Growing concern over growing 'bible'

WAFF, AL
11/18/05

Here's a debate about what's appropriate and what's not sparked by one woman's trip to a Valley bookstore.

She's shocked by some literature she came across, namely a book about some questionable horticulture.

It's a guide to growing marijuana and it's for retail sale on bookshelves. Nothing illegal about it, though it's enough to raise one woman's brow.

Growing marijuana is illegal. Selling marijuana is illegal. Smoking marijuana is illegal. But Ginger Cochran is angry.

"Outrage," she says. "And I called my mom to throw a fit about it."

A fit about being able to read about marijuana, something she discovered at a recent trip to her local Books-A-Million.

"I stopped in to do a little browsing and was in the gardening section actually looking for a container gardening book," she explains. "Right smack dab in the middle of the shelf was "The Cannabis Grow Bible. Sure enough it was a book on how to grow pot for recreational and medicinal uses."

We stopped in to check it out. And on the gardening aisle, "The Cannabis Grow Bible," just in front a title called "Marijuana Growers Guide."

"Anybody's teenager can walk in there and pick that up," she says. "There's no restriction on the selling of the book."

We called Books-A-Million corporate and were told the person we need to speak with travels from one store to another and the best way to reach her was by e-mail. We did that. As of this publication, we're awaiting word back. Ginger also called. She had more luck.

"She did state to me also that they deliberately didn't carry certain magazines that promoted growing pot or that lifestyle," she says. "And I appreciated her telling me that."

Ginger says she was also told that those books must've ended up on the shelves on accident--placed there after someone ordered the books on-line but never actually picked them up.