Feel something? Oh, that's just your lungs Bern-ing.
Bernie Sanders wants to get you high.
Or at least that's the message behind Portland Bernie fan Ariel Zimman's new line of ceramic weed pipes and chillums emblazoned with the Vermont senator's campaign logo.
Ariel told the Center for Public Integrity she will donate 10 percent of all proceeds she gets from sales of her Bernie smoking accessories to the Sanders campaign. Bernie fans who smoke weed — also known as "Burners for Bernie" — can expect to pay $60 for a pipe and $30 for a chillum, according to Zimman's website.
Her pot products should make it pretty clear to the uninitiated what Sanders' stance on legal weed is. He's stated that he wants to end the federal prohibition on recreational marijuana and would allow states to decide on legalization. He's also down for medical marijuana, meaning if he's elected, Americans could continue to enjoy the same weed-flavored freedoms they have been under Obama's pro-pot reefer regime.
There's just one slight problem: there's a $2,700 federal campaign donation cap for individuals and … you can't really legally fund a campaign with smoking paraphernalia, so it's highly (literally) doubtful that these Bernie pot pipes are going to do much campaign funding. Unsurprisingly, Ariel's Bernie pipes have raised an eyebrow or ten thousand about the legality of such a campaign donation, and so far, Bernie's team has appeared grateful, but regrettably unable to accept this type of campaign funding.
Kenneth Pennington, digital director for the Sanders campaign, told the Center for Public Integrity that the campaign does not "authorize or condone" the practice, but said "it's not okay to sell things with the campaign's logo." That's a nice way of saying "This is fucking awesome, but don't let us know about it."
But, the attention they've brought to Bernie and his pro-weed stance is worth way more than $2,700 at this point, so we think it's safe to say that even if she doesn't hand her pick for President a hefty check in the coming days, Ariel's still done her job as a whole new type of grassroots supporter. We, for one, would love to feel that kind of Bern.
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