Celebrating famous female cannabis connoisseurs throughout herstory to the present day.
All contents copyrighted. "Bright Leaf" artwork by Jean Hanamoto http://www.camomoto.com
Coached by Tokin' Woman Miley Cyrus, ex-medical student Moushumi survived a knockout round on NBC's The Voice this week by belting out Halsey's song "New Americana" with the lyric: We are The New Americana High on Legal Marijuana...
The wildly popular song is from Halsey's debut studio album, Badlands, released last year via Astralwerks, Universal's electronic and dance label. The artist formerly known as Ashley Frangipane cultivated her huge following with parodies of Taylor Swift songs posted on YouTube, and by uploading her song "Ghost" to Cloud.
Halsey, who has used the term "tri-bi" (biracial, bisexual and bipolar) to identify herself, sings she was "raised on Biggie and Nirvana," and she's been compared to Lourdes and Luna del Rey.
In the song's dystopian video, Halsey smokes joints at the appropriate lyric (shown), and is soon hauled away by gun-toting thugs who try to (literally) burn her at the stake. Pot-puffing hippies look on passively, then save her with the help of a well-timed smoke bomb. It's a pretty bold statement from one so young. Did she connect that the witch burnings kept both women and herbal medicine suppressed in the West for centuries?
More celebrated in other countries than in the US due to its socialist roots, International Women's Day is inspired by the 1909 ladies garment workers' strike and held on March 8 – the date of the 1917 Russian women's "Bread and Peace" strike. It is is now officially "a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women."
Some women's achievements to celebrate this year are:
Andra Day picked up a Globe for her portrayal of drug war victim Billie Holiday, and Catherine O'Hara
(pictured) won one for her role on "Schitt's Creek" wherein she tokes, and
ruminates on taking ayahuasca with Al & Tipper.
Dolly Parton, who had an "old fashioned ladies pot party" with Fonda in 9-5, donated $1 million to help pay for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and re-wrote her hit song "Jolene" to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Michelle Alexander's seminal book "The New Jim Crow" made a list of Top 10 greatest works of journalism in the last 10 Years.
Miley Cyrus and Joan Jett, both pot lovers, crushed it at the TicToc Superbowl party for first responders.
Lady Gaga lifted us up with her rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the inauguration and Chelsea Handler launched a an Inauguration Day-themed cannabis kit titled “America is
Back” to benefit the nonprofit Cage-Free Repair.
Oh yeah, and our Tokin' Woman of 2020Kamala Devi Harris was sworn in a Vice President. (Devi is another name for the Goddess Parvati, one of the International Tokin' Women presented here.)
We've got to give this year's honor to former First Lady Michelle Obama who, in her new memoir, candidly wrote about smoking pot with a high school boyfriend in his car (where they also fooled around).
Asked by Robin Roberts of ABC's 20/20 why she didn't leave out the marijuana mention, Obama replied, "That was what I did. It's part of the 'Becoming' story....Why would I hide that from the next generation?"
Obviously her youthful dalliance with weed didn't turn Michelle into a worthless pothead. It may even have encouraged her interest in organic fruits and vegetables. HONORABLE MENTIONS
Other famous women who outed themselves this year include Kristen Bell, who said on the podcast WTF with Mark Aaron, “I like my vape pen quite a bit," adding that it doesn't bother her sober hubby Dax Shepard when she uses it occasionally. Her admission stirred some controversy, leading to Shepard tweeting in support.
Charlize Theron, while promoting her marijuana-themed movie Gringo, told E! Magazine, "I was a wake-and-baker for most of my life" and said to Jimmy Kimmel that she had "a good solid eight years on the marijuana." Now, she and her mom share edibles they use for sleep.
Fran Drescher, who wrote about her battle with ovarian cancer in Cancer Schmancer, keynoted a medical marijuana conference in Portland this year. Not only did cannabis help with her own recovery, she reports her father is using it to deal with his Parkinson's disease.
Gayle King, guesting on The Ellen Show, mimed smoking pot while talking about Ellen's recent birthday party, where Amy Schumer told King that she wants to get her high. King says she's planning to try it, and that her friend Oprah Winfrey "has smoked a little marijuana too."
In a separate interview on Ellen, Oprah declared the pot-infused birthday party "the most fun I ever had. I don't even know what happened to me." I wonder if she got a contact high (at least).
I finally viewed the 1972 adaptation of the Graham Greene novel Travels with My Aunt, starring Maggie Smith, now known as the dowager duchess from Downton Abbey.
The story begins with a young paramour of the mysterious Aunt Augusta (Smith) hiding his pot stash in an urn of ashes following a cremation. A madcap voyage ensues, during which Augusta and her nephew, the staid bank manager Henry, encounter a young woman named Tooley on the Orient Express.
Williams is super in the role, from a time when, like in Graffiti, a new realism was seen in cinema. She went on to be paired with Penny Marshall as a writing partner, leading to a guest shot on "Happy Days" and their spin-off "Laverne and Shirley" (1976-1983). The show has a 1981 "lost episode" titled "I Do, I Do" in which the girls get stoned on pot brownies.
David Lander, who played Squiggy on "Laverne and Shirley," was an MS sufferer and advocate for medical marijuana who said he and his partner Michael McKean (Lenny) created their characters for the show while high. Lander told producer Garry Marshall that instead of patrolling the halls during the show he ought to put marijuana in the budget.
Sixties TV icons The Monkees were also pot fans. A "Behind the Music" episode reveals that Peter Tork, considered the best musician in the band, was busted for $3 worth of hash he had on him when crossing the US/Mexican border and did three months in jail for the "crime" in 1972. Meanwhile drummer Micky Dolenz was admittedly partying hearty, talking about being stoned and demonstrating what he meant by that (see left).
Macy Gray has brought her distinctive voice and style to a new single, "Stoned," now available on iTunes, from her forthcoming album "The Way."
Born Natalie McIntyre in September 1970 in Canton, Ohio, the 6-foot-tall black girl didn't fit in with her mainly white classmates at her Ohio prep school. She moved to Los Angeles and was a mother of three with a rocky marriage when she catapulted to fame on the strength of songs like "I Try," for which she won the Best Female Pop Vocal Grammy in 2001.
The singer admittedly didn't handle her fame well, indulging in excesses but denying rumors she used hard drugs. She told one interviewer that drugs play an important part in her creativity. "I think everybody needs a little oblivion. It is important to get out of your mind sometimes so you meet a different side of yourself. I have had some really incredible revelations on drugs but at the same time they can do horrible things to you, like make you have to spend a lot of money on rehab."
Gray has been diagnosed as bipolar, a condition for which many report relief from cannabis, although studies show mixed results. A 2012 study found marijuana can improve cognitive functioning in those with bipolar disorders.
Starring recently in The Paperboy (2012) with Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and Nicole Kidman, Gray also has a successful acting career. In Little Lake for first-time filmmaker Jasmin Sharon, she plays a "hippie psychic" who assists a young girl's coming of age.
Gray is touring in California starting at the end of August, then nationwide. Read more.
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.
The Netflix marijuana documentary “Grass is Greener” is a milestone in the form, told from the perspective of the African-American community that has been so hard hit by the War on Drugs.
Directed and narrated by Frederick Brathwaite, better known as “Fab 5 Freddie” who DJed a hip hop show on MTV, the film features interviews with Snoop Dog, Damian Marley, B Real, Killer Mike, and others, as well as women like Reggae artist Jah 9.
With awesome graphics, music, and archival materials throughout, it starts with the history of cannabis use and prohibition in the US, interviewing pioneer authors Larry "Ratso" Sloman and Steve Hagar, along with Criminal Justice Professor Baz Dreisinger.
The connection between marijuana and music is made right away, starting in New Orleans with the story of Louis Armstrong, and interviewing old-time musicians who have used cannabis for 60 or 70 years. Mezz Mezzrow, the Jewish jazz clarinetist who supplied Harlem with "reefers" back in the day is compared to the modern Mezz, a dealer named Branson who has been extolled in dozens of rap songs.
These are familiar themes, but where "Grass is Greener" departs and breaks ground is where it goes from there, starting with examples of Hip Hop songs that warned against hard drug use, and Snoop's admission that, as a cocaine dealer, he grew distressed at watching the damage that drug caused. Weed, however, was "fly" and he made it his mission to turn the world onto the better drug. Soon Cypress Hill was smoking weed on SNL, Dr. Dre released his CD "The Chronic," and there was no putting the ganja genie back in the bottle.
UPDATE 5/18: Gayle King, guesting on The Ellen Show, said she wasn't telling tales out of school when she said that Oprah "has smoked a little marijuana."In a separate interview, Oprah declared Ellen's pot-infused party "the most fun I ever had. I don't even know what happened to me."
This year's a little better, with 11 women included and Oprah Winfrey coming in at #2, between Presidents Obama and Clinton.
Winfrey was asked when she last smoked marijuana on Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live" on August 16 and replied "Uh...1982." Host Andy Cohen then said, "Let's hang out after the show" to which she replied, "Okay. I hear it's gotten better."
At age 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and began doing the news part time at radio station WVOL. She was then both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news at WJZ-TV where she became co-host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking.
By her admission, Winfrey did much of this during the time she smoked pot, until the age of 28. In 1983, she began to host AM Chicago, taking the show from last place in the ratings the highest-rated talk show in Chicago. The rest is herstory.
According to Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography, drug use was so prevalent at the Nashville station when Oprah worked there that management removed a vending machine "after they discovered it had been rigged to dispense marijuana." On a special pre-taped show in January 1995, Winfrey tearfully admitted she did cocaine in her past, according to Kelley to stave off a lawsuit by a former boyfriend who alleged she addicted him to coke. Oprah's book club endorsement of former heroin addict James Frey's A Million Little Pieces blew up when it was uncovered Frey fabricated most of the book.
Like Obama, Winfrey is lucky she never got arrested for a youthful pot offense, or she might have had a much lesser career, like 2008's Miss Teen Louisiana Lindsey Evans.
Showing up next on MPP's list is Lady Gaga at position #20. Last year, Gaga missed the cut, coming in at #52 (even though she was probably more influential last year). Jennifer Aniston (last year's #38) follows at #25, and Angelina Jolie dropped from #24 to #28 (maybe because she says she doesn't like pot). Sarah Palin dropped the furthest, from #14 on last year's list to #39 this year.
Also newly added are Madonna (#42), Miley Cyrus (#45) and Rhianna (#47).
Maya Angelou, who was the top woman on the MPP list last year at #21, dropped down to #37, and Whoopi Goldberg, who made last year's list at #44, has dropped off entirely.
An Inside Edition story reveals that 43-year-old quarterback Tom Brady's health regimen includes a daily blueberry breakfast shake with two key ingredients: hemp milk and hemp seeds. Hemp seeds (and the milk from which they're made) are complete proteins, containing all the essential amino acids with the perfect proportion of omega-3 and omega-6 oils, plus hard-to-find ones too.
Brady and his wife Giselle speak about their commitment to regenerative agriculture in the the documentary "Kiss the Ground," narrated by pot-lover Woody Harrelson.
Unstoppable receiver Rob Gronkowski, who followed Brady from the Patriots to Tampa Bay and scored the first two touchdowns in Sunday's game, announced in 2019 he was investing in a CBD company. Gronk said at the time, “I am here today to appeal to the sports governing bodies of the world to update their positions on CBD.”
1. White Rabbit - Grace Slick
The bolero-inspired 60's anthem penned by Grace Slick brings back Alice in Wonderland with the lyric, "Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call." The Great Society first recorded it with Grace's powerful vocals in November 1965, a year before the Jefferson Airplane version (also with Grace) hit the charts big time.
2. Mary Jane - Janis Joplin
Slick's fellow rock goddess Janis Joplin wrote the blues-inspired "Mary Jane" and sang it in the style of her idol Bessie Smith. The song laments the high cost of pot: "When I bring home my hard earned pay / I spend my money all on Mary Jane." Sadly for Janis, heroin and Jack Daniels were cheaper.
3. Stoned Soul Picnic - Laura Nyro
Prolific songwriter and pot-smoker Laura Nyro penned this classic in 1968. It became a hit for The 5th Dimension and was also recorded by Barbra Streisand. "Let's not rush it, we'll take it slow."
4. One Draw - Rita Marley
Rita Marley's 1981 song remains avant garde even today: it features schoolchildren telling their teacher about smoking ganga on summer vacation. "Hey Rastaman, hey what you say / Give me some of your sensi."
5. If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow
This title track from Crow's 1996 album won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the 1997 Grammy Awards. “OK, I still get stoned / I’m not the kind of girl you take home.” Crow recently said at a concert that vinyl and weed would save the recording industry.
6. Legalise Me - Chrissie Hynde
This 1999 anthem by the righteous Ms. Hynde rocks out with Jeff Beck on guitar. "I'm just a farmer and I grow marijuana."
7. Stoned - Macy Gray
In her uniquely wonderful voice, Gray produced a video where she smokes and watches Very Important Potheads on TV for this trippy 2014 track.
8. Right Hand Man - Joan Osborne From Osborne's 1995 debut album Relish, which won multiple Grammy nominations, including best song for "One of Us" (parodied by Bob Rivers as, "What if God Smoked Cannabis.") "The sinsemilla salesman / The cops on the block / They know what I been doin' / They see the way I walk."
9. Flava - Megan Trainor / Tenelle - Flava
Written by Megan "All About The Bass" Trainor and recorded in 2013 by Samoan/American singer-songwriter Tenelle, "Flava" celebrates marijuana's various strains. "I can take a taste of the Sour D / but you wake me up from that Blue Dream..."
10. Faded by Design - Melissa Etheridge
"The legalization of plant medicine is ushering in a whole new era of understanding. 'Faded by Design' is a song celebrating that change," Etheridge told Rolling Stone. "Don't call the doctor / the cure is in my mind."
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Stay High - Brittany Howard Howard says the song is mostly about getting together with people you love, even though she wrote it after getting a marijuana delivery, her first time smoking "that good stuff," at her greenhouse studio in Topanga Canyon. She's fine with folks interpreting it as smoking the herb, but says, "If the only way you're staying high is by smoking weed, maybe reassess your life."
What's Up - 4 Non Blondes(1991)
"And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high." This video, with dreadlocked lead singer Linda Perry, comes in at 774 million views.
Dance Real Close - Jessie Payo(2019)
I first saw Payo perform this hauntingly beautiful tune as a busker in the 2019 movie The Last Laugh, in which Andie McDowell turns Chevy Chase onto pot, and shrooms. "Nobody's perfect / I know that I'm high as a kite."
TOKIN’ WOMAN OF THE YEAR – Melissa Etheridge
Since coming out as a medical marijuana user during her bout with breast cancer in 2005, Etheridge has gone further, advocating for full legalization, in part because
“I don’t want to look like a criminal to my kids anymore.” The singer and advocate has now joined the growing ranks of female potrepreneurs with her delicious cannabis-infused wine, announced in late 2014.
This year Etheridge opened the Americans for Safe Access conference in DC and keynoted the Cannabis
World Conference in LA, and she rocked out the Concert for Social Justice in LA with renditions of Brandy Clark’s “Get High” and Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up.”
For her courage, her vision, and her creativity, Tokin’ Woman is proud to bestow this year’s Tokin' Woman
of the Year award to Melissa Etheridge.
SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR
Mixed martial artist and former UFC bantamweight titleholder Ronda Rousey made headlines
this year
when she questioned the suspension of fellow fighter Nick Diaz because he tested positive for pot. Rousey has since clarified that she is not against testing for performance-enhancing drugs, which she has undergone since her teens, before becoming the
first US woman to win an Olympic medal in judo in 2008.
In 2015, Rousey was the third most searched person on Google and she had film roles in Entourage and
Furious 7. After defending her UFC title in five different bouts, she lost of Holly Holm in November. A rematch with Holm is scheduled for July 9, 2016.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown,who signed legislation in June allowing those with past marijuana possession
convictions to have their criminal records expunged.
Marijuana-using women
showed up in a lot of films this year, with largely predictable results (the
munchees, giggling); however the actresses playing them weren’t always so
expected.
Accomplished actress (and mother of Gwynneth Paltrow) Blythe Danner starred in I’ll See You in My
Dreams, featuring a pot party with June Squibb, Rhea Perlman and Mary Kay
Place. Meryl Streep, playing a rock and roll mama, shared a joint with her
family in Ricki and the Flash, and Lily Tomlin knew what to do with a baggie in
Grandmother. Kristin Stewart played a pot-puffing girlfriend in American Ultra,
and Amanda Seyfried fired up a bong while playing a lawyer in Ted 2.
But it was
writer/director/star Helen Hunt’s movie Ride
(pictured) that takes the top prize in 2015. In it, Hunt learns to surf, smoke pot, and
enjoy life, while playing a high-powered editor and mother. Read more.
OUTING OF THE YEAR
When Oregon TV news anchor Cyd Maurer was fired this year after a post-fender-bender drug test
revealed that she smoked marijuana, it highlighted the injustice of employment
drug testing and of the prohibition on pot. Maurer, 25, released a video
explaining how she was fired by a corporate attorney who never met her, coming
out as a “normal and responsible marijuana user” whose only stereotyping has
been as “an overachieving goody-goody.” She’s now started a website, http://askmeaboutmarijuana.com/ to
keep the dialogue going.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart were interviewed for Culture magazine, and Joan Jett toked up for High Times
photographers and spoke about the time Miley Cyrus came to her hotel room and
she was smoking.
Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie Perez defended marijuana legalization on The View; Molly Ringwald and Kelly Clarkson came out for legalization, and Olivia Wilde spoke about "...that
unfortunate semester in high school when I simultaneously discovered Krispy
Kreme and pot" in People magazine.
Susan Sarandon told High Times “the
world would be a better place” if marijuana were legal and Roseanne Barr said
she is using marijuana to treat macular degeneration and glaucoma. Jane Fonda admitted at the age of 77 that she still enjoys pot “every now
and then” and Chelsea Handler tweeted a picture of her medical marijuana card in February, writing: "I'm a legal marijuaner. Just in time for my 40th bday tomorrow. Now I just need to get a lighter."
There were so many of these this year it’s hard to name them all. Jennifer Aniston did a funny “lipflip” with Jimmy Fallon in January, announcing she was backing the Seattle
Seahawks
in the Superbowl because “We got the weed, man.”
In March, President Obama joked at a Gridiron Club appearance, “I’m not saying I’m any funnier.
I’m
saying weed is now legal in DC.” Garrison Keillor chimed in from Seattle a few months later with, “They’ve legalized marijuana here…it doesn't cure a cold, but it gives you insight into it.”
The National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, finally
updated its website to admit that cannabinoids
have anti-tumor effects in pre-clinical studies. Read more.
Browsing in the biography section of my local library, I came upon two somewhat bald-faced books published in 2021 by shaved-headed women: Cicely Tyson and Sinéad O'Connor. Both books address marijuana.
Tyson, who rose from youthful poverty to a brilliant career as a model and actress, chose an arresting portrait with a shaved head taken by photographer Lord Snowdon in the early 1970’s for the cover of her memoir, Just As I Am. Raised with a strong influence by her church, Tyson married Miles Davis, whose drug use was beyond her reckoning.
"Whatever he smoked or shot up, he usually reeked of it. I knew the scent of marijuana, but other than that, I couldn't tell the difference between coke or heroin or any other drug," she wrote. "He tried to cover it with cologne (he loved his collection), but I could still smell it. And when I did, I stayed as far away from him as I could, because I knew I wouldn't be having talking to Miles anymore. I'd be having a conversation with the person he became when a substance had taken him over. The drugs. The wandering eye. The outbursts. I dealt with it then by not engaging it. I suppose it was my way of reconciling the Miles I knew, the poor soul bearing a hurt-filled past, with the Miles he became in quelling his pain."
Later Tyson helped him clean up from drugs, including alcohol and cigarettes, but Davis, who she describes as being consistently furious over racism, ultimately succumbed to them. According to Tyson, he altered his autobiography to be critical of her after she refused to reunite with him. She published her book two days before her death at age 96.
O'Connor, who suffered physical and sexual abuse growing up in Ireland, chose a shaved-head hairstyle partly as protection against predation. Growing up in a different time than Tyson, she used marijuana and tried other drugs, which she now denounces.
In the forward to her book Rememberings she claims she can't necessarily remember all the details of her life because she wasn't "present" for them; she blames this in part on weed, writing, "I was actually present before my first album came out. And then I went somewhere else inside myself. And I began to smoke weed. I never finally stopped until mid-2020. So, yeah, I ain't been quite here."
However, the book is quite detailed, so somehow she remembered much of her life. She adds, "Making music is hard to write about. I was present then. In the place deep inside myself that only I know." And she writes about how much of her music was made while she was on weed.
"I write with my left hand," opens a 2022 collection of essays titled A Left-Handed Woman by Judith Thurman, the award-winning biographer of Tokin' Woman Isak Dinesen. Thurman continues, "Left-handedness used to be considered a malign aberration ('sinister' is Latin for 'left'), and in the generations before mine, schoolchildren were routinely 'switched.' Enforced conformity, especially, perhaps, when it selects an inborn trait to repress or persecute, breeds intolerance for difference of all kinds. Singled out for bullying or conversion, a child internalized the message that she isn't 'right'.”
Eudora Welty, whose novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, wrote in One Writer's Beginnings, "I'd been born left-handed, but the habit was broken when I entered first grade." Her father "had insisted. He pointed out that everything in life had been made for the convenience of right-handed people, because they were the majority, and he often used 'what the majority wants' as a criterion for what was for the best." Her mother was also born left-handed, but "she had been broken of it when she was young," causing her to develop a stutter.
There may be a connection between being left handed and enjoying marijuana; reportedly a joint was called a "left-handed cigarette" in 1920's jive talk. The first use of the term may have been in Bertha Muzzy (B.M.) Bower's 1922 book, The Trail of the White Mule, and it's made its way into podcasts, song lyrics and current novels like Daisy Chains by Samantha Evergreen, containing this exchange: "You know she liked a good left-handed cigarette." "That's because she was actually left-handed."
I've personally gathered thousands of signatures on pro-pot petitions, and I've noticed a preponderance of left-handed signatories, much more than the 10-12% of us in the general population today. It could be that being left handed brands us early on as different, providing an incentive to try something that was and often remains countercultural: using cannabis. The "enforced conformity" against cannabis users comes in the form of criminalization, ridicule, and drug testing.
Or maybe it's brain differences. According to a 1995 paper in the American Journal of Psychology, left-handed males are better at "divergent thinking," and the greater their "sinistrality," the greater their divergence. (Funny that females didn't feel free to diverge.) Research conducted at the Illinois Research Consortium in 2008 found that right-handed people process information using analysis, while left-handed people do it using synthesis, solving a problem by looking at the whole and trying to use pattern-matching. Experiments on multi-tasking performance showed that when given two tasks to simultaneously complete, left-handers outperformed right-handers. However, when instructed to focus on one task at a time, right-handers completed the tasks more quickly. While left-handers showed more accurate memories of events, right-handers displayed better factual memory.
In 2021, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Donders Institute in Nijmegen investigated brain image and genetic data of 3,062 left-handers and 28,802 right-handers. Left-handedness was associated with differences in brain asymmetry in areas related to working memory, language, hand control and vision. As MPI’s Clyde Francks explains, “Hemispheric specialisation is important for language and other cognitive functions. Various psychiatric traits involve increased rates of left-handedness, including autism, schizophrenia and intellectual disability – although of course most left-handed people do not have these.” Marijuana use can trigger schizophrenia in those predisposed to it.
Pointer was the last surviving member of the original Pointer Sisters trio that had a string of hits starting in 1973 with the Allen Toussaint funk anthem "Yes We Can Can" featuring Anita's lead vocal. With her brother Fritz she penned the 2020 book Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters' Family Story about the sisters' roots in the Oakland, CA Black Power movement and their rise to fame. Of their early days of success, she wrote, "We were having fun, but not what I'd call getting wild. We drank, smoked cigarettes, and occasionally had a little pot." But saddled with debt and a grueling touring schedule, both younger sisters June and Ruth succumbed to hard drug addiction (cocaine and crack), and Anita also lost her only child Jada to cancer in 2003. The Sisters, who started their career singing backup vocals for acts like Grace Slick and Betty Davis, had a number two hit in Belgium in 2005, covering the Eurythmics/Aretha Franklin song "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves" with Belgian singer Natalia. In December 2017, Billboard ranked The Pointer Sisters as the 93rd most successful Hot 100 Artist of all-time and as the 32nd most successful Hot 100 Women Artist of all-time.
The lyrics Anita sang should inspire us all as we enter 2023:
Now's the time for all good men To get together with one another We got to iron out our problems And iron out our quarrels And try to live as brothers
And try to find peace within Without stepping on one another And do respect the women of the world Remember, you all had mothers
We got to make this land a better land Than the world in which we live And we got to help each man be a better man With the kindness that we give
I know we can make it I know darn well, we can work it out Oh, yes, we can, I know we can, can Yes, we can, can, why can't we? If we wanna, yes, we can, can
Barbara Walters (12/30)
A chapter in the new book, The Activist's Media Handbook by David Fenton is titled, "How Barbara Walters Saved Abbie [Hoffman] From a Long Prison Term" and describes how in 1980, Fenton was able to arrange an exclusive interview with Walters and the infamous Yippie! activist Hoffman, then underground after being arrested for selling three pounds of cocaine to undercover agents. Fenton convinced Walters to get into a plane without knowing where she was going, lest the FBI would be alerted, and describes how she interviewed Hoffman "like a Jewish mother meets her long-lost Jewish son" for a full hour, which aired on ABC's 20/20 (pictured.) "As a result, a week later when [Hoffman] turned himself into the Manhattan district attorney, he served only fifty-four days in jail," writes Fenton. That's the kind of clout Walters had. Yes, she blazed many trials, broke many barriers, and started The View to give women a voice, but this—and the time she got Bing Crosby to say that he was for marijuana legalization, and asked President Obama about the topic after Colorado and Washington legalized in 2012—are my favorite stories about her.
Ian Tyson (12/29)
Canadian folk music legend Tyson was, according to Suze Rotolo, the one who turned Bob Dylan onto marijuana. In her memoir A Freewheelin' Time, Rotolo writes, "I swear it was Ian Tyson who offered up the first taste of marijuana when Bob brought him to the flat one afternoon. Ian had a friend back home who had introduced him to their stuff you could smoke that would get you high. Bob didn't think I should try it until he had tested it, but later on I did." Writing about sitting around with Tyson and his partner Sylvia listening to records, Rotolo wrote, "We reveled in the joy of discovering something we had never heard before. And this wasn't just for music; it was about books and movies, too. We were a young and curious lot." Tyson wrote "Four Strong Winds" the day after he heard Dylan introduce his new song "Blowin' In the Wind" in 1962.
Vivienne Westwood (12/29)
“I don’t think punk would have happened without Vivienne," said Tokin' Woman Chrissie
Hynde, who before forming the Pretenders, was an
assistant at Westwood's London shop. “I was about 36 when punk happened and I was upset about what was going on in the world,” the influential fashion designer and activist told Harper’s Bazaar in 2013.
“It was the hippies who taught my generation about politics, and that’s
what I cared about — the world being so corrupt and mismanaged, people
suffering, wars, all these terrible things.” Westwood wardrobed The Sex Pistols and Boy George, and created Oscar gowns for Kate Winslet in 2006 and Zendaya in 2015, for a look (pictured right) that prompted Giuliana Rancic to comment, “She looks like she smells like patchouli oil and weed.”
Jo Mersa Marley (12/27)
The grandson of Bob Marley was a recording artist and DJ who was aiming "to do something new with my roots," as he once told Rolling Stone. He began performing onstage at age 4 with Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers —
his father Stephen, his uncle Ziggy, and his aunts Cedella and Sharon — during
that group’s concert finales. He moved to Florida at age 11, where he
studied studio engineering and observed his father and uncle Damian
Marley working in Stephen’s Lion’s Den studio before starting to make his own music. He died at the age of 31, reportedly of an asthma attack.
Franco Harris (12/20)
When he made the Immaculate Reception, his Italian mother was reportedly praying the Rosary and listening to Ave Maria. Harris died three days before the 50th anniversary of his most famous play, to commemorate which there is a statue in the Pittsburgh airport (pictured). Harris told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2017, "I feel in any state that has approved medical marijuana (as 28 states hosting 20 of the NFL’s 32 teams have), the league should remove medical marijuana from being a banned substance....I will tell you this, if it ever comes to a point where I do need pain management, I’d feel very lucky and happy now that we have medicinal marijuana in Pennsylvania.”
