everyone_poopsEveryone 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.

everyone-poops002-231x300The 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.

photoWe 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.

EveryonePoops_in

“There has been reporting that there are eight legitimate medical-marijuana dispensaries in San Diego County,” said SD District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, yesterday at a press conference in the wake of  terrifying raids of cannabis dispensaries all over the city. “There is no such thing right now,” she boasted…effectively denying medicine to patients throughout the county.

Dumanis also mentioned that “limited manpower” was the only reason they did not conduct more raids and make more arrests…leaving the door wide open for additional terrifying raids since “the investigation is ongoing”.

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Thirty-one people including medical marijuana dispensary staff, volunteers, and patients have been arrested (so far) in terrifying military-style raids of dispensaries and private homes in San Diego County. A total of 14 dispensaries have been forced to close so far.

Apparently, the raids were led by the infamous weed-hating San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. She and San Diego county have had an anti-weed agenda for quite some time. A few months back the US Supreme Court REFUSED to hear a landmark case brought by San Diego County stemming from a law suit they filled back in ‘06 that challenged the state-mandated use of ID cards for medical marijuana patients. Now they’re ratcheting up their effortss with extremely expensive and highly dangerous  attacks on the  citizens of San Diego!

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In an attempt to further marginalize compassionate care-givers Dumanis said the 14 storefronts targeted were “so-called medical marijuana businesses that appear to be run by drug dealers. There are now 60 storefronts operating and doing this under the guise of helping people who are sick.”

Funny thing is, no charges have been filed…yet.

“The police came in and raided us and told us to get our hands up, pushed us against the wall, started handcuffing people. All they said was that they had a search warrant, but they didn’t tell us what is was for,” Sara Sanders said about the frightening ordeal.

Law enforcement also stormed Nature’s in Linda Vista. Witnesses said that officers had guns drawn and even bashed the door in. “They put me against the wall, and did a search. I ended up cuffed before they even checked my bag and I am a med patient with a legal card. So, I felt like I was harassed by being cuffed,” medical marijuana patient Stacey Gant said.

Volunteers say the raids are unnecessary and that they are abiding by the law. “We have a lot of patients that are ailing and they need medicine and that’s what we are here for, doing this, doing the right thing by what the voters of San Diego, California decided on,” marijuana dispensary volunteer Booker Sanders Jr. said.

San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne
said the businesses targeted were chosen based on the number of residents’ complaints and the amount of activity happening at the businesses. We think they were singled out because Bonnie Dumanis has an anti-weed agenda. The number of medical marijuana dispensaries skyrocketed recently in the wake of her  FAILED attempt to overturn CA’s 1996 medical marijuana law. And, she probably is still all pissed and embarrassed over U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s directive that federal agents will only target medical marijuana storefronts when operators violate both state and federal laws…so now it’s time to make patients pay!

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Over in weed-hatin’ NY a poor elderly woman faces misdemeanor charges of growing weed to treat her painful arthritis and glaucoma. Buzz-killin’ Captain Charles Danzi of the Evans police says Barbara Ober was charged after the police spotted a 7-foot-tall pot plant on the woman’s front porch. The police also found six other cannabis plants growing around the house which they happily seized, on Wednesday, effectively stealing the 62-year-old woman’s medication.

It’s illegal for a reason,” said ignorant Capt. Danzi. “People, when they smoke it, they do stupid things and they get hooked on it and they start stealing. No, any legalized drugs I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

marijuana-leafSpeaking 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?

Currently there is a bill under consideration in Albany that would allow medical marijuana. So there’s some hope for patients in New York.

Ober’s husband, John Ober, told a local Buffalo TV station that she doesn’t smoke a lot, but it does help ease her pain. “It’s time New York legalized medical marijuana and reaped the benefits of taxing it,” he said. And, we couldn’t agree more.

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Now that we have your attention, it’s true…Marie Myung-Ok Lee pushes marijuana on her 9-year-old son. She feeds the li’l guy weed-laced tea and cookies. Why, you ask? “Because he can’t figure out how to use a bong.”

Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s son, “J”, suffers from autism. Imagine the horrors of autism and watching your child suffer each day. Like Lee, you’d want to help any way possible, wouldn’t you? Sure, there’s all sorts of crazy ineffective pharmaceuticals with horrible side-effects available to help the li’l guy get through agonizing days and nights of chronic pain from an inflammatory bowel condition and a spinal cord operation. But, after trying Risperdal and a bunch of other pharmaceuticals to control J’s tantrums and pain to no avail, Lee, with her doctor’s support decided to go the all-natural route and treat her son’s condition with marijuana.

090512_xx_Marie Lee“My son J has autism,” says Lee of pot-friendly Rhode Island, a writer for DoubleX.com. “Since we started him on his “special tea,” J’s little face, which is sometimes a mask of pain, has softened. He smiles more. For the last year, his individual education plan at his special-needs school was full of blanks, recording “no progress” because he spent his whole day an irritated, frustrated mess. Now, April’s report shows real progress, including “two community outings with the absence of aggressions.”

Read Lee’s own encouraging  words and the touching story of her pursuit to give her son, “J” a better quality of life with marijuana here: Why I Give my 9-year-old-pot.

It’s compassionate and enlightening stories that depict responsible medical marijuana use in real-world situations effectively treating debilitating medical conditions that flat out proves marijuana is safe medicine! It’s these stories that will bring an end to Reefer Madness!

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Mark Emery has been fighting for OUR rights for over 30 years. Now he’s facing LIFE in prison! In 2005 the US DEA arrested Emery for selling seeds online. They’re victimizing him for his leadership!We not only support Emery because of his tireless pro-medical marijuana efforts, but as writers, we adore Emery for his fight against censorship! We at Stuff Stoners Like are committed to helping Mark Emery and we NEED your support.

Here’s what you can do:

  1. Visit: http://www.cannabisculture.com/noextradition for the backstory.
  2. Write a letter asking the Washington State judge to let Marc Emery return to Canada without any imprisonment.
  3. Spread the news relentlessly and encourage others to do the same!
  4. Smoke a bowl and feel good about helping a CHAMPION of the cause!!! (This is the most important step.)

The US Drug Enforcement Administration admitted in a press release that Marc Emery’s July 29th, 2005 arrest was based on drug legalization efforts!

“Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group — is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement. His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today. Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General’s most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”

Don’t let the DEA wrongly persecute OUR leaders for fighting for OUR rights!

FREE EMERY NOW!

Rastafari2Prohibitionists 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!

This time around police nabbed three people during a raid  of a Rastafarian Ministry called the Royal Temple of Zion in Echo Park. Authorities say the facility has not applied for a hardship permit like all the other medical marijuana dispensaries, so selling weed is illegal. Interestingly however, proposition 215 does NOT mention anything about applying for a hardship permit. So what if the law is a bit ambiguous, that does NOT give the LAPD the right to bust Rastas for growing weed for sick people. This case will most definitely go to court and cost the taxpayers a ton of money!

rasta_leaf_300Like 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.

“We don’t just provide marijuana, we provide for their safety, their security. Every day we give everyone a place to congregate,” added Nathan Wade, a member of the Royal Temple of Zion.

“It’s because we believe a cannabis from Revelations 22 is a plant for the healing of all nations and that people should have access to this plant. It’s not only benign, it’s benevolent,” said Pastor Rubin.

We believe this religious persecution is  just another insidious tactic to win the war against people plants pets drugs. Despite the fact that the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder have both demanded an end to dispensary raids, sadly raids are becoming more numerous. This time prohibitionists not only raided and successfully shut down a dispensary they closed down a sacred place of worship!

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Listen, if you think the War on Drugs is a war on people, you’re WRONG. The War on Drugs is also a war on pets! Even though President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have announced an end to the feds raiding law-abiding dispensaries, that didn’t stop a slew of agents from raiding two LA marijuana dispensaries as well as the residence of the owners yesterday. It must have cost a fortune because of the amount of people who showed up for the bust. Federal authorities including the DEA, FBI and the IRS, plus agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s and Police Department as well as Torrance Police Department and Culver City agents were all involved in the raid.

1005081443During 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.

Perhaps murdering pets is standard practice during raids, because a Maryland mayor is currently asking the federal government to investigate why the SWAT team busted into his home last year and murdered his two dogs in an investigation into a drug smuggling scheme.

“We lost our family dogs at the hands of sheriff’s deputies who burst through our front door, rifles blazing,”   says Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, who also said he was brought downstairs at gunpoint in his boxer shorts, handcuffed and forced onto the floor with his mother-in-law near the carcass of one of the dead dogs.

Kevin Henderson

Columbia residents Kevin and Lisa Henderson filed a $5 million federal lawsuit last month alleging Howard County police killed their “gentle, loving” 10-year-old mutt, Grunt, during a SWAT team raid last year. The raid was the third in 18 months in which county police had been publicly accused of shooting dogs. The Hendersons’ lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore July 27, alleges not only that their dog was killed but they suffered assault, battery and racial discrimination.

Back in July the Police not only killed Baltimore resident Coina Amato’s dog, they trashed her home. “They shot through the door in front of screaming children that were begging them to let the dog out and she was cowering in there,” said Amato, “They shot through the door and she ran upstairs in the bedroom, and they went up there and pumped AK47 shots into her in my bedroom.” No one has been charged, and the department has neither apologized nor offered any restitution for killing their dog or trashing their home.

These are just a few recent cases. There are stories of  similar cases, where people’s rights were violated as they watched in horror the murder of their pets, all across this nation. They clearly illustrate how abusive and unjust the War on Drugs has become. It’s time to end the War on Drugs, the War on People, the War on Pets or whatever the hell you want to call it before more innocent people, plants, and animals are harmed. FAIL.

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Not only does smoking marijuana NOT cause cancer…it actually PROTECTS against it. But, don’t take our word for it, however, check out this month’s Cancer Prevention Research Journal which has a study demonstrating that chronic, long term use of cannabis actually reduces the incidence of head and neck cancer. The report states that10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of HNSCC or head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

But, what’s amazing is that this breaking news is not breaking news at all. Back in 1974 researchers at the University of Virginia determined that weed had an unexpected result on cancer, it inhibited the growth of lung cancer cells. Unfortunately, the Carter administration discouraged all follow-up studies, except those that would prove otherwise, and the discovery went virtually unnoticed in the States. But, there was research being conducted outside the US by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, in Israel, and Dr. Manuel Guzman in Spain. Even more amazing was that the US Government was secretly conducting follow-up studies during the 90’s and were able to prove that THC, when administered to mice, protected them against malignancy. Never heard that? Of course you didn’t because the Gov decided to burry the information. Luckily, the study was leaked to the journal, AIDS Treatment News, and the media covered the story. An excellent article by Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of NORML, details the bullshit.

153296_f260Still, 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 cannabis smoking with testicular cancer. There was also a very flawed recent study conducted by researchers in New Zealand that claimed cannabis led to an increased risk of lung cancer. You’ll remember that the leading lung specialist in the world, Dr. Donald Tashkin released a report last year that showed that not only does cannabis not cause lung cancer, but appears to protect against it! Already three highly-respected cannabis research doctors have written letters to the European Respiratory Journal debunking the study.

So put those Reefer Madness fears to rest, finally, because smoking marijuana doesn’t cause cancer…in fact it helps fight it!

PH2009041102178As 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.

“Oaksterdam University is a trade school for the cannabis industry,” says the university president, Richard Lee. “It was founded in November 2007. The idea is that there are a lot of people who want to get involved in the politics of cannabis and help with cannabis prohibition but they don’t know how or they want to get into business here in CA. We have a major medical marijuana industry and we’re working on legalizing it for everybody so we need people who can operate in the industry in a safe and responsible manor so that’s what we’re here to help train them to do that.”

potSo 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.”

oaksterdam1Speaking 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.”

“The other historic thing,” adds Lee, “ is that there are other cities already looking to copy it. I was just reading online that Sacramento is looking to copy it, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley. I’m sure a lot of cities will be doing this with the economic hard times. We’re in favor of paying taxes. We believe that we are a responsible part of the community that we should pay taxes, pay our fair share for police and roads and everything else we use. So we’re happy to pay taxes. It’s a lot better to pay taxes than it is to be arrested and thrown in jail or another way we have put it is ‘it’s a lot cheaper to pay taxes than it is to pay lawyers.'”