PEACE News & Views

This week on PEACE News & Views joint hosts Siir SteveO & Kim Cooper are back with a very special guest! Dan Herer joins us for a discussion on our opening episode for 2024
https://www.facebook.com/dan.herer

Dan Herer, son of Jack Herer joins us for a chat about his father, the book, & the legacy he is now in charge of.

A bit about Jack:
"All but complete Johnny-come-latelies to cannabis culture probably have some awareness of Jack “The Hemperor” Herer as perhaps the most influential figure in the modern legalization movement. Herer, who passed away in April 2010, wrote 1985’s The Emperor Wears No Clothes, the book that ignited the campaign and remains its manifesto and devoted nearly four decades to tireless, charismatic activism. The man almost literally died trying to have hemp and marijuana legalized in America. Were it not for Herer’s work, we might not be enjoying decrim here in California (and elsewhere) or have seen nearly half the state’s voters give the nod to full legalization last month.
Yet while many may have read his book (Emperor has sold in excess of 700,000 copies over the course of 11 editions), heard him talk (he was a fixture at cannabis conventions nationwide) or even shaken his hand (as Herer was the ultimate one-mind-at-a-time, face-to-face campaigner), few knew the complete man or the breadth of his mission. In an exclusive interview, CULTURE spoke to his widow, Jeannie Herer, for insight into the husband who believed he could change the world and whose lingering influence continues to do so.
Jack Herer “had the biggest heart of anybody that I’ve ever met,” Jeannie recalls, radiating fondness. “He loved people and he loved being out and talking to people and educating people. He saw how you can change a person’s thinking very easily if you educate them. And he was an educator. He was an educator who believed that he—that we—could save the world, if we just knew all the facts about hemp.”

In 1973, Herer and fellow smoke shop owner Ed Adair launched a campaign to have marijuana legalized. Or die trying. Herer almost did exactly that, eventually succumbing to the effects of a heart attack suffered just minutes after delivering a characteristically impassioned speech at Portland’s Hempstalk festival in September 2009.
Ironically, it was while serving a two-week federal prison stint in 1983 (for refusing to pay a $5 fine for registering voters in a parking lot) that Herer started writing The Emperor Wears No Clothes, which was eventually published—on hemp paper, naturally—in 1985 (by which point he had opened a smoke shop in Portland, Oregon called The Third Eye, which remains a family-owned fixture in the city). Emperor was the exuberant product of 12 years’ study of the many benefits of cannabis (psychological and medical) and uses for hemp (from paper and textiles to home and industrial energy). So painstakingly thorough was Herer’s research that the book offers $100,000 to anyone who can disprove its claims.

Herer, who had not filed taxes in over 30 years, gave up the fight on tax day (April 15, 2010), a coincidence that would have no doubt given him a smile."
https://www.jackherer.com/

Join Siir SteveO and Kim Cooper for chat with Dan Herer on PEACE News & Views opening episode for 2024 on NOK Network
January 10th 2024 at 8pm et.

www.NOKnetwork.com

#PEACEnewsandviews #NOKnetwork #WeedyWednesdays