Pubdate: Tue, 08 Aug 2006
Source: Glendale News-Press (CA)
Copyright: 2006 Times Community Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/tcn/glendale/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/167
Author: Adam Gorlick, The Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HIS MOCK-POT BUSINESS IS GROWING LIKE WEED

Joseph White's Silk Marijuana Plants Are So Lifelike That Police Are 
Using Them In Training.

GREENFIELD, Mass. -- Joseph White's home office is like a modern-day 
hippie hangout.

Books on Buddhism and yoga mingle with business planners and a laptop 
computer. An acoustic guitar rests next to a shuffle of sheet music 
for "Mr. Tambourine Man," just across the room from a fax machine.

And then there are the marijuana stalks. Towering six-footers. 
Pint-size plants. He even has a few ripe buds kicking around on a 
desk, not far from his cellphone.

His stash is for sale, but it won't get you stoned. These lifelike 
flora are made of silk and wood.

Behold, counterfeit cannabis.

During the last two years, White -- a trim 51-year-old with thinning 
hair and a small stud in his left earlobe -- has rolled his pro-pot 
activism and business savvy into New Image Plants, a company that 
sells the make-believe marijuana online.

"The business name reflects exactly what I'm trying to do -- create a 
new image for these plants," he said. "They're beautiful plants and 
people should be able to enjoy them without fear of arrest."

White won't say whether he smokes pot or has in the past. But he 
began pushing for marijuana legalization about seven years ago after 
talking to one of his sons about anti-drug advertising.

"He wanted to know why adults were talking down to kids and trying to 
scare them," White said.

Although he doesn't condone the use of marijuana by minors, White 
dismisses the notion that pot is a harmful drug that leads to the use 
of harder drugs.

"Kids know those claims aren't true," White said. "So when they hear 
an anti-drug message like that, they just discount it."

So he started a nonprofit group in 1999 called Change the Climate, 
which advocates the legalization and taxation of marijuana and better 
education about the drug.

"My vision was that I needed to tell the truth about marijuana," White said.

In getting his artificial plants into private residences and public 
spaces, White is betting that more people will start appreciating the 
natural beauty of the real thing's jagged, seven-point leaves, lithe 
stems and robust buds, instead of thinking of marijuana as an evil weed.

His early customers were people looking for gag gifts, party planners 
in search of unique decorations and law enforcement agencies seeking 
replicas for training.

Then Hollywood came calling, and New Image Plants hit a financial high.

In April, White received an order for 355 plants from "Weeds," the 
Showtime cable television series about a single suburban soccer mom 
who deals marijuana to support her family.

Julie Bolder, the show's set director, needed to concoct a grow room 
stocked with what would look like $1 million worth of marijuana. She 
called White after stumbling on his website.

"I looked hard to find somebody to make us good weed, and Joe did the 
best job," Bolder said. White's pot makes its television debut this 
month, early in the show's second season.

"All the weed you see on the show is Joe's weed," Bolder said.

The order brought in about $40,000, about five times what White said 
his company had earned since it sprang up 18 months ago. Suddenly, 
the business became bigger than he expected -- or needed.

Along with his continued work for Change the Climate, White is the 
senior vice president of Share Group, a private organization that 
offers consulting, fundraising and marketing services to nonprofit 
organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and 
Planned Parenthood.

He is also the president of another marketing company that works with 
smaller clients.

White sees no competition in the mock marijuana market and expects 
his sales to continue building from the interests of "the hundreds of 
millions of people who smoke pot and the hundred of millions of 
people who have no problem with it."

The plants are assembled in Jupiter, Fla., by workers who attach 
stems and leaves made from imported Chinese silk to a thin wooden 
trunk. The plants are wedged into a pot with a foam base, then topped 
with moss. The flowering marijuana models that sell for $80 to $190 
come with a few buds attached. His hemp models, which do not have 
flowers, sell for $65 to $150.

Until his order from "Weeds," White's biggest buyers were law 
enforcement agencies in Virginia and Ontario, Canada. And that was 
hard for him to deal with.

"I have deeply mixed feelings selling to law enforcement," he said. 
"They've been some of our largest customers. If an average order is 
$150, the average law enforcement order is over $1,000.

"But at least those tax dollars are coming back to help fund the 
reform movement," White said.

His products haven't disappointed even the most discerning customers.

"When you come through the door and look at them, you'd swear you're 
looking at real marijuana," said John O'Reilly, an instructor at the 
Ontario Police College in Canada.

After finding just one other company that makes fake pot plants, the 
college bought 30 of White's 2-foot-tall stalks to simulate a 
homegrown marijuana cultivation operation.

"We've had people see them and want to know why we're growing 
marijuana," O'Reilly said.

The New Image plants have also fooled other connoisseurs.

After ordering a bogus bud online, one customer called White to ask 
when her shipment would arrive.

"I could tell in her voice that she thought she had ordered the real 
thing," White said. But he insisted that she not try getting high on 
the silk supply.

"We cannot be held liable for stupid people smoking our plants," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman