2018 Tokey Awards

TOKIN WOMAN OF THE YEAR

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).

In other outings, Liz Phair talked about smoking weed with Joe Rogan. Miley Cyrus promised she'd be back to smoking someday, and now says her mom got her back to smoking. Carly Simon said she uses CBD oil on her knee, and Toni Braxton embraced CBD as a treatment for lupus. Chelsea Handler,  Kathy Ireland and Gwynneth Paltrow announced cannabis products or brands, as did Estée Lauder.

Mary Todd Lincoln, A Hemp Farmer's Daughter

Last week, the Mary Todd Lincoln House in Lexington, Kentucky celebrated the 200th birthday of our former first lady. It's fitting that the celebration came as Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell signed off on language for a farm bill that will legalize hemp cultivation in the US, should President Trump choose to sign it.

Mary Todd was a Southern Belle from a prominent, founding family of Fayette county, Kentucky. According to the Kentucky Office in Lexington:

Hemp was introduced at an early date [in Fayette]. Nathan Burrowes, a county resident, invented a machine for cleaning it [in 1796]. The soil produced fine hemp and in 1870 the county grew 4.3 million pounds. The crop declined in the 1890s because of increased demand for tobacco and competition from imported hemp from the Philippines. In 1941, when the federal government saw a possible shortage of manila rope from the Philippines, farmers were encouraged to grow hemp once again for use in World War II. The crop declined again in 1945.

Film Review: "Weed the People"

Weed the People, the Ricki Lake–produced film about the journey parents and their children with cancer are taking with cannabis, could be the best documentary I've seen on marijuana, possibly because it's a film made by women and largely depicting women.

The film follows several children undergoing cancer therapy, who are able to stop using powerful opiate painkillers and sometimes see their tumors shrink while using cannabinoids. The intimate stories of the families are exceptionally powerful, and the film goes further to interview doctors, researchers, and activists, presenting a historical perspective on the war on marijuana that has put patients in jeopardy by the illegality of cannabis, and the roadblocks to research on its uses in the US.

One mother summed it up well when she said, "I just find it staggering to accept that with the billions of dollars spend on cancer research, that the medicine we're relying on is made is somebody's kitchen."

Michelle Obama Writes About Using Marijuana in New Memoir

Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming, released today, contains a passage about her high school days when she and a boyfriend named David “fooled around and smoked pot in his car.”

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. She graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School, and met her future husband Barack Obama when he interned for her at a law firm.

RIP Cassie Gaines, One of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Honkettes

The Honkettes: JoJo Billingsley, Cassie Gaines and Leslie Hawkins

A new documentary is out on Lynyrd Skynyrd, the rockin' Southern Rock band that lost its singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant along with band members Cassie & Steve Gaines in a tragic plane crash on this date in 1977.

Lynyrd Skynyrd: If I Leave Here Tomorrow interviews surviving members of the band and reveals how Cassie and her fellow Honkettes classed up the group as its back-up singers.

Cassie Gaines joined the band in 1975 and later recommended her younger brother Steve join in as a guitarist. She was mentioned in stories recounted in the film as the band member who always had marijuana, and it was said of Steve that he "was no farmer, but he could grow some bud." When the band opened for the Rolling Stones, Very Important Pothead Jack Nicholson smelled Cassie's weed and asked if he could take a toke.

Of Beer, Boofing and Bar Mitzvahs: How We're Failing Our Young Men and Women

The Kavanaugh showdown this week raised questions to many about our culture and how it fails to instruct boys on how to treat women. Instead, as the book Raising Cain notes, we're letting boys figure it out for themselves, to everyone's detriment.

Cain is, of course, the evil older son of Adam and Eve, who was jealous of his younger brother, the kind and good Abel. Growing up, I had a Cain and Abel in my neighborhood. One day when I was about five years old, the elder brother pinned me to the floor and pulled my underwear down, despite my crying and pleading. Sadistically, he demanded I stop crying, then start again. He wouldn't let me up until I promised not to tell anyone. I never did, until the incident popped out of my subconscious in my college years (with the aid of my blessed plant teachers).

Like Dr. Ford, I don't remember how I got to his house, or how I got home. But I do have a very clear memory of what happened to me. And I remember the sick feeling I got when I heard that my former neighbor, who by then had moved away, was implicated in the death of his younger brother. I might have saved him, I thought, had I the words to talk about something that was never talked about in those days. Years later I volunteered at a rape crisis hotline and almost all of my calls were about incidents that had happened years earlier, but the caller was just then able to start grappling with it. We must talk about these things so that we can end them.

Kristen Bell: "Weed Rules"

UPDATE 10/20: Bell appears in a kooky new commercial for her CBD skincare line. One benefit not mentioned: a recent study found CBD is protective against UV rays. 

I guess there's a reason Kristen Bell played Mary Lane in "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical" (2005).

The talented actress said on the podcast WTF with Mark Aaron, “I like my vape pen quite a bit," adding that it doesn't bother her sober husband when she uses it occasionally. "Weed rules. Weed's my drug of choice, for sure.”

The 38-year-old mother continued, “I can’t do it around my kids, which is a phenomenal amount of hours each week. Once a week, if I’m exhausted and we’re about to sit down and watch 60 Minutes, why not?”