Cool Hunting

It’s Just a Plant: A Children’s Story About Marijuana, written and illustrated by Ricardo Cortes, is a sensible conversation about pot aimed at kids. Special guest artists FUTURA, Jose Parla, Che Jen, Toofly and others have contributed background art and clothing design to give the book a contemporary feeling.

The colorful storybook takes Jackie and her mom on an adventure to find out what it is and what it does to you and that, like drinking wine, it is something that “you can make a choice to try it or not when you are an adult.” They visit farmer Bob, who tells them how it's grown and its history. Then they see their doctor, who lists some of marijuana's medicinal uses and imparts how it should be used responsibly by adults and not at all by children. Later they talk to some guys smoking weed on the street and the cops that bust them, who explain how it came to be outlawed. The book offers families a way to start a discussion about drug use with young children in a non-preachy, positive manner.

Recently translated into French (the "freedom" version) and German, the non-English versions are free for downloading and for a limited time an English PDF is now free until Valentine's Day as well on the website. Also, a new paperback version is available.