“Not surprisingly, (when) the backlash from civil libertarians led to a Congressional investigation into DARPA’s activity, the Information Awareness Office lost its funding. Now the internet conspiracy theorists are citing Facebook as the IAO’s new mask.”

– “Facebook – the CIA conspiracy”, by Matt Greenop, The New Zealand Herald, Aug. 8, 2007

“Facebook, Google, Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena.”

– “Julian Assange: Facebook is CIA spying machine”, RT (Russia Today), May 2, 2011

“Facebook isn’t helping you make new connections, Facebook doesn’t develop new relationships, Facebook is just trying to be the most accurate model of your social graph, … There’s a part of me that feels somewhat bored by all of this.”

– Sean Parker, billionaire and first president of Facebook, June 7, 2012

“Unlike Facebook, we are creating a portal to a 1 trillion dollar emerging cannabis industry.”

– Steve Kubby, creator of Headbook

I use Facebook. Every day I change my cover picture and upload photos, music, images and other bits of information to my wall that I find useful or interesting. When I have an event, I let all my local friends know about it through Facebook. I think Facebook is awesome – it turns us all into broadcasters of a sort.

But the downside to Facebook is that some of the people behind it are somewhat shady. You know, military and CIA types. If you haven’t watched this instructional YouTube video and are curious about it, it goes into detail about it here.

A story showing the connections was published by the mainstream New Zealand Herald, and it was even picked up by mock-news site The Onion (and it’s funny because it’s true).

“So what?” you ask. “Facebook is a business – if they shit on us potheads they’ll lose 10-30 percent of their customers!” This may be true, but it hasn’t stopped them from censoring cannabis-related advertising due to some sort of weird “the image of a pot leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies” bullshit excuse. The ads in question were not for “smoking products” but rather for legalization lobbying efforts.

Needless to say, Facebook is not a secure, safe, pot-friendly place for cannabis lovers to network.

Which brings us to Headbook.

Created by veteran US cannabis activist Steve Kubby, Headbook is committed to being pot-friendly. Kubby personally guarantees that all genuine seed companies and dispensaries are welcome to advertise there. Cannabis lovers from all over the world are invited to join up and socialize.

Headbook is super-secure, with state-of-the-art SSL 256-bit AES encryption.

Then there is a special feature – currently limited to Californians who have their doctor’s recommendations, but soon to be opened up to verified patients in other US States and eventually worldwide – called The Vault.

The Vault boasts both 256-bit AES encryption and 1028-bit cryptography, combined with a strict verification process conducted by professionals at California Medical Verifications (CMV). CMV has a doctor on staff to verify the conditions and the accreditation of doctors who seem suspect. Verifications are renewed every year, as are California doctor’s recommendations.

Inside The Vault, patients and patient/growers can do trading as is currently outlined in SB420: 11362.765:

(c) A primary caregiver who receives compensation for actual expenses, including reasonable compensation incurred for services provided to an eligible qualified patient or person with an identification card to enable that person to use marijuana under this article, or for payment for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in providing those services, or both, shall not, on the sole basis of that fact, be subject to prosecution or punishment under Section 11359 or 11360. 11362.775. Qualified patients, persons with valid identification cards, and the designated primary caregivers of qualified patients and persons with identification cards, who associate within the State of California in order collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, shall not solely on the basis of that fact be subject to state criminal sanctions under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570.

A critic of Kubby (a particularly foul-mouthed critic who used to be friendly until he cut a deal with the US Federal government to avoid prison for edibles and then suddenly became hostile to Kubby) has attacked Headbook for releasing a privacy policy that appears on the surface to cave to authorities.

Kubby was convinced by legal council to adopt the exact same privacy policy as craigslist, which has withstood many legal battles, but has argued that Headbook “keeps zero information” and could not provide anything to the authorities even if they wanted to. Nothing in The Vault is ever recorded.

Kubby has created a friendly place for cannabis-lovers to get together, and a safe place for patients to find their medicine, and for that he should be commended.

I just signed up – it’s easy to do. I recommend my friends sign up now and become “Charter Members”.

https://www.headbook.org

In a world where cannabis is more and more the central sacrament, medicine and raw-material, Headbook may one day rival Facebook in it’s power and prestige.

David Malmo-Levine is a cannbabis activist known in Vancouver for hosting the popular annual 4/20 and Cannabis Day rallies at the Vancouver Art Gallery and as curator of the Vancouver Herb Museum. David has worked for years with activist Marc Emery and is a regular contributor to Cannabis Culture and Pot-TV. Read his blog on CC.