Tokin Woman: 2019 Tokey Awards

All winners qualify for a copy of "Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory." Write here with your address to claim yours.

Tokin' Woman of the Year

At the age of 81, Jane Fonda has been getting arrested weekly to protest a lack of action on climate change, so much so that she has had to enlist her fellow celebs to get arrested in her place so that she doesn't risk missing filming for the new season of her series "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. That's right: Fonda is not only still politically active, she is still working. Take that, people who think potheads are lazy and don't care about anything.

"You don't mind if I turn on, do you?" Fonda asked Rex Reed before puffing pot on New Years Eve, 1969, the day she found out she won a much-deserved NY Film Critics Award for her performance in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? "Hey, it's no secret that I've smoked pot," Fonda wrote in her 2005 autobiography My Life So Far. She's been spotted (or smelled) in recent years taking a toke at Hollywood parties.

Fonda was the main force behind the 1980 film 9 to 5, where she plays an innocent office worker who finds her inner strength with the aid of weed and gal pals Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The film was a breakthrough in more ways than one: the first depiction on film of "an old-fashioned ladies pot party," it also lead to the formation of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union).

Fonda, Nicole Richie and Lily Tomlin share a joint in
a nice intergenerational moment on "Grace & Frankie"

I quibble with Fonda's Netflix character Grace, who denigrates co-star Tomlin's character Frankie for smoking weed while she herself downs alcohol and painkillers (and occasionally smokes pot herself). I liked Jane much better as another Grace, the hippie grandmother she embodied in the 2011 movie Peace, Love & Misunderstanding: her home reeks of pot, she deals a little on the side, and she introduces her grandkids (Elizabeth Olsen and Nat Wolff) to both protesting and the wonders of weed.

I recently listened to an interview Fonda gave at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1975. It was evident how thoughtful, intelligent and committed to both her art and her politics she is. She talked about how the Nixon administration tried to blackball her from the the movie industry due to her political activity, but she prevailed. It's nice to see prominent women now able to stand up for cannabis and causes, and stay in the public eye. And we all owe Jane a debt of gratitude for that.

At the 2019 PaleyFestLA panel with the cast of "Grace & Frankie," cast members remarked at their surprise that so many young people "really respond" to the show. "I think it's all the weed," actor Ethan Embry (Coyote) opined, to great laughter. Fonda was asked how she kept her energy up at her age. She replied that she sleeps nine hours a night, and then pantomimed taking a puff. Calming the applauding crowd down, she said, "It's called a Dosist. It's white, it has 200 hits, you can't smell it, and it works."

For being a true, pot-smoking warrior woman for the people and the planet who walks her walk and doesn't quit, we honor Jane Fonda as 2019's Tokin' Woman of the Year.

Read about our other Tokey winners:

Top Journalist

Maria Ressa - who has been threatened with rape, murder and beheading, and arrested for so-called tax fraud, for her reporting on Philippine President Duterte's bloody drug war. (Also kudos to 60 Minutes for their report on Ressa and the Phillipines' treatment of journalists and to human rights attorney Amal Clooney for defending Ressa and raising the threats against her at the UN.)

David Downs for Leafly - Downs jumped into a deep dive and uncovered the connection between vaping-associated illnesses and the additive Vitamin E acetate weeks before the US Centers for Disease Control announced it, and kept consumers updated with the latest health warnings.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Amanda Chicago Lewis for Rolling Stone - Inside the Battle for Sex-Centric Cannabis

Lissa Harris for SFGate.com - Women Are Disappearing From the Cannabis Industry. Why?

Elise McDonough for Leafly - These Investors Are Looking for Women-Led Cannabis Companies

Brittany Shammas for Miami New Times - Medical Marijuana Cost a Nursing Student Her Spot at Nova Southeastern

Jessica Baron for Forbes - Women Are Underrepresented In Clinical Research On Cannabis

Coolest Commentary

Madeline Martinez: Why Full Cannabis Legalization Should Be A Priority If You're All About CBD

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The View - Meghan McCain Says Marijuana Might Have Extended Her Father’s Life

The Daily Show - CBS Rejects a Medical Marijuana Ad Ahead of the Super Bowl

Carlos Miller for Miami New Times: Stop Arresting Grandmothers for CBD

Phattest First-Person Article

Elizabeth Enochs for Leafly: How I Consumed Cannabis in College Without Losing Focus

Liz Wolfe for Reason: I Got Stoned and Did My Taxes

Most Awesome Activists

Sheida Assar - who sued her Community College in Phoenix for suspending her after she tested positive for medical marijuana.

Melody Cashion - who successfully challenged her arrest for marijuana in Tennessee.

Pamela Palmiter - who won a ruling finding that a worker terminated for her medical marijuana use can pursue litigation against her former employer in Pennsylvania.

Michelle Gray - who turned her saliva-test drugged driving conviction into a constitutional challenge of Canada’s new impaired driving laws.

Madisen Saglibene of Nevada NORML, who helped passed a law protecting the employment rights of recreational cannabis users in her state; and JennMichelle Pedini of Virginia NORML, who worked to get her state to pass a law allowing school nurses to dispense medical marijuana to students.

Sarah Gersten & Mary Bailey - for the Last Prisoner Project, a coalition of cannabis industry leaders, executives, and artists dedicated to bringing restorative justice to the cannabis industry.

Kathy Ireland - who lobbies for CBD with the NFL Players Association.

Top Lawmakers

Illinois State Reps. Jehan Gordon-Booth, Kelly Cassidy & Celina Villanueva and State Senators Heather Steans & Toi Hutchinson, aka "The Cannabitches" that made Illinois the nation’s 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana use this year.

HONORABLE MENTION

Reps. Shirley Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Lucy McBath (D-GA) & Karen Bass (D-CA) - for their strong statements and votes for the historic passage of Rep. Barbara Lee's MORE Act by the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ohio GOP Chairwoman Jane Timken, for calling for the resignation of Rep. Candice Keller after her "Most Horrible Facebook Post of 2019," in which she blamed "recreational marijuana" for mass shootings.

Best Quote from A First Lady

Sara Netanyahu – "There are really people who need [cannabis]… and medical cannabis is something they are blessed with, and I just hope that as many people as possible can get it."

Best Book

Chelsea Handler - Life Will be the Death of Me
The always forthright and funny Handler relates how after the Trump election she found that her rage at the political situation was overly exacerbated by her alcohol use, and so she began learning more about marijuana as a substitute.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Susan Soares - What's Growing in Grandma's Garden
Told in the voice of a boy learning about gardening from his grandmother, this simple and charming illustrated children's book sets honest, appropriate boundaries around cannabis for children.

Lizzie Post - Higher Etiquette: A Guide to the World of Cannabis, from Dispensaries to Dinner Parties
Post, the great-great granddaughter of advice columnist Emily Post, skillfully blends cannabis culture's long-established norms with the Emily Post Institute's tried-and-true principles to provide guidance on the social issues surrounding pot today.

Katherine Eban - Bottle of Lies: the Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
An exposé worthy of Jessica Mitford, wherein Eban uncovers "the labrynthine story of how the world's greatest public health innovation also become one of its greatest swindles."

Hannelore Cayre - The Godmother: A Crime Novel
This prizewinning bestseller in France features a middle-aged heroine working as a police translator who intercepts a hash delivery and sells it herself is the inspiration for the forthcoming film "Mama Weed" starring Isabelle Huppert.

Matt Taibbi - Hate Inc.
Taking off from Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" (and including an interview with Chomsky), Hate Inc. details in compelling terms how the media have switched to a combative "root, don't think" sports model for the news and what we can do about it.

Naomi Klein - On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

On Fire’s long-form essays, based on Klein's extensive research and reporting, show her at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one as well.

Best Song / CD

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show

Best Acceptance Speech
Kacey Musgraves accepting the CMA Vocalist of the Year Award

Best Movie

Echo in the Canyon - Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas is among the musicians interviewed for this incisive and entertaining film about the good old partying days of Laurel Canyon, where folk rock was born.

HONORABLE MENTION

Ram Dass: Becoming Nobody

Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins

Best TV Show

One Day at a Time Episode 5: "Nip It in the Bud."
Addressing vaping, youth use, opiate addiction among veterans, and racism in the drug war, this well realized episode features an 87-year-old Rita Moreno (pictured) getting stoned on edibles.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

South Park: Season 23 Premiere, "Mexican Joker"
Just when you thought South Park and Tegrity Farms couldn't get any funnier. Special recognition for inspiring the best Halloween costumes of the year.

High Maintenance: Season 3, Episode 3 "Blondie"
A difficult roommate situation gets chill via an edible and a transcendent moment from Annie Golden, in an episode written and directed by Katja Blichfeld.

Ken Burns: Country Music Episode 6: "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" (1968-1972)
This episode in another exemplary series from Burns connects country music with the turbulent 60s, when the soldiers who fought the Vietnam War largely came from the rural, working-class demographic and the soldiers were serenaded by country stars.

VEEP Episode 62: South Carolina
Wikedly hilarious plotline in which a reactionary politician's donor wants to put more "potheads" in prison because they're nicer.

Best Actress

Andie MacDowell hit all the right notes, and some high ones too, as a "free love hippie spirit” who turns Chevy Chase onto weed and more in the terrific The Last Laugh on Netflix.

Her wise motto is, “Only good things happen when you let go."

MacDowell then played against type, embodying a madly hilarious, spoiled American character who starts a pot-growing enterprise on the British series "Cuckoo" (pictured).

HONORABLE MENTION

Alex Bornstein - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
In a role for which she has won two Emmys, Bornstein finds, smells, and smokes a joint...and then takes a glowingly stoned bubble bath.

Best Quote from a Movie or TV Show

"Being drunk is not the same as being high. One makes you stupid, the other makes you interesting." Olympia Dukakis as Anna Madrigal on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, here sharing a joint with Laura Linney.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

"I'm the kind of fun aunt that will give you weed but then arrest you for having weed." MayaRudolph as Kamala Harris on SNL

Billie Lourd in Booksmart: "Not even pot? Because I think it would relax you."

"I like oxygen; it's my second favorite thing to inhale." Bill Maher: No Planet B

Best Girl-on-Girl Pot Smoking in a Movie or TV Show

Linda Cardellini "reacquaints" Christina Applegate with weed in the premiere episode of "Dead to Me" on Netflix. The series is as gripping as a Hitchcock/Highsmith tale with as many twists as a doobie, and Cardellini completing her arc from Geek to Freak.

Best Research / Researchers

Rajita Sinha and her colleagues at Yale Medical School, who won FDA approval to use locally-grown cannabis in research studies.

Israeli researchers probe how cannabis can treat endometriosis

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Smoking Pot Could Reduce Conflict, Aggression, and Violence in Marriages

Living Near Dispensaries Doesn’t Affect Teen Marijuana Use Or Attitudes, Study Finds

Study Finds Marijuana Motivates People To Exercise, Smashing Lazy Stoner Stereotype

Cannabis In Hospice: Growing Demand And Acceptance For End-Of-Life Care

Pass The Brazier: Early Evidence Of Cannabis Smoking Found On Chinese Artifacts