Tokin Woman

McCartney in "High" Profile Child Custody Case?

2012-02-24T19:41:00.000-08:00

"At 69, Paul McCartney Swears Off Marijuana" the headlines ran. McCartney told Rolling Stone he'd given up the weed because of his 8-year-old daughter with Heather Mills, who he divorced just after she said she wouldn't tolerate his toking.

McCartney has just remarried and he and Mills are back in divorce court. Although no journalist thought to ask, I'll bet Mills brought up the marijuana matter over child custody. Why do I think so? Because not a week goes by that I don't hear from a mother or father involved in a custody battle whose spouse brings up their pot use to get some leverage for themselves.

The revelation is key because McCartney has been about the highest (ha) profile proponent of marijuana legalization for decades. He helped pay for a July 24, 1967 advertisement in the London Times that called for legalization of pot possession, release of all prisoners on possession charges and government research into marijuana's medical uses. (Other signatories included VIPs John Lennon and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA.) He told RS he's still for legalization, and is "a bit surprised" that it hasn't happened yet.

So perhaps by making this public statement McCartney's parental rights will be protected, but what of countless others who aren't so lucky? What effect the breaking up of families has on the children we're all supposed to be fighting this drug war about is unknown.

Meawhile, Redbook magazine has an article in its current issue titled, "Pot Parents" that explains, through experts and parents, that those who are accustomed to the effects of smoking are no more dangerous to their children, even in an emergency, than parents who think nothing of having a beer while babysitting. Charles Sophy, medical director of the County of Los Angeles Department of Children, told Redbook, "Every day he sees parents who have underestimated the repercussions of smoking pot — in rare cases, he's seen children sent to live with relatives."

Hear this and weep.

Smoking a Super Bowl

2012-02-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

"I'll be smoking a super bowl today," someone posted to CalNORML's Facebook page this morning. It was appropriate, at least for those who, like me, turn on the Bread and Circus mostly for the pricey new ads and cultural references.

Not only did Superbowl XLVI feature the first female Very Important Pothead halftime performer, it also had original American Idol and VIP Kelly Clarkson belt out the National Anthem. Clarkson came through like a champ, winning favorable reviews over Christine Aguilera's performance last year, when Aguilera muffed the lyrics.

In 2007, Clarkson told USA Weekend magazine that she ate a marijuana cookie in Amsterdam. "It is legal there, and it is not legal here," she (somewhat erroneously) said. "I don't ever do anything illegal here," Clarkson added. "I have never smoked anything in my life. I've never tried any drugs. I wouldn't do anything that would cause holes in your brain or your nasal cavity. Call me Texan, but I don't think of marijuana like that."

Shortly thereafter, Blender magazine's August 2007 profile of Clarkson presented her as a bit of a rebel, documenting the Grammy winner's rift with 74-year-old BMG Chairman/CEO Clive Davis. "I can't stand it when people put out the same record over and over again," Clarkson told Blender. "Life is too short to be a pushover."

Advertised during the show (with spots that cost upwards of $3 million) was Anjelica Houston's new series Smash, involving the creation of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe, premiering tomorrow on NBC. In a 2006 episode of Showtime's excellent series "Huff," Houston passes a joint to Huff, her psychotherapist colleague Hank Azaria, before guiding him on an MDMA/Ecstacy trip/therapy session.

Anjelica is the daughter of legendary film director John Houston. According to Lee Server in the Robert Mitchum biography, Baby I Don't Care, the elder Houston delighted Mitchum with tales of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," during the filming of 1957's "Heaven Knows Mr. Allison". Houston said of the classic 1948 film, shot in Mexico, "they were all smoking grass down there, high as a clouds for most of the picture." So that would mean, Houston himself, Humphrey Bogart, et al?

In other Super spots, the Pepsi and Coke wars continue, with Coke's offering using the tagline, "Open happiness." Of course, the original forumulation for Coca Cola contained cocaine and the company reportedly still imports coca leaves for flavoring. Red Bull Coca, available in the US, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Russia and the UK, also contains "decocainized" coca leaf. Germany found traces of cocaine in the product (0.13 micrograms per can) and banned it in six states.

Budweiser premiered a nostalgic spot starting with a celebration of the end of alcohol prohibition and ending with the line, "Delivering great times since 1876." It was followed by an ad for Doritos, a product often associated with another kind of bud. Budweiser got double coverage when GE ran a spot highlighting the fact that their refrigerators keep beer cold (refrigeration not required for marijuana buds).

Howard Stern was featured in an ad promoting him joining NBC's "America's Got Talent." Stern admitted to youthful pot smoking in his book Private Parts and righteously has said he won't endorse any presidental candidate who isn't for legalization.

In a memorable spot, David Beckham models his tatoos and underwear to The Animals' song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." In Eric Burdon's autobiography of the same name, The Animals' singer writes of visiting Mazatlan where, "I went into a rap about how the Mexicans had given the world two precious things--marijuana and beautiful women. The crowd loved it, but I don't imagine the Mexican authorities did." Burdon relates that he smelled his "first magical whiff of marijuana" with none other than Jack Teagarden at a Louis Armstrong concert. Teagarden was Benny Goodman's trombonist and inspiration for the song, "Texas Tea Party."

An ad for the new movie "G.I. Joe" begins, "In the immortal words of Jay-Z, 'Whatever deity may guide my life, oh Lord, don't let me die tonight.'" Jay-Z is so associated with the holy herb that days after his daughter was born, a strain named for her started appearing at LA cannabis clubs. The original 1945 G.I. Joe movie won an Oscar nomination for its hot young star, Very Important Pothead Robert Mitchum.

VIP Madonna made her halftime show entrance pulled by a legion of gladiators, like Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra" (both probable pot smokers). It ended with "Like a Prayer" and the words "World Peace."

Betty White made a re-appearance in an ad, two years after the 80-year-old hit with the "You're playing like Betty White" Snickers ad. White was just outed by Joan Rivers as having smoked with her back in the day, when "we had fun." White's character on "Hot in Cleveland," which just won her another SAG award, smoked pot until it was explained away in Season 2.

And they call us the counterculture. Seems to me, we're a driving force. And that's just the first half of the game. Don't get me started about how the Giant Patriots who founded the US were all hemp farmers.

NIDA Kills Marijuana and Pregnancy Follow-up Study

2012-02-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

Culture magazine has an interview this month with Melanie Dreher, the researcher whose 1994 March of Dimes-funded study found that Jamaican mothers who used marijuana bore developmentally superior babies.

A follow up study conducted when the children were 5 years old again showed no negative impacts of marijuana; in fact, they seemed to excel. But no further follow ups could win approval from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dreher reveals. No polydrug abuse was seen in the mothers and very little tobacco or alcohol.

Now dean of nursing at Rush University with degrees in nursing, anthropology and philosophy, plus a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University, Dr. Dreher told Culture, "March of Dimes was supportive, but it was clear that NIDA was not interested in continuing to fund a study that didn’t produce negative results. I was told not to resubmit. We missed an opportunity to follow the study through adolescence and through adulthood.”

In Dreher's original study, nineteen of the 24 Jamaican mothers reported that cannabis increased their appetites throughout the prenatal period and/or relieved the nausea of pregnancy. Fifteen reported using it to relieve fatigue and provide rest during pregnancy.

The study tested 24 Jamaican newborns exposed to marijuana prenatally and 20 nonexposed babies from socioeconomically matched mothers. At one month, the children of marijuana-using mothers scored markedly higher on autonomic stability, reflexes, and general irritability. Babies born to the heaviest smokers, those who smoked every day, at least 21 joints weekly, scored significantly higher in 10 of the 14 characteristics measured, including quality of alertness, robustness, regulatory capacity, and orientation.

It took three years to publish the study in the US; in fact the five-year study was published first. When the NAS Institute of Medicine conducted its $1-million taxpayer-funded study on cannabis as medicine in the wake of Prop. 215, it amended the Dreher study to say the newborns born to marijuana-smoking mothers were equal, not superior. The study has been omitted from other overviews of the topic.

In a recent talk, Dreher lamented the "terrible arrogance and ethnocentrism" that refuses to accept data from other countries, even Europe and Canada. She spoke about the academic world, where "tenure is often more important than truth." Her employers get letters from irate ex-Marines, for example, demanding she be fired.

She also pointed to a 1989 article in the Lancet "Bias Against The Null Hypothesis: The Reproductive Hazards of Cocaine" which found that the rate of acceptance of articles finding negative consequence of cocaine was 57%, versus 11% (only one) for articles that didn't, even though the latter were methodologically superior. Comparing that to the situation with marijuana, Dreher said, "If we looked at all of the literature that hasn't been published, we might find a very different story."

"We have a lot of red herrings," Dreher concluded. She wonders why there are variances within the exposed group, theorizing it could be because of the "impoverished conditions in which women must raise children," looking for cheapest and most available substance to relieve their symptoms and give them the energy to work. Rather than measuring so-called "executive function" in 9-12 year olds, she thinks we should look at a broader picture, including school performance, leadership skills, and the use of tobacco, alcohol and other substances. "We need research on the quality of life -- and how marijuana enhances it," she said.

Dreher did return to Jamaica and found 40 of the children she studied, who now have children of their own and are doing quite well.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of reports from California tell of children being taken from homes of parents who cultivate medical marijuana under state law. Hear this and weep.

If you're as angry about this as I am, write to your Congressional representatives about this outrage.

Joan Rivers Outs Herself and Friends; Roseanne Barr Runs for Green Party Presidential Nomination on Pot Platform; Armie Gets Hammered: All on TMZ!

2012-02-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

Ya gotta love TMZ and not just for its hot James Franco-ish surferdude. It's for the gang's potparazzi-style fascination with celebs and pot. Formerly TMZ outed Whoopi Goldberg as smoking pot before she accepted her Oscar, and Dyan Cannon for proffering pot brownies at Lakers' games.

In tonight's episode, Joan Rivers is accosted in New York, where she is asked about smoking pot on her television show Melissa and Joan. Toke of the Town strangely said it smelled like a publicity stunt when Joan tokes up in a car, saying she hadn't done so in 40 years.

But maybe Rivers was purposely making a statement. TMZ asked the comedienne who else she'd smoked with. "Oh, Betty White," she said, "George Carlin, Woody Allen, Bill Crosby...we had fun."

Rivers and Lily Tomlin where the two females picked to honor Carlin after, a few days before his death, he was awarded the Mark Twain prize for humor. That night, she said of Carlin, "We met in Greenwich Village, but we couldn't pinpoint the date because he was high on acid and I was totally wasted."

TMZ was a bit behind on their story about actor Armie Hammer (grandson of the oil scion Armand) being caught with pot baked goods in the same Texas town where Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were nabbed. On the red carpet at the Screen Actors' Guild awards Sunday night, the question put to Hammer by Access Hollywood was, "How did you manage to take a good looking mug shot?" the softest softball ever pitched. Not missing a beat, Hammer jokingly and sweetly answered the question “What you didn’t see is there was a makeup crew there.” He made no apology for entering the lofty triumverate, spending a night in jail to earn his badge of honor.

But wait, before the evening's out it's another scoop! Hitting on TMZ's website tonight is the breaking news that VIP Roseanne Barr has officially filed papers to run for president and hopes to carry the Green Party banner in the November election. They say,

"Barr says she's sick of Democrats and Republicans, whom she believes are not working in the best interests of the American people. So what, you ask, is Roseanne pushing? The answer is simple ... pot. She wants marijuana legalized and sold strictly domestically."

As of now, Barr is leading Romney in the online poll and isn't far behind Obama.

Obama39%
Roseanne36%
Romney25%

Total Votes: 14,049

It's been quite a Candlemas. Let the quickening begin.

Women, and others, less safe under Federal policy

2012-01-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

Diane Sands, a democratic lawmaker from Montana who has championed the rights of medical marijuana patients in her state, has become the object of an inquiry by the DEA.

According to an article in The Missoulan, "A possible witness in a federal drug investigation was asked whether Sands might be part of a conspiracy to sell medical marijuana. The questions came from Drug Enforcement Administration agents from Billings who were investigating medical marijuana businesses, and Sands learned about the inquiry from the witness' attorney."

Sands compared the tactic to McCarthism and the article states, "At least one other legislator declined comment regarding DEA questions about the legislator's duties out of concern over 'additional harassment.'"

The news is particularly troubling because the drug war hinges on the testimony of often-unreliable witnesses who can't be trusted to tell the truth. DEA chief Michelle Leonhart, a Bush holdover activists were disappointed to see reappointed by Obama, is no stranger these strange tactics. Leonhart made her name through her association with a big-time informant who was discredited , but continued to be praised by Leonhart. Two young women have recently been murdered after serving as drug-war informants.

Apparently it's business as usual. I was just looking at a NORML press release from 1995 when the DEA threatened Colorado legislators with reprisals should they vote for legalized hemp in the state.

California NORML has had a recent report of undercover FBI agents pretending to be opening a medical marijuana dispensary, and visiting an Orange County attorney's office, hoping the attorney would incriminate himself. And an Arcata, CA woman was arrested at her home for marijuana cultivation after a "narcotics courier sting on passenger trains" found cash on her boyfriend in Reno. Last year, when Berkeley was considering a medical marijuana dispensary permit, someone who objected turned out to be posing as a Berkeley resident is a suspected undercover agent.

Last March 15, one day after the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee voted to kill a bill that would have repealed the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law, the federal government served more than 25 search warrants on medical marijuana businesses across the state.

Obama appointee Benjamin Wagner, the US attorney from the Eastern District in California, has lead the charge against medical marijuana collectives in that state. Wagner used to work white collar crimes and hate crimes, but has apparently been reassigned to easier and less harmful prey. Why? The easy cash they pull in in their "smash and grab" operations? Courting campaign contributions from cops?

Since a recent RAND study and other reports have found that crime actually increases after collectives are closed, it's arguable that the current federal policy is making US states less safe. (RAND pulled their study under pressure from the LA city attorney's office.) Meanwhile, President Obama has declined to address a question about marijuana legalization from a former police officer, despite the fact that the question won twice as many votes as any other in a YouTube poll.

And they call it Democracy.

Performing Potheads

2012-01-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

In a moment reminiscent of Jane Fonda at last years Oscar party, Cameron Diaz was spotted by the New York Post "smoking something more fragrant-smeling than a cigarette" on a terrace at a Golden Globes afterparty.

Diaz called weed "awesome" on Jimmy Fallon's show and was awesome herself in "Bad Teacher". She's joked about buying pot from Snoop Dogg in high school and was photographed passing a joint to Drew Barrymore.

At the ceremony, Meryl Streep took home Best Actress in a Drama and gave a heartfelt acceptance speech. Streep smoked pot on film in 2009's "It's Complicated" and in "Silkwood" (1983). She brought her prodigious acting skills to "Adaptation" (2002), in which she gets high off some plant material. In 1985 she played VIP Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa.

Michelle Williams won Best Actress in the Comedy or Musical category for portraying Marilyn Monroe. A home movie released in 2009 purports to be Monroe smoking a marijuana cigarette, and her friend Jeanne Carmen's biographer confirms the two smoked together.

Skipping the latest Republican debate debacle, I instead caught Monroe in "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957) on TCM: she's superb in this underrated film.

Rihanna Caught by Pot-Parazzi

2012-01-17T01:07:00.000-08:00

Barbados-born singing sensation Rhianna was caught by the pot-parazzi smoking what looked like a blunt at a hotel in Hawaii on Sunday.

That morning, the star tweeted to her 12 million followers, "Waken...Baken...Good morning." Later she wrote, "Kush rolled, glass full... I prefer the better things," a lyric from Drake's song, 'Up All Night'. On January 11 she tweeted, "4:20... Hi."

Rhianna's collaborator Jay-Z is so associated with marijuana that days after his and Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy was born, a strain named for the infant began appearing in LA cannabis clubs. Last year, Jay-Z said he thought marijuana had mellowed out rappers.

Harry Pothead Makes Brief Appearance on SNL

2012-01-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Actor Daniel Radcliffe went so far as to appear nude onstage in Eqqus to shed his his wholesome image as Harry Potter. Now, fresh from his Broadway role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Radcliffe showed some acting chops as Saturday Night Live's host on Saturday, notably in a sketch where he played a dancing caligrapher. Other unfunny sketches had him dressed as Casey Anthony's dog, playing a stock boy at a Target store, and kissing bums in a spin the bottle game.

In the requisite Harry Potter knockoff, SNL's cast did admirable imitations of the movie's cast, but then went nowhere much with the sketch, in which Radcliffe portrayed Potter as a pathetic, too-old hanger on at his old school.

Too bad he nixed a better parody idea in the opening monologue: Hairy Pothead. Maybe because that's the actual name of more than one comic book. Harry Pothead T-shirts have been seen with "and the Philopher's Stoned" on the back.

Seriously, SNL was much better when it was staffed by potheads.

Another actor from Radcliffe's generation, Elijah Wood (Frodo in Lord of the Rings) stars in the more interesting show Wilfred, where a talking dog gets him stoned and shows him the meaning of life. (Hint: it's not in a ring, a wand, or a broomstick.)

Where's the female connection? Rachel Dratch is widely acknowledged to be the top portrayer of Harry Potter on SNL, beating out Hugh Jackman and, it seems, Radcliffe as well.

Young Women Used as Drug-War Informants Are Murdered

2012-01-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

Drug Policy Alliance's Tony Newman has a piece at Alternet today about Shelley Hilliard, a 19-year-old woman from Detroit, who was killed after working as a police informant to clear a petty marijuana bust. Her story is reminiscent of Rachel Hoffman, the 23-year-old Florida State graduate from Tallahassee who was also murdered after she served as a drug-war informant.

"These two women should still be with us on this earth, but were instead pawns in an unwinnable drug war that led to their violent deaths," writes Newman. "There are so many sick aspects of the failed drug war, but law enforcement’s forcing people with a drug arrest to choose between draconian prison sentences or becoming an informant is one of the most nauseating."

I'm sickened.

Heather's Happening

2012-01-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Heather Donahue, blogged of here for making the journey from actress (The Blair Witch Project) to activist (a self-outed medical marijuana grower and author of the new book GrowGirl) has been getting lots of press as her book hits the stores.

She was cartooned in The New Yorker (shown right) and appeared yesterday on The View, where members of the audience received her book. People magazine ran a profile too.

“I have really mixed feelings about the hippie lifestyle,” she told The Daily Beast. “Part of me feels the intention is so right; of course we should be taking responsibility for what we eat and take care of each other. But because of the ‘pot wife’ element and ‘man’s world’ side of it, that’s what kept The Community out of balance. Women were not sharing power."

“Right now, it’s the only multibillion-dollar industry whose wealth is distributed at the mom-and-pop level, so it actually supports middle-class families,” said Donahue. “I would hate to see this business that’s been developed by the people and for the people be taken over. If legalization happened without a great deal of care, that would happen quickly and the people who built the business would end up being sharecroppers for big agro companies.”

Now doing more writing, Donahue is glad her "right intention" meditation practice lead her to growing medical pot. “I wanted to create something that I thought was good, positive, and helpful,” she said.

You Go, Grow Girl!!

Heather will be reading from her book at the following events:

01/15/12
Burbank, CA
Dark Delicacies
Time: 2:00pm. Admission: Free.
Address: 3512 West Magnolia Boulevard. Venue phone: (818) 556-6660.

01/16/12
LA, CA
Book Soup
Time: 7:00pm. Admission: Free.
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd. Venue phone: (310) 659-3110.

01/18/12
Oakland, CA
A Great Good Place for Books
Time: 7:00pm. Admission: Free.
Address: 6120 La Salle Avenue. Venue phone: (510) 339-8210.

01/19/12
Corte Madera, CA
Book Passage
Time: 7:00pm. Admission: Free.
Address: 51 Tamal Vista Blvd.

01/26/12
San Francisco
The Booksmith
Time: 7:30pm. Admission: Free.
Address: 1644 Haight Street. Venue phone: (415) 863-8688.

Colorado Women Lead Legalization Charge (But Denver Post Thinks They Just Stood There)

2012-01-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

An article by John Ingold of The Denver Post published on January 5 is titled, "Colorado Effort to Legalize Marijuana Turns in Signatures, Tackles Skepticism From Female Voters."

It begins, "If a campaign to legalize limited possession of marijuana in Colorado is to succeed, it will have to make inroads into skepticism by women, according to a recent poll. Perhaps that's why supporters of the campaign put more than a dozen women front and center at a news conference Wednesday as they turned in about 160,000 signatures to put the legalization initiative on the ballot."

Read full article.

So, it's not possible that these women actually lead the campaign? They were just figureheads for the signature turn in, propped up by other "supporters"? Really, John? Way to strike a blow for equality.

In the article, Wanda James — owner of the medical-marijuana-infused- food company Simply Pure — said the showing was intended to counter "a misconception that young men are driving the legalization of marijuana and the cannabis movement."

"It's time for this change," James said. ". . . And it's time for women to lead the fight." The Denver-based Women's Marijuana Movement is part of the coalition that gathered signatures.

But it seems to some women will always be mere spokesmodels.

Oklahoma mother sentenced to 10 years for $31 marijuana transaction

2011-12-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

Because of $31 in marijuana sales, Patricia Marilyn Spottedcrow is now serving 10 years in prison, has been taken away from her four young children and husband, and has ended her work in nursing homes.

Read more here and here.

Write:

Patricia Spottedcrow
ODOC# 622641
Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center
P.O. Box 315
Taft, OK 74463-0315

From Actress to Activist: Heather Donahue's Journey

2011-12-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

Editor's note: It's rare that Tokin Woman crosses paths with People magazine. But here's a case in point. (With, undoubtedly, more to follow.)

Heather Donahue correctly predicts in her new book “Growgirl” that the words “Blair Witch Project” will appear on the cover, over her objections. The actress that will forever be linked to that 1999 indie flick afterwards appeared in some mainstream films and television shows, but decided to leave LA for a country life, one that ultimately included marijuana farming in a place she calls “Nuggetown.” She has now emerged as a new, strong female voice for reason and sanity in our marijuana laws. Her wickedly funny, inspired and insightful book “Growgirl: How My Life After the Blair Witch Project Went to Pot” will be released on January 5. (Read more.)

I’ve been kinda stalking Heather since I saw a hilarious video of her reading from Growgirl on YouTube last year. She spoke at Humboldt Hempfest in November, and came to a NORML Women’s Alliance fundraiser in San Francisco, where she kindly agreed to answer some questions for Cannabis Culture.

Q: Is this the first book you've written?

A: This is the first publishable book I've written. Don't ask about that "learning novel" I spent seven years on. Or the "learning screenplays" or the short stories. They're at home in a nice, dark drawer.

Q: How did you learn to be such an astute observer of human behavior? And your own emotions? What is your educational background?

A: That's nice of you to say. My educational background is public school followed by a four-year dose of Theater training at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I think my theater training and time spent as an actress helped me to slip into other skins smoothly. I also have a long-standing (if irregular) meditation practice, which has helped on the observational front. Also, I was sort of born creepy. When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes get angry and I would just stare at her, just sort of taking it in an observing her. It was, um, disturbing. And of course everything's clearer with the passage of time, my own motivations and those of others, the protagonist of the memoir is generally a wiser, warmer, and more insightful person than the writer herself, except on her best day.

Q: At what point did you decide to write about your experience as a pot grower? What was your aim?

A: I was originally going to write a memoir about my attempt to morph from a city girl into a country girl, but most of my homesteading experiments were not, shall we say, wildly successful. Except for the raising of my dog. That went well. It took about six months into my first draft of Growgirl to even type the word "pot" or "marijuana". The paranoia I experienced as a grower was pretty entrenched by that point. I really wrestled with writing a memoir. I considered just calling it an autobiographical novel at first, but I felt like my story was one that should be shared. It's not all ballers growing pot. There are a lot of pretty normal people who've taken to growing as a way to weather this economy and try to carve out a sustainable life with some semblance of autonomy, often in beautiful places that don't have many other jobs available.

Q: When did you first smoke marijuana? Was it a positive experience?

A: I was in high school and a co-worker at Sneaker Express gave me a joint. I shared it with friends and we laughed our asses off. I felt totally at home in my body, which was rare in those awkward teen years.

Q: I love that in the book your mother praised your courage, and that you were able to tell your parents what you were up to. Had they talked to you about cannabis or drugs while you were growing up?

A: My parents have always been supporters of anything my brother or sister or I have taken on. I don't remember a specific conversation about drugs, but we always knew we could go to them with questions about pretty much anything and not be judged. Consequently, none of else felt a big urge to rebel via sex or drugs. I find it kind of funny that I tried later and my heart just wasn't in it. I make a crappy rebel. I make a good independent lady, but a terrible rebel.

Q: You got into marijuana growing through a guy, but refused to be his "pot wife," growing your own instead. Did you encounter any other women who were similarly independent in the trade?

A: Yes. But they tend to be less visible, and more aware of how they're seen in the broader community. I think this might be due to a stronger self-preservation instinct, and that they often have more to lose. When in Nuggettown's coffee shop, it isn't too hard to guess who the grow guys are, and not just when they buy a latte with a $100 bill, but there's just a certain look. Women I knew who grew, avoided having that look. Pot wives had it, but not growgirls. I'm generalizing here, obviously, but a game of Spot the Grower can be good fun.

Q: You explain well the pitfalls of an underground culture: the inability to express yourself publicly; the spoiling of children around too-easy cash; the "gaming" of the medical law. You've expressed concern about the marijuana trade becoming corporatized, asking in your Huffington Post blog, "Is there a middle path?" What would be your ideal world in which pot was legal?

A: Well there's a loaded question. A few things first, I would not suggest that it's too-easy cash. I would suggest that it's very flowy cash, that it comes with a generous dash of Carpe Diem. The medical system is so widely open to interpretation and local amendments that it is almost designed like a game--if you're willing to take the risk, then you may have the reward. This helps keep the price up. From the side of getting a doctor's recommendation, am I gaming the system because I got mine for $50 and a claim of PMS? Or am I getting my uninsured self some relief? Is pursuit of wellness a legitimate medical use? Are the laughs brought by smoking a health-enhancing stress reducer, or does smoking to giggle fall strictly under recreational use? Is feeling great a matter of health or recreation? These are blurry lines worthy of exploration, as long as we make sure that deeply ill patients still have safe access no matter how those sorts of debates shape up.

There are so many ways that you could look at the medical marijuana world and see gaming. It's harder to imagine a way of looking at it that seems entirely forthright. It's this slipperiness that has allowed it to become such a large industry, and the only one I see out there whose wealth is still primarily distributed at the mom-and-pop level. There should be some very conscious consideration around that as we progress toward legalization. I have big concerns that legalization will bring corporatization. I think, in some ways, the way the business is evolving now is ideal. It's the federal illegality that's keeping in the hands of regular people. This industry bloomed when Obama insisted he wouldn't prosecute anyone compliant with state law. The industry bloomed, but the prices dropped. It could be argued that the prices dropped to fair levels, and in some cases, made energy-sucking indoor grows less appealing. Hopefully Obama will go back to honoring his promise, and this will drive technologies like LED growlights forward, encouraging the development of a truly green industry.

Marijuana legislation should be left to the states. Take some of the DEA budget and put it into healthcare, or repurpose it to fund studies that will figure out why cannabis is so effective on epilepsy. Use Federal money for something that benefits citizens rather than oppresses them, as the enforcement of prohibition does.

Q: What was it like marketing the book to a publisher? Did your Hollywood agent help? Did you encounter derision, moralizing?

A: I didn't have a Hollywood agent anymore by the time I was working on the proposal for this book. I sent out query letters to about five different agents who I thought might be a good fit, and that's how I found my agent Mollie Glick. She shopped the proposal to editors who seemed to like it. I didn't encounter any moralizing directly. I got more derision from random people who can't understand why I would never leave acting, and that deciding to grow pot was somehow a bottoming out. I don't see it that way at all. For me, it was about taking my story back, seeing what else I might become. I left acting and started growing pot because I wanted to create a life I loved in a beautiful place.

Q: What's it been like doing public appearances about the book?

A: I had some idea of what I was getting into by writing this book. It's controversial material, I get that. Oddly, it's controversial on both sides. Some people in the marijuana world don't like how I've written about it. And anti-drug people think I'm glamorizing badness. What can you do? I just hope people on both sides will read it and see that at heart it's a story about a woman trying to find her place in the world. And that the cannabusiness is not all ballers and kingpins, it's a lot of regular people trying to keep the middle class dream alive.

Q: Are you in touch with any of your former community in Nuggetown? What do they think of the book?

A: Willa's read it. She and I are still besties. Ed's read it. But for the most part, I'm not in touch with the people that I've written about. By and large they're not so enthusiastic about it. I understand this. I chose to write a book. They didn't. This is why everyone's been disguised and most characters are composites.

Q: Is there interest in making the book into a movie?

A: I think there's a ton that could be mined in the grower world for a series. A little bit Weeds, a little bit Northern Exposure, a little bit Big Love.

Q: Other than promoting the book, what are you up to these days? Where do you think you're headed? Are you interested in making more films, as an actress or otherwise? Or will you again leave that question up to the universe?

A: Getting Growgirl out into the world is more than a full time job right now. I have several other book ideas in mind, and it's getting to be time to choose. In the broader scheme of things, I have no idea where I'm headed. I still have no Plan B. What I do have, what being a grower gave me, was a fair level of comfort in uncertainty. I love films, but I wouldn't want to be in front of the camera again. I love writing because I can do it anytime anywhere. What I liked least about acting was the permission required. I don't want to go back to a job where I need permission to do my thing. At the risk of sounding like a hippie, I'm open to what comes.

My Mother-in-Law’s One High Day

2011-12-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
My Mother-in-Law’s One High Day
By MARIE MYUNG-OK LEE
Published: December 9, 2011
The New York Times

WHEN my mother-in-law was in the final, harrowing throes of pancreatic cancer, she had only one good day, and that was the day she smoked pot. Read story.

Veggie VIPs Rock US Postage Stamps; Madonna First Female VIP to Rock Superbowl

2011-12-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

Several VIPs (that's Very Important Potheads) will grace US Postage Stamps as part of a new series honoring "vegetarian icons" picked by PETA. McCartney (again) joins Woody Harrelson (natch), Chrissie Hynde, Natalie Portman and Pythagoras on the stamps, which are due to go on sale later this month.

It's just been announced that Hynde will open a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles along with Ellen DeGeneris, another of the 20 vegetarians to get a stamp. (Ellen's never admitted to smoking it, but joked about it when she hosted the Oscars in 2007.) Hynde's "Legalise Me" is the theme song in the new VIP video.

It's a good bet some of the other top vegetarians also toked. Pamela Anderson wrote a letter to Obama in 2008 in favor of legalization. Joan Jett covered the trippy 60s song "Crimson and Clover" and thought pot-puffing actress Kristen Stewart did a great job portraying her in a 2010 biopic. Leo Tolstoy explored the use of hashish and other intoxicants in his 1890 temperance essay "Why People Become Intoxicated," but his conclusions seem based on his experiences with wine and tobacco.

Lots of other cannabis connoisseurs have been honored with postage stamps, including Bessie Smith, Bob Hope, and Mark Twain, whose stamp came out this year. Also given a stamp in 2011 was pioneering African-American writer and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, in whose 1931 film "The Exile" VIP Louise Cook appeared.

And it's been announced that Madonna will appear at this year's Superbowl halftime show on Feb. 5.

As well as turning a suburban spa salesman onto pot in her 1985 movie "Desperately Seeking Susan," the world's most successful female musician admitted to smoking pot and taking Ecstasy in March 2008 upon her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Material Girl (worth an estimated $325 million) is far from the only pot lover who's appeared at America's biggest sports fest. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers rocked the stadium in 2008. At Superbowl 2005, Paul Mc Cartney played "Get Back" with the lyric, "Jo Jo left his home in Tucson Arizona, for some California grass." In 2004, Willie Nelson played along with country singer Toby Keith, he of the famed tune, "I'll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again."

At least one member of last year's halftime act, The Black Eyed Peas, is a known pot smoker: rapper Taboo (né Jaime Luis Gomez) was arrested near LA in March 2007 after marijuana was found in his car. The Peas just appeared at the nation's tree-lighting ceremony along with Kermit the "It's Not Easy Being Green" Frog and President Obama.

Football and Father Fixations

2011-11-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Having graduated from Penn State (now derisively called State Penn) in 1980, I chimed in on a listserve with several dozen of my sorority sisters from the 70s, who still get together for Homecoming games.

Rather than address the fundamental issues at hand, the messages were all about damage control. Almost immediately after the news hit, one woman, who works in public relations at another University, suggested all give donations to anti-child-abuse organizations in the name of Penn State. Another posted a story about current matriculates from our chapter handing out blue ribbons, the color of child abuse victims and one of PSU’s colors, before the game. One alum sent flowers to the chapter.

My pleas to reevaluate our nation’s fixation with seeing a piece of pigskin move down a patch of land fell on deaf ears. I wrote in that every time I tell people I went to Penn State, all they want to hear about is the football team and Paterno. Is that all an educational institution is supposed to be about? I asked. Is the welfare of children really secondary to who wins the game?

I brought up Noam Chomsky’s book “Manufacturing Consent," theorizing that the elites in society need to have their consent manufactured for government policies, but the vast majority just need to get distracted. Sports, which doubles as "an exercise in radical jingoism," is one of the distractions. But everyone watched the game anyway. Rah.

A week later, Paterno’s son leaked the news that his father had a treatable form of lung cancer. This prompted my sisters to suggest we all write letters of support to our “Italian grandfather.” Missed was the news that Pennsylvania Rep. Louise Williams Bishop (pictured) had just introduced a bill requiring anyone with knowledge of a sex crime against children to report it to the police, not just a supervisor.

In a press conference announcing the bill, Bishop outed herself as a childhood sexual abuse victim. Inspired by her courage, I did the same on the listserve. Like the victims Bishop spoke of in her announcement, I too have struggled with earning a living, and while reconciling my past, I missed out on marriage and family too.

Just like the Catholic church scandal, to me what was worse than the abuse itself was the fact that those in positions of authority allowed it to continue, increasing the victim count. The beloved Paterno is almost certainly guilty of this.

I asked my sisters to think on this quote by Arthur Rimbaud: "He who is legend in his own time is ruled by that legend. It may begin in absolute innocence. But, to cover up flaws and maintain the myth of Divine power, one has to call on desperate measures."

How many innocents had their lives ruined by Paterno's desperate measures? I asked. How many in the Catholic church? And how many women propped up these pathetic patriarchal institutions, and continue to do so? Why? Because we think a Santa Claus/Yahweh/father figure will save us from our own mortality? By winning a football game?

I volunteered at a rape crisis center as part of my healing, and the calls were very often from those who were just starting to deal with abuse they had suffered as children. It can scar a life. I asked my sisters to write their letters of support to their elected representatives in support of Bishop's bill, which has been opposed by the Catholic church.

I am, as Al Green sings, “blessed in the service of my savior”: the plant teachers who opened my mind to a childhood memory I had suppressed in my subconscious mind. Maybe if my sisters weren’t drinking their brains out at football games every week and were instead using something more enlightening for recreation, they would understand. Marijuana is Safer.

A Lively NORML Life

2011-11-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

I got to see the documentary "A NORML Life" at a NORML Women's Alliance event in San Francisco last night. It's a terrific film that should be widely seen by reformers and others.

Rod Pitman, the film's director, was working on a movie about The Doors when he attended a 2008 NORML conference in Berkeley at which Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek spoke. The film has some fine snippets of Manzarek extolling the consciousness-expanding properties of pot, and the DVD contains a bonus interview with Manzerek.

Canadian activist Jodie Emery, whose husband Marc is serving time in a US federal prison for selling marijuana seeds over the internet, is one of the interviewees. In her poignant segment, Emery points out that Marc's actions were aimed at bringing back homegrown marijuana instead of cartel-grown.

Elvy Musikka, one of four federal patients who receives marijuana from the US government, is also powerful in her interview, as is her driver "Big Mike" and the little-but-mighty Ohio activist Tonya Davis (pictured).

In the film, Sabrina Fendrick describes how the new NORML Women's Alliance sprang from an article titled "Stiletto Stoners" in Marie Claire. NORML director Allen St. Pierre explains well the organization's challenge: end prohibition while still offering assistance to its victims. He likened it to trying to build a boat while already in the water.

California Drs. Frank Lucido and Christine Paoletti did a fine job explaining the scientific basis for marijuana's medical uses, and Kentuckian Gatewood Galbraith got some of the biggest laughs with his cogent analyses. Other "high" lights include musician Tim Pate, "Toke of the Town" journalist Steve Elliott and CalNORML Attorney Bill Panzer.

The film ends with a message from NORML founder Keith Stroup about folks coming "out" as pot smokers, and working with their elected officials to lift federal prohibition, allowing states to make their own laws, just as happened with alcohol.

The DVD is available at Amazon.com and the distributor Cinema Libre is in negotiations with Netflix. Pitman asked all in the room to go viral with the film through all their social networks, etc. He has produced a companion film, "Hempsters: Plant the Seed," narrated by Woody Harrelson and featuring Willie Nelson, Ralph Nader, and others.

If you are interested in "A NORML Life" for promotional partnerships, events, festivals and conferences, call (206) 697-2374 or email HeartBrain Media's Stephanie Bishop: Stephanie (at) heartbrainmedia (dot) com.

To request a screener for review, or to arrange an interview, contact Cassie Brewer: cbrewer (at) cinemalibrestudio (dot) com

See other information about Grassroots distribution of the film.

The Girl's Got Camerones

2011-11-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

It's rare these days that I'm moved to blog after being inspired by a piece of art. But after viewing Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher" tonight I must add my voice to the bravos (ie, "you go girls") this VIP deserves. I'd seen the previews and expected the usual sort of lowbrow fare, but instead I saw a movie with heart, soul, and the best comedic performance by a person, male or female, in a very long time.

Casting her boy toy Justin Timberlake as a nerdy pantswetter who parodies himself singing a love song in pitch-perfect style, Diaz transcends the harkened-to Edward James Olmos and Michelle Pfeiffer as cool teachers who find their humanity in tragedy. Sort of a Private Benjamin meets Cold Comfort Farm meets School of Rock meets The Office (including a terrific performance by Phyllis Smith smoking a doobie).

The film handles marijuana in perfect irony, moderation and jubilation, and the rest of the film hits the right notes as well. See it. I'm just sayin'.

I guess I'll go and see the new Harold and Kumar 3-D extravaganga, but I doubt it will be as good.

Merry Molly Ivins

2011-10-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

Molly Ivins was one of a kind, a brilliant columnist and “connoisseur of political lunacy” who told it like it was from Texas and beyond. It was she who dubbed George W. Bush “Shrub” and said of Dan Quayle, "If you put that man’s brain in a bumble bee it would fly backwards.”

When she wrote of a local politician, “If his IQ slips any lower they’ll have to water him twice a day,” her newspaper took out ads saying, “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?"

The line became the title of her first book.

John Leonard, who hired Ivins to do freelance book reviews for the New York Times, “marveled at her work, thought it somewhere beyond unique—a mixture of Lenny Bruce, Rabelais, Lily Tomlin, and Mark Twain [all connoisseurs of cannabis]."

According to Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith, “In her final year at Smith, her love for alcohol deepened and she developed a willingness to experiment with other things. A college friend sent her a crackling, conspiratorial note asking if her mother had found her ‘stash.’”

Ivins struggled with alcoholism all her life, writing herself notes like, “Alcohol is a drug. It is destroying my brain and my life.” Even her friend Ann Richards couldn’t stand her sometimes when she drank.

It’s too bad Ivins didn’t find her way to a less harmful substance more often. Richards campouts, write Minutaglo and Smith, "were almost like annual, informal political conventions in the woods--with some heavy drinking, a bit of pot smoking, and many tales spun around the fire."

According to her biographers, when she worked in Austin "there were protests, student activists, underground cartoonists, and easy-to-find pot shipped across the Rio Grande." Ivins liked the fact that Austin “had all but enshrined Willie Nelson as its patron saint—and that Willie was giggling in a smoky haze out along the Pedernales River, skinny dipping with his posse, playing rounds of stoned golf on his private course that took all day long because people were laughing their asses off, singing songs, drinking more beer, and lighting up fat doobies.”

Ivins publicized the case of Lee Otis, a black student activist who faced 30 years in prison for passing a joint to an undercover cop, by writing in 1970 that Governor Preston Smith was confused by a crowd yelling “Free Lee Otis.” Smith thought they were saying, “Frijoles!”

In a March 1999 column Ivins wrote,

“It's an odd country, really. Our largest growth industries are gambling and prisons. But as you may have heard, crimes rates are dropping. We're not putting people into prison for hurting other people. We're putting them into prison for using drugs, and as we already know, that doesn't help them or us. . . . Last year, more than 600,000 people in this country were arrested for possession of marijuana, a drug less harmful for adults than alcohol.”

Ivins concluded, “But none of this — not all the new drug laws and new prisons or incredible incarceration rates — has reduced illicit drug use....

“Unless you are a drug user or know somebody in the joint, all this may seem far removed from your life. It's not. They're taking money away from your kids' schools to pay for all this, from helping people who are mentally retarded and mentally ill, from mass transit and public housing and more parkland and ...”

Ivins died of breast cancer in 2007, but her beat goes on.

See Molly in a Letterman interview

And watch the recent commentary by Lawrence O’Donnell on marijuana vs. alcohol

It Works, but the Feds Still Don't Like It

2011-10-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a yearly event staged by Tamoxifen manufacturer Zeneca.

Hear more from FAIR's Counterspin and see the "Think Before You Pink" campaign at Breast Cancer Action. Also see NORML boardmember Barbara Ehrenreich's article Welcome to Cancerland.

Meanwhile, NORML reports that breast cancer patients definitely benefit from medical marijuana: Cannabinoid 'Completely' Prevents Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy from Breast Cancer Drug Paclitaxel.

Yet, the feds have launched a multi-pronged assault on California's medical marijuana providers. Women, please join the protest in SF tomorrow!

Miss USA Goes Universal

2011-09-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

Miss California/USA Alyssa Campanella didn't win Miss Universe last weekend, but she made a strong showing (in the top 16) and was a good sport about it.

Shown in this video trying on her "smoking" costume for the pageant in Brazil, Alyssa tweeted her congrats to the winner, HIV activist Leila Lopes of Angola, on her plane ride home.

"Am I bummed not making the top 10? Absolutely. Is that going to ruin my life? No. Did I try my very best? Hell yes. Just wasn't my destiny."

Campanella wore a green gown to win the Miss USA crown in June after answering a question about medical marijuana, saying she supported it.

Lopes ought to also, since it's helpful for AIDS patients. But the question she was asked at the pageant was, "If you could change one of your physical characteristics, which one would it be and why?" The 25-year-old, 5-foot-10 ½-inch paragon of physical perfection answered, "Thank God I am very-well satisfied with the way God created me, and I wouldn't change a thing. I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. ... I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family, and I plan to follow these through the rest of my life. And now I would like to give all of you a piece of advice: Respect one another."

Alyssa looks forward to eating pizza again and vacationing with her man, Tudors actor Torrance Coombs. Her reign as Miss USA continues through June 2012.

Her costume, a "feminine George Washington" was doubtless inspired by the Cindy Crawford cover on the 1995 premiere issue of George, VIP John F. Kennendy Jr.'s magazine. Actress Christina Haag, a former girlfriend of Kennedy's, writes in her recent memoir Come to the Edge that while on vacation, the two were offered an "enormous spliff" by some islanders and found “Jamaican hospitality” was “impossible to refuse.”

When will we admit that hemp smoking is as American as our icons who smoke it, and respect one another's choices in the USA?

Anita O'Day: Indestructibly Good

2011-08-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

I just rented Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer on iTunes, and am happy to report it's a worthy tribute to a brilliant talent.

Music critics and fellow musicians interviewed in the film place O'Day as the only white singer in a class with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn. Interviews with O'Day and clips of with David Frost, Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder and Bryant Gumbel reveal what a bright spirit she was. It's full of footage of O'Day's incomparable singing style, even though too much time was sucked away in the film--and her life--by her heroin addiction, which came about after a marijuana bust.

One segment demonstrating her improvisation skills intercuts her singing "Let's Fall in Love" at various stages of her career, each one a unique work of art. One admirer recalls her remarking on the sound of a ceiling fan during a memorable performance where she included the fan's rhythm into the song.

Described not as a mere singer, but rather as musician who used her voice as an instrument, O'Day's rapid-fire delivery could keep up with the likes of Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton and Gene Krupa. "You can swing, you'd better come with us," Krupa told her when he hired her. (I'm more convinced than ever that O'Day is the inspiration for Sugarpuss O'Shea, the character played by Barbara Stanwick in "Ball of Fire" (1941), featuring Krupa (the documentary opens with her intoning the same "Drum Boogie" riff.)

Rather abandoned as child, O'Day entered Depression-era marathon Walkathons, walking for as many as 2,000 hours to earn food and shelter, and maybe a prize. She started performing in dance contests around the age of 13, smoking reefer with her adult dance partner before they performed (and often won). In those days, you could buy a joint at the corner store, but soon it became illegal. O'Day writes in her autobiography High Times, Hard Times, "One day weed had been harmless, booze outlawed; the next, alcohol was in and weed led to 'living death.' They didn't fool me. I kept on using it, but I was just a little more cautious." Read more.

One early clip shows O'Day singing with black trumpeter Roy Eldridge during a time when such an act could bring violent repercussions. "Well come here, Roy, and get groovy," she tells him. With its integration policies, the Krupa band "went for the jugular of red-neck America," one critic said. Krupa was targeted and arrested for marijuana possession in 1943. "That really bugged me," O'Day writes. "I'd been smoking grass since I was a kid without any terrible effects." She adds in a footnote, "I've always felt that exaggerating the destructive effect of marijuana was a big mistake. The fact that people had used it for years without developing severe problems made it easier for them to discount the physical and economic problems created by use of hard drugs." She soon became a case in point.

O'Day was arrested for pot herself in 1947. She did 4 months' time, and afterwards was led to heroin, figuring, "If they were going to call me a junkie, I figured I might as well be one." She teamed up with John Poole, a heroin addict who she heard drumming in a strip club. The two nursed a 16-year addiction, touring the country and recording for the Verve label.

After after almost dying from an overdose in 1969, O'Day beat her addiction and came back to tour Japan and Europe, establish two record companies and write her autobiography. In 1999, she celebrated her 80th birthday with a concert at the Palladium in Hollywood. She made a final London appearance in 2004 before she died in 2006 at the age of 87.

The comparison to Amy Winehouse is tragically apt. Winehouse was busted for pot in Norway, ostensibly the reason she was denied entry into the U.S. for the 2008 Grammy awards (at which she won five Grammys, including Best New Artist). She had a weakness for men on hard drugs, and they lead her back to alcohol and worse. She was again denied entry into the U.S. in 2009, where she was set to perform along with Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen and others at the Coachella festival in Indio, California. She died with 2.5 million Facebook fans at the age of 27.

Write to Women Behind Bars for Marijuana

2011-08-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

By Sabrina Fendrick, NORML Women's Alliance

The NORML Women’s Alliance has teamed up with the webzine Freedom is Green to encourage reform advocates to write letters to women serving time behind bars for marijuana-related offenses.

Several studies suggest a prisoner’s mental health is dependent on their contact with the outside world. For many, mail correspondences are their primary contact with the public.

Many of the women incarcerated for marijuana offenses are isolated and alone. Receiving any outside communication from the public can be the highlight of their week or month. These small gestures let them know that they are not forgotten, and that the NORML Women’s Alliance is here to support and comfort them.

Recently, the NWA and Freedom Is Green collected letters for Patricia Spotted Crow, a first time offender from Oklahoma who was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for selling $30 worth of marijuana. Here is her heartfelt response to this small gesture from the outside world:

California NORML tracks federal marijuana prisoners at http://www.canorml.org/fedcasessum.html One is Mollie Fry, who is serving 5 years for growing 100 plants over a three-year period.

MARION P FRY, 15840-097
SCP Dublin Camp
5675 8th Street - Camp Parks
Dublin, California 94568

Want to write a marijuana prisoner?

Beth Mann of Freedom is Green provides some guidelines for individuals who are interested in writing to women (and men) that are in prison for marijuana-related crimes: “What should you write? Anything. Prisoners benefit from seemingly mundane letters about your daily life to words of inspiration to pieces of creative writing to news or current events. The important part is simply reaching out.”

Please keep in mind that all of the prisoner’s mail is read by authorities.

- Please send text only, no images or attachments

- Put the prisoner’s name in subject line of email

- Send separate emails for each prisoner

- Up to 1,000 words per letter

- By sending a letter through freedomisgreen.com we may contact you and ask that your letter be posted on the site to bring awareness to victims of prohibition. You may decline and we will still forward your letter directly to the prisoner.

- Send your emails to marijuanaprisoners@gmail.com

Questions? chris@freedomisgreen.com

*********************************************************************** from TokinWoman.blogspot.com

Mad Men and Their Marijuana

2011-08-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm finally catching up with the acclaimed AMC series "Mad Men" and its marijuana references. Set in the 1960s, the first season had talk of a competing ad agency where everyone smoked and the creative product was better. Adman Don Draper smokes pot with his Greenwich Village girlfriend Midge, whose friends give him grief about his career. In the following episode he refuses a job with a global ad agency, saying when he leaves his current job he'll do something else with his life. An interview with actress Rosemarie DeWitt, who plays Midge, said it was suggested she read Diane DiPrima's "Memoirs of a Beatnik" in preparation for the role.

Season 3 has an episode with mousy-secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson announcing "I want to smoke some marijuana" then, "I'm so high." As she leaves the room, she says, "I'm in a very good place right now."

Toke the Play

2011-08-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

Toke, the Play, written by DeeDee Kirkwood, is a fresh take on the topic based on the advertures of a pot- and fun-loving woman named Weedee. It's set to open in Berkeley on August 19, running through September 11. Tokin Women, and men too, should check it out.

Few stores of pot-smoking women have been told in any media, and Toke is an enjoyable romp through one woman's journey that's illuminating and righteous. The artwork is by the fabulous LA artist Barbara Mendes.

Women Visionaries Meet in Petaluma

2011-08-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

The 5th Annual Women's Visionary Congress was by all measures a milestone.

It opened with a strong presentation from author Dorka Keehn, whose new book, EcoAmazons: Twenty Women Who are Transforming the World chronicles the undertold story of womens' contribution to the environmental movement. Starting with Susan Fenimore Cooper (daughter of the novelist James) who wrote of her time in the woods "where the mind lays aside its daily littleness", Keehn moved to inspiring moderns like Hazel Johnson, Rev. Sally Bingham, Winina Laduke and scientist Janine Benyus who coined the term "biomimicry." "If we're going to have a sustainable future, we need to be emulating them."

Jessica Lukas followed with a charming presentation chronicling her journey from Argentina to Bringham Young University, to studies (elsewhere) in Anthropology and Linguistics, to leading Outward Bound excursions and finally back to the South American jungle, where she has participated in ayahuasca ceremonies and worked with natives on something she calls the Amazon Resistance Project. Lukas was critical of some ecotourism and NGOs, and appreciative of native wisdom, while still feeling the need to point out to them where they are not acting in harmony with the earth. "Soul and soil are absolutely connected in these realms" she said.

Clare Wilkins opened the Saturday program with stories from her clinic in Mexico that uses Ibogaine as therapy to treat addiction. "Addiction involves an unhealthy relationship to drama to thrive," Wilkins observed, "They realize they don't have to live in the shadows after Ibogaine." She stressed the need for aftercare, involving modalities like acupuncture and chiropractic, and the addicts' families as well. "How do you practice the epiphany?" she posed, adding, "Everyone has a portion of health in them. Our task is to find and develop that."

Valerie Corral from the Women's Alliance for Medical Marijuana and the Raha-Kudo Design for Dying Project reminded us that, "Nobody does anything extraordinary by thinking in ordinary ways. The divination of the ordinary makes things extraordinary." She played a video of Laura Huxley just before she died, speaking of a dream where she experienced "The sensuality of the spirit and the spirituality of the senses."

Amy Emerson and Linnae Ponte co-presented an update on MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), a nonprofit pharmacology organization that is working on studies of the use of MDMA and cannabis in PTSD; MDMA and autism; Ibogaine and drug dependency; pain; and LSD and end-of-life anxiety. For MDMA studies, they employ male/female co-therapist teams in South Carolina, Switzerland, Israel, and soon in Canada. MAPS is enjoying much national press, in Oprah's magazine, the New York Times, and soon CBS. On December 8-11 in Oakland, CA, MAPS will celebrate its 25th anniversary with Cartographia Psychedelia.

Jane Straight took the group outside for a talk about plant allies, to wrap up the morning.

In the afternoon, Earth and Fire Erowid gave a strong presentation about their work gathering information about the many unknown drugs that are constantly flooding in the market in packages of "Spice" or "Bath Salts," etc. Chemists slightly alter compounds and add them to "herbal" packets before they can be banned, leading to unhealthy consequences. They implored the group to share their experiences on their site, www.erowid.org. As well as collecting stories and information, Erowid has begun a testing program for street drugs, finding widely varying results.

Author and New Dimensions radio host Justine Willis Toms spoke about the importance of forming women's circles and gave guidelines based on her own experience. It should be made of "Friends who support us in our fullness, who are not afraid of our downside." More at: www.millionthcircle.org

Dorothy Fadiman brought the group a retrospective of her lifelong filmmaking career, starting with an LSD-inspired film. Her narration of a film about abortion rights, including her own shocking experience with a back-alley abortion, was a turning point in her journey. She went on to tell compelling stories of courage that called to her with empathy and humor.

Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, one of the organizers of the Congress, hosted a preview of "Magic Trip", a new film about Ken Kesey and the journey of the Magic Bus, using original footage from the first cross-country trip in 1964. Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood (Enron: The Smartest Guy in the World) are the filmmakers. The film is available on Video on Demand and opens in theaters August 5.

Copperwoman lead a singing circle and brought the group together in song.

Time was left for questions, to enjoy conversation with fellow participants, to walk in the garden and the Labyrinth, and to check out the goat herd at the Institute for Noetic Sciences retreat center in Petaluma where the event was held.

On Sunday, Miss S. discussed her work with psychoactives and bodywork, wherein she carefully has begun to gather input from clients who have experienced the two together with much benefit, physically and emotionally. Practitioners should be trained in CPR and psychedelic journey sitting, she recommended, as well as their treatment modality. Legal issues were also discussed.

Eleanora Molnar posed many questions to the group about the biosustainability of entheogenic practice, advocating for a bioregional approach. Keeper Trout broadened our perspective on the study of San Pedro cactus. Stephanie Schmitz, archivist for the Purdue University Psychoactve Substances Research Collection, gave an overview of the project including new acquisitions, and invited all to visit the archives or their website,

WVC expects to have some Salons in Portland, Oregon and New York City in the coming year. They were inundated with requests for scholarships to attend this year, and some of their grants are now going to older women to "encourage transformation."

A Gaia Festival with some of the speakers will be held in Laytonville, CA next weekend (August 5-7).

Look Mom, I'm High!

2011-07-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

Mark-Paul Gosselaar played Zach on "Saved by the Bell" and went on to TV roles as cops, as well as racing NASCAR-style cars to benefit kids with cancer. Not exactly your average poster child for marijuana.

Gosselaar just guested on George Lopez's show, and since he is Dutch, Lopez remarked, "They're very liberal with the herbal stuff."

"Yeah, they like to get high," was the immediate response (to audience cheers). Gosselaar recounted that he got high in Amsterdam with his mother when he was 18, although she tried to say she wasn't (but in a really high voice). Lopez countered that when he was 14, he went out to dinner with his grandparents and had to drive home because they both got hammered.

Asked if by Lopez if he ever Twittered under the influence, Gosselaar answered, "I've twittered while I'm loose." Lopez suggested, "Let's get your mom, let's all get some hash and tweet high." Sounds like a great idea. Except instead Gosselaar demonstrated how to shotgun a beer, with Lopez joking, "Now drink responsibly..."

Last year Gosselaar appeared as a hot bartender who succumbs to Nancy's charms in Weeds. His mother Paula is Dutch-Indonesian.

So far a poll at Lifelime.com shows Gosselaar's revelation makes him more, not less loveable (by 60-40%).

Gosselear isn't the first young stud to admit to smoking with his parents. Matt Damon grew up in a community house with his child psychologist mother and his stepfather, and said on BBC's Johnny Vaughan Tonight, "The first time I smoked was at home with my mother and stepfather. They were like, 'If you are going to do this, we'd rather you did this with us.'" Damon appeared in "Oceans 12," filmed in part in an Amsterdam coffeehouse.

Debbie Reynolds suggested she and daughter Carrie Fisher try grass together, but instead Carrie experimented with a friend and later, Harrison Ford, whose ultra-strong (hallucinogenic-tobacco-laden?) pot "did me in."

So let's count: three adults, two who smoked pot with their parents and don't have drug abuse problems; one who didn't and does. Frank Zappa once asked, "Do you ever get drunk with your kids?" meaning (I think) do you ever treat them like adults? I would ask the same about pot: do we teach our about kids proper, respectful use or do we expect them to learn (or mis-learn) about adult behaviors on their own?

Amy Winehouse - A Talent Denied

2011-07-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I'd be writing another obituary so soon...and for one so young: Amy Winehouse is dead at 27 of unknown causes. Prodigiously talented, Winehouse also had a huge weakness for alcohol, harder drugs, and the men who used them. She reportedly showed signs of early emphysema from chain smoking cigarettes and smoking crack cocaine.

After her 2003 debut disc Frank hit in England, the singer took three years to bring out her next one, saying she smoked a lot of marijuana during that time. When Back to Black was released in 2006, it was a monster hit in England and the U.S. too.

Transcending R&B, soul and jazz with her powerful vocals, Winehouse's "Rehab" was inspired by 60s girl groups with the modern lyrics, "They tried to make me go to rehab, baby...no, no, no."

She was banned from entering the U.S. to pick up her Grammy for the hit in 2008, ostensibly over a minor pot bust in Norway. By then she'd been sent to rehab after the London Sun newspaper posted a grainy video on its website allegedly showing her smoking a crack pipe and talking about taking ecstasy and valium. She won five Grammys that year, including Best New Artist.

Winehouse was again denied entry into the U.S. in 2009 after she was arrested again for slapping a photographer, making her unable to perform along with Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen and others at the Coachella festival in Indio, California.

She died with 2.5 million Facebook fans, and countless others. Tony Bennett, 84, who recorded with Winehouse, is one of many who have expressed sadness at her passing. American idol Kelly Clarkson wrote, "I'm incredibly sad....I have been that low emotionally and mentally and that is overwhelming....Sometimes I think this job will be the death of us all, or at least the emotional death of us all."

In her title track from Back to Black Winehouse wrote:

I love you much, it's not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black.

(Has anyone noticed that Sean Hoare, the 47-year-old whistleblower in the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has also been found dead in his home of "unsuspicious causes"?)

ADDENDUM: In 2007 Winehouse told London's Daily Mail
about her hit single "Rehab" and album Back to Black:
"I wrote those songs three years ago but that doesn't seem to matter. People still think I smoke a quarter a day. But it's not even a factor any more. I stopped about two years ago. My drinking has replaced weed. I still have a problem. Well, I have had problems with booze…" Too bad she didn't stick with something safer.

UPDATE Aug. 23, 2011: Amy Winehouse's Death: No Drugs Found [only Alcohol]

RIP Betty Ford

2011-07-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

I'd just blogged about Betty Ford; today I read she's died at 93.

A former Martha Graham dancer, Ford had back problems and got hooked on the painkillers she took, along with alcohol. Though she is known for her drug abuse treatment center, she had a sensible outlook on marijuana.

Asked by Morley Safer as first lady what she thought about her children possibly using marijuana, Betty replied, "I think if I were their age I probably would have been interested to see the effect." She compared the use of marijuana at the time to her generation's consumption of beer.

(Source: Betty Ford, The Times of My Life, 1987)

UPDATE: AP's adieu to Betty by Connie Cass and Linda Deutsch has a beautiful lead:

"Betty Ford said things that first ladies just don't say, even today. And 1970s America loved her for it. According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana - and if she were their age, she'd try it, too....She mused that living together before marriage might be wise, thought women should be drafted into the military if men were, and spoke up unapologetically for abortion rights, taking a position contrary to the president's. 'Having babies is a blessing, not a duty," Mrs. Ford said.'"

By contrast, CNN's David Frum wrote a nasty column about her and the "Me" generation (which was a whole lot better than the "Greed" one that followed).

Misses and Mrs. High Times

2011-06-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

Women were well represented this weekend at the High Times medical cannabis cup in San Francisco. Held on the weekend of the Gay Pride parade, the festivities kicked off with a party thrown by the NORML Women's Alliance at Pier 5 legal offices in the celebratory city. The group had a booth at the event and reported great interest among attendees in gathering the women together on this issue.

Miss High Times, a woman chosen yearly to be the ambassadress of ganga at events including the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, gave a nod to her fellow females as she took the stage on Sunday night at the awards ceremony that wrapped up the event. Clazina Rose Van Andel and 2007 Miss High Times Sarah Newton both encouraged young women to enter the contest which "changed their lives."

Debby Goldsberry, the founder of the Cannabis Action Network who has been one of the leaders of the medical marijuana movement, acknowledged her fellow female indica judges, among them a filmmaker and an accountant. "We're all been touched by the war on cannabis, and we're sick of it," she said.

A High-light of the evening was the presentation of the second annual Lester Grinspoon award for Lifetime Achievement to the stellar Cannabis Cup-ple Michael and Michelle Aldrich, celebrating their 40th year in activism. Coining the term "Cannabis Cup-ple" was High Times Medical Marijuana editor David Bienenstock, who gave a deserved shout out to his "beautiful fiancee" Elise for her help with the well attended event.

The Aldriches were long involved with the FitzHugh Ludlow museum, the largest collection ever assembled of drug-related material from around the world. Michael Aldrich wrote the first doctorial dissertation ever on the history of cannabis in 1970. He hipped Jack Herer to hemp and co-founded Amorphia, the first cannabis law reform organization in California, in 1972. That group backed the first Prop. 19 in 1972 and has morphed into California NORML.

Michelle Aldrich (pictured) co-founded the San Antonio free clinic and the National Free Clinic Council. She was vice president for drug education at Amorphia and a US Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse researcher. She served on the Drug Abuse Advisory Board for the City and County of San Francisco, and is currently a member of the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Task Force. She is a board member of California NORML and Patients Out of Time, among many other affiliations.

Aldrich glittered in a black gown when she thanked High Times for the honor. "I look and see all the friends I have here, especially the women," she said. "The women have changed this movement. The women are going to make this happen." She encouraged activists to get to know their elected officials. "That's how I got to meet Harvey Milk," she said, speaking of the SF gay rights activist. "That's how I got to meet Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer...go straight to the community, get involved in democratic politics." She ended her speech, as is her custom, with, "What we want is free, legal backyard marijuana!"

Miss USA Wears the Green

2011-06-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

Alyssa Campanella, Miss California, was given points for her answer about medical marijuana on her way to being crowned Miss USA in Las Vegas on Sunday.

Real Housewife of New Jersey Caroline Manzo, one of the pageant's judges, asked Campanella her final question: "Many have argued that marijuana should be legalized and taxed to boost the economy and alleviate drug wars. Do you believe in legalizing medical marijuana? Why or why not?"

"Well, I understand why that question would be asked, especially with today's economy, but I also understand that medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically," Campanella replied.

"I'm not sure if it should be legalized, if it would really affect, with the drug war," she added. "I mean, it's abused today, unfortunately, so that's the only reason why I would kind of be a little bit against it, but medically it's OK."

Despite that rambling answer (proving perhaps she has a future in politics), Campanella is said to have impressed judges with her intelligence. One of only two contestants who said they believe in evolution, she is a self-proclaimed history geek who likes to watch The Tudors and Game of Thrones on TV. The stunning redhead chose emerald green for her evening gown and also shone in her metallic blue polka-dot bikini.

Campanella, a 21-year-old who was crowned Miss Teen New Jersey in 2007, will represent the US in the Miss Universe pageant in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Sept. 12.

Garr-dantua and Pantagruel

2011-06-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

After blogging about Teri Garr’s final appearance on Friends (where marijuana is oh-so-briefly alluded to), I checked out Garr's autobiography Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood (2005). The book contains some unexpected revelations. First, when Garr was a young go-go dancer on TV shows like "Shindig!" and in movies like Pajama Party with Annette Funicello, she traveled to England and was invited to the recording studio while the Beatles recorded "Yellow Submarine." Seems a guy named Steve, the road manager for the Mamas and the Papas, put Garr and her friends up in a London flat. She writes:

We sat on plastic chairs outside the sound room and stared at them through a glass window. I thought I smelled pot….Eventually we went home but we saw them throughout the rest of our stay in London. The doorbell at our flat would ring, we’d look out the second-story window, and there would be George Harrison, wanting to know if anyone was home (Of course, it’s possible that they were more interested in seeing Steve than us. Steve kept some sort of chemistry set on the coffee table that the boys seemed to be very interested in. It contained sugar cubes and stuff. Wonder what that was about…?)…We returned to Los Angeles no wiser, but plenty cooler.

Garr hung out with fellow acting-school student and VIP Jack Nicholson, and appeared in his psychedelic movie Head (along with the Monkees and Funicello). Of Dennis Hopper, she writes, “This was my escape from showbiz—hanging out with this totally cool group of Venice beat artists and contemplating the meaning of life. The whole group was reckless, and Dennis was the ringleader. He took me and Toni [Basil] to love-ins and peace marches, and he was the only guy I knew who had the courage to drive his Corvair convertible (with the top down!) through a wall of flames during the Watts Riots. He may have been stoned at the time (who wasn’t)…"

Soon Garr was onto success in films like Young Frankenstein, Oh, God! (with VIP John Denver) and Tootsie. After Carrie Fisher introduced her to her future novia, Dr. David Kipper, they went to Hawaii together so Garr could shoot a Pepsi commercial. She writes,

After my work was done, we went to stay in a fancy hotel on Maui. Biking to the beach, we passed a guy who offered to sell us pot. We rode past him nonchalantly, but once we got to the beach we changed our minds. I sent David back to buy a joint from him. The tabloids weren’t the unrelenting presence that they are today, but I still didn’t want to be recognized as a poster child for marijuana. So David rode back alone and bought a joint from the guy. But just as he was leaving the guy took another look at him and said, ‘Hey, you’re the guy who was with Teri Garr.’ So much for anonymity.

One very sad revelation in the book: Garr suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. She was a spokesperson for Rebif, an interferon manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Serono, which has just paid $44.3 million in fines to “resolve” allegations by the DOJ that it paid health care providers to induce them to promote or prescribe Rebif, resulting in the submission of false claims to federal health care programs including Medicare and Medicaid for the payment of Rebif, i.e., claims that were tainted by kickbacks.

It’s unknown whether or not Garr has tried cannabis for her MS. If she’s smoked throughout her life, it may well have delayed the onset of the disease, which she suspected she had for many years before finally being diagnosed. Dr. Dennis Petro, and others, have long maintained their studies show cannabis can retard and maybe even cure MS. See a review of studies on MS and cannabis.

I worked with the California Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society to secure their endorsement for Proposition 215, the voter-approved measure that made medical marijuana legal in California in 1996. In 2009, the National MS Society came out with an Expert Opinion Paper saying, “There are sufficient data available to suggest that cannabinoids may have neuroprotective effects that studies in this area should be aggressively pursued…. Because inhaled smoked cannabis has more favorable pharmacokinetics than administration via oral or other routes, research should focus on the development of an inhaled mode of administration that gives results as close to smoked cannabis as possible.” The MS Society is funding cannabis research, summarized in their Summer 2011 newsletter. Multiple Sclerosis affects an estimated 400,000 Americans.

It’s rumored that Funicello, who also had MS, tried cannabis during her lifetime. Garr’s book mentions David Lander (Squiggy), who is an advocate for medical marijuana because of his MS. And of course you have probably read that VIP Montel Williams, another MS patient who has found benefit from medical marijuana, has opened a medical marijuana collective in Sacramento.

Maybe it's time for Garr to become a poster child for pot after all.

(If you don't get the title of this post, see the Rabelaisian explanation. )

Climb On the Drug Peace Train

2011-06-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today on the 40th anniversary of the day Richard Nixon declared war on “drugs,” I happened to find myself at an Amtrak station. Standing in a (long, inefficient) line waiting to buy tickets, I noticed a poster celebrating the 40th anniversary of Amtrak, the national railroad system which also began in 1971.

It almost made me cry. Imagine what our rail system would look like today if instead of spending billions on our failed war on drugs, we’d have put that money into our country’s infrastructure. How many gallons of gasoline would we have saved? How much would we have improved air quality? How many trips would have been taken, broadening people’s experiences or just making their lives a little easier, giving them more time with family and friends? How many other programs, schools, libraries and parks could we have funded? How many highway deaths might we have prevented?

Rick Steves, the PBS travel host and author, has been coming to NORML conferences to speak in favor of legalizing marijuana. "To me travel is accelerated living," Steves enthused in 2005. "Travel carbonates your life. It makes things different, it sort of refreshes your perspective and in a lot of ways, that's like marijuana, I would say. . . And of course when you travel in Europe you realize that there is a non-criminal approach to marijuana that could be quite inspirational to American policy makers if they would just learn about it."

Every time I consider taking Amtrak, I see that routes have been cut or turned into bus routes instead. Only one daily train travels from Los Angeles to Oakland, and it takes 11 hours to do so. Some innovations like car trains are boosting ridership, but with nearly all federal funds going to highways or air travel, trains barely get noticed. California’s high speed rail plans keep getting derailed over funding and NIMBY issues; ditto the North Coast Railroad. But everyone has money to spend on prisons for drug offenders.

I first became politically active in 1971 at the age of 13, campaigning against Richard Nixon when he ran for his second term as president. I was so disillusioned when he won by a landslide (aided by his dirty tricks) that I didn’t become politically active again until 1991, when I became a hemp/marijuana law reform activist. That the last 20 years of my life have been wasted fighting a battle that shouldn’t need to be fought is a drop in the bucket compared to all the other wasted lives and resources we’ve dropped down the well of woe that is the war on drugs.

It’s significant that Nixon’s eventual successor Jimmy Carter has an oped in today's New York Times in support of drug policy reforms called for in a report by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan, Sir Richard Branson, and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.

Carter wrote,

Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million.

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state's budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.

While president, Carter was for marijuana decriminalization, until his drug chief was smeared for taking cocaine at a party. That the husband of Hillary Clinton’s traveling chief of staff has just resigned over a trivial twitter is proof that the dirty tricks are alive and well.

Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon for his tricks and Betty Ford (pictured above with her husband at a whistlestop) founded a drug treatment center because of her problems with alcohol and painkillers. Asked by Morley Safer as first lady what she thought about her children possibly using marijuana, Betty replied, "I think if I were their age I probably would have been interested to see the effect." She compared the use of marijuana at the time to her generation's consumption of beer.

Gerald and Betty’s son Jack said in an interview, "I've smoked marijuana and I don't think that's so exceptional for people growing up in the 1960s. The fact that there's so much moral indignation over it is one of the reasons there are so any problems with the disillusionment and alienation of young people in this country."

With the last three sitting presidents admitted former pot smokers, policy is at a standstill at the federal level. President Obama called drug legalization “an entirely legitimate topic for debate” earlier this year in response to yet another internet poll that made this the top issue among Americans. But when the report Carter has endorsed came out, Obama administration officials rejected the notion with more of its failed “just say no" rhetoric.

Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." We've got to get this country moving again, off the War on Drugs train and onto one of tolerance and reason that will take us into the future. Otherwise it won’t be, as Utah Phillips sang, “Daddy, What’s a Train?” it will be, “Daddy, What’s a Country?”

All aboard.

Tales of Two Cities

2011-06-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Highly Recommended: Woody Allen's new film, "Midnight in Paris," wherein Owen Wilson's character Gil Bender travels back in time to meet the likes of Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. For those, like me, who'd like to return to another time, this film is a magnificent journey, with a lovely lesson about living in the present.

When the would-be novelist Gil goes to Gertrude Stein's (a pitch-perfect Kathy Bates, pictured above) the door is opened for him by Alice B. Toklas, she of the brownie fame. (Actually her brownies were more of a majoon, and the recipe was contributed by Brion Gysin.) It's unknown whether or not Gertrude ate them, but the two did influence VIP Paul Bowles.

When Gil tries to explain his fantastic adventures to his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams), she asks him, "What have you been smoking?" Gil may be named for Gilgamesh, mankind's original hero whose fear of death lead him to seek immortality in a magic plant.

Mentioned in the film as the first lover of the composite character Adriana is VIP Amedo Modigliani. Adriana could be based on Beatrice Hastings, the pen name of Emily Alice Haigh (1879-1943) who lived with Modigliani as his mistress, and reportedly shared his indulgence in hashish. Hastings was a journalist, a poetess, a circus artist, and a follower of Helena Blavatsky.

Also spotted: a musical version of Armistead Maupin's beloved stories of San Francisco, Tales of the City, now having its world premiere at SF's American Conservatory Theater. Here are some reviews of the show:

This musical is an enjoyable three-hour "celebration of sex, drugs, and all kinds of coming out" ...Absolutely nothing should be changed about Judy Kaye's turn as Mrs. Madrigal [pictured right], "the bohemian goddess-cum-landlady" who floats around in psychedelic robes and dispenses "sage bits of weed-infused wisdom" along with her strangely addictive brownies...this "Age of Aquarius flashback deserves to be seen on a Broadway stage." --The Week, June 17, 2011

"Exuberantly captures the sweeping current of transformation in Maupin's work . . . a happy blur of flares, gay saunas, and bongs." —The Guardian (UK)

"Whether you are a Mona or a Mary Ann, a Mouse or a Mrs. Madrigal, this show illuminates the colorful, crazy, complicated, wild times of our fabulous city. A gift to San Francisco and all of us who love it!" —Jan Wahl, KCBS/KRON-TV

Fast Times at Spike TV

2011-06-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

"Fast Times At Ridgemont High" director Amy Heckerling (the only woman in the picture above) was in attendance to see her film inducted into Spike TV's "Guy Movie Hall of Fame" last night in Culver City, along with castmembers Sean Pean (in his memorable stoner role), Judge Reinhold and Forest Whitaker.

Ridgemont High is a cut above the average "stoner guy" or high school comedy; it's got heart, wit, and a finesse sorely lacking in the usual fare. Heckerling got noticed for the film and went on to write "Clueless" (1995) and the "Look Who's Talking" films, based on her experience as a mother. She pairs again with "Clueless" star Alicia Silverstone in this year's "Vamps," about Vampires in New York and their dating choices.

The female cast of the 1982 movie had better things to do that night. Jennifer Jason Leigh is busy winning raves on Broadway in The House of Blue Leaves with Ben Stiller and Edie Falco. And Phoebe Cates hasn't acted since she married Kevin Klein, had his kids, and opened a boutique in New York.

Also missing from the Spike festivities was Ridgemont High's author, Cameron Crowe ("Almost Famous") and Spicoli's stoner buddies Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz. Edwards will play Beat poet publisher Lawrence Ferlingetti in 2012's Big Sur, based on a novel by VIP Jack Kerouac. Whitaker, who played the jock in the film, is set to play Very Important Pothead Louis Armstrong in an upcoming biopic, which is said to include Louis's love of the herb in the script.

Mark Wahlberg, who earlier this year admitted he'd smoked pot but was now afraid to do so around his daughter, won the "Guy of the Year" award. Award winner Jim Carrey hasn't quite come clean, but discussing performing a bungee jumping stunt on TV's "Ellen" (12/17/2008), he said "I’m thinking, If there is a God, How do I explain that trip to Amsterdam when I was 19 and saying Yes to everything?"

VIPs Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz were presenters, and Mila Kunis deservedly took home the "Holy Grail of Hot." VIP Jennifer Aniston also deserved her "Decade of Hotness" award. (Apparently, smoking pot makes you hot.)

The Guys Choice Awards, at which Keith Richards received recognition for his "brass balls", will air on Spike TV on Friday June 10 at 9 PM.

Laughter: Still the Best Medicine in Any Language

2011-05-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day Message

2011-05-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Source: Los Angeles Daily News
May 7, 2011

Author: Julia Negron
Note: Julia Negron of North Hills is director of the Los Angeles regional chapter of A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing) and a co-founder of Moms United to end the War on Drugs.

TIME TO SAY NO TO WAR ON DRUGS

IMAGINE a world without the scourge of our current punitive drug policies. Imagine a world where we mothers no longer wait teary eyed in prison visiting lines, where our daughters live to gift us with happy grandchildren.

Imagine our sons getting in trouble with drugs and getting saved because they are worth saving. Imagine borders where tourists bask in the sun without fear, and drug cartels' gunshots are replaced with lilting music. Imagine passionately wanting a better future for our children and grandchildren so that all humanity is treated with dignity and kindness. Imagine that billions in funding is funneled into education. Imagine that we stop fighting a war with ourselves.

It may seem odd for a mother to make a case for decriminalizing illegal drugs. But I can give you a grandmother's/drug counselor's/prison visiting mom's take on how we have turned on our own - how the "War on Drugs" has generated more victims than successes.

We turned on our own when we stopped helping people who need help; when we attacked the most marginalized of us; when we lost our compassion for the suffering; and when we handed over the treatment of our sick kids to men with badges, not stethoscopes.

It happened when we stood silently while criminalizing a whole class of people. When we made smuggling and killing profitable. And, we pay for this by cutting education and programs that lift people out of poverty and vulnerability, guaranteeing that nothing changes.

In real -time there is little available to help the afflicted, so we lock them up out of sight and out of mind. In my world that means "prison churning." My own son developed drug dependence early-on and has now given years to a corrections system that can not "correct" him.

His chances to make a better life for his children dim with each prison term. My life is better than my mother's, but my grandkid'sgrandkids' lives will not be better than mine. The cost of the failed War on Drugs is more than just the $40 billion we waste each year.

Think of the families torn apart by harsh prison sentences. How could we let this hopelessness happen to half a million children with a parent in prison!

As a nation we've spent billions year after year for 40 years trying to incarcerate our way out of a health issue. Gun boats and border patrols have been unsuccessful in keeping drugs out of this country, with the result that it just made them more costly. Harsh prison terms have handed us back a hollow-eyed generation of anti-social unemployable felons.

We've been encouraged to let our kids "hit bottom," and we've dutifully kicked our kids to the curb. Consequently we've buried a generation of overdosed kids who could not get it right, could not get past the stigma, could not find help, feared jail and found no rational agent of change. We tried to "just say no to drugs" yet today things are worse than ever.

Imagine that there are no more excuses and that there are solutions.

I am no different than you. Our tax dollars paid more than $250,000 to incarcerate my non-violent drug offender son in California prisons so far.

This waste must change. We can do this together. We have a way; we can start by reclassifying personal possession of small amounts of illegal drugs as misdemeanors. We can give our kids a chance to not be labeled a felon for life.

The group Moms United to End the War on Drugs has a simple mission: end the waste of the War on Drugs; end the failed policies; end the mass incarceration, the overdose deaths, and the border violence. Start by getting into action and join us in our solutions. Join us in protest on the 40th anniversary of this most damaging war - June 17 - and "just say NO" to the War on Drugs.

Of Patti and Pot

2011-05-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

Patti Smith added to her prodigious accomplishments a National Book Award for her #1 New York Times bestselling book Just Kids, about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

The two artists met when he bought a Persian necklace from the bookshop where she worked, which she said reminded her of a Catholic scapular. He told her he had been an altar boy and loved to swing the frankinsense censor.

Robert took a seminal LSD trip on the same day, May 30, 1967, that Patti also dedicated her life to art, in front of a statue of Joan of Arc. He was on acid the day they hooked up, but was still shocked when he found she was smoking pot, as Smith relates in her remarkable book:

"Patti, no!" Robert gasped. "You're smoking pot!" I looked up sheepishly. Busted.

I had seen The Harder They Come, and was stirred by the music...I found irresistible the Rastafarian connection to Solomon and Sheba, and the Abyssinia of Rimbaud, and somewhere along the line I decided to try their sacred herb....

With Robert, I was not transported into the Abyssinian plain, but into the valley of uncontrollable laughter. I told him that pot was supposed to be for writing poetry, not fooling around. But all we did was laugh....

I never thought of pot as a socal drug. I liked to use it to work, to think, and eventually for improvising with [musicians] Lenny Kaye and Richard Sohl as the three of us would gather under a frankincense tree dreaming of Haile Selassie.

Smith’s is not a tale of overindulgence in drugs. It is instead one of a dedicated artist who witnessed some of the excesses of drug use, and experimented herself only deliberately and thoughtfully (or, once, accidentally).

Smith saved her marijuana smoking for the creative process, at one point agreeing to go to an esoteric bookstore with Robert and a friend only if they didn’t smoke pot first, since that would make them time warp there.

Later, “I immersed myself in a new course of study. I was drawn to the Middle East: the mosques, the prayer rugs, and the Koran of Muhammad. I read Nerval’s Women of Cairo, and the stories of Bowles, Mrabet, Albert Cossery, and Isabelle Eberhardt. Since hashish permeated the atmosphere of these stories I had it in my mind to partake of it. Under its influence I listened to the Pipe of Pan at Joujouka; Brian Jones produced the album in 1968. I was happy to write to the music he loved. From the baying dogs to the ecstatic horns, it was time for the soundtrack of my nights.”

After her hashish experience, she tripped with Robert and saw a “demon version of the city.” She rescued Robert from a bad trip and had one herself when she was dosed unknowingly. At Robert's suggestion, she took MDA before shooting a collaborative film.

Piers Asks Whoopi About Oscar Night

2011-04-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

What better way to lighten up the somber mood of the last post here than by viewing the Whoopi Goldberg appearance on Piers Morgan's CNN show. You have to get to part three of the interview before she is asked about the recent revelation that she was stoned when she accepted her Oscar in 1991.

Whoopi denied she was "high as a kite" that night when put that way by Morgan, who added, "Please tell me you were." She only said she "probably did" smoke a joint that night. (She also used the word "probably" when asked if she prayed.) She told Morgan she'd grown up and didn't go to work high, because for one thing, it can be smelled on people, "so why put myself in that position?" She added that she still smokes cigarettes.

Later in the segment, Morgan asked Whoopi about her defense of Mel Gibson when she said, "Drunks say stupid stuff to people all the time, that's why I don't like alcohol." She said she was only drunk once in her life, "that's why I don't drink anymore."

Whoopi stood by her defense of Michael Phelps after he'd "smoked weed," largely on privacy issues. "If he wanted to smoke a bong at home, he had that right," she maintained to Morgan's repeated attempts to raise the role-model issue.

Morgan reported that Newsweek magazine recently said Whoopi was the most popular host of The View and is even more popular than Oprah. Her contract on The View is up for renewal.

A Not-So-Good Friday

2011-04-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Cheryl Crane's book Detour: A Hollywood Story. Crane is the daughter of Lana Turner, the "sweater girl" who took her moviestar name from Spanish for "wool." Crane's is a sad tale of being shuffled from nanny to nanny while contending with her mother's string of boyfriends and husbands, one of whom, "Tarzan" actor Lex Barker, violently molested her when she was 10. On Good Friday 1958, the 14-year-old Crane stabbed mobster Johnny Stompanato to death when he attacked Turner, and no story about Cheryl or her mother appeared thereafter without "the paragraph" about the incident.

Crane was indirectly affected by the war on marijuana in 1948, when her father's fiancee Lila Leeds (pictured) was famously arrested along with Robert Mitchum for marijuana. Leeds was a 20-year-old starlet under contract at Warner Brothers who resembled Lana Turner and met restauranteur Stephen Crane when she worked as a hat-check girl at Ciro's. One of her bit parts was in Turner's vehicle Green Dolphin, where she plays a Eurasian woman who drugs the leading man and rolls him.

Cheryl writes,

"Dad knew that Lila had smoked pot ever since she tried it at a St. Louis party three years before with members of the Stan Kenton orchestra, and sometimes she overdid it....She was often stoned, and his friends cautioned Dad that she had a problem, but he knew pot was no enslaving 'devil's weed,' as it has been painted in the unintentionally hilarious 1936 cautionary film Reefer Madness."

After Leeds was arrested, Stephen Crane fled to Europe rather than become entangled in scandal, abandoning Cheryl when she was only five years old. There he tried his hand at writing a gossip column titled, "Champagne and Vinegar." In his debut column he wrote about the Mitchum bust, saying, "Yet if Mitchum should come to Paris he could attend a small private jive club on the Left Bank where waiters come around to the tables and roll the marijuana cigarettes for you." No less than three Hollywood stars, he noted, were "seen entering" the place the previous week.

Crane writes that Leeds said she was introduced to heroin by inmates at LA County Jail when she served her 60-day sentence, and it lead to addiction. Other than the Reefer Madness-style anti-drug film "She Shoulda Said No," Leeds never had another film role. She became so destitute that she hocked the 3-carat diamond ring Stephen had given her for $750. In the 70s, she worked as a faith healer for addicts.

According to Wikipedia, Cheryl was detained by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1969 when three half-grown marijuana plants were discovered in the back seat of her car.

Who's Got the Mary -- Jane?

2011-03-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

On Jay Leno's show (March 15), "Glee" star Jane Lynch chatted about the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party at the Sunset Towers, where everyone looked good but were boring to talk to. "I ended up in a corner somewhere, and somebody lit up a marijuana cigarette," Lynch said. After the partiers sat at her table, "and all of a sudden everyone's saying, 'Jane's got pot!"

"I don't smoke I don't drink and I'm writing a book about how I don't do those things," Lynch explained, while chuckling about the incident with a non-shocked Jay. "It was being smoked around me, and I stopped breathing, I didn't inhale."

Turns out, it may have been a different Jane who did the inhaling.

Gatecrasher at the New York Daily News reports of the party:

"During one trip to a bar in the back of the tent, we recognized the familiar aroma of marijuana, and then caught sight of 'Easy Rider' star Peter Fonda standing in the corner with his sister’s boyfriend, music producer Richard Perry. Inches away, Jane Fonda (seated next to 'Glee' star Jane Lynch) used one hand to shield her mouth while puffing what looked like a handmade cigarette.

"At a nearby bar, Catherine O’Hara and Martin Short stood chatting. O’Hara reportedly grinned and asked, 'Do you smell the weed? We’re blaming it on Peter Fonda'.”

Peter Fonda, of course, produced and starred in Easy Rider, in which Jack Nicholson played an innocent trying pot for the first time. Jane played a similar role in 9 to 5, as a divorced woman empowering herself in more ways than one.

"You don't mind if I turn on, do you?" Fonda (pictured) asked Rex Reed before puffing some of "the real thing" on New Years Eve, 1969, the day she found out she won a NY Film Critics Award for her performance in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? It's understandable she'd need a little puff to get through the shrewish roles she's getting these days.

Jack Nicholson criticized America's War on Drugs in a recent interview with a British newspaper, and said he still smokes pot. "I don't tend to say this publicly, but we can see it's a curative thing," Nicholson told the UK's Daily Mail.

WHOOOOOPI!!!!!!

2011-03-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

TMZ has unearthed a 1992 tape of Whoopi Goldberg describing how she smoked pot before the Oscars when she won Best Supporting Actress for "Ghost". Saying she smoked "a wonderful joint" when she wanted to relax before the show, "It was the last of my homegrown, and honey, when they called my name..."

Not only did she get to monster-hug Denzel Washington, she gave the most sincere acceptance speech ever. "I wanna thank everyone who makes movies," she said. She graciously acknowledged her co-star Patrick Swayze, who finally started to gain weight after he tried medical marijuana for his cancer in 2009, but sadly, too late to save him.

After the speech, "My mother called me and she said, you smoked, didn't you? Your eyes were just glistening," Whoopi relates. "So I got the Oscar tape to see if you could tell--and you couldn't."

"I know you're not supposed to admit that you smoke pot...they'll call me 'dopehead'...but just because I say that I do it doesn't mean you have to," she said with mock sincerity to chuckles from her interviewers.

Whoopi came out in support of Michael Phelps during that flap, admitting to "having smoked" on The View.

I very much hope Whoopi won't back away from this statement, but rather use it to open debate on our unjust marijuana laws. It will be interesting to see if she talks about it on The View next week (11 AM on ABC). Monday's show with guest Kiefer Sutherland would be a perfect time to discuss the difference between hard and soft "drugs".

Farewell To the Lovely Liz

2011-03-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Taylor, who graced the screen as a child in Jane Eyre and National Velvet, and as an adult in Butterfield 8 and Cleopatra (pictured) has died.

Taylor won several humanitarian awards for her work raising over $10 million and much awareness for AIDS at a time when no one wanted to acknowledge the disease. She is remembered for her addictions to alcohol and painkillers, and according to one biographer, smoked pot.

According to Ellis Amburn's 2000 book, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of Elizabeth Taylor Liz' experimentation with marijuana began in mid-1973, when she partied with Peter Lawford and his son Christopher, hitting hot spots like Candy Store in Beverly Hills. Peter's friend Arthur Natoli recalled, "[Lawford] and Elizabeth used to turn on together. They were high on pot a lot. I don't know if he supplied her." (p. 222)

Taylor was 19 when she was cast in A Place in the Sun opposite Montgomery Clift, and she had a lifelong devotion to Clift, who smoked marijuana (as did James Dean). According to Amburn, "Elizabeth sometimes ditched [second husband Michael] Wilding to slip off to Oscar Levant's Beverly Hills house with Monty, where the pianist serenaded them with Gershwin tunes as they whiled away afternoons and early evenings."

Her fourth husband Eddie Fisher was revealed to be a pot smoker by his daughter Carrie in her 2008 book Wishful Drinking. In his 2008 autobiography, Tony Curtis says marijuana was very popular in Hollywood around the time of his 1971 bust for carrying pot through Heathrow airport.

It's quite likely that Cleopatra used cannabis, as depicted in the more modern HBO series Rome (but not in Taylor's portrayal, though much incense was burned at altars therein). In 1989 Taylor appeared as the aging actress Alexandra Del Lago in a TV version of Tennessee Williams' play "Sweet Bird of Youth," in which a young hustler tries to smear Del Lago because of her hashish habit.

It's a shame Taylor didn't live in a time when marijuana was more acceptable than the more harmful substances she seems to have used more frequently.

When Louise Cooked

2011-03-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Even when I try to look up a male pothead these days, it seems I find a female. I checked out Milton Berle's autobiography after reading somewhere he'd smoked pot: Turns out he tried it only once, on a date with Harlem exotic dancer Louise Cook, which elevates her to VIP status.

Berle says of Cook, "She was known as one of the greatest belly dancers in the world, and her act was sensational, with everything going like a flag in a hurricane." VIP Louis Armstrong wrote, "Ol Louise Cook--I shall never forget her, and her Dance. --She was so wonderful in her 'Shake dance she would take 5 and 6 Encores."

Cook appeared in Oscar Micheaux's breakthrough 1931 film "The Exile" and was married to Herbert Mills of The Mills Brothers.

Read more about Louise.

Sitcom Sativas

2011-03-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

I always thought Phoebe on Friends was the unsung stoner chick of the group. The only truly amusing character on the show, she was a guitar-strumming sweetheart with off-the-wall logic that everyone loved. Phoebe was played by Lisa Kudrow, who went on to arguably the most interesting post-Friends career : she starred in an ahead-of-its-time faux reality TV show and now executive produces "Who Do You Think You Are?" a show where celebrities conduct geneological research live (last week's episode had Lionel Ritche discovering one ancestor was a white slave owner who provided in his will for the education and housing of his great grandmother, a slave, and her child.)

I never caught a pot reference on Friends, until perhaps the other night, when "The One With Phoebe's Uterus" (Season 4, episode 11) re-aired, co-starring Teri Garr in her final performance as Phoebe's birth mother. When Phoebe is asked to act as a surrogate mother for her brother and his wife, she consults Garr for advice. Upon entering her house, Phoebe says in another context something like, "I didn't know you did pot," which Garr shrugs off.

Friends was in the news when their pot dealer was busted on the set. But so far, the only cast member who has come clean as an occasional smoker is Jennifer Aniston, the only Friend to win an Emmy for her performance, and certainly the one with the most successful film career.

Meanwhile, Gossip Girl actress Michelle Tractenberg reportedly had to do some research when her "longtime pal" Topher Grace of That 70's Show asked her to play a pothead in the upcoming film Take Me Home Tonight.

"I play a goth stoner chick and I don't know anything about the weed," she told UsMagazine.com on Feb. 15 at a party celebrating her recent Maxim cover. So she polled her friends, "who are apparently a bunch of f--king stoners," she told Us.

Despite depicting weekly smoke-filled circles in the basement and casting Tommy Chong, That 70's Show never showed viewers its bong. And marijuana was never mentioned, even when Stephen is arrested for "holding" when he takes the rap for cheerleader Jackie (Mila Kunis).

Studies and Connections

2011-03-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

Celebrating Women's History Month, I checked out the Women's Marijuana Movement website, which has lots of good info and links, notably their facts page on marijuana vs. alcohol, their testimonials and links.

On the NORML Women's Alliance site, I found articles and reports on marijuana and pregnancy, breast cancer, and teens. On the "Women and Their Role in Cannabis Culture" page I found this interesting anthropologcial study from Marlene Dobkin de Rios. Both sites have email sign-up lists you can join.

More on the marijuana/running connection raised by Alanis Morisette in an earlier post: Time magazine reports that those who exercise more may crave marijuana less, which fits with recent findings that the runners "high" may be produced by cannabinoids.

A fascinating article in Time interviews researcher Mitch Earlywine, who thinks male pot smokers act dumb because they're told they are, while women want to prove the stereotype wrong.

I'm for that!

RIP Suze Rotolo, A Modern Muse

2011-03-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Terry Gross aired an interview she'd done on Fresh Air with Suze Rotolo, the woman who appeared arm-in-arm with Bob Dylan on the cover of his 1963 album "Freewheelin' with Bob Dylan".

Rotolo lived with Dylan for four years and is credited in his autobiography with influencing his life, activism and art. "Meeting her was like stepping into the Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights," he wrote. She inspired his songs “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Boots of Spanish Leather,” “One Too Many Mornings” and “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.”

According to the New York Times, Rotolo lived in downtown New York her entire life, and worked as a teacher, a painter and a book illustrator. In 2004, using the pseudonym Alla DaPie, she joined the street-theater group Billionaires for Bush and protested at the Republican convention in Manhattan. She died last week at the age of 67. In her memoir "A Freewheelin' Time," Rotolo signs off with the words "we had something to say, not something to sell."

Googling "Suze Rotolo" and "marijuana" yields this interesting page:
Bob Dylan turns The Beatles on to cannabis

on which one commenter writes:

"It was Suze Rotolo, one of Dylan's early girlfriends, who said it was Canadian folk singer Ian Tyson who introduced pot to Dylan."

in response to the comment,

"Yes, Bob Dylan introduced pot to the Beatles, and the Beatles popularized pot, for the world....but dig deeper.... Canadian country music singer Ian Tyson, in the CBC documentary, Songs from the Gravel Road, claims that HE introduced pot to Bob Dylan."

Women's History Month Celebrates Female Cannabis Connoisseurs

2011-03-01T08:50:00.000-08:00

In honor of Women's History Month, Very Important Potheads has added profiles of several female conoisseurs to its website, including musician Alanis Morisette (pictured) and VIP of the month Isabelle Aberhardt. Also honored as VIPs are Susan Sarandon, Cameron Diaz, and Lady Gaga, joining 65 other profiles of Marijuana Mamas published on the site.

Lady Gaga's remarks on 60 Minutes before this year's Grammy awards echoed Morisette's when she told High Times magazine in 2010, “As an artist, there's a sweet jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me...So if ever I need some clarity... or a quantum leap in terms of writing something, it's a quick way for me to get to it.” The singer/songwriter/actress also told Runner's World magazine of the clarity-bringing properties of a good run, which is interesting because the New York Times has just published a summary of studies that indicate that cannabinoids, not endorphins, are responsible for the so-called "runner's high."

The recently discovered Isabelle Aberhardt was born in 1877, the illegitimate daughter of a Russian noblewoman and her children’s anarchistic tutor. Raised to be an independent thinker, her short but eventful life proved she was. At the age of 20, she left France for Algeria where she smoked kif, embraced Islam and picked up a sword to join a revolt against French colonialists in 1898. Dressed as a man, Eberhardt explored the region, sending dispatches in the form of crystalline short stories like “The Seduced,” a heartbreaking tale of a young Arab who joins the army and returns to see his family's land usurped. A compilation of Isabelle Eberhardt's stories and reviews of her work, Departures, is published by City Lights (San Francisco).

Very Important Potheads.com, which profiles over 200 prominent cannabis consumers from history to the present day, is celebrating its 10th year of publication in 2010. Last year, its blog won a Top Marijuana Blog award from Onlineschools.org, and its author Ellen Komp was nominated for a Jack Herer award for Outstanding Hemp Awareness in Journalism. VIPs has merged its blog with TokinWoman.blogspot.com and is focusing on the female.

Read more and see a list of famous female marijuana users with links.

Annie Hedonia

2011-02-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

As luck or design would have it, while the Oscars were airing an awards show that beat them all for pure schmaltz and brought self-glorification to a new low, TCM was showing Annie Hall, giving movie lovers an opportunity to view a masterpiece of the form instead.

The original title of Woody Allen's 1977 film was Anhedonia, meaning the inability to experience pleasure. Allen's character Alvy Singer suffers from the condition until he meets Annie (Diane Keaton), who for all her fumbling and self-consciousness, is a beautiful vessel of pleasure.

Alvy tells Annie that her whole body is an erogenous zone, and soon it is revealed that she insists on smoking pot before they make love. When Alvy objects, comparing it to a comic getting a laugh too easily, Annie tells him if he'd only smoke with her, he wouldn't have to see a therapist.

The following scene has Alvy picking out books on death for Annie at a bookstore, telling her he divides the world into the miserable and the horrible. Obviously, he refused to smoke.

It's Allen's most direct statement on the drug experience until Alice (1990), a retelling of Alice in Wonderland that's a lot more interesting than the one starring Johnny Depp.

In Annie Hall, Allen says if he smokes or drinks, "I get unbearably wonderful." Woody, you already are, so you'd might as well learn to have some fun.

BTW, Annie Hall won four Oscars, including Best Actress in a Leading Role (Diane Keaton); Best Director (Woody Allen); Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman); and Best Picture (producer Charles H. Joffe).

Keaton also smokes pot on film (in a bathtub) in 1981's Shoot the Moon. In 2005, she appeared as the matriarch of The Family Stone, in which Craig T. Nelson and his son Luke Wilson smoke together, and Wilson helps the uptight Sarah Jessica Parker to loosen up with a bit of the holy herb.

Lady Ganga

2011-02-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Sure, she entered the Grammys in an egg. But the more ground- breaking way Lady Gaga sought to hatch herself as the new Madonna was her pre-Grammy interview on "60 Minutes," when she told Anderson Cooper: "I smoke a lot of pot when I write music. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for '60 Minutes.' I drink a lot of whiskey and I smoke weed when I write." Keeping the mystery alive, she then added, "I don't do it a lot because it's not good for my voice."

Read more »

Etheridge Film Supports Medical Marijuana Organization

2011-02-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge has chosen Americans for Safe Access (ASA) to be her charity partner in promoting a groundbreaking new documentary about women and breast cancer. ASA will receive 10% of the proceeds from 1 a Minute, in which Etheridge, Olivia Newton-John, Kelly McGillis, Jaclyn Smith, and many more talk about their journey from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and survival.

Over 200,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States in 2010, and more than 40,000 died. A growing number of those living with breast cancer are turning to medical cannabis to treat the symptoms of the disease and the harsh side effects of therapy. ASA is working hard to be sure that those who choose medical cannabis have safe access. Visit the film's web site today to learn more about the documentary and support ASA.

Etheridge spoke openly about her use of cannabis as an adjunct treatment for the nausea caused by chemotherapy in 2005. In October 2010 she appeared with actor Danny Glover and others in support of Proposition 19, to fully legalize marijuana for adult use. She is shown here accepting an Oscar in 2007 for her song, “I Need to Wake Up,” the theme song to VIP Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Share a Little Tea with Leigh

2011-02-12T08:06:00.000-08:00

David Bionculli's book Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour reveals that some of the comedy on that show was fueled by a dangerous weed. The groundbreaking television hour that ushered in the topical comedy of Laugh In and Saturday Night Live featured writer/performers Steve Martin, Don Novello ("Father Guido Sarducci"), Rob Reiner, Pat Paulsen, and Albert Brooks's brother Bob Einstein. Musical acts included Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Cream, Donovan, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, and many more.

Pot was a topic of the show's comedy. Pat Paulsen, performing a shadow puppet routine, joked, "This one won me a blue ribbon up at the Seattle Pottery and Marijuana Festival." Actress Leigh French had a recurring segment called, "Share a Little Tea with Goldie" [tea being, of course, a jazz-age slag for marijuana].

After an improvised appearance on season one as an audience member, Leigh [pronounced "Lee"] was invited onstage by Tommy in season two to introduce her character Goldie Kief (later changed to O'Keefe at the insistence of those insistent censors). "Thanks for coming down," says Tom. "I didn't come down. I never come down," replies Goldie. The segment is shown in this clip (above) from Maureen Muldaur's 2002 documentary, Smothered.

In January 1968, Leigh debuted her "Share a Little Tea" sketch with, "I'd like to greet you ladies as I usually do--hi!" She then thanks her viewers for getting rid of all the unsightly roaches in their homes--by sending them to her. In another sketch, Don Knotts plays a nervous guest too paranoid to accept tea with a sugar cube--a popular way of dispensing LSD.

French's mock weather forecast, also seen in the video, notes that the Mexican government is "confiscating and burning large amounts of a peculiar weed," and predicts "northerly winds will push an overall high into [California]...As usual there is also a definite mass of heat which is trying to bring the high down." The bit ends with an expression of hope for more "sunny and human" conditions that would "change the entire climate of our nation. Wouldn't that be wonderful!" Yes, indeed.

Tom Smothers told Bionculli that he and headwriter/"Classical Gas" composer Mason Williams smoked pot together while listening to an album by the composer of "Gentle on My Mind." Tom said, "We started listening to Johnny Hartford's first album while we were smoking some weed, and said, 'Hey, this is great!'" Glen Campbell and his signature song were soon a part of the show.

Rob Reiner remembered that during the writing of the Smothers Brothers show, "everybody was high, smoking dope and doing stuff like that." Einstein said, "It was not a stoned office, but, I believe grass was smoked." Singer Jennifer Warnes recalled one road trip on which she and Tom dropped acid, and Williams remembered mistakenly eating a batch of French's "specially enhanced" brownies.

French played a San Francisco hippie in a 1968 episode of I Spy, and she and Rob Reiner also played hippies in the 1969 "Flower Power" episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. She has had a long career doing voice-overs for films like Shrek III. Goldie Hahn probably owes something of her career success to French. Another Leigh, Leigh Taylor Young, appeared as a pot-brownie maker in I Love You Alice B. Toklas.

A tip of the tea cup to this pioneer pothead, Leigh French.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Joint

2011-02-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

Tony Newman and Stephen Gutwillig of the Drug Policy Alliance took notice of a contestant on the Family Feud answering the question "What Is Something People Pass Around?" with the obvious answer: "A Joint."

Not only that, but "joint" was on the Family Feud survey board with 8 responses, causing host Steve Harvey great consternation indeed. When the contestant's opponent in the game guessed instead "the collection plate at church," Harvey congratulated her for saving them all from hell. But "collection plate" was the response of only 4 of those surveyed, so "joint" won the round!

You Tube counts 701,645 views of this video so far...Huffington Post (now part of AOL) has picked it up too. [UPDATE: As of 2/14, views were closing in on 5 million!]

On January 27, President Obama said of drug legalization, "It's an entirely legitimate topic for debate," in answer to a question from a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). Obama has not only let himself be intereviewed by Bill O'Leilley, he was in top form addressing the US Chamber of Commerce, the group that dumped in dollars to defeat Prop. 19 in California with horrid ads scaring people about a stoned work force. If we really want innovation in the work force, we should demand workers get properly inspired, a word that means "you breathe in the god," said Sean Dorrance Kelly, co-author of All Things Shining, last week on the Colbert Report.

Anna Farris Gets NZ Apology for "Pothead Stoner" Smear

2011-01-25T23:02:00.000-08:00

Anna Faris was apparently correct when she said New Zealand men were rather loutish in an interview with George Lopez (12/14/2010), where the "Scary Movie" actress told a story about men yelling obscenities at her while filming "Yogi Bear" down under.

Tourism New Zealand spokes-man Ian Long responded to Faris's statements by saying, "In the same segment (of the TV show), she accepts an award for being a pothead stoner of the year... I don't think she has any credibility." (Thus Long felt it was necessary to smear Faris as both a "pothead" and a "stoner," in case one or the other wasn't enough.)

Faris was awarded the bong-shaped Stonette award from High Times magazine for her role in the 2007 film Smiley Face. The Lopez show segment featured a mock acceptance speech with a surprise (but not too surprising) guest.

Now a statement from the Tourism New Zealand agency reads, "The inference that Tourism NZ did not take Ms. Faris' comments seriously is very much regretted and was certainly not intended." She is promised "great Kiwi hospitality" the next time she's in the country.

Stonette of the Year 2010 was Drew Barrymore for Going the Distance.

Her fellow nominees were:

Kristen Stewart - The Runaways
Sarah Silverman - Saint John of Las Vegas
Meryl Streep - It's Complicated
Edie Falco - Nurse Jackie
Megan Fox - Jonah Hex

Sunday Viewing

2011-01-24T15:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, TCM aired the 1947 film Black Narcissus, based on the Rumer Godden novel about a convent of nuns attempting to "civilize" a village in the Himilayas. One nun goes crazy over a sexy sybarite (Mr. Dean), and another, played by the esteemed Flora Robson, goes crazy over flowers, planting daffodil, sweet pea, chinese lily, tulip, honeysuckle and foxglove where her vegetables should have been.

Sister Phillipa leaves the convent because, "I was becoming too fond of the place...there's something in the atmosphere that makes everything exciting. One must be either like Mr. Dean or the holy man [a hermit who doesn't speak], either ignore it or give yourself up to it."

Narcissus is a kind of psychoactive daffodil. Shown is another esteemed actress, Jean Simmons, inhaling its fragrance in the film.

Following the film was a restored version of the 1937 classic Lost Horizon, complete with a scene of a bacchanal attended by Edward Everett Horton (who did the "Fractured Fairytales" on Rocky & Bullwinkle). Horton plays his usual wracked-with-insecurities character, who finally relaxes after this scene and begins to enjoy Shangri La. "There are moments in every man's life when he glimpses the eternal," is a line from the film that Capra repeated in 1948's The State of the Union.

Shangri La's High Llama, who must have been the inspiration for Yoda in Star Wars, was prescient when he spoke of the modern world, "What madness there is, what blindness..humanity crashing headlong against each other in an orgy of greed and brutality. The time must come when this orgy will spend itself, when the urge for brutality and lust for power must perish by its own sword....When that day comes the world must begin to look for a new life. It is our hope that we will find it here...a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind."

Last week, TCM aired I Love You, Alice B. Toklas as part of its Peter Sellars tribute. I was surprised how well the film held up, and on how many levels it worked. Leigh Taylor Young was luminous in her first film role as the hippie girl who bakes Sellars his pot brownies. She won a Golden Globe for the performance.

Jared Loughner and Our Sick Society

2011-01-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

Fresh from pitching softballs to Sarah Palin about the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, conservative Fox News host Joe Scarborough brought on another rabid Republican woman, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the following night. In one of his questions to her, Scarborough stated that the alleged shooter Jared Loughner hadn’t ever attended a Tea Party meeting but that he “smoked dope.”

In the fingerpointing and handwringing following the terrible incident that left 6 dead and 14 injured, the Right has been quick to seize on the news that Loughner smoked marijuana and possibly salvia in the years leading up to his decline into madness. Recovery “professionals” have expressed concern about “how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana.” That a troubled young man like Loughner could easily purchase a semi-automatic pistol with a 33-shot clip has met with “pushback” from conservatives even to the idea of reducing the clip size to 10 shots, even while Sarah Palin has quietly taken the map down from her website that had “surveyors marks” over Congressman Giffords’ district.

Time magazine and others have tried to tie marijuana use to schizophrenia, citing statistical studies that link the two. But all that can be said is that marijuana might trigger schizophrenia is someone predisposed to it, just like binge drinking or a myriad of other events could do.

As friends and neighbors of the Arizona man come forward, pieces of the perplexing puzzle that is Jared Loughner have emerged. One neighbor said on ABC This Week that she used to enjoy the music coming from the Loughner home when Jared played saxophone in a jazz band, but that about four years ago, the music stopped. "Something changed," she said. She asked the family about it, and was met with silence.

It was in May 2006, about four years ago, that Jared Loughner was taken to the emergency room by his high school nurse after he showed up “extremely intoxicated” for school that morning. Loughner told a sheriff’s deputy that he’d stolen a bottle of vodka from his parents because his father had yelled at him.

Not long after that, he dropped out of the band. One high school friend who’d tweeted that Loughner was a “pothead” when she knew him said he’d changed after the alcohol incident, became more withdrawn. His music teacher Doug Tidaback said Loughner was a bright kid with talent, and that he didn’t remember ever seeing his father at his concerts. Others thought perhaps his parents were divorced, because his father was seldom seen. Whether Jared’s father was neglectful or even abusive remains to be known, or may never be.

Loughner’s troubles escalated in September 2007 when he and a friend were caught with a pot pipe just before his 19th birthday. It’s unknown what effect this incident had on him, whether it alienated him more from mainstream society, or angered his parents. The effect of the other 500,000 yearly arrests in the US for marijuana on young people’s employment and education prospects, and the damage to their self esteem and family relationships, is incalculable.

Jared Loughner’s unsupervised mind-expansion experiments took him to dangerous places. He became obsessed with the movie Zeigeist and its implications for government collusion in the events of September 11, 2001. He attended a meeting with his Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and was disappointed and angry that she was unable to respond to his strange question. It seemed he was looking hard for answers.

Loughner seemed to search everywhere for communion with a tribe, even trying to join the US Army, which rejected him when he told them about his marijuana smoking. He couldn’t keep a job, or a girlfriend, or assimilate his thoughts and experiences into everyday life. Yes, he is sick, but so is the culture that made him.

In The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell had this exchange:

MOYERS: Do you ever think that it is this absence of the religious experience of ecstasy, of joy, this denial of transcendence in our society, that has turned so many young people to the use of drugs? 

CAMPBELL: Absolutely, that is the way in. 

MOYERS: The way in? 

CAMPBELL: To an experience. 

MOYERS: And religion can do that for you, or art can’t do it?
 
CAMPBELL: It could, but it is not doing it now. Religions are addressing social problems and ethics instead of the mystical experience.

Modern society demonizes what was once a religious experience: the partaking of psychedelic plants. The Greeks called them the Eleusinian Mysteries and their psychedelic sacrament kykeon brought communion to its initiates, who made a pilgrimage to the ceremony following months of preparation. Communion has now denigrated into a hollow ceremony performed by a cult that has condoned pedophilia. And laws against marijuana have sent teenagers trying untested substances like salvia for the experience they naturally seek. No wonder they’re confused.

It’s time we came to grips with the fact that adolescents will forever demand the kind of rite-of-passage experience that entheogens provide. Instead of offering information and guidance to our youth, we basically tell them what we used to when they asked about sex, “Learn about it on the street.”

We must learn to educate, not incarcerate. The cries for help are getting deadlier all the time.

Diaz and Lopez Get Green

2011-01-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

Lopez Tonight (midnight on TBS) seems to be the latest place stars come clean about being green. Cameron Diaz guested on 1/19 to promo The Green Hornet and chat about driving a Prius and being a Cuban from the LBC (Long Beach) where she "had to have" bought weed from Snoop Dogg. "So you were green even in High School?" asked Lopez. "Oh yeah," the starlet replied. She also joked about smelling skunk on Green Hornet co-star Seth Rogen, who she calls a comic genius. But my favorite sequence was then they imitated the Telenovelas while munching Cuban food.

Diaz has been photographed passing a joint to Drew Barrymore and told GQ in December 2007 about her life as a weed-smoking surfer in high school.

Adieu to Joe

2011-01-20T22:25:00.000-08:00

From The Capitol Steps CD Papa's Got a Brand New Baghdad

Green Green Grass at Home

(with chords from "Green, Green Grass of Home", written by Claude "Curly" Putman Jr.)

Well this (C)year won't be the same

As the (F)'92 campaign

When those who (C)ran denied that they smoked (G)marijuana

Years a(C)go a guy would (C7)be a goner

(F) Now it's like a (Dm7)badge of honor

To (C)say you smoked the (G)green green grass back (C)home.

Yes, you'd be a fool to (C7)grab a boobie

But (F)it's real cool to (Dm7)light a doobie

Like (C)Kerry, Dean and (G)Edwards did back home

There's not a sound from Wesley Clark

So he might just be a narc

And though Joe Lieberman won't smoke

We think he needs to

Though Al Sharpton says that pot's a dumb thing

His barber must be high on something

He's wearing reefer madness on his dome.

Now it seems that the people long

For the days of Cheech, and of Chong

And the voters they just want their candidates to like 'em

So there's no need to hide that sweet aroma

Or to say you've got glaucoma

If Democrats can call the White House home

Cause the Democrats have got a stealth plan

Marijuana's their new health plan

They'll give you pot, but then you're on your own.

Green Goddesses at the Golden Globes

2011-01-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

I wasn't the only one to notice the tribute to the color green that took place at the Golden Globes on Sunday night.

First, Catherine Zeta-Jones appeared in a stunning, off-the-shoulder gown with an antebellum-style skirt in a deep emerald color. Next, Angelina Jolie shone in a glittery green gown that was reportedly chosen by the actress herself and not her stylist.

Zeta-Jones and Jolie are shown in this photo with Catherine's hubby Michael Douglas grinning behind. Douglas seems to be making an amazing recovery from his cancer, and I wonder if the gaggle of green is a tribute to something green that has come to his aid.

Also gracing the red carpet in green were Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss and Mila Kunis, the actress from the pot-friendly That 70s Show who speculated on the George Lopez show that it was marijuana and not salvia that Miley Cyrus was toking up in that YouTube video. Kunis and co-star Natalie Portman were impressive dancing and acting in The Black Swan, for which Portman took home a Globe. (Too bad it turned into a creepy slasher flick by the end.) Portman is producing a film called Best Buds about friends who save their girlfriend from marriage by bringing her weed.

Betty Boo

2011-01-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

Ah, darn. Just when there might be a reason to watch "Hot in Cleveland," which debuted last year with Betty White playing a caretaker smelling of pot, this season's debut is a pot-party pooper.

Seems White's character hasn't been smoking pot at all, but has instead been using it in an "herbal mixture" to polish stolen silver items her late husband hid in their basement for the mob. Really. Because, that's so much more wholesome than smoking pot.

Makes ya want to return to yesteryear, like the Garden of Eden skit Betty performed with Johnny Carson. Says Johnny, "That Garden of Eden gold is dynamite."

Lillian Hellman Nominated as Very Important Pothead

2011-01-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

Writer Lillian Hellman has been publicly nominated as a Very Important Pothead by journalist Fred Gardner, who wrote in Counterpunch that he helped Hellman get marijuana to treat her glaucoma in the 1970s.

Gardner wrote me in an email, "I knew her very well '61-'71...The drink at the Huntington [when he suggested she try medicinal marijuana] was probably '77 or '78." He added, "Lil said she used mj when she was around people who used it. As in 'Whenever I'd be at a dinner with Gene Krupa...' "

According to the 1986 book Lillian Hellman: The Image, The Woman by William Wright, Hellman was a bit of a cougar in her later years, enjoying the company of young men in New York in the mid-1970s. At one gathering, Wright writes, "one of the company persuaded Hellman to smoke marijuana." The evening was "a raucous success" and Hellman had to be dissuaded from taking a walk down Park Avenue at 2AM.

Lillian Hellman's most famous plays include The Children's Hour (1934), The Little Foxes (1939), and Toys in the Attic (1960). Her memoir Pentimento (1973) was the basis for the 1977 movie Julia, in which Jane Fonda fittingly played her.

Hellman had a 30-year relationship with writer Dashiell Hammet, and his character Nora Charles from the "Thin Man" stories is reportely based on her. She was blacklisted by the movie industry after telling the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950: "To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."

Hellman died in 1984 but remains current: On the red carpet at the Golden Globes on Sunday, "Mad Men" star Elisabeth Moss said she's appearing in London with Keira Knightley in Hellman's The Children's Hour.

Roseanne Tells It Like It Is

2011-01-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

Reading at Books Inc. in Berkeley on Sunday from her new book Roseannearchy, Roseanne Barr laughed, she cried, and she displayed more compassion and common sense than all the politicians in Washington put together.

Barr has been making the talk show rounds, appearing with everyone from Joy Behar to Bill O'Reilly (she got Bill on board with a Charity Farm). She implored politicians to "stop dividing us against each other so you can rob us." The solution, she said, was to be kind to each other. "We can break free the minute we start sharing."

The no-nonsense Roseanne said she's gotten off Facebook because she realized it's "Satanic....I was thinking I was doing something when I wasn't." Instead, she blogs at Roseanneworld.com and invites all to meditate with her at 2AM on Friday night/Saturday morning (she posts her present time zone on her site). She spoke of the Sufi phrase, "That which occurs before that which transpires" and said, "Let's be that something."

Barr's hilarious HBO special "Blonde and Bitchin'" contained her trenchant observation, "The War on Drugs is a war on poor people using street drugs waged by rich people on prescription drugs."

There are a couple of references to the "Herb of the Goddess" in Roseannarchy, I recommend all buy and read the book to find them. She calls weed "the only drug that should be legal. In fact, it should be mandatory."

Hempy New Year!

2011-01-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

I've decided to merge my award-winning, faux blog, The Very Important Potheads blog with this actual blog, starting in 2011.

To see past VIP blogs, visit:

The Very Important Blog 2010
The Very Important Blog 2009
The Very Important Blog 2008
The Very Important Blog 2007
The Very Important Blog 2006
The Very Important Blog 2005

See the www.VeryImportantPotheads.com main page with over 200 stories of famous folk who've consumed cannabis. (Click on the name or photo for the full story.)

Prominent Korean Actress Calls for Legalization

2009-07-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

According to the Korea Times, actress Kim Bu-seon, 46, appeared on MBC TV in her home country on June 19 and spoke in favor of legalization. Kim launched a campaign for cannabis legalization in 2004 after she was arrested for marijuana use and sentenced to a suspended jail term. She then filed a petition with the Constitutional Court for a review of the constitutionality of the country's marijuana-related laws.

In the MBC interview, she protested the recent arrest of actor Oh Gwang-rok on charges of marijuana use, saying his actions caused no harm and that the drug did not affect his ability to act. "Have you ever heard of any news that I committed a crime after smoking marijuana? I have never done anything harmful, as politicians or thieves have," she said.

"Marijuana is not a narcotic; it is technically an Oriental herbal medicine which Koreans have used for 5,000 years," she said. "If smoking it doesn't do harm to others, those who do need it, such as those suffering from depression or cancer patients, should be allowed to use it. Marijuana increases appetite and improves sleep."

"Korea has the highest ratio of death by suicide among OECD members. The nation needs to take marijuana as a depression remedy and make depression patients come back to society....Whenever the government has troubles, it uses drug-taking entertainers to divert people's attention. It is the best way to make entertainers and artists obey the government,'' the astute actress told viewers on the live telecast. So far, MBC has not answered calls for an apology for the broadcast.

Oh Gwang-rok, most famous for his role as a wise man in “Taewangsasingi” (The Four Guardian Gods of the King), was arrested June 18 for smoking marijuana. Oh is suspected of having smoked marijuana on several occasions, including once in February at his house in Seoul. He allegedly smoked with the head of an unidentified information-technology company, known as Park, investigators said. Police said Park bought the pot from a local dealer and shared it with eight others, including animation film director Kim Mun-saeng. Oh has appeared in numerous films including “Seven Days” and “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” (with Kim Bu-seon.)

Meanwhile, former champion downhill mountain biker Missy "The Missile" Giove, 37, has been charged with marijuana distribution and faces up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine if convicted, according to The Daily News. Giove is the most successful woman in competitive mountain biking's history, grabbing a record 14 National Off-Road Bicycle Association championships and 11 World Cup wins. Known for her outrageous looks and daredevil riding style, she is openly lesbian, and was featured in a Reebok ad and interviewed by David Letterman.

Investigators spied on Giove as she got off a plane at the Albany County Airport and took a cab to a hotel, where she met a confidential informant and picked up a pick-up truck and box-trailer. Approximately 400 pounts of marijuana were found in the trailer and at co-defendant Eric Canori's house. "Drug trafficking can lead you downhill fast," Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent John Gilbride quipped.

More Foxes for Pot

2009-06-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Megan Fox, starlet of the Transformers movies, has told Britain's GQ, "I can't tell you how much bullshit I've been through because I will openly say that I smoke weed. People look at it like it's this crazy, hippy, f*cked-up thing to do. And it's not. I hope they legalize it."

Young women seem to be at the forefront of the issue these days: Marijuana Policy Project's yearly Playboy Mansion party featured hostesses Adrienne Curry and Fairuza Balk; well known pothead Kristen Stewart just won two MTV Movie Awards (Best Kiss and Best Movie--Twilight). And singer Joss Stone(d), who's said she enjoys "the occasional spliff," was snapped smoking one in London on May 29.

DOWNLOAD POSTERS OF JOSS AND MEGAN.

This Week’s Sermon from The Evangelista Sista

2009-06-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

The evidence is in. In persecuting cannabis connoisseurs we’re effectively silencing the intelligencia, the artist, the poet, the peacenik – and it’s high time (ahem) it stopped. The other side has raised the white flag for a truce and it’s time to come to the table and negotiate a Peace for Pot package. We need our own two-state solution, with tolerance in between. As Allen Ginsberg said to Jack Kerouac in 1965, “It’s time for poets to influence American civilizaton.”

Our country’s version of the Tianamen massacre—the War on Drugs-- has arrested 20 million pot smokers, unlawfully detained or searched countless others, harassed, ridiculed, frightened, turned neighbors into informants and informees, and robbed our school budgets for prisons. In fact, by some estimates if the WOD escalates at current rates, half of the country will be behind bars with the other half its keepers, here in the Land of the Free. Let’s not forget that softer rhetoric hasn’t always meant kinder policies.

How wimpy is our increasingly strident and un-listened-to conservative faction if it’s fearful of a little Latina on the Supreme Court? As if by saying she is proud of the way her brain works and would pit it against the whole of Mt. Rushmore and beyond, she would heartlessly rule against anyone. That’s our opposition’s job.

How popular are drug warriors these days? The UK’s home secretary Jacqui Smith, who successfully pushed for a rollback of Tony Blair’s more liberal pot policies (just after admitting she’d smoked it in college), has resigned in disgrace over a sweeping set of misuse of public funds scandals.

One of the recommendations of the Beckley Foundation report, presented at UN meetings in Vienna in June, is to look at cannabis and creativity.

Just look around.

Bob Hope told jokes about marijuana like, "Instead of taking it away from the soldiers, we ought to give it to the negotiators in Paris," and he just got his own postage stamp. His partner on the Road to Morocco, Bing Crosby, was an admitted smoker who advised his son to put down the booze and pick up the pipe. Sammy Davis Jr., who once played the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, was reportedly a viper. Rodney Dangerfield wrote about it extensively in his memoir No Respect, and said he saw Jackie Gleason procuring some from his hotel room in the 1940s. To say these icons aren’t representative of Americans is to belittle us, and them. And there’s been quite enough belitting going on.

Let’s start with the uplifting, already.

Keep Up the Good Words,

Evangelista Sista

www.tokinwoman.blogspot.com

Hempy Spring, 2009

2009-03-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

How wild, I just resurrected this blog exactly one year after my last post. And the symmetry continues: where last year I celebrated the introduction of Barney Frank's national legalization bill, this spring I'm happy about the first-ever state legalization bill, introduced in California by Tom Ammiano (AB390). Read more.

Inspired in part by the Wanted: Female Pot Icons discussion at celebstoner.com, I'm doing a Tokin Woman show on KMUD radio on Wednesday, April 8 between 10 am and noon. I'll be playing tunes by Very Important Potheads Who Are Women, starting with Bessie Smith (hear her sing "Gimme a Reefer"). Stay tuned for more updates.

HEMPY SPRING!

2008-03-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

FIRST LEGALIZATION BILL TO BE INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS
Rep. Barney Frank announced on Bill Maher's Real Time live program Friday night that he would "file a bill as soon as we go back to remove all penalties for small amounts of marijuana." This will be the first time in US history that a re-legalization bill will be filed in Congress.

Saying the move warmed his heart, Maher asked Frank why he was doing so at this stage. Frank frankly answered that he'd been burned early on by bills to remove penalties for gay sex, and now "I finally got to the point where I think I can get away with it." One can hope other long-term politicians, will also want to do the right thing before they retire.

The Congressman, who has served since 1981, jokingly added that he feared the bill would negatively impact public health, since it would allow medical marijuana in all states. Republican PJ O'Rourke jumped in saying he was suddenly feeling a little ill himself. Maher countered that there were pot shops on every street corner in Los Angeles, but Frank reminded him that they were still at odds with federal law.

"I now think it's time for the politicians to catch up to the public," Frank said. "The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. I'm going to call it the Make Room for Serious Criminals bill."

Time to lobby your Congress critters, who are on Easter break and will reconvene March 31.

THE REAL RACISM: IT'S THE DRUG WAR
Lost in the flap over the anti-American tirade from Obama’s minister is a major reason why Jeremiah Wright damned our country.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'," Wright said in a 2003 sermon. "No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America." (see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-tries-to-rid-himself-of-troublesome-firebrand-priest-797145.html )

When Wright says the government gives people drugs, he was likely referring to the work of Gary Webb, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who wrote in a 1996 San Jose Mercury News series that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan contras during the 1980s. More compelling evidence is presented in the current not-to-be-missed Showtime program American Drug War: The Last White Hope.

Regardless, Wright has cause to be outraged over racism in the drug war. Although public health data reveals that whites use drugs at the same rate as blacks, African Americans make up almost half of those arrested and convicted for drug offenses. Between 1992 and 1996, drug sentences skyrocketed and the African American prison population doubled. Today, 1 in 3 black men are in prison, on parole or on probation and 1 in 14 black children has a parent in prison. (See Drug Policy Alliance: “The War on Drugs or The New Jim Crow?” at http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/NewJimCrowFactSheet.pdf)

Did Obama address these issues in his mop-up speech? Of course not. Although he has admitted to youthful drug use, Obama and the other candidates have managed to sidestep the issue of our longest, 100-year drug war, its detrimental effects on all of society, its inhumanity, and the justified rage that it engenders.

GILLIGAN’S GIRL BUSTED FOR GANJA
Dawn Wells, the petite brunette who played Mary Ann on TV’s Gilligan’s Island, isn’t most people’s idea of a pothead. It was a surprise to many when the 69-year-old actress was caught with pot in her car last October. She was sentenced on February 29 to six months' unsupervised probation and quickly lost a speaking engagement for a Girl Scouts fundraiser.

The still-perky Wells is the founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute and organizer of an annual family movie festival called Spud Fest. She was pulled over by an Idaho state trooper on her way home from a surprise party held in her honor, when the officer noticed the telltale smell of pot. A search found several half-smoked doobies and stash boxes. At the scene, Wells claimed she had picked up three hitchhikers who did the puffing; her lawyer later claimed another friend had left pot in her car that day.

In an interview on TV’s Entertainment Tonight, Wells claimed the pot was not hers and challenged the validity of the sobriety test she failed. She admitted she was weaving on the road, which she says was because of trying to turn on the heater in her new car, and plea bargained all charges down to reckless driving.

Driving issues aside (she had a few drinks at the party), it’s too bad Wells couldn’t admit to her likely marijuana use, as have other girl-next-doors Jennifer Aniston and Kirsten Dunst. Her arrest is one of almost 800,000 yearly pot busts in the US, and most offenders don’t get off as easily as TV stars, losing jobs, college loans, and sometimes even their children.

Ten years ago, Wells was rumored to be the person who mailed her co-star Bob Denver a package of pot to his West Virginia home. Denver, who played the title role of Gilligan, was arrested after receiving the package and also got probation. Interestingly, for all you cats and kitties who are too young to remember, Denver’s breakthrough TV role was that of Maynard G. Krebs, beatnik buddy to the title character in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (1959-1963) and arguably the first stoner-type character on TV.

MADONNA ON MARIJUANA
Madonna, 49, grabbed headlines away from her fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees by using her acceptance speech to reveal she took Ecstasy and smoked grass on her way to the top. The admissions came on March 10 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

After accepting her award from Justin Timberlake, Madonna said, "The night I met Michael Rosenblatt, who signed me to Sire Records, I jammed my demo tape into his hand, we both did a tab of ecstasy and then we danced the night away." She then recalled the night she met long-term publicist Liz Rosenberg, saying: "We smoked a joint together." (See how bonding with drugs can help form productive relationships?)

Timberlake, who collaborated with Madonna on her upcoming album 'Hard Candy' and has admitted to past drug use, said Madonna gave him injections of vitamin B12 when they worked together. “That is what Madonna will always be to us. The shot in the a** when we really need it!" he said.

Others to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year include The Dave Clark Five, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp and The Ventures.

LIKE A ROLLING STONED
Seen on The Colbert Report: during a March 18 interview with Carole King, Colbert pulled out his Tapestry album and noted it was a double, briefly demonstrating how this allowed people to clean their pot on it in the 70s. Sony is re-releasing Tapestry on CD with additional material on April 22.

CBS DEEP-SIXES POT SMOKING CHARACTER
In a March 9 New York Times article by Susan Stewart, Hamish Linklater, who plays Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s brother, Matthew, on the CBS show “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” said his character was conceived as a surfer, a stoner and a slacker. But, the article stated, CBS dislikes marijuana references “unless they’re very clever or very veiled.” Instead, Matthew plays a medical school dropout training to be a psychotherapist. Seems like the hard-drinking Christine could use a shrink, and a joint.

Now CelebStoner.com informs me last week's show had Christine smoking pot in her garage. Any reports, readers?

ANOTHER POTHEAD IDOL?
Radaronline.com and other sites have noticed that dreadlocked American idol contestant Jason Castro “seems kinda baked all the time.” Last week’s show began with a medley of Beatles songs, many of which were inspired by the weed.

DON’T MISS THIS
Next week’s Root of All Evil with Lewis Black (Weds, 10:30 PM on the Comedy Channel) will see Beer face off against Weed, with judge Lewis deciding which is evil. (Last week pitted Donald Trump v. Viagra.)