Tokin Women also see TokinWoman.blogspot.com and
the new book, Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory
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."
VeryImportantPotheads.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 if focusing on the female. Anthropologist Margaret Mead, who testified before Congress in 1969 saying she’d tried marijuana and that it ought to be legal, is included, along with notorious theosophist H.P. Blavatsky and modern scientist Susan Blackmore who “outed” herself as a pot smoker who found the experience inspiring in 2005. Mother Mary Aubert, a French missionary to New Zealand who studied Maori herbal medicines and made tinctures of cannabis in the 1860s, is included, along with explorer Gertrude Bell, who helped draw the borders of modern Iraq. |
Painter Marie Laurencin popped some hashish pills with Pablo Picasso one night in 1908, according to his mistress Fernande Oliver. Body Shop founder Anita Roddick wrote about early experiments with marijuana in her autobiography, as did former Canadan first lady Margaret Trudeau. Beauty queen Georgine DiMaria, who uses medical marijuana for asthma, appeared at a Pennsylvania rally in support of a reform measure in that state, while Miss Teen Louisiana Lindsey Evans made the list after she left her purse with a bag of pot inside behind when she left a restaurant in 2008. Blues singer Bessie Smith and jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams are prominent musicians on the list. In the modern realm, there is author Pattie Boyd, who was married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, plus musicians Sheryl Crow, Cass Elliot, Norah Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Madonna, Bette Midler, Laura Nyro, Joss Stone, and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, who smoked pot in Amsterdam. Barbra Streisand is a surprising addition, with her biographies and other sources saying she smoked onstage and joked about it. Singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge has spoken openly about her medical marijuana use, and campaigned for a measure to legalize marijuana for adults in California (Prop. 19) in 2010.
Former Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala makes the list, as does Caroline Kennedy, Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard and former UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin admits she smoked pot while it was legal in Alaska, and said in June 2010 she thinks law enforcement shouldn't focus its energy on the Òminimal problemÓ of marijuana. Actresses Jennifer Aniston, Kirsten Dunst, Frances McDormand, Kristin Stewart , Charlize Theron, follow the tradition of Tallulah Bankhead, who first smoked marijuana in Paris in 1918. Natalie Portman, who just won an Oscar for her performance in Black Swan, is producing a female pot "buddy" film. Prominent Korean actress Kim Bu-seon has been an outspoken advocate for marijuana law reform in her country. Even Shirley MacLaine tried pot, and found it Òfascinating.Ó Finally, Fulla Nayak, who was considered the world’s oldest woman when she died in 2006 at the age of 125, attributed her longevity to cannabis. |
Louisa May Alcott |
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Changing the Face of Cannabis