Do you think men smoke more weed than women? Is that a proven fact? Have you ever been to the Bay Area? LOL. OK seriously, this article in the Stranger (and as a tribute to Hempfest) is about gender and weed smoke and how women don't smoke weed.
Smoking pot is a guy thing. Guys are the ones who deal, buy, and smoke. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated that adult males were 50 percent more likely to have smoked marijuana in the last month than females. (Alcohol use showed only a 12 percent difference.) All illegal drugs show this approximate divide between the sexes (except illegally obtained prescriptions—women use those in substantially higher numbers).
Is this actually true? Or do women hide that they smoke weed more? A very quick look at my friends, I would say half the women I know smoke weed all the time. Even in my women's studies undergrad, I knew a lot of female stoners. In fact I have never attributed smoking weed to being a male activity. Perhaps this says something about the kind of women I hang out with, but this is seriously news to me.
Reading more into the article, I did have to agree that media depictions of drug use are in general inaccurate and definitely sexist. The war on drugs is extremely racist and gendered with little conversation about how drugs affect the lives of young women, while being absurdly focused on the incarceration of young men. Furthermore, the usual drug user is depicted as male.
But on a much less serious note, maybe women don't like to look lazy. . .
Perhaps the obstacle to female toking is a fear of looking lazy. Getting stoned is, in effect, a great way to relax. Men are allowed to be lazy—being stoned is part of their farting, pajama-wearing, video-game-playing pantheon of acceptable male relaxation techniques. Since Jeff Spicoli made his debut in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and continuing into the entire oeuvre of director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), stonerdom is an accepted part of modern maleness. Their sloth is even kind of adorable.But modern women are not allowed to be lazy, adorable stoners. Women have to go to college (which they're now doing at higher rates than men), and then get their careers going quickly, before their biological clocks run out. Then they have to have kids and take them to all of their activities. There is no time for women to be slovenly and relax—and if women do relax, it has to be at a gym.
I have never really thought about mainstream pot culture being sexist, I always thought about it as pretty corny, considering people of all different types smoke weed, not just middle class white dudes in California. But now that I do think about it, it does reproduce certain stereotypes.
I also don't appreciate women in general being depicted as people more obsessed with what they look like then with pleasure or having fun. I see that the author is trying to put a feminist spin on the female deviance of weed smoking, but he seems to rely on sexist tropes to prove his point.
For me, it is hard to talk about drug culture in the US without looking at the racial politics of the drug war and how for some "toking" is a fun activity that some people don't go to jail for, while others do. Understanding that, is pot culture sexist? And is smoking weed a feminist act?
Humor me people!
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"Is weed smoking a feminist act?"
Sure, why not? As far as I'm concerned, a feminist act is anything feminists say.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's as wise thing to do (grump-grump-grump).
Anything feminists say is a feminist act? I hope you're kidding.
Anyway, it never occured to me that guys smoke weed more often than girls.
Maybe women stop smoking weed before men do - like men might smoke weed until they have kids or settle down while women stop after college or a few years after getting their first jobs. I don't know.
I like weed. A bunch of my girlfriends are pot-heads. :shrug:
"Anything feminists say is a feminist act? I hope you're kidding."
Maybe I should have said I'd trust Carrie Nation's pronouncements on the subject better than Rush Limbaugh's' ;-)
Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet this AM. You were being sarcastic, right? ;)
Inhaling oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide: the last feminist act, performed several hundred billion times per day, that nobody recognizes!
Didn't Bitch have an article on this exact topic a while back? Maybe in their Green issue? Does anyone else remember this?
I've been smoking weed recreationally through high school and college. I guess when I think about it, it does seem to be a guy thing, my girlfriends and I started smoking in high school with guys, but then started doing it on our own. I guess you could say that's feminist - we took it into our own hands! Still, I've never bought it from a woman, in my town dealing seems to be left to the men.
You know what I could really go for?
A feminist get-together with lots of weed.
"You know what I could really go for?
A feminist get-together with lots of weed."
Yes! I'll be there.
I personally don't think there's anything 'feminist' about smoking weed. If you like it, you smoke it; if not, you don't.
I, for one, like it. :)
The feminist issues I see regarding pot are:
1. Analysis of the show Weeds and other pop culture representations of women and drugs: white woman is out of her element, doesn't do drugs. Black woman is comfortable in druggie environments, but isn't a pothead. The only potheads are college-aged dudes, usually white or Indian.
2. Women and risk aversion: given that the drug war means excessive prison time for minor infractions, maybe women are less likely to risk it. They've got to 'be responsible' and take care of the kids, you know?
3. Employee drug tests? Are women more likely to work jobs that test?
Just a few thoughts... Sure there's more...
This study doesn't jive with my experience either. However, it could be that outside of university and activism circles, more men do smoke. I kind of doubt it, but I can say little about pot-smoking cultures in rural areas and outside of university cultures.
"You know what I could really go for?
A feminist get-together with lots of weed."
Funny you should mention that. My friends and I regularly hold "LSC's" which are "ladies smoking circles". While we don't say they are feminist get togethers, I think we all consider ourselves feminists and more often than not our talk turns to discussing feminist issues (there are oh so many!) They're lots of fun, I highly recommend a LSC for all ladies that smoke.
When I was at school, when we were all about 15 years old, a large group of people in our year were caught and punished for smoking and dealing weed. I don't think it was any coincidence that they were all male. I'm almost certain (especially knowing them at the time) that they got into it because of some macho, tough devil-may-care guy thing. In fact i'm sure they did.
Saying that, I also think the school was less inclined to investigate any girls because of stereotypes to do with boistrous boys and well behaved studious girls.
Also wanted to say that any person who wants me to find them adorable, sorry, but pot smoking is the last thing you gotta do...lazy stoners = not hot for me.
Ha, I wonder if I can expect this excuse from my daughter if I ever catch her smoking weed :-) "But Mom, I'm standing up to the patriarchy!"
Why do you equate pot-smokers w/ "lazy stoners," nervous_aesthete?
None of my pot-smoking friends are lazy or unambitious, and neither am I (and I haven't smoked up in months).
My social circle is mainly made up of musician and artist types, which probably skewers things a bit, but I'd have to say there's a fairly even mix of male-to-female heads. Granted, the dudes have the slight edge as far as both regular smoking and dealing go, but most of the constant burners I know are women. Also, and this is again totally based on annecdote, women are more likely to smoke joints than use bongs or pipes. However, I do know at least three women who have penis-shaped pipes, though I honestly think they only break 'em out to watch guys squirm.
That's just been my experience, SarahMC! It's hardly known for being the greatest motivator. I've got nothing against pot smokers though, no offense intended.
It wasn't until I read this blog post that I started thinking about how many people I know who smoke and what their genders are. I had the sense that far more of my male friends smoke weed than the females, but now that I actually list the names in my head, I find the numbers are about even.
Perhaps he's watched one too many episodes of Weeds where Mary Louise Parker is the only woman among men, in her business operation.
Perhaps he needs to get out in the real world.
Perhaps he's watched one too many episodes of Weeds where Mary Louise Parker is the only woman among men, in her business operation.
Perhaps he needs to get out in the real world.
get high roll hard as fuck
-a lady
my friend was talking the other day about how it was so hard for her and her sorority sisters to buy pot in college, because the dealers weren't used to women buying their own weed ...
If women do smoke pot less than men (IF, I say, IF), is this really a lamentable inequality?
From clinical experience, pot smoking comes up with men significantly more often, both in number of patients who smoke at all, and the frequency of smoking. I've seen substantially more HEAVY pot smokers who were male than female.
I'm bewildered by this argument. I never knew that it was acceptable for men to be slovenly, lazy pot smokers. That's acceptable when you are in high school but definitely not over the age of eighteen. Everyone has to be successful after a while. I wonder why the author is making such a baseless assumption.
Anyway, speaking from personal experience, I smoked pot with women almost all of the time. I rarely smoked pot with just men. I got smoked out by women a lot as well. Some of them were bigger stoners than I was. Then again, I went to one of those cursed liberal arts colleges where people, for the most part, were treated fairly.
I would actually argue that this article is sexist in a way. There is nothing deviant in regards to gender about smoking pot. It's about having a good time. The last time that I checked, men and women are both allowed to have a good time. And, if that includes smoking pot, so be it.
Buying my first bag of weed after splitting with my ex was a very powerful act. And the dealer was a woman.
If smoking weed is a feminist act, then look out Andrea Dworkin because I'll smoke you under the table!!
No, it's just one more bullshit double standard. I know lots of pot-smokers, both male and female, and no stereotype covers the wide range of behavior. Some of them are lazy stoners, others are quite ambitious. All just want to be left alone to smoke up in peace without being thrown in jail.
Smoking weed, a feminist act? Are you kidding me? At best, buying drugs is a neutral act, and at worse it' often classist and racist. When you buy pot-- especially if you're middle class or above-- you're supporting a black market in which distributors and dealers face danger to themselves, as well as criminal penalties far harsher than the people who buy their product would face even if they were caught/ punished. I mean, I guess you could argue that the people facing these penalties have made the choice to do what they do, but the range of choices available to someone dealing drugs and someone (the sorority sisters, the feminist get-togethers) buying them are often quite different. I used to smoke, and still would if I could grow my own, but for people to get outraged over the war on drugs, acknowledge its racist/classist aspects, and still be a part of that system is ridiculous.
Personally, I don't smoke pot because I don't want to deal with the stress of taking drug tests to get jobs and because I am in college. Also because I just don't like it (I've tried it before). But I'm with Samhita on this one. I know a lot of girls that do it, probably just as many girls as boys.
Elizabeth, it sounds like you have bought into the idea that drug users are to blame for the drug war. Aren't we blaming the wrong people for the current state of affairs?
Consider the consequences if everybody decided to give up smoking weed because the drug war harms people. That would mean that the world would be deprived of one of the most useful plants for medicine and recreation. Cancer and AIDS patients will be denied access to this wonderful plant. That's bullocks.
Overgrow the government!
There was a piece in Bitch magazine a few issue back, though it concentrated on stoner movies (in which women are peripheral helpers or sober nannies. Except the hilarious girl in Knocked Up).
Smoking can be a feminist issue. Want to know why some college girls simultanously love and are afraid of smoking? Because it gives them the munchies. And for some of them, it's the only time they ever break their eternal diets and indulge in food cravings.
Well I'm actually from the Bay Area, and I can tell you that I've met just as many women who smoke pot as I have guys.
Hell, I've known plenty of people who supply the pot clubs with stuff they grow themselves, and at least half of them were women. In fact the best hash I've ever smoked was made by a woman I knew, who was selling it to the clubs herself.
I don't know if smoking pot is a feminist act, but well, there you go.
At my stuffy Ivy, weed was pretty frowned upon, particularly for women.
Because everyone was so frikking ambitious, the slackery stereotype put people off and binge-drinking fit more into the social scene.
My girlfriends and I had the equivalent of camilla's "LSC"s and a hookah, etc etc and we therefore garnered a bit of a reputation as crazy ladies, even though we smoked less than most average folks at a liberal-arts college.
I found it really irritating, but then again, women always dressed up for class at my school, so what could you expect?
I don't necessarily see how smoking pot is a feminist activity, but it's something that I do every day. I also take issue with the stereotype of all stoners as lazy and unambitious. I smoke every day, but I also run a record store. I'm responsible enough to know what activities to avoid while stoned, I've never let it interfere with work, etc. I do have a lot more male friends than female friends that smoke, especially as far as heavy usage is concerned, and I've never met a female dealer.
UPDATE: We are not men. We do not need to act like men. Who cares if men smoke more pot or watch more sports or have more sex? Why do we constantly feel the need to feed into the masculine aesthetic? Let's come into our own instead of constantly trying to mimic men! I love men, but I don't want to be one!
PS: It's not feminist to smoke weed, it's stupid. You are taking fire into your lungs and you might as well stick a burning iron down your throat. Plus, it is addictive.
Hey Glass: I completely agree with your sentiment but we are NOT trying to act like men. We already DO act like people and are sick and tired of these "studies" telling us how different we women are from the regular folks (aka men).
UPDATE Women aren't smoking pot so they can mimic men. They're doing it because it helps them relax, relieves menstrual cramps, enhances creativity, or myriad other reasons. I've only ever seen women try to 'keep up' with guys at the bar.
And I'm pretty sure the consensus is that it's not physically addictive. At all.
Makes as much sense.
Maybe slightly fewer women smoke pot than men because you have to put yourself into risky situations sometimes to get access to it.
That was very true of my high school experience. There were a couple of times I was carousing with stoner dudes who were all busted and hauled away by cops or security guards and all I had to do was look the other way and act innocent and I was overlooked like some innocent bystander. Being caucasion and dressing preppy helped.
Glass-
Still. It doesn't give you cancer or destroy your liver, so it's a whole hell of a lot less stupid than the most common addictive substances in this society.
Also, you know, weed isn't really addictive unless you have an addictive personality.
I'm probably a little older than most of your readers at 55. I followed a link here and can't resist leaving a comment. Most of the women that I know in my age group smoke weed and I've known a good many women that were both growers and dealers over the years. A feminist act? I don't know about that but the women I know smoke their fair share. Some stopped when their children were small and started again when they got the rugrats out of the house, others have smoked since the '60s. Before anyone gets any ideas about the kind of women these are let me say that many of them hold responsible positions in both business or community service. They are not a lazy bunch of stoners on the couch in front of the TV all day. I don't think many of them even drink alcohol but of course by the time you get into my age bracket a lot of people have come to realize that alcohol just isn't worth the trouble.
Update: Ari Spool is a girl. She's pretty funny. I trust her movie reviews.
Jesus, it took me all that time to set up an account and by the time I finished someone else already clarified that Ari is a chick. Oh well.
I don't know, friends...I know this post isn't supposed to be about the addictive quality of marijuana, but think about it. Cigarettes were considered to be harmless at one time, too. I understand that there's a difference, that being legality vs. illegality. But honestly, isn't it the same thing, breathing in a "natural" substance as smoke? With weed, obviously there aren't too many real, official studies that we can turn to. It may make sick people feel good, and I'm glad about that; it doesn't mean, however, that there aren't adverse effects. I have had this very conversation with so many people, all of whom get very uppity when I suggest that weed is in all likelihood very bad for us, and I think the reason for that is because it's more convenient to ignore the idea that smoking weed has consequences because smoking weed gives us immediate gratification, and we humans love that.
I'm going to cart out my "I have a friend" story, but I do have a few friends who were regular pot smokers (I was too, actually, but not to the extent that these people were) and who experienced serious withdrawal when they tried to stop. Do with that what you will...
Those friends were mostly guys (and one girl), for what it's worth.
I think it's pretty silly to ask whether smoking weed is a feminist act. No. It's not. Not any more than drinking alcohol is a feminist act.
All sorts of people smoke pot; it says nothing abour politics or attitude towards women.
Looks like I combined the words "about" and "your." Interesting.
Oh I was wondering if you guys would cover this.
You know, I am in Seattle and I read that article in The Stranger last week and I got a little annoyed...Maybe it's because I am a woman, but the great majority of people I know who really smoke regularly are all women. All the people I know who supply are women.
I was talking to some fellow female partakers about the article the other day (while sharing a joint, natch) and we decided that it isn't that women aren't potheads, its just they seem to do a better job of keeping their shit together, (generally speaking, there are always exceptions)
If women are dealing, they tend to be more low key about it, less risk averse, and as a result, a lot less likely to get busted.
The female heads I know are PhD students, doctors, artists, etc. They are all super capable, busy, successful, and regular smokers.
Of the few male heads that I know, quite a few seem to be trapped in a permanent state of being 20 and irresponsible.
So maybe it isn't that women don't smoke, BUT that our cultural definition of a pot smoker is created by the men who smoke regularly and buy into the stereotypes of laziness, etc.
I think everyone I know well here in college smokes pot at least recreationally. At least three of them deal: two women, one man. However, I think it's only the men (maybe one or two women) who also use "harder" drugs. Make of *that* what you will.
Damn I know too many pot heads (never smoked - just don't see the appeal).
In my experience, women and men are equally likely to smoke pot. But I can think of at least one reason why women would be less likely to admit drug use: women are more likely to be single parents with sole custody, therefore they have a very good reason not to admit to any illegal activity.
my ex-boyfriend in college was quite the pothead...he also had anxiety issues and had been diagnosed with ocd, so he used it to self medicate alot. maybe some of the disparity in marijuana use (if there actually is one) has to do with the fact that guys tend to self medicate for mental health issues instead of seeking out and getting help? just a though.
Pot doesn't cause cancer and is not nearly as dangerous as cigarettes. The drug warriors would claim that marijuana causes cancer if there was any data to back up that claim.
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner07022005.html
I don't really see smoking marijuana as a gendered act. Agreeably, I don't and never have done it, but it has nothing to do with my being female. It has everything to do with the fact that I don't need to take a mood-altering substance to achieve stress relief or have a good time. Ironically, I read this very article moments before coming home, while I was on the bus. I don't really see smoking marijuana as a gendered act. Agreeably, I don't and never have done it, but it has nothing to do with my being female. It has everything to do with the fact that I don't need to take a mood-altering substance to achieve stress relief or have a good time. I have no problem with people using it for the PROVEN medicinal properties if they need it for an illness. I just don't think it's necessary otherwise.
Boy, there sure is nothing more feminist than supporting drugs. Those dealers sure do make our neighborhoods better places. And there certainly aren't any other ways to relax besides weed.
I mean, really, now, people. I don't think weed is, in and of itself, a terrible thing. But I certainly don't thin k smoking it is really going to make the world a better place. I am not even sure it has a mere neutral effect on the world.
A few comments -
I can't think of a significant gender ratio discrepancy among the people I know who smoke weed.
Inhaling enough of ANY kind of smoke (cigarette, exhaust, wood fire, barbecue) or particulate matter increases the risk of cancer. Add to this that weed smoke is generally unfiltered. Of course, using a water pipe or vaporizer to eliminate a lot of that extra debris might help, but of course there is no research on this that I know of.
Personally, I don't think that women smoking weed is any more of a feminist expression than women drinking alcohol, though it does (so far as we know) cause FAR fewer long term health problems.
Women don't smoke weed? Pfft. Tell that to my mom. She used to grow it.
In my opinion this is just part of that whole "women are innocent and pure" thing, meaning they would never do anything so horrible as smoke pot. We're too busy baking cookies for our munchies-stricken husbands.
I don't want to get into a debate about marijuana in general (good, bad, addictive, medicinal, whatever...) Personally, I've never seen the appeal, as I can think of hundreds of things I'd rather be doing and many other/better ways to relax or have a good time.
But to call smoking weed a feminist act is as ridiculous as calling shoplifting a feminist act. I have feminist friends who steal and claim it is their way of fighting capitalism and patriarchy. If you want to steal because you just can't or don't want to pay for shit then fine, but call it what it is. As for weed, many different kinds of people may smoke for a whole host of reasons but I highly doubt feminism is one of them.
This stereotype is an old one, and I can't understand why. i know a comparable amount of women who smoke weed, but male stoners still stick to the belief that "girls don't smoke." I've heard many times, that guys are surprised to find that I do, too. It's more than a little frustrating. I guess I'll just have to do what I can to break the stereotype!
Hey, Seriously (the person), I am so with you.
I am pretty sure smoking pot is not a feminist act. I vote to make it one, though. That and Jilling off. I could be one very active feminist without even trying.
This thread really makes me want to get high. ...Then get a quesadilla.
I hereby declare quesadilla eating feminist.
On a more serious note: The author in the Stranger seems to confuse women doing things normally done by men as feminist acts. This is logically problematic. Sometimes feminist acts consist of women doing things normally done by men, such as when women take up police work or become Supreme Court justices. This does not make every gender-atypical act feminist. Few murderers are women, but being a female murderer is not an act of feminism.
Whether or not more men than women smoke weed is beside the point. Personally, I am with the rest of you who pointed out that there just might be some gender differences in people's reporting that they smoke weed.
As a physician diagnosing cancer patients -- including lots of lung and airway cancer patients -- I must admit that I haven't seen one yet directly attributed to marijuana smoke.
I totally agree that it would seem that to smoke any foreign substance into the lungs, including tobacco, and *ugh* car exhaust like Pickleberry talks about above should cause cancer. That is a rational line of reasoning.
I thought this too, until some recent studies had some suprising results.
It seems that something about the ingredients of marijuana when smoked may be slightly protective against cancer development.
From what I understand of the research, the same damage is done initially by marijuana smoke as with other smokes, causing similar genetic mutations and all ... but something else in the smoke special to marijuana actually induces the damaged cells to die before they progress to the cancer stage.
This isn't the basic research article, but is a good summary if you want to see it yourselves:
http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=89b809bb2487aeb61ccb890eefdf98df&page=133
Disclaimer: Though I still don't believe smoking marijuana is actually *good* for a person's respiratory health, I certainly don't think it is as bad as prior public information before this research has claimed either. Reality is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, smoking weed is a feminist act. In countries around the world, there are segregated male-only cafes, hookah bars, and cigar bars that men use to deprive women of social power. There's no law against women not smoking pot (hah), but there are male-controlled social forces that discourage it. Just like men use happy hours and country clubs to consolidate power, other men smoke weed and discourage women from joining their social circle by making big-titted Hempfest posters, inviting only male friends, and cultivating an image dangerous to women (hip hop anyone?). Even somehow commenters here have been tricked into thinking weed is somehow dangerous or only for manchildren.
Women who smoke weed obviously often know many other women who smoke weed. The other commenters here are telling, though. How many young men who aren't fundamentalist or evangelical haven't smoked weed many times in their lives? Compare that to the same group of young women and ask yourself, why? The only answer is that many women are excluded.
Aw, I haven't smoked up in years. I miss it. I am somewhat avid with the illegal prescriptions, of the codeine variety. But the only difference is availability. I enjoy both equally. :) Maybe 'pot culture' happens to be more male-oriented, but I don't think that reflects actual differences in usage.
I did not know that Mojo, but it's quite interesting.
I found the PubMed abstract for the original article, but the link to the full text requires a subscription.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17035389&ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
I don't think smoking weed is a feminist act. However, I (a woman and a feminist) smoke every day. I know lots of other women who smoke, and women who sell.
The women smokers I know are mostly feminists, and don't really like to buy from or smoke with men. Many of the stoner men I know are quite socially conservative (MRAs) and the women are more liberal/radical. That may help explain a perceived gender gap.
Much of popular 'stoner' culture is dude-centered. It was a great curiosity to me the first time I saw the male gaze applied to buds in the Cannabis Culture centerfolds. Pot TV is also quite dude-centered. The Marijuana Policy Project holds fundraisers at the Playboy Mansion.
With one exception, all the pot smokers I know are male. At least from my experience, guys do a lot more drugs (not just weed but also things like cough syrup or salvia). I don't think that's necessarily a feminist issue to take up like a crusade though...maybe even a good thing.
as a WASP living in the neighborhood of Saddleback Church I realize this skews my chances here but I know plenty, plenty of decidededly afeminist/antifeminist shirefolk. Evangelicals, Fundamentals, etc.
from what i experience(d) within the american drug culture.....the drug dealers seem to be mostly male because of the many risks involved. some men like to prove their manly-ness through taking risks. this also means that the level of violence in the drug culture is perpetuated because it's actually patriarchal and thus inherently more destructive to the lives involved. the patriarchy has "normal" members of our society convinced that marijuana ruins peoples lives. just as i have seen a few commentators pop up with their speculations about how addictive and dangerous marijuana is, these people are out there supporting the use of patriarchal force and violence against potheads with this reverse logic. if the truth were more accessible, these people would know that there have been ZERO overdoses or deaths attributed to only smoking marijuana. the ONLY way that marijuana is supposedly ruining lives is because it's still class one and treated as a crime, and in most places can only be obtained through illegal dealings, another justification for institutionalizing our youth, and churning out more violent individuals to feed the institution machine. if that is not a cycle of destructive pattern, i don't know what is.
also, the benefits of marijuana are being uncovered in places were unbiased studies are being allowed to take place. the most recent uncovering having to do with cannabinoids abilities in brain cells:
"Emerging research suggests that marijuana's medicinal properties may protect the body against some types of malignant tumors[7] and are neuroprotective."
[http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7305]
if women would start thinking about marijuana as a feminist issue (what about all of our children being locked in cages for the plant?) for some of these reasons, women could be faced with a couple of things: we could be part of a growing movement to reduce violence within the drug culture......and/or we would be targeted even more ferociously (like the modern witches we are) for attempting to make marijuana less criminal, thus, LESS PROFITABLE for the corporations that control the institutions that ruin the lives of the people who want to grow or sell or smoke a plant.
since feminism is mostly about fighting patriarchy, the whole issue in it's entirety (not just a question of who's smoking what and who is admitting to it or not) seems to be an issue that should be important to feminists, in my opinion.
getting the Truth out (not the usual double-speak & double-standards about marinol and anti-depressants and the lot of pharmaceutical chemicals available to anyone with enough dough) would be a step in a positive direction towards decriminalizing what is obviously a health issue in regards to ALL addictions.
I used to be part of the board of my college NORML chapter, so yes, a huge pothead (still am). But I was also a dean's list student and the recipient of a leadership award. I was a leader in several student groups, very socially active, and hold a good job now. I get very offended when someone brings up the lazy stoner stereotype. It is a good way to relax and socialize, just like drinking is to some people (not me). Prohibition of alcohol didn't work, and neither does prohibition of pot. Let me (possibly, as the good doctor points out) ruin my lungs, rather than my liver. I have known many many people in my parents generation that have smoked for many years, and only those who smoked cigarettes too are suffering from related illnesses these days.
I have long been a supporter of Hempfest and spoke there a couple times, and was upset to see the poster design this year. (Their spring fundraiser poster was a rather provocative lady liberty, too.)
I have never thought of smoking as a feminist act. It is a rebellious act against a male establishment, so yes, in that way it is. The NORML chapter I was part of, at my liberal arts college, was mainly run by women. The national chapter, at that time, was mainly headed by males, though. During public events, men were more likely to be open about supporting the cause, but I have to say that of the smokers I knew personally, the numbers were pretty even.
I encourage everyone to research the history of marijuana prohibition and the medical research that has been done on it. You'll probably find it very different than what the anti-drug and DARE have told you.
I don't think smoking is a particularly feminist act, but government attitudes to cannabis certainly harm women as much as anyone. I know two (UK) couples in which both partners happily toked their way through life until the relationship broke down and the guy started threatening to tell social services that his childrens' mother was an irresponsible dope fiend who shouldn't be entrusted with so much as a goldfish. The ridiculousness of this claim doesn't matter, because the ridiculousness of the law means mothers have to take it seriously.