Check out this children's book on weed!

Discussion in 'The Bookshelf' started by RMJL, Dec 3, 2004.

  1. i wanna read it
     
  2. ABOUT THE BOOK-

    Despite our best efforts to criminalize, restrict and otherwise hide it in every way we can... children learn about marijuana.

    Whether in the schoolyard or the classroom, kids are inundated with information about it. Unfortunately, most "drug facts" are more frightening than educational. Campaigns by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America blame pot, through startling leaps of logic, for homelessness, teen pregnancy and gunplay. Parents have few sources of scientific information about the plant that puts the safety of their children before politics.


    We believe a child's first awareness of drugs should come from a better source than the media, the government, or the drug manufacturers. Still, many parents are not comfortable discussing drug use beyond "just say no." Some parents use marijuana themselves. Others fear that any discussion of marijuana falling short of outright denouncement may be perceived by their kids as permission to try it on their own.
    It's Just a Plant is for them, and for all concerned parents who want to be involved in honestly educating their children about the effects, the dangers and the benefits of marijuana.





    Damn right! They couldn't hide it from me!
     
  3. PHP:
     
    hows it going?

    im not sure if implanting weed in an earley age is such a good idea.

    the magic roundabout and all that.

    lol
     
  4. wow thats fuckin crazy but its hilarious
     
  5. No why couldn't they have that for a bedtime story when I was younger, LOL. :D
     
  6. that is awesome... I want to read that book myself... If I had a kid, i'd buy it for them :p
     
  7. well... i sure know what book im looking foreward to reading next!
     
  8. by Taylor Walsh, (Source:Columbia Daily Spectator)
    23 Feb 2005

    New York
    -------
    "One night, Jackie woke up past her bedtime. She smelled something funny in the air, so she walked down the hall to her parents' bedroom.

    "'What's that, MommyUKP' asked Jackie. 'Are you and Daddy smoking a cigaretteUKP'

    "'No, baby,' said her mother. 'This is a "joint." It's made of marijuana.'"

    So begins It's Just a Plant: A Children's Story of Marijuana, written and illustrated by Ricardo Cortes, CC '95, who read his book Tuesday night to an audience of about 50 Columbia students. The book relates a simple story of a mother's effort to explain marijuana to her young daughter. After Jackie stumbles upon her parents using the drug recreationally, her mother introduces her to a farmer, a doctor, and police officers who explain the drug's history, positive and negative health effects, and criminalization.

    "We knew this book was going to be controversial, that's part of why we thought it would be interesting to invite Ricardo to campus," said Daniel Blau, CC '06 and president of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, the organization that sponsored the event. SSDP is a national student organization, and Columbia's chapter has about 20 active members. According to Blau, the group is not designed for drug users, but for all people who seek to create a more rational and realistic drug policy.

    Cortes highlighted the shortcomings of the current federal government's drug policies and approach to education. "Mainstream culture thinks that by hiding information from kids, it will make them magically decide not to use drugs," said Cortes, adding that history has disproved this theory.

    This book is an example of what Cortes calls reality-based education, which centers on differentiating between drug use and drug abuse. He contrasted his open, informational approach with Washington's advertisements for the drug war and public school education through the DARE program, which he characterized as "frightening and intimidating shock tactics, and a message that won't get through to kids."

    While Cortes is happy that the book has been getting attention in the press, not all of the critics have been kind. He said that a lot of critics have assumed that the book must focus on promoting marijuana use among children, but that it is actually simply about helping parents initiate a dialogue with their children about the drug.

    "The parent needs to mediate between the drug and the child," said Cortes, who said during the question-and-answer period that the book is designed for parents and children to read together and may not be suitable for a young reader to pick up on his or her own.

    Cortes said that, though he has received positive feedback from the parents and children who he knows have read the book, it has been difficult to distribute. It was rejected by dozens of publishers before Cortes decided to self-publish, and many bookstores, along with the Brooklyn Library, have refused to stock it. The book can currently be purchased through a Web site established by Cortes and at Barnes and Noble's online store.

    Some members of the medical community share Cortes's views on the need for a revitalized approach to drug education. One supporter is Dr. Carl Hart, an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia who researches the pharmacological effects of marijuana on humans.

    Dr. Hart, who has read the book, said that he was not disturbed. "For children to gain knowledge is a good thing, as long as you educate them in a responsible manner. You want people to have more information available to them, not less," he said.

    Hart said that drugs like marijuana have been overly politicized, which undermines recognition of their positive effects. "One of the negative consequences of the way drug education has been done since the '80s has been to greatly exaggerate the negative effects of drugs," Hart said. "Now we're in a society where people reject anything that drug experts and physicians say about their potential benefits."

    The audience as a whole received the book sympathetically, responding positively to its message and style. "This book is a needle bursting the bubble of the hypocrisy of denial," said Isaac Skelton, a 33-year-old SIPA student and father of two. "It challenged me as a parent and a smoker to explain my choices to my kids when they're ready."

    "The more access people have to marijuana as a topic for discussion and a viable choice for adults, the less likely it is to be abused," said Eli Dvorkin, CC '08.

    [size=-1]Pubdate: Wed, 23 Feb 2005
    Source: Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia, NY Edu)
    Copyright: 2005 Spectator Publishing Company
    Contact: opinion@columbiaspectator.com
    Website: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2125
    Author: Taylor Walsh
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
    Cited: Students for Sensible Drug Policy: www.DAREgeneration.com
    Link to article: http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v05/n305/a05.htm
    [/SIZE]
     


  9. ditto :hippie:
     
  10. I dont get it.. The book ends like half way. It gets to the point where the mom and kid go ride a bike and thats it.

    I feel so let down.
     
  11. By Jamie Pietras
    Source: Village Voice

    The debate over American marijuana-control policy has always been framed around the minds of the young. From the campy anti-pot educational films of the 1950s to the in-school visits from police officers affiliated with the 22-year-old D.A.R.E. program, federal officials have consistently funded or endorsed persuasive approaches to education that critics say put a premium on scare tactics at the expense of scientific objectivity.

    In the 1930s and 1940s, pot was said to lead to blood-splattering violence and insanity, a claim perpetuated, in part, by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Treasury Department agency that was the forerunner to today's Drug Enforcement Administration. This gave way to the slightly less sensational assertion that marijuana leads to the use of harder drugs like cocaine or heroin, a charge still in vogue among marijuana prohibitionists today, despite compelling evidence to the contrary (the federally funded 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine found no causative connection between the use of marijuana and the use of harder drugs).

    Few would argue they want kids smoking pot. The challenge is in dissuading kids from doing so without resorting to potentially counterproductive myths and hyperbole.

    Enter Ricardo Cortes.

    Two years ago, the former high school D.A.R.E. officer and Prospect Heights-based T-shirt and skateboard designer began working on an entirely different approach. He wrote and illustrated a 48-page picture book he hoped would be taken as a welcome dose of "reality-based education." Cortes says the book, It's Just a Plant, is intended for "six to 12-year-olds." His book still encourages kids to say "No," but it stops short of condemning responsible adult use.

    The story begins when eight-year-old "Jackie" walks into her parents bedroom, a den of Peter Max-style, Day-Glo decorum, and catches her parents smoking a joint. It ends-after an odyssey involving a gentle pot farmer, progressive-thinking doctor, and a primer on marijuana prohibition history from an officer making a bust-with Jackie proclaiming she's going to grow up and vote, "so I can make all the laws fair."

    Cortes was certain a major publisher wouldn't touch his project, so he shopped it around to a few independent presses before deciding last month to publish an initial run of 3,000 copies himself. Orders have been processed primarily through the website of his company, Magic Propaganda Mill. As a single-title publisher, he decided not to approach the major retailer Barnes and Noble, which would have required him to shoulder distribution costs. Small Canadian retail conglomerate McNally Robinson told Cortes his book wouldn't fit the store's demographic; one Borders in North Carolina has decided to stock it. Brooklyn Public Library declined to carry the book after requesting a copy, and two libraries in other states have yet to respond after being sent the book. Indie bookstores in San Francisco, Chicago, Austin, Maryland, and New York are selling the title.

    Reviews were expectedly mixed. The most pointed came, unsurprisingly, from an elected official out to politicize the book. During a February 16 House Drug Policy Subcommittee hearing on "harm reduction" approaches to intravenous drug use, the committee's chairman, Indiana Representative Mark Souder, held a copy of the book in front of him and denounced it as a "pro-marijuana children's book." The representative then read excerpts into the Congressional Record. Cortes says he has already e-mailed a rebuttal to Souder's office, in the hopes will also be included in the Congressional Record. Souder's office hadn't yet seen it when contacted by the Voice.

    Why would Souder go out of his way to publicize a self-published title of relatively little influence during a hearing unrelated to marijuana or educational policy? Two words: George Soros. The Hungarian-born investor is the chief financier of the drug reform movement and its most prominent advocacy group, the Drug Policy Alliance. The alliance is a key player in the world of drug reform-the go-to place for activists, journalists, and politicians interested in passing medical marijuana measures, decriminalizing marijuana, or starting needle exchange or methadone-maintenance programs. The DPA is the ideological thorn in the side of Souder and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the agency on behalf of which Souder introduces drug-related legislation to Congress.

    Souder repeatedly attacked Soros and the DPA for its support of Cortes's book, which the DPA currently sells in the "drug education" section of its online library. DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann provided Cortes with a promotional blurb, while Marsha Rosenbaum, the director of the DPA's San Francisco office, wrote the book's epilogue. Rosenbaum told The Village Voice she knew her epilogue was "somewhat of a risky proposition" but she never anticipated the extent of the negative backlash. "It confirms all of my worst fears that the government, in the human form of Souder, would hold up this book and claim with a straight face that it advocates marijuana use for kids." Souder, who is currently out of the country, couldn't be reached for comment.

    Never mind adults-can a six-year-old differentiate how something could be against the law yet morally justifiable? "I don't think there's a magic age where it becomes OK to start talking about these things," Cortes says. "I think it's very similar to sex. A five-year-old is ready to talk about sex in some way. You don't need to break down the protein content of sperm to a five-year-old." (He and Rosenbaum are careful to say that they don't intend for kids to read the book on their own, but with an adult.)

    Just a week after Souder's performance, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America announced the results of a new survey on parental attitudes. Most parents valued talking to their kids about drugs, the survey said, yet only one in three teens claimed to have learned a lot about drug risks at home. In fact, the number of parents who never talked to their kids about drugs doubled from 6 percent in 1998 to 12 percent in 2004. It's an ironic dynamic, since parents today are more likely to have used drugs than parents in previous generations.

    As for Cortes, he may find the biggest market for his book isn't his intended audience. Cortes has already agreed to ship about half of his original run of books to Urban Outfitters, a national retail chain where consumers are more likely to see the book as ironic satire. That's cool, Cortes says. The point the book makes-pointing out the absurdity of marijuana laws-is one that is equally relevant to grown-ups. "Sometimes you have to talk to adults like they are children."

    Note: How a 'pro-marijuana' children's story found its way to Congress.

    Source: Village Voice (NY)
    Author: Jamie Pietras
    Published: February 28th, 2005
    Copyright: 2005 Village Voice Media, Inc.
    Contact: editor@villagevoice.com
    Website: http://www.villagevoice.com/
    Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20301.shtml
     
  12. I'm totally buying that book :hippie:
     
  13. I haven't read the book either, but I imagine you would use the book as a learning tool--sort of letting your children know that "hey, it's just a plant", no mystery about it. Some kids get that DARE crap drilled into their heads at an early age.

    This is what their FAQ says about the book:

     
  14. that will be a great book for my book archives ;)
    peace out
     

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