the Cannabus can get back on the road and again spread the truth about cannabis the old-fashioned way: by taking the message directly to people all across the country, in person. In the age of social media, it seems like this is being done less and less; after all, more people can be reached at one time online. But there are still those who may be swayed by the personal touch, which makes the Cannabus a vital part of the continued success of the cannabis law reform movement.