Pubdate: Tue, 25 Jul 2006
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2006 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Adam Gorlick, The Associated Press
Cited: New Image Plants http://www.newimageplants.com
Cited: Change the Climate http://www.changetheclimate.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Cannabis - Popular)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Change+the+Climate

HAWKING MOCK MARIJUANA

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-sized plants for personal medical use. His stash is for sale, 
but it won't get you stoned. These lifelike botanicals are made of 
silk and wood. Behold, counterfeit cannabis.

In the past two years, White has rolled his pro-pot activism and 
business savvy into New Image Plants, a startup 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.

White won't say whether he smokes pot or has in the past. But he 
began supporting marijuana legalization seven years ago after talking 
to his son about anti-drug advertising. "He wanted to know why adults 
were talking down to kids and trying to scare them," White said.

He rebukes the notion that pot is a harmful drug that inevitably 
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 for the legalization and taxation of marijuana and 
better education about the drug.

By 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 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 needing replicas for training missions.

Then Hollywood came calling, and New Image Plants hit a financial 
high. In April, White got an order for 355 plants from "Weeds," the 
Showtime TV series about a single suburban soccer mom who deals 
marijuana to support her family.

Although he isn't relying on New Image Plants as his main source of 
income, White 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." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake