It's just a plant

[Aaron]

I just stumbled across this childen's book that is designed to explain marijuana to children via a picture book. At first it seems kind of funny, but when you really start to think about it, this is what drug education should be.

Here's the link to the site this book in it's entirety can be found/baught. This may be one way to answer that nagging question, "How do I explain pot to my kids?".

http://www.justaplant.com/index.html

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great find

[Nature Boy]

Enjoyable read. Everything is explained rationally and straight-forward. Pity hardliners would bitch about the fact that there's no mentions of reefer madness and wouldn't sell it in their bookshops.

[Poke my Bunny]

Yes, well it should explain the negative aspects, as well; but overall, nice.

[Nature Boy]

The negative aspects don't have to be addressed until they're old enough to use. Otherwise it's just scare-mongering. Hell, if you explained the negative effects of alcohol (deaths, deaths and more deaths) to every kid, they'd be scared shitless of the stuff.

[Pinkavvy]

WHAT negative aspects? Safe use of cannibas in moderation has NO negative aspects other than the big bully cops; which if you live in the rights areas of the world (including parts of the u.s.a.) you don't even have to worry about that.

The only danger is smoking it; which in this day and age you shouldn't be doing anyway. Vaporizers, eating, etc are safe ways to consume cannibas that when done in moderation have no negative aspects to it.

[Nature Boy]

It all comes back to the machinery argument. You'd swear everyone who smokes a joint either falls off a crane or crashes a fork-lift truck into a bunch of innocent by-standers.

Reputation Comments on this post:

[Poke my Bunny]

You can be smoking/eating/whatever marijuana, but it doesn't mean there are no negative aspects. SUre, the positive obviously outweigh the negative, but just because you haven't noticed negative aspects doesn't mean no one has noticed negative effects.

For example; my brain completely shut down after smoking marijuana in a perfectly controlled environment, I had no stress, nothing dangerous was happening, it was perfect. For the next 4 hours, my brain wasn't functioning correctly, and it was barely even functioning. It's taken me 4 months to discover what happened, but now I'm on to, "Why?". I doubt I'll ever explain it, but the point is that there can be negative aspects of marijuana.

[Nature Boy]

How much did SWIY smoke? Cannabis isn't physically addictive or capable of killing someone but it shouldn't be totally abused.

[old hippie 56]

Over the past thirty or so years, swim have met a few people that could not use marijuana. They just couldn't handle the high, said it made their brain feel funny or they was scared of somebody finding out. But, they could drink and do other substances that was a lot worse than marijuana.
Enjoyed the little book, got to get one for swims 5 year old.

[Nature Boy]

That's because marijuana is a psychedelic. Some people have absolutely no mind for them and simply can't handle them. The same goes for mushrooms and LSD.

[The Doors]

That being said, everyone reacts to a substance differently, so its most certainly possible that some people just don't act real well.

[Sklander]

Everything, even something as great as Cannabis has negative aspects. They include a decrease in motivation and laziness. These pathetic negative aspects is why a handful of US cities has legalized this wonderful plants. Hopefully more will follow!

[Nature Boy]

I think the motivation/laziness factor is over-stated. New users may experience this but then again new users don't smoke regularly enough to have their motivation halted to the point where it's effecting their lives. Very regular users, such as SWIM, smoke so often that it's basically become a very normal thing and doesn't effect whatever work or responsibilities they have. At this point SWIM would consider a joint as a standard daily comfort like a cup of coffee or a nice dessert.

[Pinkavvy]

Originally Posted by Poke my Bunny

You can be smoking/eating/whatever marijuana, but it doesn't mean there are no negative aspects. SUre, the positive obviously outweigh the negative, but just because you haven't noticed negative aspects doesn't mean no one has noticed negative effects.

For example; my brain completely shut down after smoking marijuana in a perfectly controlled environment, I had no stress, nothing dangerous was happening, it was perfect. For the next 4 hours, my brain wasn't functioning correctly, and it was barely even functioning. It's taken me 4 months to discover what happened, but now I'm on to, "Why?". I doubt I'll ever explain it, but the point is that there can be negative aspects of marijuana.

That's an isolated case. Not a negative aspect of marijuana, simply a negative aspect to the way SWIY reacts to marijuana.

[sands of time]

It's nice that rational approaches are being taken to educate youth about marijuana, but what age group is this book recommended for anyways? Either way, most kids learn about marijuana at one point or another during they're youth. Some learn by observing what it does to people, and others learn by doing it for themselves.

[lilsteve]

Originally Posted by Pinkavvy

That's an isolated case. Not a negative aspect of marijuana, simply a negative aspect to the way SWIY reacts to marijuana.

Of course, same thing applies to lsd, heroin, crack, etc. No drug is bad, only an individual's reaction to the drug. Of course there's no negative aspect to marijuana: it's just a plant. But you always have to consider the (ab)user.

Like was stated, because one hasn't experienced a negative effect of marijuana doesn't mean that none exist.

[Psych0naut]

SWIM doesn't agree that is doesn't have any negative effects.
SWIM smokes regularly and has enough experience with it.
When you smoke to much weed/hash when you're inexperienced, you can get pretty nauseaus and throw up.
It can be like hell for an hour, but it usually subsides soon enough.
And when you eat too much space cake it can be even worse, tripping bad on space cake can be just like tripping bad on mushrooms.Not nice.
Though SWIM likes cannabis, he wants to make clear that there are negative effects.

[The Big Bulbous Beaver]

I think this is a good way to teach kids, as opposed to other methods people have used before. We all remember Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, where kids were either just mesmorized by their favorite cartoon idols, or grew up to find it funny as hell (like myself) and becomes stoner humor. If we just teach kids to make their own decisions, but to open their eyes to the possibilities, it would do a lot more good than bad, as opposed to scaring them to not do it, which has presented us with negative results.