1960 Marijuana Girl, cover artist: Santos  "Vintage Paperback & Pulp Fiction Cover Art"    copyright 1995 Jeffrey Luther/PC design PO Box 417 Palo Alto, CA 94302     www.pulpcards.com

In the late fifties I had gone to a party at which jazz musicians were generously passing around some reefer.  To that point I had only heard of marijuana in the context of poor Robert Mitchem’s arrest with front-page perp walk photos, being led off to prison handcuffed and disheveled.  When that first joint came my way I was curious but fearful so I took only a few tentative tiny puffs and waited with both dread and curiosity for something crazy to happen.  In the end I had inhaled so little that I remained totally unaffected. 

  Global Pop Culture #513,  Marijuana The Weed With Roots In Hell.

copyright 2005 Mad Dog Postcards, www.maddogpostcards.com

By 1962 however, when I was once again offered some weed. It had become both slightly more available and somewhat less mysterious; still it took several attempts at toking before I felt what the effect of it could be.  After that, when we could afford it and in the company of friends, we would partake as a weekend activity.  I soon understood that “reefer madness” was not exactly as depicted in the old film but a rather pleasanter, high than alcohol albeit with no hangover.  Nobody I got stoned with went off any deep ends and it was all a rather joyful time with lots of laughter, music and munchies.  To be clear, I have in all these years witnessed only two bad reactions, and those were from first time smokers. I suspect that these were caused more by the anxiety of trying something “new” and possibly mind expanding than the reality called for.  Actually in both incidents I thought it had to do with exaggerated fear and expectations of having ones mind “blown” along with stronger than usual weed or, in one case hashish. 

By the early seventies, along with sex, other drugs and rock and roll, smoking weed had become a regular activity much as the martini was a part of the social rite in “straight” company. At the time I was living in married student housing near the campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey where my first husband was a graduate student. Nobody had much money but we were generally able chip in to scrape together the cost of a bag to get our little group of friends through the weekend.

 1953: Reefer Girl Cover artist: Rudy Nappi

Copyright 1998 Jeffrey Luther/PC Design PO Box 417 Palo Alto, CA 94302  www.pulpcards.com

 The scene on that campus, as it was a few years later at the University of Massachusetts where my husband then taught, was as open as it ever was to be and it was not at all unusual for students to be seen smoking everywhere on campus including indoors at movie showings, which incidentally were often not quite as advertised.  While as they say, if you remember the time (late 60’s and 70’s) you weren’t doing it right, I do recollect seeing Deep Throat which had been advertised in the student newspaper as Born Free, not to mention several other x-rated films like Behind The Green Door and Licorice Quartet, the latter incidentally being, the hottest porn film I have ever seen, all showing on campus and behind a haze of pot smoke to a full house of students and faculty. I do remember that much. Of course there were many other occasions on campus like concerts both indoor and outdoor as well as anti war demonstrations where everyone smoked quite openly with the campus police looking on seemingly unconcerned.  In the six plus years during which we were living among the students and faculty of the University of Massachusetts, I never once heard of nor knew of any interference by the police nor did I ever know of any marijuana related crimes on or off campus.  The spirit of the sixties was alive and well (and indeed) in spite of demonstrations against war, peace and love were not only slogans but also truly an integrated attitude of sharing and respect for humanity among the student and faculty and town population of Amherst Massachusetts. Even if this was not due to the availability of weed, its influence certainly helped fuel the thinking of that time. 

 By the mid seventies and into the eighties when first I lived in San Francisco and then later in New York City, marijuana was the least of anyone’s problems in light of the scourge of crack cocaine, heroine and alcohol that was taking a huge toll on the safety and character of our cities. By the mid seventies there were many movie theaters in New York where no one would even blink at the lighting of a joint during a film and walking down the street smoking a dooby, unless you actually blew some smoke directly into a cop’s face, was less likely to get you busted much less a reprimand than jay walking or squeegeeing a windshield.

 Getting marijuana was a little more difficult at times and in certain places.  For the most part I mostly dealt with friends who were able to buy small quantities that they sold at a small profit to cover the cost of their own stash making it a fairly safe thing to do.  I confess to having done the same for a short time but didn’t much care for being a dealer even among friends and with only small quantities.

The war on drugs of course still gave the powers that be, all the ammunition needed to impose harsh sentences for possession at random, for whatever reason or none at all for that matter, and there were many people incarcerated for having had a little baggie of personal weed in their possession. Even today’s news cites a case in New York City where a tiny amount of marijuana was cause to remove a woman’s children into child services custody.  For all the overall acceptance of marijuana use in the mainstream, the law still provided for outrageous sentencing if and when it pleased the police to use it.  Even though it was far less likely that “nice white middle class” people like us were to be imprisoned, it was never off the table and certainly would provide a powerful tool to keep the politically radical or an otherwise “undesirable” element at bay.

Over the years as the arm of the law exercised its rather arbitrary power over the use of marijuana at whim, perhaps the bigger travesty was that the lies that accumulated over the years, ignorantly or with malice, lumping all drugs into one category as if heroin and crack were the same as marijuana, was causing more harm than that attributed to the drug itself.  I remember clearly how a very young friend in Massachusetts who was trying hard to overcome a terrible heroine habit told of his experience with marijuana.  He had been warned by school and parents about the dangers of pot, all about jumping off roofs and going into comas and suicide and more, only to discover on his own how much they lied which led to his not believing what he was being told about the dangers of heroin either.  Indeed, having been lied to so blatantly once, why would he ever believe anything those people told him at all?  He asked to speak openly to my children about drug use and since I had always held the belief that children know and respect truth when they hear it, I did permit him to speak honestly with my children if and when an occasion called for such a discussion.  Neither of my children in spite of having been exposed to the realities of all kinds of drug experiences has ever succumbed to any kind of addiction.   Personally I find that speaking truth is a much better deterrent than telling kids to “just say no”, the grand failed solution of the Reagan era. 

So at last after all these years of looking over my shoulder, the good news is that I have finally come to a time and place where I can legally buy marijuana for medical purposes with a prescription.  The bad news is that I am no longer the beatnik turned hippie that smoked just for fun but now I am on old woman and perversely, I actually need my medical marijuana.  It is wonderful to be able to buy what I need for my specific requirements in any event.  I buy one strain, sativa, for increasing my appetite, and indicia for sleeping.  My “dispensary” carries several of each kind as well as different formulations for patients with specific needs.  For those who cannot inhale smoke there are liquids or edible forms such as brownies or lollipops as well.  Having used marijuana now for over forty years on a daily basis I am far more comfortable with having my good old indicia instead of a big pharma sleeping pill that allows users to get in their cars and drive off in their sleep or worse.  I have every confidence that besides falling asleep happily I will wake up with no hangover or grogginess at all the next morning, nor will I have suicidal thoughts or any of the myriad dangers of which users of prescription sleeping pills are warned.

 It would be very interesting to see a study of us old guys who have been long term regular pot smokers in comparison to other groups such as alcohol imbibers to see how the incidence of dementia or Alzheimer’s or other mind altering age factors have affected us.  For what it’s worth, I know many people of “a certain age” say over seventy, who have been using pot for thirty years or more and not a one of them has so far fallen prey to any of the diseases of the mind that threaten our aging population.  For the most part we are a pretty productive bunch enjoying our retirement and in some cases still working.  Perhaps it is only wishful thinking but wouldn’t it be a hoot if it turned out that smoking weed were actually good for you?  Of course we can never know until we grow up enough to get over our old differences of the sixties and to actually take a look at this aging stoner demographic to see how they have fared as opposed to the rest of the population.

  Rosie in Brooklyn, circa mid eighties.

 What is seriously criminal here is that the ignorance of a population that supports big pharma in their greed creates an atmosphere in which important research and development of marijuana’s usefulness can not be accomplished because it might put a dent in the profits of the corporate powers that control medicine in this country.  I have no doubt that this benevolent drug could have many more medicinal uses than those that we already understand.  I am sure that with some proper studies, new and even better strains could be developed that might perhaps provid many more benefits than we already know today.  Still and all, this old stoner is grateful to live in California where it has been legal to use marijuana for medical purposes for fifteen years and where I can finally be permitted to buy my stash legally and safely. With my Medicare card, my very civilized dispensary even gives me a five percent discount; call it an old age credit. While I guess I will never be able to stop looking over my shoulder as long as the federal government remains at odds with the states over this issue and I do not expect to see an end to the culture wars of the sixties that still fire up my generation for and against marijuana use we have taken a few steps forward.  It has been a long time coming.

 In conclusion, I want to be perfectly clear.  I am (with the exception of having broken the law in the old days before legalization for medical purposes), an upstanding citizen.  I vote, I pay my taxes and as a single mother I have raised two good law abiding children with no outside assistance and yes I smoke marijuana on a daily basis. Even as I advance in age my mind works as well as it ever did and I am fully engaged in the world around me.   I am not addicted to marijuana since it poses no problem for me to do without as I often have done while traveling or in other situations in which I feel uncomfortable with having any with me for legal reasons.  I have led a good and productive life as a stoner and hope to continue to do so for a long time to come.