Olivia Newton-John Opens Up About Cannabis

UPDATE 8/8/2022: Newton-John died at her ranch home in California on August 8, 2022 at the age of 73, after battling metastatic cancer for over 30 years. An angel on Earth, she earned her wings just three days after her fellow Australian songbird Judith Durham of The Seekers.

ONJ goes bad in Grease

September 4, 2017 - In news that went 'round the world in places as far-flung as the Kansas City Star, singer Olivia Newton-John told Australia's The Sunday Telegraph that she is using "legal and easily obtained" medical marijuana in her home state of California to treat cancer.

“I use medicinal cannabis, which is really important for pain and healing,” she says. “It’s a plant that has been maligned for so long, and has so many abilities to heal."

“I will do what I can to encourage it,” she added. “It’s an important part of treatment, and it should be available. I use it for the pain and it’s also a medicinal thing to do — the research shows it’s really helpful.”

Survey Looks at Cannabis Use in Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women, Calls More Research "Critically Needed"

A new survey conducted by researchers at Boston's Mass General Brigham (MGB) healthcare system found that perimenopausal and postmenopausal women had similar patterns of use for cannabis to treat their menopausal symptoms.

The paper, published in published in Menopause, the journal of the The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), had this to say (with full citations) about the potential for cannabinoid treatments for menopause symptoms: 

The endocannabinoid system is involved in a variety of physiological and psychological processes (e.g., regulating body temperature, mood, anxiety, sleep), and evidence suggests that this system significantly impacts fertility and reproduction. Specifically, the human ovary produces the endogenous cannabinoid anandamide with peak plasma levels occurring at ovulation and correlating with estrogen levels, suggesting that anandamide production may be controlled by this hormone.

In addition, cannabinoid treatments, including administration of anandamide, as well as antagonists of cannabinoid degradative enzymes, improve postovariectomy complications and reduce anxiety. Further, administration of cannabinoids typically results in vasorelaxation [reduction in tension of the blood vessel walls], suggesting that cannabinoid-based therapies may be particularly salient for treating vasomotor symptoms of menopause [hot flashes and night sweats].

In particular, estrogen deficiency results in downregulation of systems involved in hemodynamic regulation and is associated with vasomotor symptoms; 2 weeks of treatment with anandamide has been shown to reverse this downregulation in ovariectomized rats. Taken together, research indicates that medical cannabis (MC) may be a nonhormone treatment option with the potential to alleviate menopause-related symptoms with greater efficacy and possibly fewer side effects relative to existing treatments. 

Mrs. Hunter Biden Shops for Pot While Brittney Griner Faces 10 Years for It

 

Cohen and (apparently) her Secret Service agent enter the 99 High Tide dispensary in Malibu on 7/13. 

Cohen exits the dispensary
carrying a small package.

UPDATE 8/15/22: Griner's attorneys have appealed her conviction, and there's official talk of swapping her and other Russian prisoners for arms dealer Victor Bout, and idea has been criticized by former president and coup-inciter Donald Drumpf. I guess the US doesn't want the competition; war toys are some of our biggest exports.

8/4/22: Griner was found guilty and received a 9-year sentence. 

It's been reported that Hunter Biden's wife Melissa Cohen was escorted by a Secret Service agent while she went grocery shopping and stopped at a cannabis club to make a purchase in Malibu, CA. (Marijuana Moment was unable to confirm that it was a Secret Service agent who accompanied her. The First Family does receive SS protection.)

It made me sad to think of Brittney Griner facing 10 years in a Russian prison for a similar act, despite public outcry and US diplomatic efforts to free her. Soccer star/CBD entrepreneur Megan Rapinoe and Warriors champion Steph Curry were among the star athletes pleading for Griner’s freedom at The ESPYs on July 20. 

On Twitter, I nudged Very Important Pothead Kareem Abdul Jabbar to write about his fellow Arizonan Griner after it came out in court that she had a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana.  I included a video of Kareem teaching Griner the sky hook when she came to play for the Phoenix Mercury. 

 

"Broads Behind Bars" and "The Spinach Song"

The things you find noodling around the internet. It began by looking up the actress /strongwoman Hope Emerson—best known for lifting Spencer Tracy off the ground in court in the 1949 movie Adam's Rib—after I watched her exclaim what sounded to me like "Smokin' Oakum!" throughout Westward the Women (1952). Oakum are the short fibers of hemp; generally they are not smoked.  (It's possible she was saying, "smoke and oakum.")

Emerson, who made her Broadway debut playing an Amazon woman in Lysistrata in 1930, was nominated for an Oscar for her role as a sadistic matron at a women's prison in Caged (1950), for which the author Virginia Kellogg served time in four American prisons under false charges, as research. 

Caged and anti-marijuana propaganda films were parodied in the 1977 SCTV skit, "Broads Behind Bars," in which Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy of TV's "Schitt's Creek" smoke pot, leading to her imprisonment and defiant downfall "from just one small stick of the stuff." Emerson's role was handled by John Candy in drag in the skit, which a title card mockingly says was "produced in cooperation with the anti-marijuana league of North America."

Gene Krupa, Sal Mineo, and "The Green Girl"

Dorissa (Susan Oliver) turns on Gene (Sal Mineo) 
in "The Gene Krupa Story." 

Having just seen the new "Elvis" biopic, I decided it was time to watch "The Gene Krupa Story" (1959) starring Sal Mineo in a fantastic performance playing the drums much as Krupa did. 

In the film, Krupa is turned on to marijuana by a fictional vixen named Dorissa Dinell, much as Eve lead Adam astray with the Forbidden Fruit (dubbed "the world's first controlled substance" by Timothy Leary). 

After handing him a joint, Dorissa (played by Susan Oliver) watches him take a puff. Immediately, the music turns ominous and discordant. "Don't diddle it," she admonishes him, encouraging him by example to inhale fully. "Put your miseries out to pasture and nobody gets you," she tells him.  

"Elvis" and Marijuana

The new Baz Lurman movie “Elvis” gives inklings into what the star might have become without the influence of his manipulative manager “Colonel Tom Parker” (not his real name or rank), and the forces that demonized the singer for moving his body too freely onstage to the music he made. 

Marijuana is mentioned in the film as Presley (Austin Butler in a pitch-perfect, career-making performance) begins to gain fame, and becomes controversial for his too-exciting performances. “The press says I smoke marijuana,” he says, implying it's untrue. 

Just before that line is uttered, a still photo is shown of the real Elvis from a July 1, 1956 interview he did on the show "Hy Gardner Calling." On that program, New York Herald Tribune columnist Gardner asked Presley about his appearance that night on the Steve Allen show, something alluded to in the movie, with Allen requiring him to appear in a tuxedo and serenade a basset hound with “Hound Dog.” 

Gardner asked Presley if he'd ever performed in a tuxedo before, to which he replied, “It's the first time I've had one on.” During the interview where he denied a connection between rock and roll and juvenile delinquency, Elvis was asked about the rumor that he had once shot his mother. “That one takes the cake,” was the reply. 

Gardner then addressed another rumor, saying, “Several newspapers say that you smoke marijuana in order to work yourself into a frenzy while singing.” Elvis just laughed and said, “I don't know.” “You won't even bother answering that?” Gardner asked. No response, or denial.