Celebrating famous female cannabis connoisseurs throughout herstory to the present day.
All contents copyrighted. "Bright Leaf" artwork by Jean Hanamoto http://www.camomoto.com
UPDATE 3/24: "The Many Lives of Martha Stewart" on Max interviews Stewart's fellow prisoner Susan Spry, who was serving time on a meth charge when they met at Alderson prison (where Billie Holiday was also incarcerated).
Stewart wrote a note of recommendation that got Spry the job she still holds after she left prison.
The series reveals that part of Stewart's rehab/rebranding after her prison stint included appearing at the 2015 roast of Justin Bieber, during which she gave tips on making a shiv, and joked about smoking a joint (and having a three-way) with him. She now says (upon posing at age 80 for the cover of Sports Illustrated), that sitting next to Snoop at that roast "cemented" their relationship.
“He smoked all day long,” Stewart told the LA Times. “All he did was smoke, and everybody was in such a good mood and we were all roasting each other. And luckily, Snoop’s secondhand smoke really kind of eased the pain for me a lot, and it was hysterical because I just felt, ‘OK, I’ll go with the flow here.’ After like 6 billion views around the world, it turned out to be one of the best things — and it cemented my relationship with Snoop.”
UPDATE 9/20: Stewart has announced a line of CBD edibles. "The flavorful citrus medley of wellness gummies includes Meyer lemon, kumquat, and blood orange, while the delicious berry medley includes red raspberry, huckleberry, and black raspberry."
6/13 - Huffington Post reports that Martha Stewart, the woman who does everything perfectly, also knows how to roll a joint. Or so she said in an interview with Andy Cohen, where she also said she almost asked for a puff off a sloppily rolled one she'd seen on the way to the studio. "That would have made for a very interesting interview," quickly quipped Cohen. Perhaps Stewart ought to demonstrate her joint-rolling skills in an upcoming show, as Canadian historian Pierre Berton did in 2010.
It seems Stewart had her eyes opened to the injustices of the drug war when she took a prison rap for the true stock manipulators who bankrupted our country. In her 2005 holiday message from prison, Stewart wrote, "I beseech you all. . . to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking."
In 2014, Stewart offered free patterns for craft projects made with her hemp/cotton yarn line. She commented upon the September 2020 release of her CBD edibles line: "I've found that CBD supplements are a simple way to enhance my own health and wellness, especially when it comes to managing the stresses of daily life.
I set out to create the most delicious CBD products on the market,
drawing inspiration from some of my favorite recipes and flavor profiles
from my greenhouse and gardens.
"My wellness gummies closely resemble the French confections, pâte de
fruits, rather than the sticky, overly sweet versions you might find
elsewhere. Created in collaboration with top researchers and scientists
at Canopy Growth, I am very proud of the end result: wellness gummies,
oil drops, and soft gels that taste as wonderful as they make you feel."
Yes, kiddies, Jesus was a Mushroom and so was Santa Claus. Until mankind can fully come to grips with our true drug-fueled history (and herstory), here are some interesting references that have snuck through at Christmastime:
1. In the heartfelt 2005 film The Family Stone, Diane Keaton munches
"special" brownies as the cancer-stricken family matriarch, and Sarah
Jessica Parker plays the uptight Meredith, whose freak flag flies under
the tutelage of her fiancé's brother Ben Stone (Been Stoned?), played by
Luke Wilson.
2. The Night Before (2015) written by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness)
and starring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, features Dickensian
pot dealer Mr. Green (Michael Shannon) manifesting marijuana's three
vision quest abilities: to put you squarely in the present, to
illuminate a future you fear, and to come to grips with a past you have
buried. To the character who protests paranoia, Mr. Green replies,
"Sometimes it's good to be uncomfortable." Packed with the usual party
boy inanities, this one at least has cameos from Mindy Kaling and Ilana
Glazer (Broad City) as Scrooge.
3. In Scrooged (1998), Bill Murray finds his soul with the help of his pot-puffing girlfriend, played by Karen Allen.
4. To deal with his sudden change in fortune, Eddie Murphy jumps into the john to take a toke, and Dan Aykroyd lights up a spliff in disguise as a Jamaican in Trading Places (1983), set at Christmastime.
5. In The Man Who Came to Dinner(1941), the unwanted visitor's host is based on H.H. Timken, the Ohio industrialist who planned to bankroll hemp production in the US. Absinthe is mentioned.
6. In the 1951 movie The Lemon Drop Kid, Bob Hope sniffs Santa's pipe and pantomimes flying while singing the song "Silver Bells":
7. In Four Christmases (2008) where the always-hilarious Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon attempt to dodge their wacky relatives, Sissy Spacek warns her grandson against grandma's "special" brownies.
8. A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas (2011) must be mentioned. Best moment: when Danneel Harris (Vanessa) convinces Kumar not to stop smoking.
9. In Happy Christmas (2014) Anna Kendrick (pictured) plays an insecure woman who puffs pot from a joint and a pipe, and does fine unless she mixes it with alcohol. It's not very Christmassy, insightful, or fun, but Kendrick is good (as always).
10. A tie between the 2008 ER episode, "The High Holiday," which features Charlotte Rea (who played the housemother TV’s staid sitcom "The Facts of Life") accidentally dosing the staff at their Christmas party with her pot brownies, made for a friend in chemotherapy. And the 2009 Friends episode in which Monica is baking Christmas cookies, and Phoebe comments, "A plate of brownies once told me a limerick." "Were those funny brownies?" she is asked. "Not especially," is her response, "but you know what, I think they had pot in them."
And for you kids in town without a Christmas tree, the "smoke your marijuanaka" line in Adam Sandler's original Hanukkah Song always gets a big ovation whenever he performs it live. His newest version #4 of the song shows he's still smokin:
UPDATE 12/2019: In 2020 look for "High Holiday," the plot of which is (according to IMDB): "In order to lighten up her uptight family, the free-spirited daughter of a conservative politician brings weed-infused salad dressing to Christmas Eve dinner. With Tom Arnold, Jennifer Tilly, Cloris Leachman and Shannyn Sossamon.
UPDATE 12/2022: Just discovered: The Simpsons "The Fight Before Christmas"
episode, where Bart dreams he boards the Polar Express en route to
Santa's workshop at the North Pole. When Bart exclaims, "We're flying!"
the engineer (Otto) says, "Yep, she can fly all right, you've just got
to keep her happy," shoveling marijuana into the fire. Magical moments
ensue. On the return trip, police follow the train and Otto gifts it to
Bart for Christmas before jumping out. With appearances by Martha
Stewart and Katy Perry, playing themselves.
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.
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.
Actress extraordinaire Kathy Bates is the latest celeb to "out" herself as a potsmoker on Andy Cohen's "Watch What Happens Live" on Bravo TV.
Asked to pick the bigger pothead between Matthew McConaughey and Susan Sarandon, Bates said she shared "some good sh##" with Sarandon and Melissa McCarthy last June. "But I didn't inhale," she joked.
Bates played a marijuana smoker in the 2011-12 series "Harry's Law," but
had to play a witch in "American Horror Story: Coven" to win an Emmy this year. She played Alice B. Toklas's lover Gertrude Stein on film in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."
Others who've talked about pot with Cohen include Oprah Winfrey and Sarandon herself; Martha Stewart told Cohen that "of course" she knows how to roll a joint.
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.
It adds a few I haven't covered, like Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown (pictured), Lindsay Weir from Freeks and Geeks, Stephanie from The Wackness, Kristina Braverman from Parenthood and the gals from High Maintenance and Broad City.
The week of features follows this weekend's New York Times style section story highlighting the female pot entrepreneurs in Colorado. “We’re weeding out the stoners,” said Olivia Mannix, the 25-year-old co-founder of a start-up called Cannabrand, an advertising agency devoted exclusively to marketing marijuana. “We want to show the world that normal, professional, successful people consume cannabis.”
It has been announced that pot researcher Dr. Julie Holland will team with Diablo Cody (Juno) and Oprah Winfrey on an HBO comedy based on Holland's new book Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You’re Taking, the Sex You’re Not Having, The Sleep You’re Missing and What’s Really Making You Crazy. The book examines “the pros and cons of the drugs people are being offered as well as some surprising and highly effective natural therapies.”
(Thanks to Steve Bloom of CelebStoner for the tips.)
Asked by the New York Times if she smokes pot, Bates replied, "Yeah, I do. I’ve had a prescription for some time for chronic pain. I’ve really become a believer. I find it just as, if not more, effective than other pain relief." She also said she supports legalization "even more so now that I’ve become more educated about what its properties are" and mentioned meeting NFL players in the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition.
Gotta say, though, having just seen Bates in "The Great Gilly Hopkins" (2015), it made me wish the writing for cannabis-themed movies and TV could approach a great film like that one.
Peachtree NORML founder Sharon Ravert (pictured at right with members of the NC Women and others) lobbied to bring the Drug Policy Alliance conference to Atlanta this year. Just before the event, Atlanta, which had the worst-in-the-nation record for arresting blacks over whites for marijuana, passed a decriminalization measure. NORML is working to pass more reform measures throughout Georgia and Sharon produces a segment on 420radio.com highlighting the stories and work of other women in the fight to end marijuana prohibition.
Honorable mentions
