Recent video coming out of the Coachella shows a naked man being forced to the ground for refusing to cooperate with police and put on his clothes, then being tasered — to the booing of a large crowd that had gathered and was filming the entire thing. As the violence escalates, the videographer can be heard saying:

"Freedom of speech, holmes! The world is watching!"

Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo.

A couple points are worth making here:

• The dude here sounds like he's on acid, and I wouldn't be surprised given that it's a music festival and he's, well, naked. This is not an ideal state in which to deal with authority.
• Given how he was reacting to the cops, I'm not surprised they tasered him.
• That said, the cops could have realized the state of the individual and been more understanding than they were. Their response escalated matters far greater than they could have been.
• The subsequent booing from the crowd gives the impression that the individual in question wasn't being a threat; rather, he broke social conventions and refused to cooperate, and thus was attacked by the police.

Yet more than anything, the massive circle that had gathered and the pervasiveness of camera technology ensured that the event would be recorded with some level of depth. The videographer in the above goes around the circle and every second person has either a camera or their cell-phone out, recording the police involvement. If this was a case of the police overreacting, there would be ample evidence to present against the cops responsible.

The application of this to the cannabis movement should be obvious. When we do demonstrations in public that involve smoking an illegal substance, and there is a high chance of police retaliation, a combination of mobile content creation tools and online social media can be instrumental in further politicizing an event that might otherwise receive less coverage. By having participants in a demonstration record altercations, the tone of the protest becomes less "A hundred potheads got together and shared doobies and got arrested" and more "A group of activists was detained by police during a non-violent mass protest."

The Global Marijuana March is coming up on May 2nd. Likely, many of you will be participating. In realizing that our culture faces massive opposition from entrenched power structures, we must — as a community — be willing to support and protect each other. This goes without saying; however, in the past, typically the only way to show solidarity was to light-up in the mass protest. However, through the use of these tools, those of us not wanting to engage in an illegal act in public can thus at least act as media support for those who do, documenting each police interaction and recording important information such as names and badge numbers.

If you're interested in doing GMM coverage, please see the post in this forum thread. We're wanting to make the world aware of how large a global phenomenon this is, and we need you to help us.

-Ændrew Rininsland, Managing Editor