stoner owner
founder
Carlos Plazola Decriminalize Nature
HEALING THE WORLD
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Carlos Plazola, a Bay Area native raised in a Chicano family, didn’t discover the world of plant medicines until the age of 50. After several years of utilizing exercise, meditation and yoga to cope with the loss of his mother and having only modest success, he read Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” and his eyes were opened to the potential for mushrooms to help him process and come to terms with the trauma he was suffering.
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lazola has never done anything in his life in a small way. When he wanted to expand his horizons and develop a sense of what life was all about, he spent three months living as a hunter-gatherer in the rainforest at the young age of just 23. So, when he tried mushrooms for the first time, he consumed five grams and locked himself in his bedroom. Given that three-and-a-half grams is considered a macro-dose, a five gram dose is more than likely to be life-altering. And that’s exactly what happened. Plazola’s experience was so powerful and so transformative, he describes his life in terms of before and after that journey. “Before that journey, I didn’t even know what spirituality was. Now I’m fully spiritual as a result of that.” Since that time, he has dedicated his life to aiding in the plant medicine movement, founding Decriminalize Nature with the goal of developing and implementing legislation that protects these anointed compounds and ensures safe access for all those who want to partake in their use.
MAR. 2021
For Plazola, the people came in and said, ‘Hey progression of plant cities, you can legalize this by medicine is not about taxing it, and look at all this profit legalization, it’s about you are going to make.’ And then decriminalization. There’s a it became about the money and stark difference – the former taxation – that’s what’s happened implying illegality outside in Cannabis.” of a set of prescribed rules, “We understand what we did and the latter implying wrong in Cannabis, we want to “There was this legality until you enter a set do it right in plant medicines,” he beautiful healing of prescribed rules. emphasized. component of it “Decriminalizing And therein lies the overall in the ‘90s and Cannabis completely would goal of Decriminalize Nature – to early 2000s, and mean anyone can grow decriminalize all plant medicines then all these as much as they want for and create the opportunity for people came in themselves, their friends anyone who wants to have their and said, ‘Hey – as long as they don’t own relationship with these special cities, you can engage in any commercial plants. legalize this by activity,” Plazola explains. “We want to hold space for the taxing it, and Given that context, one healing component of it – not lose understands that Cannabis it. We’re not against profiteering, look at all this has been legalized, not we’re not against clinical and profit you are decriminalized. medical, but at least hold space going to make.’ From Plazola’s for the community component and perspective, choosing legalization as the healing component,” said Plazola. the avenue to free the Cannabis plant Since 2019, Plazola and the team at was the wrong one. Plazola himself Decriminalize Nature have successfully passed was a former legislator and lobbyist legislation in Santa Cruz, Calif., Ann Arbor, turned Cannabis industry proponent, Mich., Somerville, Mass. and Washington and played a significant role in bringing D.C., and are actively working with legislators Prop 64 into fruition here in California. in Grand Rapids, Mich., Salt Lake City, Utah, “I should have known better,” he Seattle and several others across the country to lamented. “There was this beautiful do the same there. To learn more about Plazola healing component of it in the ‘90s and the Decriminalize Nature organization, head and early 2000s, and then all these to www.decriminalizenature.org.
A Stoner Owner is a Cannabis business owner who has a relationship with the plant. We want to buy and smoke Cannabis from companies that care about their products, employees and the plant. You wouldn’t buy food from a restaurant where the cooks don’t eat in the kitchen, so why buy corporate weed grown by a company only concerned with profits? Stoner Owner approval means a company cares, and we love weed grown with care. Let’s retake our culture and reshape a stigma by honoring those who grow, process and sell the best Cannabis possible.
INTERVIEW by NATE WILLIAMS @NATEW415/CALIFORNIA LEAF