Where Are the Top Female Marijuana Users?

Maya Angelou

The Marijuana Policy Project has released a list of Top 50 Most Influential Marijuana Users, chosen by vote from 200 candidates (and augmented by MPP's 13 "automatic qualifiers").

Only five women make the list. Sarah Palin comes in at number 14, and poet Maya Angelou is number 21. Angelina Jolie is 24th on the list, even though she said she doesn't like pot's effects. Jennifer Aniston shows up at number 38 and Whoopi Goldberg at 44. Lady Gaga missed the cut, coming in at #52.

The maleness of the list could be a reflection of MPP's membership, or of their own selection of the 200 nominees. High Times's readership is almost exclusively young males, and groups like NORML have traditionally been male-heavy (although the NORML Women's Alliance is working to change that).

NORML board member Greta Gaines made some waves recently when she published an Alternet.org article titled "Why Are No Women Celebrity Stoners Willing to Come Out of the Greenhouse." Gaines got a few things wrong, dissing Melissa Etheridge as a mere medical marijuana advocate, and failing to recognize that women like Aniston, Sarah Silverman, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst and others have spoken publicly about their marijuana use. But if the MPP list is a reflection of public perception, her point is one that needs to be made.

Most are aware that women had a role in bringing about alcohol prohibition, but many don't know that they also helped bring it down. Pauline Morton Sabin was one important player who was highlighted in Ken Burns's PBS series "Prohibition." A panel at the national NORML conference on Saturday, October 6 will explore women's role in ending America's prohibitions. An NWA Luncheon will follow. Read more and register.

See a round-up of prominent female cannabis connoisseurs, now and then.

Performing Potheads Party Down at Golden Globes

In a moment reminiscent of Jane Fonda at last years Oscar party, Cameron Diaz was spotted by the New York Post "smoking something more fragrant-smeling than a cigarette" on a terrace at a Golden Globes afterparty.

Diaz called weed "awesome" on Jimmy Fallon's show and was awesome herself in "Bad Teacher". She's joked about buying pot from Snoop Dogg in high school and was photographed passing a joint to Drew Barrymore.

At the ceremony, Meryl Streep took home Best Actress in a Drama and gave a heartfelt acceptance speech. Streep smoked pot on film in 2009's "It's Complicated" and in "Silkwood" (1983). She brought her prodigious acting skills to "Adaptation" (2002), in which she gets high off some plant material. In 1985 she played VIP Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa.

Michelle Williams won Best Actress in the Comedy or Musical category for portraying Marilyn Monroe. A home movie released in 2009 purports to be Monroe smoking a marijuana cigarette, and her friend Jeanne Carmen's biographer confirms the two smoked together.

Skipping the latest Republican debate debacle, I instead caught Monroe in "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957) on TCM: she's superb in this underrated film.

The Girl's Got Camerones

Cameron Diaz and Phyllis Smith in Bad Teacher

Tokin' Woman Cameron Diaz lights up more than the screen in Bad Teacher (2011), a raunchy but charming comedy a bit in the style of There's Something About Mary (1998), in which Diaz tokes with Ben Stiller as they reunite onscreen. 

Diaz carries the film as a shallow but smart gold-digging woman who's teaching school (as little as she can) while saving for a boob job. When she's caught by a student smoking a "medicinal" pipe in the school parking lot, she couldn't care less. But she takes an interest in a co-worker played by Phyllis Smith ("The Office"), encouraging her to smoke a doobie; next thing you know she's happily groping a cowboy in a bar. 

Casting her former boy toy Justin Timberlake as a nerdy pantswetter who parodies himself singing a love song in pitch-perfect style, her other love interest is played by Jason Segel, who's the stoner in "Freaks and Geeks" and, as Marshall in "How I Met Your Mother," bonds with Ted over "sandwiches" in the “How I Met Everyone Else” episode. 

The film handles marijuana in irony, moderation and jubilation, with a dash of heart, and soul.

Diaz told George Lopez she "had to have" bought pot from Snoop Dogg while both were in high school in Long Beach.

Best note in the new Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas extravaganga: when Danneel Harris (Vanessa) tells Kumar not to stop smoking. The actress told High Times in 2008 she smokes pot; neither John Cho (Harold) or Kal Penn (Kumar) partake (so they say).

Fast Times at Spike TV

Fast Times At Ridgemont High director Amy Heckerling (the only woman in the picture at left) was in attendance to see her film inducted into Spike TV's "Guy Movie Hall of Fame" last night in Culver City, along with castmembers Sean Pean (in his memorable stoner role), Judge Reinhold and Forest Whitaker.

Ridgemont High is a cut above the average "stoner guy" or high school comedy; it's got heart, wit, and a finesse sorely lacking in the usual fare. Heckerling got noticed for the film and went on to write "Clueless" (1995) and the "Look Who's Talking" films, based on her experience as a mother. She pairs again with "Clueless" star Alicia Silverstone in this year's "Vamps," about Vampires in New York and their dating choices.

The female cast of the 1982 movie had better things to do that night. Jennifer Jason Leigh is busy winning raves on Broadway in The House of Blue Leaves with Ben Stiller and Edie Falco. And Phoebe Cates hasn't acted since she married Kevin Klein, had his kids, and opened a boutique in New York.

Also missing from the Spike festivities was Ridgemont High's author, Cameron Crowe ("Almost Famous") and Spicoli's stoner buddies Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz. Edwards will play Beat poet publisher Lawrence Ferlingetti in 2012's Big Sur, based on a novel by VIP Jack Kerouac. Whitaker, who played the jock in the film, is set to play Very Important Pothead Louis Armstrong in an upcoming biopic, which is said to include Louis's love of the herb in the script.

Mark Wahlberg, who earlier this year admitted he'd smoked pot but was now afraid to do so around his daughter, won the "Guy of the Year" award. Award winner Jim Carrey hasn't quite come clean, but discussing performing a bungee jumping stunt on TV's "Ellen" (12/17/2008), he said "I’m thinking, If there is a God, How do I explain that trip to Amsterdam when I was 19 and saying Yes to everything?"

VIPs Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz were presenters, and Mila Kunis deservedly took home the "Holy Grail of Hot." VIP Jennifer Aniston also deserved her "Decade of Hotness" award. (Apparently, smoking pot makes you hot.)

The Guys Choice Awards, at which Keith Richards received recognition for his "brass balls", will air on Spike TV on Friday June 10 at 9 PM.

Women's History Month Celebrates Female Cannabis Connoisseurs

In honor of Women's History Month, Very Important Potheads has added profiles of several female conoisseurs to its website, including musician Alanis Morisette (pictured) and VIP of the month Isabelle Eberhardt. Also honored as VIPs are Susan Sarandon, Cameron Diaz, and Lady Gaga, joining 65 other profiles of Marijuana Mamas published on the site.

Lady Gaga's remarks on 60 Minutes before this year's Grammy awards echoed Morisette's when she told High Times magazine in 2010, “As an artist, there's a sweet jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me...So if ever I need some clarity... or a quantum leap in terms of writing something, it's a quick way for me to get to it.” The singer/songwriter/actress also told Runner's World magazine of the clarity-bringing properties of a good run, which is interesting because the New York Times has just published a summary of studies that indicate that cannabinoids, not endorphins, are responsible for the so-called "runner's high."

The recently discovered Isabelle Eberhardt was born in 1877, the illegitimate daughter of a Russian noblewoman and her children’s anarchistic tutor. Raised to be an independent thinker, her short but eventful life proved she was. At the age of 20, she left France for Algeria where she smoked kif, embraced Islam and picked up a sword to join a revolt against French colonialists in 1898. Dressed as a man, Eberhardt explored the region, sending dispatches in the form of crystalline short stories like “The Seduced,” a heartbreaking tale of a young Arab who joins the army and returns to see his family's land usurped. A compilation of Isabelle Eberhardt's stories and reviews of her work, Departures, is published by City Lights (San Francisco).

Very Important Potheads.com, which profiles over 200 prominent cannabis consumers from history to the present day, is celebrating its 10th year of publication in 2010. Last year, its blog won a Top Marijuana Blog award from Onlineschools.org, and its author Ellen Komp was nominated for a Jack Herer award for Outstanding Hemp Awareness in Journalism. VIPs has merged its blog with TokinWoman.blogspot.com and is focusing on the female.

Read more and see a list of famous female marijuana users with links.

Diaz and Lopez Get Green

Lopez Tonight (midnight on TBS) seems to be the latest place stars come clean about being green. Cameron Diaz guested on 1/19 to promo The Green Hornet and chat about driving a Prius and being a Cuban from the LBC (Long Beach) where she "had to have" bought weed from Snoop Dogg. "So you were green even in High School?" asked Lopez. "Oh yeah," the starlet replied.

Diaz has been photographed passing a joint to Drew Barrymore, and told GQ in December 2007 about her life as a weed-smoking surfer in high school: "It took two hours to get [to the beach] on a bus. You stayed all day, ate corn dogs. We only had two dollars for a joint."

Something (everything?) about Diaz made Ben Stiller chase her across the country in Something About Mary, and when the characters reunite, they smoke a joint together. The stunning actress, who catapulted to fame in her first movie role opposite Jim Carrey in Mask, was surprisingly convincing as the dowdy housewife who suggests smoking a joint with a dinner guest in Being John Malkovich. 

Diaz also joked with Lopez about smelling skunk on Green Hornet co-star Seth Rogen, who she calls a comic genius. But my favorite sequence was then they imitated the Telenovelas while munching Cuban food.

UPDATE: Diaz is the pot-smoking Bad Teacher.