April 10, 2017 • 54 mins
Pop culture stereotypes marijuana users as lovable, underachieving stoner guys, but what about weed-loving women? Cristen and Caroline discuss the past and present of women's relationship with weed and intersections of gender and the pot industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. Caroline. Maybe we should call this the
podcast Caroline. I got some weed puns and I'm not
afraid to use I know. I look forward to this
(00:25):
entire episode being peppered sprinkled with with puns. And I
would also like to note that Caroline is decked out
in green today totally by accident. Sure you are, uh.
First of all, though, before we get into this women
in Weed conversation, I would like to dedicate this episode
(00:46):
to our San Francisco lady listeners, some of whom are
participate in weed farming and have reported to us. So
they listened to Stuff Mom Never Told You while they
are trim and buds. So ladies were thinking of you
right now. So with that, let's talk a little bit
about the history of marijuana, specifically in the United States,
(01:11):
because a global history with most space it would just
take too long. Yeah, that would be an entire episode
by itself. Um, it did originate in China, we think anyway. Anyway,
what's interesting about marijuana and the history of its use
and growth is that policies around it, attitudes around it
have really kind of ebbed and flowed over the years.
It's never it hasn't been one straight trajectory in in
(01:34):
a negative direction like we like we tend to view
it today. It's kind of been up and down. Starting
in the seventeenth century, if you look at the American colonies,
the production of himp was actually encouraged for use in
rope sales and clothing, and years and years later George
Washington and Jefferson actually grew it. Yeah, and I'm the
(01:55):
first draft of the Declaration of Independence was actually written
on hemp paper, which I'm sure marijuana enthusias probably already
know and our fist pumping too right now. Um, And
just to clarify, hemp prefers to the stocks, stems, and
sterilized seeds of cannabis sativa. Marijuana is the leaves, flowers,
(02:16):
and the vible seeds of that plant. So there, it's
like different words for different parts of the plant. Right. Well,
So looking at the nineteenth century and the way they
viewed and used cannabis, they used it in more of
a medical way. Uh. Cannabis became a really popular ingredient
and a lot of medical products and was sold in pharmacies.
(02:37):
It was so popular for medical use, in fact, that
Queen Victoria's personal physician prescribed a hemp solution to help
relieve her painful minstrel cramps. Yeah, we found a lot
of fascinating cultural history of marijuana and his she's smoking
and weed smoking for Martin A. Lee's book Smoke Signals
the Social History of Marijuana, and he noted that in
(03:01):
eighteen forty two, an Irish guy named William O'Shaughnessy published
the first modern medical article about cannabis to appear in
a British scientific journals and it was read though by
both people in the UK and uh in the fledgling
United States. And he noted though that the general effects
(03:21):
of him which he had traveled to India and this
was where he first saw people smoking hashish and marijuana,
and he described the side effects as perpetual giggling, ravenous appetite,
a sensation of ascending mental exultation. And he also emphasized
it's potent painkilling effects and called it an anti convulsive
(03:43):
remedy of the greatest value. Well, so that sounds like
a pretty good pain remedy, a pretty good medical answer
to to a lot of ailments. Sounds like a wonder
drug to make Caroline interesting. Well, yeah, even sweetheart. Louisa
may Alcott in eighteen sixty nine wrote a short story
depicting the recreational use of cannabis, not not a medical use,
(04:07):
not you know, making sales out of hemp, but just
you know, hanging out, yeah, smoking marijuana. Well, they weren't
even smoking. This story made me laugh because they were
using early edibles. They were bond bonds laced with pot
that a doctor like profered to this board. So she
likes she was like, I need some excitement in my life.
(04:27):
And this doctor was like, why don't you eat some weed? Yeah,
I'm picturing like, I'm picturing some man with a like
a nefarious looking man with a mustache and a cape. Yes,
like here, and he opened his cape and he's got
all these brownies tucked inside exactly and coming from Luisa
may Alcott, you know, well, so I mean, continuing the
(04:47):
shift in attitudes, It's really interesting to see what happens
starting in the twentieth century, because we get good old
fashioned racism changing the way we you and use marijuana. Yeah,
I mean. Martin A. Lee notes in his book that
by the end of the nineteenth century, smoking ishies was
(05:09):
really seen as a stylish bohemian thing to do. Upper
class people would go to lounges and get stoned. And
it really wasn't until you have more Mexican immigrants entering
the US and the Mexican Revolution in nineteen ten that
you start seeing all of these just like all of
(05:31):
this anti marijuana propaganda coming out talking about how Mexicans
are smoking it and it gives them superhuman strength and
they would just become these killing machines, and they're giving
it to school children. Really, a lot of kinds, like
a lot of scare tactics were still kind of here today, right,
And it's you know, we we see this a lot
in various social stigma areas where something terrible is going
(05:57):
on in society and we pin our fears on us
gapegoat group. And in this case, it was the foreigners,
the Spanish speaking foreigners who who scared us. Because when
you look at the nine thirties, you know, we have
the Great Depression going on, you have massive unemployment. This
increases public resentment of these immigrants and it escalates concern
(06:17):
both about the immigrants themselves and this mariljuana cigarettes that
they're smoking. Yeah, they called it the marijuana Menace. And
just for one brief geographical note, the way that marijuanna
kind of worked its way, like from Mexico into the
United States is that essentially what they think happened is
(06:40):
slaves who were brought over to Brazil brought cannabis seeds
with them, and then from Brazil it's sort of snuck
its way up all the way to Mexico and then
into the United States. Because you know, when George Washington
was growing all this hemp and there was just hemp everywhere,
a lot of people weren't smoking it just because they
(07:00):
didn't know you could smoke it. So and meanwhile you
have people like William O'Shaughnessy going to India and seeing
people smoke She's like a different form of marijuana, and
then bringing that over. So then everything starts to combine
and there's this terrifying marijuana minute. It's just a it's
it's slimer. It's just slimer, which is appropriate for the
(07:23):
green color. Well, so then in the nineteen thirties you
start you start to see a lot of dominoes falling
as far as policy is concerned. Uh. In nineteen thirty
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is created and Henry j.
Anslinger serves as first commissioner. By nine thirty one, twenty
nine states had already outlawed marijuana, and side note, in
nineteen thirty six, that's when we get the propaganda film
(07:45):
Reefer Madness, and an singer, by the way, was really
intense in his dislike of marijuana, and he also, in
a similarly racist bent to that anti Mexican immigrants sentiment,
also was on the lookout specifically for black musicians of
(08:07):
the jazz movement who were also into weed. Um. And
he actually kept a special file called Marijuana and Musicians,
keeping tabs on people like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Jimmy Dorsey,
and Duke Ellington. Interesting. Yeah, So in nineteen thirty seven,
two things happened. One Congress passes the Marijuana Tax Act,
(08:28):
which effectively criminalizes marijuana, restricting possession of the drug to
people who paid an excise tax for certain authorized medical
and industrial uses. So still we're seeing that, Okay, some
medical uses are okay, but we're seeing a move towards
kind of outlawing marijuana basically, but also in nineteen thirty seven,
Anslinger pins the unintentionally hilarious essay Marijuana the Assassin of Youth.
(08:53):
I tell you what I mean. The thing is the
way Anslinger describes the effects of marijuana. It sounds as
I was reading it last night, I read a part
out loud to my boyfriend. He was like that drug
sounds amazing whatever it is, because it's like he's like,
marijuana will turn you into someone who will dance all
night and forget their cares. I obviously that's someone who's
(09:14):
never smoked. Well. But then he follows it up with
and then you kill yourself? Or do you turn into
some kind of murderous monster? Right? Yeah, Like from the
very beginning of that essay, he's he's painting young girls,
is like this vulnerable population, because he says, he describes
this this crime scene and it's the sprawled out body
of a young girl crushed on the sidewalk after a
(09:36):
plunge from an apartment house. Everybody called it a suicide,
but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic
known to America as marijuana and to history as hashish.
And it is around this time we start to see more,
in like the forties, fifties and sixties, these dubious studies
linking marijuana to all sorts of criminal activity. Ay, and
(10:01):
not criminal activity in the sense of like organized crime
rings or drug rings, I should say, but criminal activity
in terms of kids smoking a joint and then just
breaking windows and you know, jumping off buildings and sort
of the same thing too. It reminds me of that
classic anti drug p s A starring a very young
(10:22):
Helen Hunt, where she smokes PCP and then jumps out
the window. A lot of I mean, like a lot
of the symptoms they were associated with marijuana were a
lot more like things that you might more plausibly see
in as side effects of drugs like PCP, right, yeah,
they yeah, scare tactics. Yeah. So through the nineteen fifties
(10:43):
and sixties, marijuana gets more popular with the counterculture. Of course,
think about you know, Summer of Love. Hippie is free love,
blah blah blah. But at the same time that it's
getting more popular with hippies, it's also making inroads into
the living rooms of the white upper classes, So it's
definitely kind of an equal opportunity substance. But in the
nineteen seventies, we after all of that stuff with an
(11:06):
Slinger and the Marijuana Tacks Act, we see efforts to
lessons sentences and decriminalize marijuana, alongside more conservative social movements
to get rid of it and say that it's a
terrible influence on all of our young people. Yeah. In
nineteen sixty nine, famed anthropologist Margaret Mead actually testified book
for Congress that yes, she had tried it and that
(11:28):
it should be legalized. And I did not know before
researching for this podcast, Caroline. There's actually a congressionally appointed
a committee that looked into all of the research on
marijuana and all the laws, and they recommended to President
Nixon that he should decriminalize it. And he was like, nope,
I am not a crook and I'm not going to
(11:50):
decriminalized weed. And that was my Nixon impression. That's right,
she's waving peace signs in the year right now. Um.
But so it's it's interesting that the things that are
happening parallel to one another in the nineteen seventies, because
in seventy three, the d e A is founded, and
a year later, in seventy four, you have High Times founded,
which is a publication for buy and four marijuana ficionados. Yeah.
(12:15):
I think the original concept for it was Playboy Marijuana. Yeah,
so you have like centerfolds of plants instead of ladies,
or you have naked or nearly naked ladies with marijuana
nuggets covering unmentionable areas their bathing suit areas, their bathing
(12:36):
suit areas. Right, and actually we won't get into it yet.
Well we'll talk about this later, but that whole use
of naked women or scantily clad women in High Times
plays into what marijuana culture would become. But so in
seventies six, you have a lot of conservative parents groups
lobbying for stricter regulations of of marijuana and the prevention
(12:59):
of dragon by teenagers, and a lot of those groups
ended up becoming very influential, helping to shape a lot
of policies that we saw develop in the nineteen eighties. Yeah,
there was actually a milestone event in this anti marijuana
backlash that happened here and on podcast Backyards Caroline and Atlanta.
Apparently in August of nineteen seventies six, there was this
(13:23):
birthday party for I think it was the squirrel's twelfth
birthday or something. And the way the story was recounted,
it sounds very strange, so I'm curious to no more
details about it. But apparently the squirrel's parents, ron and
Marsha Mannett, went out into their backyard after the party
goers had went gone home, had flashlights and we're searching
through the grass and found all of these like joint
(13:47):
roaches and other paraphernalia, and a lot of like malt liquor.
And because they were so enraged by the use of
drugs even more so I guess in the alcohol, they
formed the Nosy Parents Association, and that effectively kicked off
this massive conservative parent led backlash against marijuana because they said,
(14:13):
my daughter was turning twelve years old and people were
smoking joints. Here I am again President Nixon apparently, but uh.
And and that set off this chain of events to
six with Ronald Reagan signing the Anti Drug Abuse Act,
which ratcheted everything back way way up, and then some
for weed laws. Yeah, we'd became on par with heroin
(14:36):
in terms of like being accused of crimes and being
sentenced for crimes well, and considering how dangerous it was,
saying that marijuana is as dangerous as heroin, I mean,
that's just a that's a that's quite a leap. That
just sounds like more people who have never smoked marijuana
than In ninety nine, we have George Bush, the first
(14:59):
his War on drug starting, and in we see that
California voters. And it's interesting because as goes California, so
goes the rest of the country. California voters passed Prop
to fifteen, allowing for the sale and medical use of
marijuana for patients with AIDS, cancer, and other serious and
painful diseases. So you can see that throughout history, nobody
(15:23):
has ever really denied those very very very early opinions
on marijuana that they were helpful or cannabis, that it
was helpful for painful conditions or just to help you sleep. Yeah,
and um. Today though, even though we have for instance,
most recently in two thousand twelve, Washington in Colorado voting
(15:43):
to legalize marijuana, and still in California, if you have
a medical marijuana license, you can buy it from dispensaries,
but it is still classified as a Schedule one drug,
which means that federally speaking, you no matter what state
you live in, federal law puts it on par with
drugs like heroin, LST and ecstasy. Yeah. They they claim
(16:07):
also if it's a Schedule on drug, that means that
it has no current accepted medical use in the US
and a high potential for abuse, which you know, goes
against a lot of other things that a lot of
other people have said, which basically means that pot is
somehow worse than cocaine and meth. Yeah, because what they're
saying is that there have been medicinal uses somehow four
(16:29):
derivatives of those other drugs, even though you do have UH.
For instance, a synthetic THHC product called Marinal, which has
been developed specifically to help control nausea and vomiting side
effects from things like chemotherapy, and also to stimulate appetite
and AIDS patients. In Marinal was labeled as a Schedule
(16:49):
three drug, meaning it as a moderate to low potential
for physical and psychological dependence. UM And one thing I
wish I had written down the name of the specific drug,
but it's not a synthetic THHD product. It is actually UM,
a THHD compound derived straight from marijuana that Georgia lawmakers
(17:09):
are actually trying to make legal in this state, which
is notable simply because Georgia is so conservative. I mean, hello,
we're the birthplace of the nosy parents society, right, Um,
But there these lawmakers are saying that it's important force.
I think it's helping for side effects for kids with
(17:29):
um seizure seizures, And of course other lawmakers argue, well,
this is a slippery slope towards putting a joint in
the hand of every school child in Georgia, which you're nope.
But even um, I mean not to get too much
off on a local politics tangent, but even conservative Governor
(17:50):
Nathan Deal, because the marijuana, the medical marijuana thing failed,
even Deal has said that he would try to work
something out, kind of working around the legislature. So even
Nathan Deal sees the benefit of helping children who have
these life threatening seizures. But anyway, speaking of its medical use,
medical marijuana is legal in twenty states and d C.
(18:13):
So there's something to it. And before we get into gender,
because I have a feeling some of our listeners have
been like, what, well, what about women and weed. He said,
this is gonna be women and weed. Don't worry. There
is so much to talk about in terms of gender
women in marijuana. But before we get into our midroal break,
I just want to first run down quickly today who
(18:38):
is smoking weed in the United States. Well, according to
data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eighteen
point one million Americans over twelve years old in two
thousand ten said that yes, they had smoked pot in
the past thirty days, over fifty percent. Now, according to
the a c l U of Americans also support the
legalization of marijuana and inteen if you look at older Americans,
(19:04):
thirty eight percent of adults say that they've tried it,
and the average age of smoking marijuana for the first
time as of two thousand twelve was seventeen point nine years.
But and now we will lead into gender, Caroline, men
are twice as likely to report smoking it. So let's
(19:24):
get into the gender of marijuana consumption when we come
right back from a quick break and now back to
the show. Okay, so right before the break, Christien was
giving you a breakdown of who is smoking marijuana in
(19:47):
the US, and she did mention that guys are a
lot more likely than women to say that they have
smoked marijuana. Um, but let's let's talk a little bit
about age first, because that that gender gap and they're
is one, uh definitely appears right out of the gate.
So we found a lot of studies basically looking at
the gender breakdown among adolescents because as a studying sex
(20:12):
roles from points out, marijuana is conspicuous as a token
of leisure and sociability in adolescent culture, and adolescents tend
to get it from their peers. And one of the
other studies we looked at from the Journal of Addictive
Medication and twenty eleven pointed out that while males guys,
(20:33):
male adolescents are more likely to use marijuana, girls transition
from first use to regular use faster than guys do.
Although they cite previous research, mail adolescents are more likely
to become dependent in the first few years after initiation.
So there you have the development of more dudes are
(20:53):
doing it. And if you look at overall numbers though,
of high schoolers who have smoked pot, forty two per
scent of high school seniors said that they had used
marijuana at some point in their lives according to two
thousand eight data. And if you look at the gender
breakdown of that, I mean, the percentage of boys versus
girls who have tried pot in say middle school or
(21:14):
high school, is it huge. Uh. They found twenty nine
percent of the guys that they pulled said that they
had smoked pot in the past year compared to of girls.
So there's clearly a little you know, a few more
guys who are doing it. But was even more significant
is that a lot of times, Carol and you mentioned
that a lot of times these kids will get weed
(21:36):
from other kids, and it's usually boy kids and they're
getting the weed from And there was even in that
sexual study. Um, what they did was essentially said up
these focus groups with kids, asking them about times that
they had smoked pot, what their perceptions were of girls
and guys who smoked pot, and basically said that if
a girl is smoking pot, she's usually kind of a
(22:00):
you know, one girl among many guys, and that it's
considered more of a guy thing and not very uh,
not very ladylike. Should we say, well, that's something I mean,
that's something that somebody actually said, like, you know, I
somebody was saying my mother told me not to do
it because it wasn't the ladylike thing to do. That
(22:20):
this is something that just stoner guys do. Women are
supposed to hold it together. But um, yeah, that sex
roles study from from nine was talking about how these
traditional roles, these boxes that were in limit girls in
their access to that particular form of leisure. It's supposed
to be just a guy thing, and if girls are
(22:41):
doing it, oh well, they must be kind of their
floozies pots pots, going back to little reefer madness, right.
But I found it interesting too that when these researchers
in that Journal of Addictive Medications study, we're looking at
the demographics of who was smoking poe in high school.
They found that white girls essentially were among all of
(23:05):
the girls, had the highest likelihood of doing it. Which
is in contrast too, if you look at arrest numbers
for marijuana offenses, African Americans four times as likely to
be arrested, even though especially if you move into the
adult populations, they're not smoking it anymore than white people
are smoking it. Yeah, and among adolescent males, African American
(23:29):
or Hispanic and Latino ethnicity was associated with greater odds
of past thirty day use in that study, so there
is a divide there as well. And one thing about
this episode we should point out we're not going to
get into deeply into the health aspects of marijuana. We're
not going to debate whether or not it's healthy or
unhealthy to smoke marijuana compared to drinking alcohol um. But
(23:54):
we should note, especially for younger populations, a lot of
these studies are focused on the concern of kids smoking
pot because you would think, with developing brains and all,
that probably not a great idea for kids to be
smoking pot. And most of these studies tend to find
negative behavioral correlates to adolescent pot use, such as having
(24:16):
lower grades or having behavioral problems girls in particular dealing
with anxiety and depression, which I have a feeling you
would see reflected also in the adult female population who's
smoking pot UM. But then you also get into issues
of correlation versus causation that a lot of these studies
don't really address very much. So if you look just
(24:36):
at all of these study abstracts, it does make it
look a little marijuana menace ee saying that only bad
kids are smoking weed and smoking weed makes kids bad,
whereas it's probably a variable in a whole cocktail of
things happening. Exactly, Yeah, totally. Well, if we look at
(24:57):
those adolescent girls as they grow up, they are playing
a major part in this conversation that a lot of
people are having today around kind of marijuana, the use
of it, the whole industry as a whole um, especially
since we tend to have this stereotype of of pot
smokers as being you know, the Big Lebowski. Yeah, I
(25:21):
mean there's the whole trope of and he's usually white,
which is also important. We'll get into that as well,
but the whole trope of a slacker stoner dude. I mean,
just think about all of the movies you have, Half
Baked Friday, the Big Lebowski, Pineapple Express. This is the
end um. I may or may not when I was
in high school have seen the movie How High starring
(25:44):
method Man in the theater and what what else are
you gonna do on a Friday night? Um? But there,
I mean, it's it's endless. And when there are girl
or even in Knocked Up, where Seth Rogan and his
friends are always hanging out taking bong rips and meanwhile
the women are busy getting their lives together. Yeah, the
women are all nags. They're busy getting their lives together.
(26:05):
They're not partake partaking in the pot smoking. And mcclan's
magazine in March looked at that, looked at that division
of how like, if there is a stone er, if
there's a male stoner character, there are no apologies for
his behavior. You sort of accept him as he is,
and it's okay because he's a lovable guy. He's hanging
(26:25):
out in his basketball shorts just smoking pot and eat
and Dorrito's and that's okay, that's what we expect. And
it's also that these guys, like christ and said, are
normally white, so it's it's safe because it's not playing
off of what we like stereo dangerous stereotypes. Yeah, because
if you look in pop culture at weed among white guys,
it's this sort of lovable, soft slacker dude, Whereas if
(26:49):
you look at pop culture stereotypes of weed and black guys,
it's usually tied into crime or portrayals of gang activity,
or they're the ones who are dealing to the slack
or white guys. And this is something that sociologist Wendy
Chapkiss addressed in her essay called the Trouble with Mary
(27:10):
Jane's Gender that she wrote in a and she said quote,
the slacker attitude relies on a mismatch between expectation and condition.
This is why it's most available to white, hetero men
with some measure of class privilege. And so yet again
you still kind of see in a way echoes of
(27:31):
that early twentieth century racism that first planted the seeds
in the American public's mind as marijuana being you know,
something something bad, something that you know these other people
would do, not not our, you know, our good, upright
American citizens. And yet now with white guys doing it,
(27:54):
it is sort of like been the trope has been
molded to wear. It's not necessarily acceptable, but kind of
lovable and acceptable. Who doesn't love the dude? But women? Yeah,
but women aren't really afforded that. And so, in talking
about the show the new show broad City, mcclean's point,
mcclean's magazine points out that you know, here to women
(28:16):
who are kind of paving the way in somewhat because
they're not making apologies for their behavior. And they even
mentioned screenwriter Jamie Denbo's Best Buds, a stoner comedy that
she's developing with Natalie Portman, and she was telling Jezebel
back in two that it's kind of her cause to
prove that, uh, women can smoke weed too and have
(28:37):
fun and still be like contributing members of society. Yeah,
I mean, because if you think about, for instance, how
prominent role that alcohol plays in a you know, the
most seminal female show of all time, can we call
it Sex in the City, where they tend to go
out at least one steering every show, they have their
(28:58):
you know, their Cosmopolitans and have signature drinks that they get,
and it's interesting to see how, I mean, weed doesn't
play as prominent role I would say in broad City,
but nonetheless you have a Lana an Abby Abbey openly
smoking weed or looking for weed, and it's kind of
treated in the same kind of way as going out
and getting cosmos is among Carrie and the gals, which
(29:22):
is sort of a refreshing twist. And another thing too
that's also refreshing about broad cities portrayal of this is
that a lot of times in those like Stoner Dude
kind of comedies. They might have a token girl who's
also a stoner, but she's usually seen as sort of pathetic.
The fact that she would be playing video games and
(29:43):
eating cheetos all days, like, oh poor thing. But for
a lot of abbey is just like what, Yeah, they're
they're hilarious and they're just gonna smoke. Yeah, and that
whole you know, pathetic girl on the couch is is
definitely one portrayal of women in weed culled. Sure. Another
kind of unfortunately, in my opinion, is the bikini bud tenders.
(30:06):
These women who are being hired by pot dispensaries to
show we like their bud light girls like you know,
just a little bikinis or nurse outfits. These are also
the women who were at conferences and conventions trying to
answer questions or just posing for pictures with fans. Yeah,
it reminded me of our craft beer episode that came
(30:27):
out recently and how you have, uh, these women who
are starting to brew their own beer and start up
labels and are actually making names for themselves in craft beer,
but they still aren't always getting taken seriously because of
the legacy of shot girls of attractive girls being hired
(30:48):
to where you know, tiny bud light bikinis to sell beer,
and so because sort of in a similar way as
beer has been, you know, more of a predominantly male
culture as is weed, it perpetuates this idea that weed
is something that guys do and they often do it together,
and women are just accessories. And it also two ties
(31:10):
into the whole High Times culture of women just being
objects upon which you placed marijuana leaves in strategic locations,
which I mean I looking at those centerfolds as we
did to prep for this podcast, Caroline, I don't know
how men would find that sexy. It just doesn't. I mean,
(31:30):
obviously I can see how attractive women in their bodies
are considered sexy, but the it's so the pot leaves
everywhere is just so silly and cliche to be like,
it's it's not very aesthetically pleasy. I just don't. I don't.
I don't get that. So you won't be hanging those
up in your cubicle anytime soon. I mean, if I
were a guy, I would just be laughing at myself,
(31:52):
laughing at these weed centerfolds, rather than being like, oh, hubbub,
because that's what guys say right when and then they're
in their eyes, bug out of their head. Oh yeah,
Um well, a lot of a lot of scholars would
argue that that whole tongue in cheek, high time, centerfold
(32:14):
bikini bud tender culture is actually doing kind of a
disservice to a lot of women, not just the women
who are in the magazines themselves, but also kind of
women overall who want to be in the culture, want
to be in the industry, want to help shape policy reform.
Wendy Chakis, who Kristen cited earlier in her paper from
(32:35):
talks about women's voices being muted while their bodies are
hyper visible in this commercial cannabis culture, and she talks
about how by not paying attention to gendered stereotypes and inequalities,
we are putting up obstacles to women's full participation in
drug policy reform. Yeah, she even refers to these initiatives
(32:56):
to legalize marijuana also as a guy sing because if
you look at it's changing a little bit now. But
if you look at the predominant leadership among groups that
are lobbying for marijuana's legalization in the United States, it
usually is mostly men. At the top, and it probably
(33:17):
ties into these sort of social prejudices against marijuana and
maybe a heightened penalty for violating that if you are
a woman, because it's already considered sort of an unladylike
thing to admit to do. Um. And so she says
that it's expected that guys will do it because there
is at least since some you know, sort of subcultures,
(33:41):
sort of a cool cashide being a dude stoner bra.
I mean, there's an entire show Workaholics all about me.
I know, I was just talking about Broad City and
how they smoke pot, but I mean Workaholics even before
that is all about guys who would rather smoke pot
than go to work. Yeah, but then you have the
pathetic woman stoner character, and I mean that's just what
that's just literally swapping out a woman for a man.
(34:03):
So that's just another example of women doing male behavior
or the male stereotype and being judged for it. Yeah. Yeah.
Whereas on the flip side to one, one last thing
about those bud tenders, I just also thought it was
funny that these women are being hired to where sexy
pot clothes if you want to call them clothes because
(34:25):
normally they're kind of too small to constitute clothing. But
it's like if if you get a group of stoners
in a room, you don't need anything else to help,
So we except weed, you know, right, yeah, And even
if we move away from say weed conventions, because yes,
(34:46):
we had conventions exist, um and on screen portrayals of stoners.
Even women who are you know, in the real world,
have real jobs, have their lives together, and enjoy smoking pot,
are very hesitant about coming out of what is referred
to as the weed closet. And freedmen who we type
(35:08):
so many times in the podcast. She wrote a piece
for New York Magazine in two thousand thirteen and was
talking to women about their pot habits, and none of
them wanted to be named because either because a in
a lot of places that it's still illegal, and so
they didn't want to put themselves out there, you know,
(35:28):
for any kind of workplace risk, but also just not
wanting to have any kind of negative stereotypes saddle to them,
because as soon as you say, oh, well, yeah, I
I smoked pot, then you might have a laundry list
of negative judgments of like oh well wait, you must
be some kind of horrible slack or who can't control
(35:50):
herself with anything. Yeah, like I won't be able to
trust you to get your job done or whatever. You
must dance all night and then jump through windows. Um. Yeah,
because one woman that Freeman talked to said, you know,
I I've always been kind of proud of the fact
that I'm not the stereotypical pot smoker. You wouldn't look
at me and know that I smoke pot. And she says,
I have my bleep together. Yeah, bleep bleep is altogether
(36:15):
she's got her beep buttoned down. Well, And that was
the same case as with this two thousand nine Marie
Clear article about the quote unquote Stiletto stoner's basically women
who make a good amount of money who smoke pot
instead of drink wine to wind down. And one of
them went on the record with her name, but the
(36:36):
other ones were also all anonymous because they just didn't
want to be seen as pot smokers. Yeah, And the
whole thing was like women, women, working women going home
at the end of a long day and winding with
a blunt instead of a glass of wine. And then
you know, talking about how these are all like type
a career track rat race, women in power suits who
(36:58):
go home and light up, whether alone or with with girlfriends,
all as sex in the city. And it does make
me wonder, like, did you just realize that women's smoke pot?
I think it is sort of this emerging realization, especially
because women smoking pot are still being portrayed as trend pieces.
(37:19):
It's still this you know, we're uncovering these pockets of
women doing it. Um. But one thing too that came
to mind with the stiletto Stoner's is that the after
five cocktail happy our culture is so accepted as a
part of you know, corporate America, where you're gonna you're
gonna work really hard and then you're gonna go reward
(37:40):
yourself with eighteen scotches. And that's not a radical idea,
even though it's horrifically but you know, potentially damaging to
your health and and expensive and expensive, and you know,
yet an occasional weed smoke every now and then it's
seen as something you know that you don't even want
(38:01):
to talk about, right well, because there's this attitude you
you you think of women involved in marijuana at all
as the mothers who are fighting against legalization. And when
you think of men involved, it's either as the stoners
or as the people who were, you know, angling for
marijuana to become legalized. And that's just not that's just
(38:22):
not the case necessarily. I mean, I'm not saying that
it's not. But there is a bigger internet presence for
instance for women, uh websites like Ladybud dot com, Women's
Marijuana Movement dot org. There's even the quote unquote marijuana
Mommy is going on CNN to say that smoking makes
them better moms. So there's like there's a lot more
(38:43):
diversity going on and a lot more openness I think
in industry involvement, whether well industry or just culture involvement. Yeah,
and and with the whole mom angled too, for people
who involved in a legalization activism, they are trying to
target moms more. For instance, when Washington voted in two
thousand twelve to legalize marijuana, they sided women voting, and
(39:07):
specifically this one ad that was released right before the
election that depicted this soccer mom type talking about all
of the different ways that legalizing marijuana and the tax
benefits from that, and how that would enrich school systems.
There would be I d checks to make sure that
kids wouldn't be able to just walk up to a
dispensary and buy it. And also how by freeing up
(39:31):
all of the law enforcement resources that are focused on
marijuana arrest, diverting that into you know, other areas that
will help make kids safer. It was a brilliant tactic.
And of women voters in Washington voted for legalization right
because and yeah, and they talked to basically the people
(39:53):
who were behind this this marketing push. And yeah, once
once you get moms on board with the fact that
this regulation has a lot more to do with your
family's safety than it does with you know, Stone or
Joe down the street getting high and potentially, like I
don't know, driving a car through your backyard. You know, like,
(40:13):
once you change the focus, Caroline Stannard, Joe is not
gonna get up. And that's exactly well, that's exactly what
you have to You have to educate people about what
marijuana is gonna do to you. Stonard, Joe is playing
World of Warcraft any pizza roles and having a great
time doing it. That sounds like what did roommate does
without any sort of substance I now just want pizza roles. Um.
(40:36):
But let's let's look at another area too where women
are being recognized and also making inroads on their own,
kind of similar again to our craft brewing podcast, and
that's within the actual industry. We've talked about women consuming marijuana,
buying marijuana, voting for the legalization of marijuana. But what
(40:58):
about the women like the ones who this podcast is
dedicated to tending to the actual plants. Yeah, more and
more women are actually joining the industry now that it's
now that it's maturing. They might not necessarily be doing
the same exact things that the men are doing. Uh.
There was an article in l and a study by
(41:19):
Karen August from Humboldt State University in talking about how
there is just this army of women behind male weed
farmers or just the men who are dominating the industry
in general. Yeah. Um. Karen August, the Homeboat State University researcher,
did note that women growers who are the people that
she wanted to talk to, But women growers are still
(41:42):
on a large scale, pretty few or far between, and
so there aren't even really any studies at all on
women growing. But if you look at the marijuana farming process.
You do see a gender gap in who's doing more
of the manual labor in the farms and who does
the trimming. Women are often relegated to trimming the buds
(42:04):
because it's simply it's it's not, as I don't want
to say, physically demanding, because I'm sure it's very tedious work,
but it's not. It doesn't require as much physical strength.
You're not having to move these massive plants around, right.
And she also talks about the female lead kind of
legitimate employment that surrounds the industry, like these cottage industries
that are springing up around marijuana farms. Uh, you know,
(42:26):
selling paraphernalia, selling edibles, things like that, even clothing lines, posters,
marijuana art um. But it's often women creating these things. Yeah.
I did a quick search on Etsy for marijuana related goods.
And not to say that every you know Etsy account
(42:46):
is run by a woman, but let's just say there
was a lot of feminine looking marijuana paraphernalia being made
by artisans all over the world. Um. And Marie Claire
also cited women like Betty Aldworth, who's the deputy director
of the National Cannabis Industry Association in Colorado. There's also
(43:08):
Dale Sky Jones who who's executive chancellor of Oaksterdam University,
which is a school set up specifically to teach people
how to grow, tend, and start marijuana businesses. And Jennifer Murray,
who is the CEO of Canned Labs, which is focused
on looking at different applications for marijuana, whether it's uh,
(43:29):
you know, more for therapeutic and medicinal effects. So there
are you know, these different women doing all sorts of
things within the industry. And I think that slowly but surely,
we might be chipping away at the idea of you know,
being exclusively something that the stoner guys, stoner bros do.
(43:50):
Bra Yeah. Well, And in contrast to our stereotype of
the you know, angry conservative mother fighting against marijuana legalization,
you have this new image of a young mother fighting
for legalization because she is a mother, because she does
have children who would benefit from the legalization of medical marijuana.
(44:12):
The Atlantic looked at this back in saying that women
have long been involved in this fight. If you look
back to the nineteen eighties, you have Mary Jane, very
appropriately named Mary Jane Ruthvean better known as Brownie Mary.
She's a well known medical marijuana activist who would bake
potlace Brownie for AIDS patients in San Francisco. And around
(44:33):
the time that voters in California approved that proposition, you
have TV ads targeting women in support of legalizing medical
marijuana use, and the ad featured a sixty seven year
old nurse whose husband used it when he was dying
of cancer. So they're trying to drive home the fact
that there is this medical marijuana that could help families,
(44:54):
but also more women are just getting behind it because
they do use it for recreation. And what do you
think about mothers who advocate on behalf of you know,
legalized marijuana, whether it's medicinal or not. It's incredibly brave
because they're not just risking violating some you know, run
of the mill gender norms, but they're also risking putting
(45:15):
themselves in situations where people accused them of being bad
mothers and possibly getting their kids taken away from them,
which is a nightmare scenario that activists. Renee Petro found
herself in recently when she was investigated by the Florida
Child Protection Services based on a tip an anonymous tip
that she was giving her son, who has a rare
(45:37):
form of epilepsy, cannabis extract, which she was not doing
at all, But they came into her home and demanded
to interview her son in a different room about whether
or not his mom was giving him weed. Well, I
mean yeah, And and speaking of Georgia, you know now
that Colorado has legalized medical marijuana. I mean I was
(45:58):
listening to a story on NPR where all these families
They talked to some families in Georgia who were like,
I'm moving. I'm moving there because my kid has this
life threatening form of epilepsy. Wouldn't you move to help
your child? And so that's where that's where all the
politics go head to head with actually protecting our children
and what do they need? But yeah, along the same lines,
Dibby Goldsberry, who's the founder of the Berkeley Patients Group,
(46:20):
one of the largest dispensaries in California, was interviewed in
by High Times and basically confirms what Christian was talking about.
You know, we've had our children to protect this whole time.
She says, Um, it was scary because kids are being
taken from their parents who were arrested for simple possession,
and she talks about how she was an activist long
(46:41):
before she was ever a mother because she was just
she was scared too. She she didn't know if she
would be accused inaccurately of being a bad mother. Yeah,
I mean, And the whole kid's angle to the war
on drugs has always baffled me a bit because in
those studies it's confirmed over and over again that when
(47:02):
kids want to get their hands on marijuana, they do,
and they often do it from other kids. Like it's
it's just being illegal is not making it any safer
for these children, sure, because then you're gonna get it
from some dummy who's and it's going to be laced
with something and you know they're not going to do
it at all, and then you might be Helen Hunt
(47:24):
jumping out of a window. That's exactly right. Um, But
there are there are activists women organizing, and there are
these groups, uh include Normal Women's Alliance, Mothers Against Misuse
and Abuse, and Moms for Marijuana that support not only
marijuana used by women, but they're also like actively trying
(47:47):
to change drug laws and as the case of Washington
and Colorado's legalization efforts have shown women are you know,
really a crucial demographic to legalizing marijuana. And it'll be
interesting to see in the coming years how that those
(48:08):
examples in those states might shape legalization efforts in other states.
And I will be curious to see how quickly legalization
spreads across the United States, because I mean, again, we
have not gotten into the health impacts of smoking marijuana.
I mean, regularly smoking anything obviously is not good for you.
(48:29):
All of the studies that suggest that it's harmful to
short term and even long term memory. There are don't
get us wrong, We understand that there are negative effects
of marijuana, as there are negative effects to other drugs
and also alcohol, sigarettes, things that are plenty legal in
the United States as well. But a lot of these
(48:50):
activists would argue, look, I'm not trying to get my
kid to smoke a joint. I'm just trying to give
him cannabis extracts so he doesn't have seizures and die.
Or I will say that I know at least one
marijuana mommy who after she had her kid, not while
she was pregnant, people don't worry, but after she became
a mother she hadn't smoked occasionally beforehand, but she became
(49:13):
a fairly regular pot smoker because she was just like,
it really helps me deal with things. It really does well. Yeah,
and I have a friend who has a really severe
case of Crohn's disease and she was on all this
medication for a long time. She was just sick as
a dog all the time, and she smokes marijuana. Just
said that she can eat. So you know, well, I
(49:38):
think if anything, no matter what side of you know,
the legalization debate that you stand on, it's worthwhile to
consider where, especially if you're in the US, because this
is a very US centric conversation we've been having. But
where that American uh dislike or distaste for the marijuana
(49:59):
menace really came from? Because it is rooted in a
very dark place of racism. Yeah, it went from treating
a queen's cramps to being called a menace because it
was associated with the other, the foreign other. So now
we want to hear from you out there, what do
you think about marijuana culture and all of this gendered aspects.
(50:22):
Are you a woman who might be out in Humboldt
County tending to harvest I don't know when harvest is
so so you might be like, no, there's like nothing
to harvest right now. Um, are you a lady who
enjoys a joint after a long day at work? We
want to hear from you. We won't write you out
to your bosses. Let us let us know all of
your marijuana thoughts. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(50:43):
where you can email us, and you can also tweet
us at mom Stuff podcast or send us a message
on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages to
share with you speaking of our craft beer episode yet
again about craft beer. So I've got one here from
Eli and he said, Hi, ladies, after listening to your
(51:04):
craft beer Brewster's podcast, I have a couple of things
I wanted to write you about. When my girlfriend and
I go out to the bar, after we've ordered our beers,
will either look at the bottles or look up the
A B V on her smartphone. At least two thirds
of the time she she will have gotten a beer
that is significantly stronger than whenever I'm drinking. I don't
know if she's going for economy or just trying to
(51:25):
spite some people she knows who say girls don't drink beer. Also,
she announced last month that she thought we needed a
hobby we could do together. I immediately thought she meant
fixing up some of the furniture we bought or something
like that. But no, we're going to start homebrewing beer.
It sounds like a fun hobby. So thanks, Eli, and
I have a letter here from Phoenix who says I
(51:47):
recently got a job as a part time brand ambassador
read promotional model for a small local craft brewer. The
company is so small that I actually get paid in beer.
It is quite excellent and expensive, so I'm not complaining.
Your podcast inspired me to share my experience. Both the
owners and brewers for the company are men. There are
two other brand ambassadors, also men. I am the only
(52:08):
woman on staff. This is absolutely not a problem in
the workplace. Everyone respects my opinions and knowledge of the beer.
When I go out for tasting, I find myself in
a very different situation. Most people like my beers, but
most of the comments I get are about me. This
is really good, but you haven't even tried it. Pretty
girls like you don't like beer this strong? Or occasionally,
(52:28):
what agency do you work for? Questions none of my
male colleagues received it is frustrating, but when I give
my honest opinions on the brew, these men typically have
a change of heart. I get approached less by women,
and most who come up are afraid all my beers
will be bitter. I have never sold a whole case
to a woman, but usually I can find a sample
they like. As a response to your numerous comments about
(52:49):
the bud light girls or chicks with big boobs selling beer,
I was taken aback. I have big boobs, naturally blonde hair,
and an athletic body from being a professional equine dentist.
Though this is definitely a reason some people question my
sincere passion for beer. I want you and other listeners
to know that girls with big boobs can really like
beer too. Please help me stop stereotyping the busty women
(53:10):
in beer. Cheers Phoenix, So thank you, Phoenix. I think, uh,
you know, women with boobs or no boobs or some
boobs are allowed to drink and love whatever they want. Yeah,
I really I hope we didn't seem like we were
anti big boobs. We're anti we're pro. I should say
all boobs were pro boobs. Yeah, and whatever, shape, size, color, orientation,
(53:33):
and by oritation, I mean which way they're pointing, nipple number, yeah, whatever.
We support them all, all of it. We support the boobs,
so uh. If you have thoughts that you want to
share with us, Mom staff of Discovery. Dot com is
our email address. To find links to all of our
social as well as all of the sources that we
cited in today's podcast, Along with all of our blogs
(53:54):
and videos, there's one place to go. It's Stuff Mom
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. Caroline. Maybe we should call this the
podcast Caroline. I got some weed puns and I'm not
afraid to use I know. I look forward to this
(00:25):
entire episode being peppered sprinkled with with puns. And I
would also like to note that Caroline is decked out
in green today totally by accident. Sure you are, uh.
First of all, though, before we get into this women
in Weed conversation, I would like to dedicate this episode
(00:46):
to our San Francisco lady listeners, some of whom are
participate in weed farming and have reported to us. So
they listened to Stuff Mom Never Told You while they
are trim and buds. So ladies were thinking of you
right now. So with that, let's talk a little bit
about the history of marijuana, specifically in the United States,
(01:11):
because a global history with most space it would just
take too long. Yeah, that would be an entire episode
by itself. Um, it did originate in China, we think anyway. Anyway,
what's interesting about marijuana and the history of its use
and growth is that policies around it, attitudes around it
have really kind of ebbed and flowed over the years.
It's never it hasn't been one straight trajectory in in
(01:34):
a negative direction like we like we tend to view
it today. It's kind of been up and down. Starting
in the seventeenth century, if you look at the American colonies,
the production of himp was actually encouraged for use in
rope sales and clothing, and years and years later George
Washington and Jefferson actually grew it. Yeah, and I'm the
(01:55):
first draft of the Declaration of Independence was actually written
on hemp paper, which I'm sure marijuana enthusias probably already
know and our fist pumping too right now. Um, And
just to clarify, hemp prefers to the stocks, stems, and
sterilized seeds of cannabis sativa. Marijuana is the leaves, flowers,
(02:16):
and the vible seeds of that plant. So there, it's
like different words for different parts of the plant. Right. Well,
So looking at the nineteenth century and the way they
viewed and used cannabis, they used it in more of
a medical way. Uh. Cannabis became a really popular ingredient
and a lot of medical products and was sold in pharmacies.
(02:37):
It was so popular for medical use, in fact, that
Queen Victoria's personal physician prescribed a hemp solution to help
relieve her painful minstrel cramps. Yeah, we found a lot
of fascinating cultural history of marijuana and his she's smoking
and weed smoking for Martin A. Lee's book Smoke Signals
the Social History of Marijuana, and he noted that in
(03:01):
eighteen forty two, an Irish guy named William O'Shaughnessy published
the first modern medical article about cannabis to appear in
a British scientific journals and it was read though by
both people in the UK and uh in the fledgling
United States. And he noted though that the general effects
(03:21):
of him which he had traveled to India and this
was where he first saw people smoking hashish and marijuana,
and he described the side effects as perpetual giggling, ravenous appetite,
a sensation of ascending mental exultation. And he also emphasized
it's potent painkilling effects and called it an anti convulsive
(03:43):
remedy of the greatest value. Well, so that sounds like
a pretty good pain remedy, a pretty good medical answer
to to a lot of ailments. Sounds like a wonder
drug to make Caroline interesting. Well, yeah, even sweetheart. Louisa
may Alcott in eighteen sixty nine wrote a short story
depicting the recreational use of cannabis, not not a medical use,
(04:07):
not you know, making sales out of hemp, but just
you know, hanging out, yeah, smoking marijuana. Well, they weren't
even smoking. This story made me laugh because they were
using early edibles. They were bond bonds laced with pot
that a doctor like profered to this board. So she
likes she was like, I need some excitement in my life.
(04:27):
And this doctor was like, why don't you eat some weed? Yeah,
I'm picturing like, I'm picturing some man with a like
a nefarious looking man with a mustache and a cape. Yes,
like here, and he opened his cape and he's got
all these brownies tucked inside exactly and coming from Luisa
may Alcott, you know, well, so I mean, continuing the
(04:47):
shift in attitudes, It's really interesting to see what happens
starting in the twentieth century, because we get good old
fashioned racism changing the way we you and use marijuana. Yeah,
I mean. Martin A. Lee notes in his book that
by the end of the nineteenth century, smoking ishies was
(05:09):
really seen as a stylish bohemian thing to do. Upper
class people would go to lounges and get stoned. And
it really wasn't until you have more Mexican immigrants entering
the US and the Mexican Revolution in nineteen ten that
you start seeing all of these just like all of
(05:31):
this anti marijuana propaganda coming out talking about how Mexicans
are smoking it and it gives them superhuman strength and
they would just become these killing machines, and they're giving
it to school children. Really, a lot of kinds, like
a lot of scare tactics were still kind of here today, right,
And it's you know, we we see this a lot
in various social stigma areas where something terrible is going
(05:57):
on in society and we pin our fears on us
gapegoat group. And in this case, it was the foreigners,
the Spanish speaking foreigners who who scared us. Because when
you look at the nine thirties, you know, we have
the Great Depression going on, you have massive unemployment. This
increases public resentment of these immigrants and it escalates concern
(06:17):
both about the immigrants themselves and this mariljuana cigarettes that
they're smoking. Yeah, they called it the marijuana Menace. And
just for one brief geographical note, the way that marijuanna
kind of worked its way, like from Mexico into the
United States is that essentially what they think happened is
(06:40):
slaves who were brought over to Brazil brought cannabis seeds
with them, and then from Brazil it's sort of snuck
its way up all the way to Mexico and then
into the United States. Because you know, when George Washington
was growing all this hemp and there was just hemp everywhere,
a lot of people weren't smoking it just because they
(07:00):
didn't know you could smoke it. So and meanwhile you
have people like William O'Shaughnessy going to India and seeing
people smoke She's like a different form of marijuana, and
then bringing that over. So then everything starts to combine
and there's this terrifying marijuana minute. It's just a it's
it's slimer. It's just slimer, which is appropriate for the
(07:23):
green color. Well, so then in the nineteen thirties you
start you start to see a lot of dominoes falling
as far as policy is concerned. Uh. In nineteen thirty
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is created and Henry j.
Anslinger serves as first commissioner. By nine thirty one, twenty
nine states had already outlawed marijuana, and side note, in
nineteen thirty six, that's when we get the propaganda film
(07:45):
Reefer Madness, and an singer, by the way, was really
intense in his dislike of marijuana, and he also, in
a similarly racist bent to that anti Mexican immigrants sentiment,
also was on the lookout specifically for black musicians of
(08:07):
the jazz movement who were also into weed. Um. And
he actually kept a special file called Marijuana and Musicians,
keeping tabs on people like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Jimmy Dorsey,
and Duke Ellington. Interesting. Yeah, So in nineteen thirty seven,
two things happened. One Congress passes the Marijuana Tax Act,
(08:28):
which effectively criminalizes marijuana, restricting possession of the drug to
people who paid an excise tax for certain authorized medical
and industrial uses. So still we're seeing that, Okay, some
medical uses are okay, but we're seeing a move towards
kind of outlawing marijuana basically, but also in nineteen thirty seven,
Anslinger pins the unintentionally hilarious essay Marijuana the Assassin of Youth.
(08:53):
I tell you what I mean. The thing is the
way Anslinger describes the effects of marijuana. It sounds as
I was reading it last night, I read a part
out loud to my boyfriend. He was like that drug
sounds amazing whatever it is, because it's like he's like,
marijuana will turn you into someone who will dance all
night and forget their cares. I obviously that's someone who's
(09:14):
never smoked. Well. But then he follows it up with
and then you kill yourself? Or do you turn into
some kind of murderous monster? Right? Yeah, Like from the
very beginning of that essay, he's he's painting young girls,
is like this vulnerable population, because he says, he describes
this this crime scene and it's the sprawled out body
of a young girl crushed on the sidewalk after a
(09:36):
plunge from an apartment house. Everybody called it a suicide,
but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic
known to America as marijuana and to history as hashish.
And it is around this time we start to see more,
in like the forties, fifties and sixties, these dubious studies
linking marijuana to all sorts of criminal activity. Ay, and
(10:01):
not criminal activity in the sense of like organized crime
rings or drug rings, I should say, but criminal activity
in terms of kids smoking a joint and then just
breaking windows and you know, jumping off buildings and sort
of the same thing too. It reminds me of that
classic anti drug p s A starring a very young
(10:22):
Helen Hunt, where she smokes PCP and then jumps out
the window. A lot of I mean, like a lot
of the symptoms they were associated with marijuana were a
lot more like things that you might more plausibly see
in as side effects of drugs like PCP, right, yeah,
they yeah, scare tactics. Yeah. So through the nineteen fifties
(10:43):
and sixties, marijuana gets more popular with the counterculture. Of course,
think about you know, Summer of Love. Hippie is free love,
blah blah blah. But at the same time that it's
getting more popular with hippies, it's also making inroads into
the living rooms of the white upper classes, So it's
definitely kind of an equal opportunity substance. But in the
nineteen seventies, we after all of that stuff with an
(11:06):
Slinger and the Marijuana Tacks Act, we see efforts to
lessons sentences and decriminalize marijuana, alongside more conservative social movements
to get rid of it and say that it's a
terrible influence on all of our young people. Yeah. In
nineteen sixty nine, famed anthropologist Margaret Mead actually testified book
for Congress that yes, she had tried it and that
(11:28):
it should be legalized. And I did not know before
researching for this podcast, Caroline. There's actually a congressionally appointed
a committee that looked into all of the research on
marijuana and all the laws, and they recommended to President
Nixon that he should decriminalize it. And he was like, nope,
I am not a crook and I'm not going to
(11:50):
decriminalized weed. And that was my Nixon impression. That's right,
she's waving peace signs in the year right now. Um.
But so it's it's interesting that the things that are
happening parallel to one another in the nineteen seventies, because
in seventy three, the d e A is founded, and
a year later, in seventy four, you have High Times founded,
which is a publication for buy and four marijuana ficionados. Yeah.
(12:15):
I think the original concept for it was Playboy Marijuana. Yeah,
so you have like centerfolds of plants instead of ladies,
or you have naked or nearly naked ladies with marijuana
nuggets covering unmentionable areas their bathing suit areas, their bathing
(12:36):
suit areas. Right, and actually we won't get into it yet.
Well we'll talk about this later, but that whole use
of naked women or scantily clad women in High Times
plays into what marijuana culture would become. But so in
seventies six, you have a lot of conservative parents groups
lobbying for stricter regulations of of marijuana and the prevention
(12:59):
of dragon by teenagers, and a lot of those groups
ended up becoming very influential, helping to shape a lot
of policies that we saw develop in the nineteen eighties. Yeah,
there was actually a milestone event in this anti marijuana
backlash that happened here and on podcast Backyards Caroline and Atlanta.
Apparently in August of nineteen seventies six, there was this
(13:23):
birthday party for I think it was the squirrel's twelfth
birthday or something. And the way the story was recounted,
it sounds very strange, so I'm curious to no more
details about it. But apparently the squirrel's parents, ron and
Marsha Mannett, went out into their backyard after the party
goers had went gone home, had flashlights and we're searching
through the grass and found all of these like joint
(13:47):
roaches and other paraphernalia, and a lot of like malt liquor.
And because they were so enraged by the use of
drugs even more so I guess in the alcohol, they
formed the Nosy Parents Association, and that effectively kicked off
this massive conservative parent led backlash against marijuana because they said,
(14:13):
my daughter was turning twelve years old and people were
smoking joints. Here I am again President Nixon apparently, but uh.
And and that set off this chain of events to
six with Ronald Reagan signing the Anti Drug Abuse Act,
which ratcheted everything back way way up, and then some
for weed laws. Yeah, we'd became on par with heroin
(14:36):
in terms of like being accused of crimes and being
sentenced for crimes well, and considering how dangerous it was,
saying that marijuana is as dangerous as heroin, I mean,
that's just a that's a that's quite a leap. That
just sounds like more people who have never smoked marijuana
than In ninety nine, we have George Bush, the first
(14:59):
his War on drug starting, and in we see that
California voters. And it's interesting because as goes California, so
goes the rest of the country. California voters passed Prop
to fifteen, allowing for the sale and medical use of
marijuana for patients with AIDS, cancer, and other serious and
painful diseases. So you can see that throughout history, nobody
(15:23):
has ever really denied those very very very early opinions
on marijuana that they were helpful or cannabis, that it
was helpful for painful conditions or just to help you sleep. Yeah,
and um. Today though, even though we have for instance,
most recently in two thousand twelve, Washington in Colorado voting
(15:43):
to legalize marijuana, and still in California, if you have
a medical marijuana license, you can buy it from dispensaries,
but it is still classified as a Schedule one drug,
which means that federally speaking, you no matter what state
you live in, federal law puts it on par with
drugs like heroin, LST and ecstasy. Yeah. They they claim
(16:07):
also if it's a Schedule on drug, that means that
it has no current accepted medical use in the US
and a high potential for abuse, which you know, goes
against a lot of other things that a lot of
other people have said, which basically means that pot is
somehow worse than cocaine and meth. Yeah, because what they're
saying is that there have been medicinal uses somehow four
(16:29):
derivatives of those other drugs, even though you do have UH.
For instance, a synthetic THHC product called Marinal, which has
been developed specifically to help control nausea and vomiting side
effects from things like chemotherapy, and also to stimulate appetite
and AIDS patients. In Marinal was labeled as a Schedule
(16:49):
three drug, meaning it as a moderate to low potential
for physical and psychological dependence. UM And one thing I
wish I had written down the name of the specific drug,
but it's not a synthetic THHD product. It is actually UM,
a THHD compound derived straight from marijuana that Georgia lawmakers
(17:09):
are actually trying to make legal in this state, which
is notable simply because Georgia is so conservative. I mean, hello,
we're the birthplace of the nosy parents society, right, Um,
But there these lawmakers are saying that it's important force.
I think it's helping for side effects for kids with
(17:29):
um seizure seizures, And of course other lawmakers argue, well,
this is a slippery slope towards putting a joint in
the hand of every school child in Georgia, which you're nope.
But even um, I mean not to get too much
off on a local politics tangent, but even conservative Governor
(17:50):
Nathan Deal, because the marijuana, the medical marijuana thing failed,
even Deal has said that he would try to work
something out, kind of working around the legislature. So even
Nathan Deal sees the benefit of helping children who have
these life threatening seizures. But anyway, speaking of its medical use,
medical marijuana is legal in twenty states and d C.
(18:13):
So there's something to it. And before we get into gender,
because I have a feeling some of our listeners have
been like, what, well, what about women and weed. He said,
this is gonna be women and weed. Don't worry. There
is so much to talk about in terms of gender
women in marijuana. But before we get into our midroal break,
I just want to first run down quickly today who
(18:38):
is smoking weed in the United States. Well, according to
data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eighteen
point one million Americans over twelve years old in two
thousand ten said that yes, they had smoked pot in
the past thirty days, over fifty percent. Now, according to
the a c l U of Americans also support the
legalization of marijuana and inteen if you look at older Americans,
(19:04):
thirty eight percent of adults say that they've tried it,
and the average age of smoking marijuana for the first
time as of two thousand twelve was seventeen point nine years.
But and now we will lead into gender, Caroline, men
are twice as likely to report smoking it. So let's
(19:24):
get into the gender of marijuana consumption when we come
right back from a quick break and now back to
the show. Okay, so right before the break, Christien was
giving you a breakdown of who is smoking marijuana in
(19:47):
the US, and she did mention that guys are a
lot more likely than women to say that they have
smoked marijuana. Um, but let's let's talk a little bit
about age first, because that that gender gap and they're
is one, uh definitely appears right out of the gate.
So we found a lot of studies basically looking at
the gender breakdown among adolescents because as a studying sex
(20:12):
roles from points out, marijuana is conspicuous as a token
of leisure and sociability in adolescent culture, and adolescents tend
to get it from their peers. And one of the
other studies we looked at from the Journal of Addictive
Medication and twenty eleven pointed out that while males guys,
(20:33):
male adolescents are more likely to use marijuana, girls transition
from first use to regular use faster than guys do.
Although they cite previous research, mail adolescents are more likely
to become dependent in the first few years after initiation.
So there you have the development of more dudes are
(20:53):
doing it. And if you look at overall numbers though,
of high schoolers who have smoked pot, forty two per
scent of high school seniors said that they had used
marijuana at some point in their lives according to two
thousand eight data. And if you look at the gender
breakdown of that, I mean, the percentage of boys versus
girls who have tried pot in say middle school or
(21:14):
high school, is it huge. Uh. They found twenty nine
percent of the guys that they pulled said that they
had smoked pot in the past year compared to of girls.
So there's clearly a little you know, a few more
guys who are doing it. But was even more significant
is that a lot of times, Carol and you mentioned
that a lot of times these kids will get weed
(21:36):
from other kids, and it's usually boy kids and they're
getting the weed from And there was even in that
sexual study. Um, what they did was essentially said up
these focus groups with kids, asking them about times that
they had smoked pot, what their perceptions were of girls
and guys who smoked pot, and basically said that if
a girl is smoking pot, she's usually kind of a
(22:00):
you know, one girl among many guys, and that it's
considered more of a guy thing and not very uh,
not very ladylike. Should we say, well, that's something I mean,
that's something that somebody actually said, like, you know, I
somebody was saying my mother told me not to do
it because it wasn't the ladylike thing to do. That
(22:20):
this is something that just stoner guys do. Women are
supposed to hold it together. But um, yeah, that sex
roles study from from nine was talking about how these
traditional roles, these boxes that were in limit girls in
their access to that particular form of leisure. It's supposed
to be just a guy thing, and if girls are
(22:41):
doing it, oh well, they must be kind of their
floozies pots pots, going back to little reefer madness, right.
But I found it interesting too that when these researchers
in that Journal of Addictive Medications study, we're looking at
the demographics of who was smoking poe in high school.
They found that white girls essentially were among all of
(23:05):
the girls, had the highest likelihood of doing it. Which
is in contrast too, if you look at arrest numbers
for marijuana offenses, African Americans four times as likely to
be arrested, even though especially if you move into the
adult populations, they're not smoking it anymore than white people
are smoking it. Yeah, and among adolescent males, African American
(23:29):
or Hispanic and Latino ethnicity was associated with greater odds
of past thirty day use in that study, so there
is a divide there as well. And one thing about
this episode we should point out we're not going to
get into deeply into the health aspects of marijuana. We're
not going to debate whether or not it's healthy or
unhealthy to smoke marijuana compared to drinking alcohol um. But
(23:54):
we should note, especially for younger populations, a lot of
these studies are focused on the concern of kids smoking
pot because you would think, with developing brains and all,
that probably not a great idea for kids to be
smoking pot. And most of these studies tend to find
negative behavioral correlates to adolescent pot use, such as having
(24:16):
lower grades or having behavioral problems girls in particular dealing
with anxiety and depression, which I have a feeling you
would see reflected also in the adult female population who's
smoking pot UM. But then you also get into issues
of correlation versus causation that a lot of these studies
don't really address very much. So if you look just
(24:36):
at all of these study abstracts, it does make it
look a little marijuana menace ee saying that only bad
kids are smoking weed and smoking weed makes kids bad,
whereas it's probably a variable in a whole cocktail of
things happening. Exactly, Yeah, totally. Well, if we look at
(24:57):
those adolescent girls as they grow up, they are playing
a major part in this conversation that a lot of
people are having today around kind of marijuana, the use
of it, the whole industry as a whole um, especially
since we tend to have this stereotype of of pot
smokers as being you know, the Big Lebowski. Yeah, I
(25:21):
mean there's the whole trope of and he's usually white,
which is also important. We'll get into that as well,
but the whole trope of a slacker stoner dude. I mean,
just think about all of the movies you have, Half
Baked Friday, the Big Lebowski, Pineapple Express. This is the
end um. I may or may not when I was
in high school have seen the movie How High starring
(25:44):
method Man in the theater and what what else are
you gonna do on a Friday night? Um? But there,
I mean, it's it's endless. And when there are girl
or even in Knocked Up, where Seth Rogan and his
friends are always hanging out taking bong rips and meanwhile
the women are busy getting their lives together. Yeah, the
women are all nags. They're busy getting their lives together.
(26:05):
They're not partake partaking in the pot smoking. And mcclan's
magazine in March looked at that, looked at that division
of how like, if there is a stone er, if
there's a male stoner character, there are no apologies for
his behavior. You sort of accept him as he is,
and it's okay because he's a lovable guy. He's hanging
(26:25):
out in his basketball shorts just smoking pot and eat
and Dorrito's and that's okay, that's what we expect. And
it's also that these guys, like christ and said, are
normally white, so it's it's safe because it's not playing
off of what we like stereo dangerous stereotypes. Yeah, because
if you look in pop culture at weed among white guys,
it's this sort of lovable, soft slacker dude, Whereas if
(26:49):
you look at pop culture stereotypes of weed and black guys,
it's usually tied into crime or portrayals of gang activity,
or they're the ones who are dealing to the slack
or white guys. And this is something that sociologist Wendy
Chapkiss addressed in her essay called the Trouble with Mary
(27:10):
Jane's Gender that she wrote in a and she said quote,
the slacker attitude relies on a mismatch between expectation and condition.
This is why it's most available to white, hetero men
with some measure of class privilege. And so yet again
you still kind of see in a way echoes of
(27:31):
that early twentieth century racism that first planted the seeds
in the American public's mind as marijuana being you know,
something something bad, something that you know these other people
would do, not not our, you know, our good, upright
American citizens. And yet now with white guys doing it,
(27:54):
it is sort of like been the trope has been
molded to wear. It's not necessarily acceptable, but kind of
lovable and acceptable. Who doesn't love the dude? But women? Yeah,
but women aren't really afforded that. And so, in talking
about the show the new show broad City, mcclean's point,
mcclean's magazine points out that you know, here to women
(28:16):
who are kind of paving the way in somewhat because
they're not making apologies for their behavior. And they even
mentioned screenwriter Jamie Denbo's Best Buds, a stoner comedy that
she's developing with Natalie Portman, and she was telling Jezebel
back in two that it's kind of her cause to
prove that, uh, women can smoke weed too and have
(28:37):
fun and still be like contributing members of society. Yeah,
I mean, because if you think about, for instance, how
prominent role that alcohol plays in a you know, the
most seminal female show of all time, can we call
it Sex in the City, where they tend to go
out at least one steering every show, they have their
(28:58):
you know, their Cosmopolitans and have signature drinks that they get,
and it's interesting to see how, I mean, weed doesn't
play as prominent role I would say in broad City,
but nonetheless you have a Lana an Abby Abbey openly
smoking weed or looking for weed, and it's kind of
treated in the same kind of way as going out
and getting cosmos is among Carrie and the gals, which
(29:22):
is sort of a refreshing twist. And another thing too
that's also refreshing about broad cities portrayal of this is
that a lot of times in those like Stoner Dude
kind of comedies. They might have a token girl who's
also a stoner, but she's usually seen as sort of pathetic.
The fact that she would be playing video games and
(29:43):
eating cheetos all days, like, oh poor thing. But for
a lot of abbey is just like what, Yeah, they're
they're hilarious and they're just gonna smoke. Yeah, and that
whole you know, pathetic girl on the couch is is
definitely one portrayal of women in weed culled. Sure. Another
kind of unfortunately, in my opinion, is the bikini bud tenders.
(30:06):
These women who are being hired by pot dispensaries to
show we like their bud light girls like you know,
just a little bikinis or nurse outfits. These are also
the women who were at conferences and conventions trying to
answer questions or just posing for pictures with fans. Yeah,
it reminded me of our craft beer episode that came
(30:27):
out recently and how you have, uh, these women who
are starting to brew their own beer and start up
labels and are actually making names for themselves in craft beer,
but they still aren't always getting taken seriously because of
the legacy of shot girls of attractive girls being hired
(30:48):
to where you know, tiny bud light bikinis to sell beer,
and so because sort of in a similar way as
beer has been, you know, more of a predominantly male
culture as is weed, it perpetuates this idea that weed
is something that guys do and they often do it together,
and women are just accessories. And it also two ties
(31:10):
into the whole High Times culture of women just being
objects upon which you placed marijuana leaves in strategic locations,
which I mean I looking at those centerfolds as we
did to prep for this podcast, Caroline, I don't know
how men would find that sexy. It just doesn't. I mean,
(31:30):
obviously I can see how attractive women in their bodies
are considered sexy, but the it's so the pot leaves
everywhere is just so silly and cliche to be like,
it's it's not very aesthetically pleasy. I just don't. I don't.
I don't get that. So you won't be hanging those
up in your cubicle anytime soon. I mean, if I
were a guy, I would just be laughing at myself,
(31:52):
laughing at these weed centerfolds, rather than being like, oh, hubbub,
because that's what guys say right when and then they're
in their eyes, bug out of their head. Oh yeah,
Um well, a lot of a lot of scholars would
argue that that whole tongue in cheek, high time, centerfold
(32:14):
bikini bud tender culture is actually doing kind of a
disservice to a lot of women, not just the women
who are in the magazines themselves, but also kind of
women overall who want to be in the culture, want
to be in the industry, want to help shape policy reform.
Wendy Chakis, who Kristen cited earlier in her paper from
(32:35):
talks about women's voices being muted while their bodies are
hyper visible in this commercial cannabis culture, and she talks
about how by not paying attention to gendered stereotypes and inequalities,
we are putting up obstacles to women's full participation in
drug policy reform. Yeah, she even refers to these initiatives
(32:56):
to legalize marijuana also as a guy sing because if
you look at it's changing a little bit now. But
if you look at the predominant leadership among groups that
are lobbying for marijuana's legalization in the United States, it
usually is mostly men. At the top, and it probably
(33:17):
ties into these sort of social prejudices against marijuana and
maybe a heightened penalty for violating that if you are
a woman, because it's already considered sort of an unladylike
thing to admit to do. Um. And so she says
that it's expected that guys will do it because there
is at least since some you know, sort of subcultures,
(33:41):
sort of a cool cashide being a dude stoner bra.
I mean, there's an entire show Workaholics all about me.
I know, I was just talking about Broad City and
how they smoke pot, but I mean Workaholics even before
that is all about guys who would rather smoke pot
than go to work. Yeah, but then you have the
pathetic woman stoner character, and I mean that's just what
that's just literally swapping out a woman for a man.
(34:03):
So that's just another example of women doing male behavior
or the male stereotype and being judged for it. Yeah. Yeah.
Whereas on the flip side to one, one last thing
about those bud tenders, I just also thought it was
funny that these women are being hired to where sexy
pot clothes if you want to call them clothes because
(34:25):
normally they're kind of too small to constitute clothing. But
it's like if if you get a group of stoners
in a room, you don't need anything else to help,
So we except weed, you know, right, yeah, And even
if we move away from say weed conventions, because yes,
(34:46):
we had conventions exist, um and on screen portrayals of stoners.
Even women who are you know, in the real world,
have real jobs, have their lives together, and enjoy smoking pot,
are very hesitant about coming out of what is referred
to as the weed closet. And freedmen who we type
(35:08):
so many times in the podcast. She wrote a piece
for New York Magazine in two thousand thirteen and was
talking to women about their pot habits, and none of
them wanted to be named because either because a in
a lot of places that it's still illegal, and so
they didn't want to put themselves out there, you know,
(35:28):
for any kind of workplace risk, but also just not
wanting to have any kind of negative stereotypes saddle to them,
because as soon as you say, oh, well, yeah, I
I smoked pot, then you might have a laundry list
of negative judgments of like oh well wait, you must
be some kind of horrible slack or who can't control
(35:50):
herself with anything. Yeah, like I won't be able to
trust you to get your job done or whatever. You
must dance all night and then jump through windows. Um. Yeah,
because one woman that Freeman talked to said, you know,
I I've always been kind of proud of the fact
that I'm not the stereotypical pot smoker. You wouldn't look
at me and know that I smoke pot. And she says,
I have my bleep together. Yeah, bleep bleep is altogether
(36:15):
she's got her beep buttoned down. Well, And that was
the same case as with this two thousand nine Marie
Clear article about the quote unquote Stiletto stoner's basically women
who make a good amount of money who smoke pot
instead of drink wine to wind down. And one of
them went on the record with her name, but the
(36:36):
other ones were also all anonymous because they just didn't
want to be seen as pot smokers. Yeah, And the
whole thing was like women, women, working women going home
at the end of a long day and winding with
a blunt instead of a glass of wine. And then
you know, talking about how these are all like type
a career track rat race, women in power suits who
(36:58):
go home and light up, whether alone or with with girlfriends,
all as sex in the city. And it does make
me wonder, like, did you just realize that women's smoke pot?
I think it is sort of this emerging realization, especially
because women smoking pot are still being portrayed as trend pieces.
(37:19):
It's still this you know, we're uncovering these pockets of
women doing it. Um. But one thing too that came
to mind with the stiletto Stoner's is that the after
five cocktail happy our culture is so accepted as a
part of you know, corporate America, where you're gonna you're
gonna work really hard and then you're gonna go reward
(37:40):
yourself with eighteen scotches. And that's not a radical idea,
even though it's horrifically but you know, potentially damaging to
your health and and expensive and expensive, and you know,
yet an occasional weed smoke every now and then it's
seen as something you know that you don't even want
(38:01):
to talk about, right well, because there's this attitude you
you you think of women involved in marijuana at all
as the mothers who are fighting against legalization. And when
you think of men involved, it's either as the stoners
or as the people who were, you know, angling for
marijuana to become legalized. And that's just not that's just
(38:22):
not the case necessarily. I mean, I'm not saying that
it's not. But there is a bigger internet presence for
instance for women, uh websites like Ladybud dot com, Women's
Marijuana Movement dot org. There's even the quote unquote marijuana
Mommy is going on CNN to say that smoking makes
them better moms. So there's like there's a lot more
(38:43):
diversity going on and a lot more openness I think
in industry involvement, whether well industry or just culture involvement. Yeah,
and and with the whole mom angled too, for people
who involved in a legalization activism, they are trying to
target moms more. For instance, when Washington voted in two
thousand twelve to legalize marijuana, they sided women voting, and
(39:07):
specifically this one ad that was released right before the
election that depicted this soccer mom type talking about all
of the different ways that legalizing marijuana and the tax
benefits from that, and how that would enrich school systems.
There would be I d checks to make sure that
kids wouldn't be able to just walk up to a
dispensary and buy it. And also how by freeing up
(39:31):
all of the law enforcement resources that are focused on
marijuana arrest, diverting that into you know, other areas that
will help make kids safer. It was a brilliant tactic.
And of women voters in Washington voted for legalization right
because and yeah, and they talked to basically the people
(39:53):
who were behind this this marketing push. And yeah, once
once you get moms on board with the fact that
this regulation has a lot more to do with your
family's safety than it does with you know, Stone or
Joe down the street getting high and potentially, like I
don't know, driving a car through your backyard. You know, like,
(40:13):
once you change the focus, Caroline Stannard, Joe is not
gonna get up. And that's exactly well, that's exactly what
you have to You have to educate people about what
marijuana is gonna do to you. Stonard, Joe is playing
World of Warcraft any pizza roles and having a great
time doing it. That sounds like what did roommate does
without any sort of substance I now just want pizza roles. Um.
(40:36):
But let's let's look at another area too where women
are being recognized and also making inroads on their own,
kind of similar again to our craft brewing podcast, and
that's within the actual industry. We've talked about women consuming marijuana,
buying marijuana, voting for the legalization of marijuana. But what
(40:58):
about the women like the ones who this podcast is
dedicated to tending to the actual plants. Yeah, more and
more women are actually joining the industry now that it's
now that it's maturing. They might not necessarily be doing
the same exact things that the men are doing. Uh.
There was an article in l and a study by
(41:19):
Karen August from Humboldt State University in talking about how
there is just this army of women behind male weed
farmers or just the men who are dominating the industry
in general. Yeah. Um. Karen August, the Homeboat State University researcher,
did note that women growers who are the people that
she wanted to talk to, But women growers are still
(41:42):
on a large scale, pretty few or far between, and
so there aren't even really any studies at all on
women growing. But if you look at the marijuana farming process.
You do see a gender gap in who's doing more
of the manual labor in the farms and who does
the trimming. Women are often relegated to trimming the buds
(42:04):
because it's simply it's it's not, as I don't want
to say, physically demanding, because I'm sure it's very tedious work,
but it's not. It doesn't require as much physical strength.
You're not having to move these massive plants around, right.
And she also talks about the female lead kind of
legitimate employment that surrounds the industry, like these cottage industries
that are springing up around marijuana farms. Uh, you know,
(42:26):
selling paraphernalia, selling edibles, things like that, even clothing lines, posters,
marijuana art um. But it's often women creating these things. Yeah.
I did a quick search on Etsy for marijuana related goods.
And not to say that every you know Etsy account
(42:46):
is run by a woman, but let's just say there
was a lot of feminine looking marijuana paraphernalia being made
by artisans all over the world. Um. And Marie Claire
also cited women like Betty Aldworth, who's the deputy director
of the National Cannabis Industry Association in Colorado. There's also
(43:08):
Dale Sky Jones who who's executive chancellor of Oaksterdam University,
which is a school set up specifically to teach people
how to grow, tend, and start marijuana businesses. And Jennifer Murray,
who is the CEO of Canned Labs, which is focused
on looking at different applications for marijuana, whether it's uh,
(43:29):
you know, more for therapeutic and medicinal effects. So there
are you know, these different women doing all sorts of
things within the industry. And I think that slowly but surely,
we might be chipping away at the idea of you know,
being exclusively something that the stoner guys, stoner bros do.
(43:50):
Bra Yeah. Well, And in contrast to our stereotype of
the you know, angry conservative mother fighting against marijuana legalization,
you have this new image of a young mother fighting
for legalization because she is a mother, because she does
have children who would benefit from the legalization of medical marijuana.
(44:12):
The Atlantic looked at this back in saying that women
have long been involved in this fight. If you look
back to the nineteen eighties, you have Mary Jane, very
appropriately named Mary Jane Ruthvean better known as Brownie Mary.
She's a well known medical marijuana activist who would bake
potlace Brownie for AIDS patients in San Francisco. And around
(44:33):
the time that voters in California approved that proposition, you
have TV ads targeting women in support of legalizing medical
marijuana use, and the ad featured a sixty seven year
old nurse whose husband used it when he was dying
of cancer. So they're trying to drive home the fact
that there is this medical marijuana that could help families,
(44:54):
but also more women are just getting behind it because
they do use it for recreation. And what do you
think about mothers who advocate on behalf of you know,
legalized marijuana, whether it's medicinal or not. It's incredibly brave
because they're not just risking violating some you know, run
of the mill gender norms, but they're also risking putting
(45:15):
themselves in situations where people accused them of being bad
mothers and possibly getting their kids taken away from them,
which is a nightmare scenario that activists. Renee Petro found
herself in recently when she was investigated by the Florida
Child Protection Services based on a tip an anonymous tip
that she was giving her son, who has a rare
(45:37):
form of epilepsy, cannabis extract, which she was not doing
at all, But they came into her home and demanded
to interview her son in a different room about whether
or not his mom was giving him weed. Well, I
mean yeah, And and speaking of Georgia, you know now
that Colorado has legalized medical marijuana. I mean I was
(45:58):
listening to a story on NPR where all these families
They talked to some families in Georgia who were like,
I'm moving. I'm moving there because my kid has this
life threatening form of epilepsy. Wouldn't you move to help
your child? And so that's where that's where all the
politics go head to head with actually protecting our children
and what do they need? But yeah, along the same lines,
Dibby Goldsberry, who's the founder of the Berkeley Patients Group,
(46:20):
one of the largest dispensaries in California, was interviewed in
by High Times and basically confirms what Christian was talking about.
You know, we've had our children to protect this whole time.
She says, Um, it was scary because kids are being
taken from their parents who were arrested for simple possession,
and she talks about how she was an activist long
(46:41):
before she was ever a mother because she was just
she was scared too. She she didn't know if she
would be accused inaccurately of being a bad mother. Yeah,
I mean, And the whole kid's angle to the war
on drugs has always baffled me a bit because in
those studies it's confirmed over and over again that when
(47:02):
kids want to get their hands on marijuana, they do,
and they often do it from other kids. Like it's
it's just being illegal is not making it any safer
for these children, sure, because then you're gonna get it
from some dummy who's and it's going to be laced
with something and you know they're not going to do
it at all, and then you might be Helen Hunt
(47:24):
jumping out of a window. That's exactly right. Um, But
there are there are activists women organizing, and there are
these groups, uh include Normal Women's Alliance, Mothers Against Misuse
and Abuse, and Moms for Marijuana that support not only
marijuana used by women, but they're also like actively trying
(47:47):
to change drug laws and as the case of Washington
and Colorado's legalization efforts have shown women are you know,
really a crucial demographic to legalizing marijuana. And it'll be
interesting to see in the coming years how that those
(48:08):
examples in those states might shape legalization efforts in other states.
And I will be curious to see how quickly legalization
spreads across the United States, because I mean, again, we
have not gotten into the health impacts of smoking marijuana.
I mean, regularly smoking anything obviously is not good for you.
(48:29):
All of the studies that suggest that it's harmful to
short term and even long term memory. There are don't
get us wrong, We understand that there are negative effects
of marijuana, as there are negative effects to other drugs
and also alcohol, sigarettes, things that are plenty legal in
the United States as well. But a lot of these
(48:50):
activists would argue, look, I'm not trying to get my
kid to smoke a joint. I'm just trying to give
him cannabis extracts so he doesn't have seizures and die.
Or I will say that I know at least one
marijuana mommy who after she had her kid, not while
she was pregnant, people don't worry, but after she became
a mother she hadn't smoked occasionally beforehand, but she became
(49:13):
a fairly regular pot smoker because she was just like,
it really helps me deal with things. It really does well. Yeah,
and I have a friend who has a really severe
case of Crohn's disease and she was on all this
medication for a long time. She was just sick as
a dog all the time, and she smokes marijuana. Just
said that she can eat. So you know, well, I
(49:38):
think if anything, no matter what side of you know,
the legalization debate that you stand on, it's worthwhile to
consider where, especially if you're in the US, because this
is a very US centric conversation we've been having. But
where that American uh dislike or distaste for the marijuana
(49:59):
menace really came from? Because it is rooted in a
very dark place of racism. Yeah, it went from treating
a queen's cramps to being called a menace because it
was associated with the other, the foreign other. So now
we want to hear from you out there, what do
you think about marijuana culture and all of this gendered aspects.
(50:22):
Are you a woman who might be out in Humboldt
County tending to harvest I don't know when harvest is
so so you might be like, no, there's like nothing
to harvest right now. Um, are you a lady who
enjoys a joint after a long day at work? We
want to hear from you. We won't write you out
to your bosses. Let us let us know all of
your marijuana thoughts. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(50:43):
where you can email us, and you can also tweet
us at mom Stuff podcast or send us a message
on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages to
share with you speaking of our craft beer episode yet
again about craft beer. So I've got one here from
Eli and he said, Hi, ladies, after listening to your
(51:04):
craft beer Brewster's podcast, I have a couple of things
I wanted to write you about. When my girlfriend and
I go out to the bar, after we've ordered our beers,
will either look at the bottles or look up the
A B V on her smartphone. At least two thirds
of the time she she will have gotten a beer
that is significantly stronger than whenever I'm drinking. I don't
know if she's going for economy or just trying to
(51:25):
spite some people she knows who say girls don't drink beer. Also,
she announced last month that she thought we needed a
hobby we could do together. I immediately thought she meant
fixing up some of the furniture we bought or something
like that. But no, we're going to start homebrewing beer.
It sounds like a fun hobby. So thanks, Eli, and
I have a letter here from Phoenix who says I
(51:47):
recently got a job as a part time brand ambassador
read promotional model for a small local craft brewer. The
company is so small that I actually get paid in beer.
It is quite excellent and expensive, so I'm not complaining.
Your podcast inspired me to share my experience. Both the
owners and brewers for the company are men. There are
two other brand ambassadors, also men. I am the only
(52:08):
woman on staff. This is absolutely not a problem in
the workplace. Everyone respects my opinions and knowledge of the beer.
When I go out for tasting, I find myself in
a very different situation. Most people like my beers, but
most of the comments I get are about me. This
is really good, but you haven't even tried it. Pretty
girls like you don't like beer this strong? Or occasionally,
(52:28):
what agency do you work for? Questions none of my
male colleagues received it is frustrating, but when I give
my honest opinions on the brew, these men typically have
a change of heart. I get approached less by women,
and most who come up are afraid all my beers
will be bitter. I have never sold a whole case
to a woman, but usually I can find a sample
they like. As a response to your numerous comments about
(52:49):
the bud light girls or chicks with big boobs selling beer,
I was taken aback. I have big boobs, naturally blonde hair,
and an athletic body from being a professional equine dentist.
Though this is definitely a reason some people question my
sincere passion for beer. I want you and other listeners
to know that girls with big boobs can really like
beer too. Please help me stop stereotyping the busty women
(53:10):
in beer. Cheers Phoenix, So thank you, Phoenix. I think, uh,
you know, women with boobs or no boobs or some
boobs are allowed to drink and love whatever they want. Yeah,
I really I hope we didn't seem like we were
anti big boobs. We're anti we're pro. I should say
all boobs were pro boobs. Yeah, and whatever, shape, size, color, orientation,
(53:33):
and by oritation, I mean which way they're pointing, nipple number, yeah, whatever.
We support them all, all of it. We support the boobs,
so uh. If you have thoughts that you want to
share with us, Mom staff of Discovery. Dot com is
our email address. To find links to all of our
social as well as all of the sources that we
cited in today's podcast, Along with all of our blogs
(53:54):
and videos, there's one place to go. It's Stuff Mom
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot
com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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