Happy Women of Weed Day

Since I wrote a round-up of Famous Female Cannabis Connoisseurs in 2010, I’ve added a few notables to the list. Here they are, in honor of International Women's Day and Women's History Month.

After Elizabeth Taylor died, I googled and found a biography of her that said she smoked pot with Christopher Lawford. It’s interesting now because Lawford has joined with Kennedy cousin Patrick to start an organization aimed at forcing marijuana users into treatment. That the Kennedys would be considered expert on such a topic is, of course, laughable and lamentable. Watch a video of Liz smoking. 

For my Black Herstory posting last month, I decided to google Josephine Baker and sure enough, found evidence that she too had imbibed. (Baker is one of the women featured on the US government's Women's History Month website.)

Sadly, I added Teresa McGovern, daughter of the late Senator George McGovern, whose pot bust at the age of 18 helped turn her short life into a tragic one. Also, I found evidence that Lucille Armstrong, wife of trumpeter and mj enthusiast Louis Armstrong, was busted for carrying pot in 1954.

  

Lady Gaga smoked an enormous joint onstage, and she and Rhianna, who puffed pot in Hawaii and Tweets about it often, both dressed as “marijuana” on Halloween 2012. But it's Fiona Apple who's facing hashish charges in Texas. 

Lisa-Marie Presley expressed a desire to one day go off the grid and “become a big pothead.” VIP Laura Nyro was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, introduced by Bette Midler. Madonna smoked the SuperBowl halftime show and Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning, causing many of her fans to wish she’d stuck to pot instead.

Lily Tomlin “outed” herself as a pot smoker on the cover of Culture magazine. Joan Rivers toked up on her reality show saying, back in the day she smoked it with Betty White, George Carlin, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby. Roseanne Barr appeared at Oaksterdam University while campaigning for President on the Peace & Freedom Party ticket.

Jane Fonda was caught puffing at a post-Oscar party in 2012. Heather Donahue of The Blair Witch Project released a book about growing medical marijuana in Northern California. Miss USA 2011 Alyssa Campanella said she supports medical marijuana; so does the reigning Miss Universe (although both say they're against recreational use). 

In fiction, secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson puffed pot on Mad Men. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris depicted Alice B. Toklas and (possibly) Beatrice Hastings. Patti Smith’s award winning book Just Kids describes how she saw pot more as an aid to her work than a social drug. 

A video of Whoopi Goldberg surfaced in which she admits she was high when she picket up her Oscar for “Ghost.” Capping it off is Jennifer Lawrence, this year’s Oscar-winning Best Actress who, days later, was photographed smoking pot in Hawaii.

Jennifer Lawrence: I Just Won an Oscar! I'm Going to Hawaii to Smoke Pot

"As if we needed another reason to love Jennifer Lawrence," said Michael Hogan of The Huffington Post after photos of Lawrence apparently puffing pot on a balcony in Hawaii appeared days after she picked up the Best Actress Academy Award for Silver Linings Playbook. 

Lawrence tripped up the steps in her big puffy gown, and was game enough to joke about it. After admittedly having a shot of booze before talking to reporters backstage, she righteously flipped one the bird when he asked the stupid question, "Have you peaked too soon (at 22)?" 

What's not to love about this woman? "She's a 22-year-old cool person," effused Hogan, and that persona was enough to win her Hollywood's top prize (probably because she should have won it for Hunger Games.) 

When Spin magazine asked her in March 2012, "What were you listening to the first time you smoked pot?" She wisely replied, "I so cannot answer that question. I'm in a franchise." (Which, you will notice, is not a "no.")

Astute observer/historian Michael Aldrich, among others, predicts that Lawrence won't suffer from the pot-parazzi pix, unlike stars of the past. "I'm remembering back to the days when any starlet (say, Lila Leeds) caught with a reefer was condemned to 'Be contrite, confess, and crusade' against the drug," said Aldrich. "These days I have a feeling there will be no contrition or confession, and if there's any crusade it's among the bloggers who have followed this on Twitter, unanimously saying 'Legalize It!'" (Leeds looks rather like Lawrence in this shot, right, from the 1947 film Lady in the Lake.)

Meanwhile, Lawrence dyed her hair back to black just after the ceremony, making her look more like someone touted as her rival, the pot-loving Kristen Stewart. Stewart didn't have a good Oscar night, appearing on crutches on the red carpet after cutting her foot two days earlier. But the previews of On the Road,  starring Stewart and another pot lover, Kirsten Dunst as Carolyn Cassidy, look like the movie, based on the Jack Kerouac novel, just might make people forget Jennifer Lawrence for a time. 

Even while Hollywood embraces pot in its stars and plots, how many other cool young chicks, and dudes, aren't as lucky as Lawrence and Stewart when the chemical McCarthyism of drug testing means they lose their job. That is, unless they work in Silicon Valley. 

See the true Hunger Games. 

Read more about the Oscars.