Everyone Poops
by Taro Gomi
A book review by Stuff Stoners Like
People often turn to books to take a closer look at issues that are important to them. Everyone, including stoners, want a book that relates to their own world view and literature that either reaffirms or extends that view and allows them to share it with the world; Everyone Poops, by Taro Gomi, makes that happen. This wonderfully informative book, chock full of awesome pictures of poop, is a brave and captivating attempt to explain that everyone poops and everyone who poops can benefit from marijuana!
Experimenting with marijuana can signal a period of either great defiance or one of great achievement for kids…much like potty-training. This book successfully addresses their natural curiosity about marijuana by showing them that their curiosity about marijuana is as natural as a bear shitting in the woods because let’s face it…Dora the Exploradora ain’t gonna tell kid’s shit about weed.
The bright photos of fun and exotic animals aren’t as cool as catching a nice boob shot in a National Geographic pictorial or anything but seeing the various animals as they’re all stoked to pose with their poop does brilliantly reinforce the idea that marijuana is as natural as pooping.
Much like the diversity of stoners, Everyone Poops has an underlying diversity theme illustrated by the emphasis placed on the different poopers and their individual poop. This sends the message to kids that all of our bodies are different and we all have different reasons to smoke weed as portrayed by the multitude of animals with unique body shapes and sizes.
Everyone Poops takes a fascinating approach to detailing the variety of marijuana available today. They cleverly depict that variety through the variety of excrement that comes outta the variety of asses in the book. “An elephant makes a big poop, a mouse makes a tiny poop, a one-hump camel makes a one-hump poop, and a two hump-camel makes a two-hump poop” says the book, just like a West Coast Sour Diesel plant makes West Coast Sour Diesel buds and Purple Kush plants make delicious Purple Kush. The book even touches on the diversity of the aroma of weed by covering the “different smells” of poop.
We love how the book covers the different environments in which growers can cultivate weed too, like indoor or outdoor by illustratinging the varied environments where fish and birds and bugs poop.
Animals have different methods of taking a shit and obviously stoners have different methods of getting stoned. “Some stop to poop, others do it on the move” just like some stoners use a bong and others use a hollowed-out apple because they spent all their money on weed and beer and don’t have any left for a pack of papers.
The biting social commentary comes by way of an ignorant rhinoceros, however. Rhinoceroses make really big poops, by the way, as you’ll notice if you actually take our advice and read this book. Apparently, rhinoceroses pay no attention when they poop. They’re ignorant and careless about the needs and feelings of those around them, much like prohibitionists and DEA agents.
After finishing this book we completely agree that everyone eats, so everyone poops and it’s under-stated metaphor…marijuana is for everyone and if you don’t like it…you’re just a poopy-head.
Speaking of stupid things, apparently, people do stupid things like steal medicine from li’l ol’ ladies without being “hooked on” marijuana. And, whether or not Capt. Danzi thinks cannabis as medicine, which is completely legal in 13 states and counting and is proven not physically addictive, is a good idea…simply doesn’t matter. Who really gives a shit what he thinks, right?
Prohibitionists are now persecuting our religious leaders! Maybe we should just make a fucking form-letter type blog post so we can save time and just swap the names and locations of victimized dispensaries, medicine providers, and patients because dispensary busts here in California are rising sharply! Yesterday (Thursday August 20, 2009) marked the third time in a week that the Los Angeles Police Department has raided a medical marijuana dispensary!
Like most raids, this one happened as a result of some nosy neighbors who told police illegal drugs were being sold at the location. “This is a church run medical marijuana club providing medical marijuana for sick people, but we do it as a church,” said Rasta Pastor Craig Rubin.
During one of the raids officers shot a dog. It’s believed to be a pit bull, but the circumstances of the shooting remain unclear, say a law enforcement spokesman. They also say they found 200 plants, 100 pounds of marijuana, $100,000 cash and made one arrest. What they don’t say, however, is what prompted the raids and why they had to shoot someone’s pet.
Still, the US Government funds research to prove that cannabis causes cancer. What a waste of money. One such waste is an extremely flawed study that attempted to link 
As harvest time approaches, so does the end of summer and that means school is right around the corner. Not everyone hates school, especially those attending Oakland’s increasingly popular Oaksterdam University located in downtown Oakland’s Oaksterdam district.
So who exactly is interested in the marijuana industry and what sort of folks attend the university? “We have all kinds of students as far as age and demographics and types, says Lee. “I’d say the majority are older people looking for a second career, things like that…it’s not like college kids primarily. In general it breaks down into 3 categories. There are people who are looking to work in the industry, get a job at a dispensary. Our first valedictorian got a job right away at Berkeley Patients Group, a nearby dispensary. Or (they want) to start their own business. We’ve had students go on to start dispensaries. The second group would be people who just want to grow for themselves, personally, so they need to learn about the politics and legal issues of doing that as well as the actual how-to’s of horticulture. And, the 3rd type are people who are just interested in the politics who want to get involved in changing the law and want to learn more about what’s going on with cannabis and repealing cannabis prohibition.”
Speaking of pot politics, they’re rapidly changing aren’t they? And, it seems like Oakland is leading the charge. We recently heard about how you and other dispensaries here in Oakland opted to RAISE taxes? “Measure F is the first Cannabis business tax, it’s the 1st time that a special a special category has been created just for cannabis businesses. Before, the dispensaries of Oakland were under the regular retail rate of .12%, this sets up this new cannabis category and increases it or sets the rate at 1.8%. Almost 2% or 15 times the old amount. IT’s a big increase,” explains Lee. “Our dispensary nearby will go from paying about $3,000 a year to about $45,000 in those gross receipts business license tax, we already pay $30,000 a year though in permit fees as well as 300,000 a year in sales tax and about a half-million in payroll and income tax.”
