Women's History Month 2026 - Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future

The these of this year's Women's History Month is “Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future,” encompassing "financial sustainability, community resilience, leadership succession, and intergenerational equity." 

"Whether developing green technologies, advancing economic justice, strengthening education systems, or building civic power – women are designing blueprints for sustainable transformation," says the National Women's History Foundation. "This theme affirms that shaping a sustainable future means fostering systems that support both people and the planet." 

The cannabis, psychedelics and environmental movements have many women to honor who have advanced sustainability. 

One is Tina Gordon of Moon Made Farms, in Southern Humboldt, California. In her sustainably grown garden, Gordon incorporates "aspects of nature, native soil, and on-site composting, we introduce forest and plant material to our gardens to ensure the best and healthiest product. We want to encourage the genetics, and ultimately epigenetics of the plant to carry through an expression of this unique geographic environment."

Sophia Buggs—also known as Lady Buggs—is an urban farmer, medicine woman, and community leader in Youngstown, Ohio. Through stories, blessings, and reflections, she explores themes of ancestral connection, Indigenous practices, food justice, and the challenges and joys of negotiating community partnerships. Her talk at the Women's Visionary Congress 2023 is both a celebration of cultural heritage and a call to honor the unseen forces and generational wisdom that guide us toward collective healing and empowerment. 

Winona LaDuke (pictured), the Native American activist who ran for Vice President on Ralph Nader's ticket in 1996 and 2000, is growing hemp and other crops in Osage, MN, where she operates a hemp market store and coffee shop. "I want to scale up and join the 400,000 other horse powered farming operations in North America, understanding the sacred relationship between life, power and the future," LaDuke writes. "I would like to live well, I am interested in decoupling food and hemp from fossil fuels, and I am also interested in the quality of life which small-scale farming creates." 

Another who sought a sustainable life is actress Heather Donahue (The Blair Witch Project) who wrote the book GrowGirl about her move to a Northern Californian pot-growing region, where she started a farm in 2008. She wrote, "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." As she recounted on a recent episode of the podcast "Great Moments in Weed History," Donahue (now known as Rei Hance) has now moved to a town in New England where she lives intentionally small.  

Stella McCartney deserves a nod for including hemp fabric into her fashion designs. It's been reported that her father Paul is growing hemp on his farm in England. Stella follows in the huge footsteps of Anita Roddick, who was a worldwide pioneer when she added hemp products to her eco-friendly line at The Body Shop in the 1990s. 

Known as "The Duchess of Hemp," Patricia Ann Steward was an activist, entrepreneur, and a key compatriot of Jack Herer (author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes: Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy). Born in Phoenix, her parents were two of the original owners of National Car Rental, where she worked as a teenager and honed her entrepreneurial skills. While attending school in Southern Texas, she met Janis Joplin and went with her to San Francisco, where she also befriended Grace Slick. In the 1970s, Patricia moved to Scottsdale and opened the Balcony Hall, a music club featuring musicians like Donovan and John Prine and go-go dancers in cages. 

Another hemp pioneer to honor is Christie Bohling, who was reportedly a "major league pot smuggler" in the Southwest when she turned her efforts towards legalization in the 1990s, founding CHA - the Cannabis Hemp Alliance. "She was fiercely outspoken, instrumental in the early battles for hemp legalization. Jack Herer considered her an equal," writes High Times photographer Malcolm MacKinnon, who took this photo of Bohling in the Arizona desert next to a bale of hemp. 

 WOMEN ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Women's Visionary Congress 2011 presenter Dorka Keehn's 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, and scientist Janine Benyus who coined the term "biomimicry." "If we're going to have a sustainable future, we need to be emulating them," Keehn said.

Another to emulate is Naomi Klein, the brilliant author of The Shock Doctrine and its sequel This Changes Everything. At a standing-room-only event in Berkeley, CA in 2014, Klein said that while The Shock Doctrine talked about the "disaster capitalists" who take advantage of events like Hurricane Katrina to assert their elitist agendas, we now need a "disaster collectivism" to fix the climate change that is destroying our habitat. "We're past the point where radical changes aren't needed," Klein told the crowd. "It isn't enough to resist; you need your own strategy." For one thing, we need a "polluter pays" model that funnels the profits from the oil industry into renewables, she said. Pointing out that renewable energy industries generate 6-8 times as many jobs as do oil industries, she noted that adding jobs will help end the "industrialized racism" of the prison industry.

We recently lost Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube who was named "the most important person in advertising," as well as one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2015. She served on the boards of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Environmental Defense Fund, and Room to Read, an organization that focuses on literacy and gender equality in education. Wojcicki was an advocate for the expansion of paid family leave, countering gender discrimination at technology companies, getting young girls interested in computer science, and prioritizing computer programming and coding in schools. She also owned a real estate holding company that worked on the sustainable growth of Los Altos, California. 

Chilean botanist, environmentalist, and author Adriana Hoffmann was Chile's Environment Minister in 2000 and 2001. She advocated for the sustainable management and protection of Chilean forests, leading opposition to illegal logging in her role as coordinator of Defensores del Bosque Chileno (Defenders of the Chilean Forest) since 1992. Hoffmann authored over a dozen books on the flora of Chile and 106 botanical names, mostly realignments of species and infraspecific taxa of cactus.

No list of women environmentalists would be complete without the recently, dearly departed Jane Goodall (pictured). She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to promote wildlife conservation, followed by the Roots & Shoots youth program in 1991, which grew into a global network. Goodall also established wildlife sanctuaries and reforestation projects in Africa and campaigned for the ethical treatment of animals in animal testing, animal husbandry and captivity. 

And the grandmother of them all was Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, which started the environmental movement when it was published in 1962. Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist, and her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award and advanced marine conservation. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter. 

GOALS & OBJECTIVES OF WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH:

• Honor: Celebrate the diverse contributions of women who are leading sustainability efforts across environmental, economic, educational, and social justice movements.

• Educate: Raise awareness about the important historical and contemporary roles of women in shaping sustainable change.

• Inspire: Empower individuals and institutions on how to take action toward sustainability, equity, and justice in their own spheres of influence.

• Connect: Build bridges across generations, geographies, and disciplines to foster collaboration, mentorship, and shared learning.

• Envision: Encourage a long-term vision for our future where women’s leadership is central to thriving communities and a healthy planet.

LET'S DO IT ALL! 

 

 

Paul McCartney: Man on the Run

The new Amazon Prime documentary, "Paul McCartney: Man on the Run" charts McCartney's marijuana arrests and their affect on his music, and life. 

Through archival film footage and interviews, the film follows McCartney's musical journey, starting with the breakup The Beatles. Criticized for putting out apolitical albums of what he later called (unapologetically) "silly love songs" with his band Wings—featuring his wife Linda on keyboards—the band and Paul's songwriting gained an edge when he faced jail time for growing five marijuana plants on their family farm in March 1973. 

According to a TV interviewer in the film, it was said in court that, "McCartney had a considerable interest in horticulture, and many of his fans sent him seeds to grow. The cannabis seeds, it was said, came to him in such a way."  He admitted he had knowingly growing the plants, but claimed he didn't know what they were. 

The film does not mention the statement McCartney made in court regarding cannabis's legal status. “I feel that there should be legislation on the use of cannabis," he said. "Drink is a much worse drug to my mind than cannabis.” 

Later that year, Wings hit their stride with the release of their album "Band on the Run." The album was recorded in Nigera, where McCartney said he smoked the strongest weed he ever had in an interview with Marc Maron where he noted that "for the creative process it was required." 

Linda and Paul McCartney in a scene from "Man on the Run."

It was speculated at the time that McCartney might be denied entry to the US over his "technical" conviction, and possibly he was denied a visa just afterwards. It was documented in the film that he was denied entry into Japan over his marijuana convictions in 1975, the same year Linda took the rap for him when their car smelled "skunky" after Paul was pulled over for speeding in Los Angeles. 

The big bust that landed Paul in a Japanese jail for seven days in January 1980 after bringing in nearly half a pound of pot into the Tokyo airport is covered in "Man on the Run," with McCartney saying he felt free of all expectations of himself after facing a seven-year prison sentence. "I think we could decrimalize marijuana, and I'd like to see a really unbiased medical report on it," he said after being deported from Japan. That December, John Lennon, who had been targeted for deportation by the US due to his earlier marijuana convictions, was shot and killed. 

In 1984, the McCartneys were arrested in Barbados for possession of marijuana and were fined $100 each. They flew to London's Heathrow Airport, where Linda was arrested again on charges of possession. Rather than repudiate her marijuana use as so many did at the time, Linda commented, "I think hard drugs are disgusting. But I must say, I think marijuana is pretty lightweight."

In 2011, it was reported that McCartney was growing hemp on his farm. He and Linda's daughter Stella McCartney has used hemp fabric in her fashion designs. Stella said in 2017 she would take her father's unpublished book "Japanese Jailbird" to a desert island to remind her of the importance of "family and freedom." 

"Man on the Run" only has McCartney lamenting his foolishness in taking marijuana into Japan; nothing about his advocacy for legalization. But it ends with a tune written by Paul & Linda, "Let Me Roll It" from the "Band on the Run" album. As always, the music says it all. 

Also see:

Very Important Pothead Paul McCartney

Remembering Linda McCartney on Her 80th Birthday

McCartney in High Profile Custody Case? 

Jimmy Buffet: A Pirate Dies at 76

Alysa Liu: From Oaksterdam to the Olympics

I've always loved figure skating, maybe since watching the graceful and glorious Peggy Fleming winning the Olympic gold medal in 1968 when I was just a girl. Where I grew up in Pennsylvania we skated in the winter, on ponds at our local mall that had an ice skating rink where scenes from the movie "Flashdance" were filmed. 

At this year's Olympics I fell for Alysa Liu during her short program, which placed her third going into her final triumphant free skate. Liu is an entirely different kind of skater, one more focused on her art than the competition, resulting in a relaxed and joyous presence on the ice that's captivated the world. 

Liu trained at the public rink in the city of Oakland, CA, just a few blocks away from the area known as Oaksterdam for its preponderance of Amsterdam-style cannabis shops that started springing up after California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996. She gave a shout-out to her home city, pointing to an Oakland flag that a fan had brought, after her championship skate that was set to Donna Summers's disco version of "MacArthur Park," a 1970s song about a park in Los Angeles. “I’m just glad,” she said, “that I could bring Oakland to Milan.” 

Liu's father, who (as everyone knows by now), fled China after organizing protests against the government there, saw promise in his oldest child and paid for skating coaches, taking her to winning her first US National Championship at age 13 (the youngest female champion ever). At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, she came in sixth despite the extra pressure of the Chinese government attempting to "naturalize" her, after sending spies to gather information on her and her father. Tired of the regimented and rapid-fire life of a competitive skater, she quit the sport that year at the age of 16, so that she could have more of a normal teenage life, going to concerts, taking her first vacation, and getting her driver's license. 

Describing going on a ski trip with friends in 2024, Liu said it "was such an adrenaline rush, to get down the mountain when your legs are that tired. It's hard, and you had to tap into that part of you that fights, and I hadn't felt that since I quit skating.....and I was like, if I can get what I'm feeling from skating, I should just do that." 

Liu told 60 Minutes that she initially went back to skating for "quick hits of dopamine." She told ESPN, "I have ADHD and I love situations that I'm not expecting. It gives me a dopamine rush. With little mistakes, I love working through it. I have to think. And although it's not ideal to make those mistakes in competition, it was made and my brain still was releasing those chemicals and I had to think, 'What next? I have to add a combo here and here.' It was a little bit of fun and a nice little challenge."

When Liu came back to skating at age 18, it was on her own terms. She hired her own coaches and told them she would be picking her music and costumes, and contributing to her choreography and practice schedule. And no one would be telling her what she could and couldn't eat. Her coaches marveled at how quickly her jumps came back, and how much more  womanly and artful her moves were. "I feel like I've rediscovered figure skating," Liu said in a video leading up to her final skate. "I still love to skate, and my mind is very peaceful." 

Liu had an advantage in her triple axel jump, something first performed by an American woman in the form of the working-class skater Tanya Harding, whose inability to compete with the high-class Nancy Kerrigan had tragic results. This year's competition to me had a bit of the Harding/Kerrigan vibe between the slightly raunchy and openly gay Amber Glenn and the elegant Isabeau Levito, who skated in what looked like a cocktail dress with gloves. Glenn muffed a jump in her short program, skating to Madonna's "Like a Prayer," but came back like a champ in the long skate to sit in the leader's chair for most of the night, ending up in 5th place. Levito finished 12th after an uncharacteristic fall on her triple flip early in her final long skate. But all three of the US "Blade Angels" were supportive of each other.

In a field of mostly willowy creatures looking nervous about their scores, Liu stands out as a strong, slightly chunky woman who has her own style and knows her own mind. Her spectacular smile is highlighted by a frenulum piercing that shows on her front teeth, and it's already been predicted that her groovy striped hair will soon be imitated, much as Dorothy Hamill's swingy short cut was (I plead guilty to that).

Hamill was present to watch her countrywomen skate, as were Bay Area native and 1992 gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi; Sarah Hughes, the last US woman to win the figure skating gold; and 90-year-old Tenley Albright, the first to do so. Commentating was Tara Lipinski, whose unprecedented triple-loop combo jump won her the gold in 1998, beating out the exquisite Nancy Kwan, who was admired by Liu's father. In 2019, when Alysa was named to the inaugural Time 100 Next list, Kwan authored the recognition article. 

It was hard not to think the US's karma was at play when our "Quad God" Ilia Malinin fell twice in his long skate, blowing his lead and knocking himself off the podium altogether. But it seems California has escaped the black cloud of fascism that hangs over our country, and perhaps women have too: the US hockey team also scored gold last night, beating out Canada in overtime. 

It's Time for the NYT To Admit It Has an Editorial Problem

A discussion titled, “Marijuana is Everywhere. That’s a Problem” with New York Times editorial writers Emily Bazelon, David Leonhardt and German Lopez, who co-wrote Monday’s NYT editorial calling for greater regulation of cannabis, focuses on theory rather than practicality, except when used for prejudicial purposes. 

The conversation starts with the clarification that, like the famous NYT editorial series of 2014, theirs is pro-legalization, due to the harms of cannabis prohibition—namely huge numbers of arrests, disproportionately for people of color. They pointed out that they say in the editorial that they oppose the current ballot measure in Massachusetts that would re-criminalize cannabis. 

During the discussion, both Leonhardt and Lopez went right away to the fact that things are too loose now because marijuana can be smelled walking down the street. In Lopez’s case he says he was offered a hit on the street in his native Ohio, and Leonhardt talked about the streets of NYC and DC, where he spends time. Leonhardt also seemed distiurbed by the proliferation of cannabis shops in Colorado. 

Lopez expressed concern that legalization has increased use, drawing on his perspective reporting on the opioid crisis. He was also alarmed that we have “culturally embraced" cannabis. “You see Gwyneth Paltrow investing in Big Weed in CA,” was an example he used, picking up on the prohibitionist organization SAM’s drumbeat about Big Weed.  

Other issues like increasing numbers of people in polls saying they have problems with marijuana, and emergency room visits for CHS, were mentioned. Also mentioned, as in the editorial, were names of products that sounded like cookies and were marketed to kids (something that isn’t permitted by licensed vendors in California and elsewhere). 

Much was made of the 2024 NSDUH survey finding that more people smoke cannabis daily than use alcohol, with everyone assuming this meant people get totally stoned all day long. Leonhardt said twice that he “very much likes” alcohol or his martini, and Lopez said he “partakes" himself. But apparently everyone else who uses cannabis does so problematically in their eyes. People who have a problem with pot aren’t productive, and create problems for society, is Lopez's opinion. "We’ve gone way too far it glorifying its use,” he said.

On medical marijuana, while it was acknowledged that some people in pain or with specific ailments might benefit from it, cannabis hasn’t gone through the rigorous studies and government oversight needed to establish it as a true medicine, and we should re-think a system by which cannabis dispensaries sell a product claiming medical use, the speakers said. 

The number one thing to change about cannabis legalization is taxation, Leonhardt said. He pointed to tobacco as having great success with lowering youth use due to high taxes. The beauty of higher taxation, he claimed, is that it doesn’t affect the occasional user but helps curb overuse. Cannabis is taxed at “pennies on the dollar,” Lopez claimed, while alcohol they said is taxed at a higher rate. This is absolutely not true in California, where the excise tax on a glass of wine is one cent, and on a cannabis pre-roll it's over $1.

The tired old ideas of criminologist Mark Kleiman, who took off from the idea that something like 80% of any product’s sales come from the top 20% of its users, were harkened to. Lopez spoke about Kleiman’s policy of “grudging toleration,” and expressed alarm that some people celebrate the positive effects of cannabis. Corporations have an incentive to market to their heaviest users, he said. “And youth!” chimed in Leonhardt, saying there are products named Trips Ahoy and Double Stuff Stoneos, from "the classic playbook of corporations that care more about profits than the well being of Americans."

The speakers pooh-pooed the idea that high taxation sends people to the illicit market, citing studies about other substances rather than looking at the very real-world situation brought about by 100 years of marijuana prohibition. It’s “really nihilist” to say that there should be no laws just because people can get around them, Leonhardt said, comparing cannabis laws to taxing the rich. The tiny illicit market in tobacco or alcohol vs. the mature one in cannabis wasn’t considered at all, nor was the potential fallout of the Times’s idea to re-criminalize marijuana products of over 60% potency. 

The only useful idea presented was that perhaps cannabis should be taxed based on its potency, as alcohol is. It was acknowledged that alcohol should be taxed at a higher rate. The problem of people smoking pot in public could be solved by allowing more indoor places where people can consume, but this wasn’t mentioned.  

Kevin Sabet of SAM called the NYT piece "gargantuan." The organization last week banned participants from Students for Sensible Drug Policy from its annual convention. Dark Money is funding SAM, and campaigns to repeal marijuana legalization in at least three states. Meanwhile, outlets like the Daily Caller, The Hill and Politico are reportedly taking $100-$500K to produce one-sided media forums for those like SAM who can pay. 

It's a Green Day in the Bay

Lost in the controversy about Bad Bunny appearing at the Super Bowl halftime show is the fact that the cannabis-loving band Green Day will kick off the music portion of the Super Bowl with a performance at the game's opening ceremony.

In 1987, guitarists Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, both 15 years old at the time, along with bassist Sean Hughes and drummer Raj Punjabi, a fellow high school student from Pinole, CA, formed the band Desecrated Youth, later renamed Sweet Children. 

After signing with Lookout! Records in 1988 and before releasing their first EP in 1989, the group adopted the name Green Day. In the Bay Area, where the band was formed, "green day" was reportedly slang for spending a day doing nothing but smoking marijuana.

The band's name "was absolutely about pot," Armstrong told Bill Maher, adding, "We were trying to be the Cheech & Chong of punk rock." Armstrong went on to say that he stopped smoking weed after he had children, and then described a gravity bong to Maher. "I like burning the substance" as opposed to vaporizing, he said, because he "it smells good, it fills the room." Vaporizing felt like "one more reason to hide the fact that it should be legal." 

The band's 1977 album "Nimrod," scored with the acoustic ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," which won the band an MTV Video Award for Best Alternative Video. The other singles released from Nimrod were "Nice Guys Finish Last," "Hitchin' a Ride," and "Redundant," all with rockin' riffs and rebellious lyrics of the type that the 60s hippies wrote. 

Green Day's "American Idiot" won the 2005 Grammy for Best Rock Album and was nominated in six other categories, including Album of the Year. The album helped Green Day win seven of the eight awards it was nominated for at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards; the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" video won six of those awards. A year later, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" won Grammy Award for Record of the Year. 

  

The musical "American Idiot" based on the album opened in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre at the end of 2009. On April 20, 2010, "American Idiot" opened on Broadway, and Green Day released the soundtrack to the musical.

As they sang while undercover busking at a New York subway station with Jimmy Fallon, Green Day's song "Basket Case" asks, "am I just paranoid, or just stoned?" 

Meanwhile, there's increased scrutiny around alternative Super Bowl performer Kid Rock's lyric about "underage girls" being not statutory by mandatory. And Bill Maher has redubbed today "Super Bet Sunday" for "Wager League Sports" as the NFL partnered with DraftKings online sports betting and that drug (gambling) was permitted to advertise a special $300 bonus—not in dollars, but in betting credits. 

POST GAME UPDATE: The broadcast did warp the word "mindfuck" but the others in "American Idiot" came through loud and clear. All after "Time of Your Life" was used like a graduation day song to introduce NFLers like Lynn Swan, Payton Manning, and Joe Montana.

According to AlternativeNation.net, amid rumors that ICE would be present at the Super Bowl, as well as speculation that Bad Bunny might call out the agency during his live halftime performance, Green Day played a warm-up show at San Francisco’s Pier 29 on Friday night (Feb. 6th). Partway through the set, Armstrong said, “This goes out to all the ICE agents out, wherever you are. Quit your sh*tty ass job,” Armstrong said. “Because when this is over, and it will be over at some point in time. Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Donald Trump – they’re gonna drop you like a bad f*cking habit. Come on to this side of the line.” 

During the song "Holiday," which he dedicated to Minneapolis, Armstrong changed the lyrics from "the representative from California has the floor" to "the representative from Epstein Island has the floor." And he continued his long-running criticism of the MAGA movement, changing the lyrics in "American Idiot" to say, "I'm not part of the MAGA agenda."

A video featuring Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart was aired during the pre-game, celebrating Bob Weir and the band's love for the 49ers, and their choice of Levi's stadium for their 50th anniversary shows. 

Oh, and Bad Bunny did some stuff too. 

"Join the Club" Film Tells the Story of Dennis Peron and Medical Marijuana

"Join the Club" is a powerful documentary about Dennis Peron and the origins of the medical marijuana movement, set in the gay rights movement and the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. The tactics of the US war on drugs that began with Richard Nixon and was carried on by successive US presidents is also presented in the film, making the DEA and its multi-jurisdictional forces look like the ICE of its day. 

Filmmakers Kip Andersen and Chris O'Connell were able to conduct the last interview with Peron just before he died in 2018, and his story is told in flashback with remarkable footage of Peron's historic Cannabis Buyer's Club, including police video from an officer who infiltrated the club, news reports, and interviews all skillfully edited together. 

Born in the Bronx, Peron was drafted into the Vietnam War where he recounts seeing 1000 dead soldiers the month that he arrived. Eschewing alcohol as "the war drug," Peron smoked his first joint instead, and the filmmakers do a wonderful job of depicting how that changed his life. Bringing back three pounds of marijuana when he returned from Vietnam launched his career as a pot dealer and activist in San Francisco. 

Peron began his political involvement as a supporter of Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in California when he became a San Francisco supervisor. The assassination of Milk and Mayor George Moscone highlighted the terrible ongoing prejudice against the gay community, as did the arrests and police shooting of Peron. 

The film does an excellent job of taking us to the origins of the AIDS epidemic and the relief that patients were getting from cannabis. The death of Dennis's young, beautiful lover Jonathan West from AIDS catapulted him to begin distributing cannabis to AIDS patients and operating what was described as the first AIDS hospice, where patients could gather and support each other in community.

Interviewees include Cal NORML's Dale Gieringer, who played a key role in taking the medical marijuana movement statewide with California's breakthrough Prop. 215 in 1996, along with Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, Peron's right-hand man John Entwhistle, journalist Fred Gardner, artist Ruth Frase, and activist Terrance Alan, among others. Peron's attorneys Tony Serra and David Nick are interviewed, as are Dan Lungren, the conservative CA AG who brutally went after Dennis, and Joe Bannon, the country's first openly gay policeman who was reviled when he went undercover to take down the cannabis club. 

Footage highlights Brownie Mary Rathbun, a sweet little old lady who was arrested for baking and distributing cannabis brownies to AIDS patients. Also in the film are Gilbert Baker, the designer of the Pride rainbow flag, Wayne Justmann, the OG medical marijuana card holder who was a fixture in the movement, and San Francisco's progressive DA Terence Hallinan (whose policies were adopted by his successor, Kamala Harris). 

After his interview for the film, which was conducted after Peron had a stroke and had difficulty speaking, the filmmakers reported that he seemed to be at peace, as though he knew his story would be told. He died a few months later. 

"Join the Club" was shown as part of the SF Indie Fest at the Roxy Theater to a crowd of activists and supporters that thoroughly enjoyed it, cheering for the heroes and jeering the opponents. So far, it's only been making the festival rounds since its release in May 2024, but hopefully will soon see a broader release. 

A "Jewel Robbery" with a Marijuana Twist

Kay Francis is offered a marijuana cigarette by William Powell in "Jewel Robbery"

In the pre-Hayes Code film "Jewel Robbery" (1932), William Powell ("The Thin Man") plays a suave jewel thief who romances a bored, jewel-grubbing Baroness played by Kay Francis. "In my own eyes, I'm shallow and weak," says Francis. "I fly about all day, pursuing furs, jewels, excitement....In the morning, a cocktail, in the afternoon, a man, in the evening, Veronal [a barbiturate]."  

After invading a jewelry store where Francis and her elderly husband are picking out a large diamond ring, Powell congenially holds everyone hostage and robs the store's inventory. He then takes the unusual step of offering the shop's owner a marijuana cigarette, saying, "Do smoke one of my cigarettes. Now, inhale deeply...." 

Despite having just been robbed, the man begins giggling so vociferously that Francis asks Powell, "What did you give him?" Powell replies, "A pleasant, harmless smoke. He'll awake in the morning fresh and happy, with a marvelous appetite."  

He then offers her a cigarette, saying, "They're harmless, really. Two puffs, and you'll be hearing soft music. The world will begin to revolve pleasantly. Three, a beautiful dream." She asks, "How do you know this?" and he replies, "Experience. I assure you, all the ladies fall asleep happily." "So that you steal their jewels in peace, I suppose," she replies. Refusing to smoke, she says, "I prefer to keep my wits about me, thank you" (which, considering her circumstances, was rather wise). 

Powell then hornswoggles a security guard into carrying his loot out to the getaway car, and gives him as a tip his box of marijuana cigarettes. The guard fully enjoys smoking one of the joints, inhaling deeply. When he is questioned by the police, he offers the chief one of his stash and the two are soon yukking it up fully. Francis of course falls for Powell, but never gets a chance to try another of his cigarettes. 

Two years later, Gertrude Michael sang "Sweet Marijuana" in the 1934  film "Murder at the Vanities," apparently released just before the Motion Picture Production Code (known as the Hays Code) went into effect. 

Following a series of Hollywood scandals involving drugs in the 1920s, legislators in 37 states introduced almost 100 film censorship bills in 1921. The studios chose to self-regulate, hiring Presbyterian postmaster Will H. Hays, a former head of the RNC, to head the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Hays reviewed scripts and in 1924 he introduced a set of recommendations that forbade depictions of drug trafficking and urged caution in depicting drug use, among other proscriptions like not ridiculing clergy. These evolved into the Production Code, with input from a Catholic editor and a Jesuit priest. 

The Hays Code forbade the use of graphic violence, profanity, obscenity, promiscuity, miscegenation,  homosexuality, criminality, and substance use. It disallowed any sort of ridicule for a law or "creating sympathy for its violation." A recurring theme was "that throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong, and good is right." The code was replaced in 1968 by the motion-picture rating system still in use today.

In 2009, the movie "It's Complicated," in which Meryl Streep and Steve Martin smoke pot, was slapped with an "R" rating from the MPAA, said to be due to a lack of "a negative consequence for their behavior."