The Portland Mercury

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Portland / Mercury / Schools Portlandsterdam University, Stoney Girl Gardens, and That One Time I Got Real Pot Plants for a Photo Shoot and Then My Cat Was Stoned for Two Days

Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 10:26 AM

If you were reading the Mercury back in 2007, you might remember this shot from a photo shoot I did for the fall fashion issue of that year:

The models are “smoking” dried kitchen herbs, but the pot plants are real, and were graciously hooked up for me by Stoney Girl Gardens, whose 100% organic medicine has been grown in Oregon since 1999. Everyone told me I wasn’t going to be able to get real pot plants for this shot, and I was delighted when Stoney Girl not only helped me prove them wrong, but were super gracious and helpful the whole time, and didn’t even get mad when my cat Bruce started tearing into their beautiful plants with such vigor and determination that he would start growling ferociously if you tried to pull him off. They just let him eat it, which kept him mellow and docile for like 36 hours afterward!

Anyway, Jenifer Valley from Stoney Girl just got back in touch with me with some news. They are going to be featured in Big Book of Buds 4, for one thing, and four of their strains are going to be included in the newly revised Marijuana Growers Handbook by Ed Rosenthal, due out in November, so big ups on that!

But the big news is that THEY ARE FOUNDING A POT SCHOOL calld Portlandsterdam University, offering “History, Horticulture, Advanced Botany, Legal, Political Science, Cooking and many other classes designed for the Marijuana Industry of Oregon.” But don’t get the wrong idea, this is a completely legitimate venture (albeit with a really hilarious name):

We are an education place, not a get rich business learning center.

We believe that Marijuana is an Industry here in Oregon and we need to deal with it before someone else does. This is also the biggest step to legalization that we can think of. The production and sales of Marijuana puts it into commerce. The most important win is that this is State Regulated and along with being a credited course in our only Health University in the state, puts MMJ on the map that will be international news. This will make huge progress for our efforts of full legalization. We wish your opinion and knowledge contribution to this project.

OHSU’s even on board!

Portlandsterdam University has been asked to file a Syllabus to offer classes as an extension of the Oregon Health Sciences University. Classes will be offered as a credited course to Doctors, Scientists, Nurses, Pharmacists and other health professionals.

“We believe there is a great need to educate our medical professionals for the emerging Medical Marijuana Industry” said Mike Mullins, director of services. “We are very excited to offer Medical Marijuana as a credited course to our health professionals.”

Congratulations to Stoney Girl Gardens, and please do visit the web site for more info.