Posts Tagged ‘celeb stoner’
When I was growing up in New York in the ’60s, my family liked to take weekend trips to the Amish Country in Pennsylvania. One time we stayed at the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge in York. It had that great entrance way, all orange and blue, and of course a restaurant attached. Best of all was the heated pool.
So whenever we went back, we always asked if we were going to stay at the the Howard Johnson’s.
By the early ’70s, the Howard Johnson’s in Times Square had became a favorite hangout. The all-you-can-eat fried chicken or clams pulled us in. And for dessert, you could choose from 28 different flavors of ice cream.
I bring this all up because of the latest episode of Mad Men (“Faraway Places”). It’s an extraordinary episode with Roger and his wife Jane trying LSD, Peggy smoking pot with a stranger in a movie theater, and Don and Megan have a marriage-threatening argument. While the acid subplot may draw more attention – three couples dose in a Manhattan apartment – I keep flashing back to Don’s obsession with HoJo’s.
After the melodramatic tripping session during which Roger decides it’s time to dissolve his marriage, Don (above) invites Megan to take a drive to the brand-new Howard Johnson’s just north of the city. Confused about her work relationship with Don, Megan rains on his parade and even has the nerve to tell the waitress that she doesn’t like their signature orange sherbert.
It’s 1966, so Mad Men is becoming more psychedelic, with drugs and garish colors like those displayed at Howard Johnson’s getting more attention.
As for Peggy, she’s the office pothead. Taking in Born Free after a tough pitch meeting, Peggy smells a joint being puffed behind her by the handsome male stranger. He passes it to Peggy and is quick to take a seat next to her and slip his hand up her dress. Peggy’s response is liberated to say the least.
Though couples LSD therapy may have pushed Roger and Jane to the edge, Don and Megan better try it before their marriage does fall apart (and LSD is prohibited).
Now about that orange sherbet…
Also see:
Mad Men Season 5 on AMC
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Major marijuana myth: pot use use can be a cause of death. So say many anti-drug warriors, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who recently wrote to a constituent that “marijuana and other narcotics” can lead to death.
According to Time magazine, “No one has ever died of THC [marijuana] poisoning, mostly because a 160-pound person would have to smoke roughly 900 joints in a sitting to reach a lethal dose.”
In 1988, DEA Administrative Judge Francis Young concluded, “In order to induce death, a smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette.”
Former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elder wrote in 2004: “Unlike many of the drugs we prescribe every day, marijuana has never been proven to cause a fatal overdose.”
‘Nuff said.
by Steve Bloom, Celeb Stoner
No, that’s not a joint Paul McCartney is toking on the cover of Rolling Stone. From a distance, it looks like he’s smoking something, but upon closer inspection you realize it’s a harmonica.
According to the interview, McCartney doesn’t use marijuana anymore. “I smoked my share,” he says. “When you’re bringing up a youngster [eight-year-old Beatrice), your sense of responsibility does kick in, if you’re lucky, at some point. Enough’s enough – you just don’t seem to think it’s necessary.”
McCartney has quit pot before. His previous wife Heather Mills didn’t approve and apparently Wife #3 (Nancy Shevell, whom he married in October) doesn’t either. But, of course, that’s his prerogative.
More important is McCartney’s stance on legalizing it. “Well, I certainly requested it a bunch off times,” he explains. “I feel like I’ve done my bit. I am a bit surprised that it’s not legalized. You know the argument that if booze is legal, why not that? I’m not going to be the judge of how to deal with it, somebody else can figure that out.”
In 1990, I asked McCartney at a press conference held at Madison Square Garden if he supported the legalization of marijuana. He didn’t flinch. “I favor the decriminalization of it. I think you’ve got too many people who get into it innocently and become criminals,” the former Beatle declared. “People will say Scotch and stuff is legal and pot isn’t. I think at that point there probably is a good argument for decriminalization.”
McCartney, who’s been arrested for marijuana possession four times (most famously in Japan in 1980), clearly knows about what he speaks. He’s been on the record opposing pot prohibition for years. That’s all that matters, not if he currently lights up after dinner.
I’m disappointed in Steve DeAngelo, who stated at the end of the fourth and final episode of Weed Wars: “I don’t believe in legalizing cannabis for recreational use.”
DeAngelo is the star of Weed Wars, which Discovery has been accused of stealing. Even worse in my mind is his (and his brother Andrew’s) blatant hypocrisy.
Years before they started Harborside Health Center in Oakland, DeAngelo was a marijuana activist/pot dealer in Washington, DC. In fact, he was arrested for possession shortly before he left DC for the West Coast.
I wouldn’t dredge this up if DeAngelo (or Stevie D as he’s know in cannabis circles) wasn’t such a turncoat.
He’s made millions selling pot to medical patients in California. His mantra is “cannabis should be used for purposes of wellness.” Nice spin. Now let’s get back to reality.
Just last year DeAngelo proposed a legalization initiative for California. When Richard Lee beat him to it with Prop 19, DeAngelo pulled back and said he’d wait for 2012. Now it appears that he’s not in favor of taxing and regulating marijuana for all uses any longer.
To his credit, DeAngelo and his then partner Eric Steenstra founded the hemp clothing line Ecolution in the mid-’90s. Unfortunately, business didn’t go well and they soon closed up shop.
After his arrest and the subsequent dismissal of the case, DeAngelo made his move, opening the uber-slick “WalMart of pot” in Oakland. He aimed to blow away the competition and to some extent has, raking in $20 million dollars in 2010.
I was excited about Weed Wars. Why not a reality TV show that focuses on the inner workings of a major medical-marijuana dispensary?
Allegedly, a producer named Kylie Krabbe pitched the idea to Discovery in 2010. She lined up The Farmacy, based in Los Angeles, as the featured dispensary. According to her complaint, Discovery thought the concept was “too edgy” for them and rejected her proposal. Then, lo and behold, Discovery inked a deal with Harborside instead. If that’s true, it’s really sleazy.
During their rounds to promote Weed Wars, Andrew DeAngelo, who has glaucoma, told Bill O’Reilly, “We do not support the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes.”
I winced when I heard that, but figured it was just his opinion. Then, as the show’s brief season came to a close, Steve parroted his brother.
That’s the same stance taken by Montel Williams, who was booed at the NORML Conference DeAngelo speaks at during Episode 4. It’s sad to see someone who hails himself as “an agent of change to bring the truth about the cannabis plant to the rest of the world” take such a giant step backwards.
Weed Wars certainly serves an important purpose – to reach beyond the converted, to the heart of mainstream America, with a message of medicinal use. But the series proved to be a DeAngelo family vanity project. Now we know Steve DeAngelo has a closet filled with colorful suits, hats and ties. We also know that he’s officially turned his back on the cause he’s championed for “almost 40 years.”
If Steve DeAngelo’s old compatriot Jack Herer were still alive he’d call him a lot worse names. I’m just going to call him a hypocrite and leave it at that.
Eighty percent of the books in the People’s Library have perished, according to Occupy Wall Street librarians. “I want our books back,” Frances said at a press conference on Nov. 22. “I want our space back. I want our movement back.”
On the morning of Nov. 15, NYPD and DSNY swooped into Zuccotti Park and shut down the hub of the OWS protest movement. All belongings not taken quickly were hauled off by sanitation workers. That included the 5,000-book People’s Library.
At the McLaughlin & Stern law offices on Madison Ave., former NYCLU head Norman Siegel stated sharply that Mayor Bloomberg “needs to replace every book.” Many of the thousand or so books recovered were displayed on the conference table. Torn and tattered, they’re hardly useable. “It’s heartbreaking,” Frances sighed.
The American Library Association has rallied behind the People’s Library. “The dissolution of a library is unacceptable,” says the group’s president Molly Raphael. “We support the librarians and volunteers of the Library Working Group as they reestablish the People’s Library.”
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