Culture - Friends of Cannabis

[old hippie 56]

Michael Madsen (Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, Wyatt Earp) - Madsen bluntly described his daily ritual during the filming of 'Thelma & Louise': "Brad Pitt and I would stand around in the morning and get stoned out of our minds waiting for the van to come take us to the set."

Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt - The Star tabloid reported the former couple's idea of a perfect night was getting high together at home. A concerned friend said they smoked almost every day and were quite open about their marijuana use and happy to smoke up a storm in public at parties.

Johnny Depp - Depp claimed to have stopped using most illegal drugs, but still rated different drug highs. "Opium makes you completely relaxed. It's dangerous because it's so nice. Cocaine is a strange drug...I hated cocaine." Depp compared absinthe to marijuana, except "if you drink too much absinthe, you suddenly realize why van Gogh cut his ear off. I'm not a great pothead...but weed is much, much less dangerous than alcohol."

Prince Charles - During his annual visit to the Sue Ryder home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, he asked a patient with multiple sclerosis if she ever tried taking cannabis because he heard it's the best thing for it. The Prince of Wales has expressed interest in the effectiveness of cannabis in relieving the pain of such diseases.

Pancho Villa - Pancho Villa was revered as a hero who pushed foreign "proprietors" out of Mexico and fought for the common man. He was a fierce general who also helped those in need. Villa's troops smoked marijuana, a term they used for the flowering tops of the hemp plant (possibly named for a juana (female soldier) in Villa's army.) The folk song "La Cucaracha" tells of a cockroach who cannot function because he lacks marijuana to smoke. During the Spanish-American war, Villa's troops seized 800,000 acres of prime timberland from newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. Hearst soon began a smear campaign against marijuana, claiming its dark-skinned users turned murderous.

Justin Timberlake - Believes cannabis should be legalized because "it would cut the crime rate in half. All the stoners I know are too paranoid to do anything stupid."

Barbara Streisand - Streisand explaned how she progressed from talking about pot to smoking joints on stage. "I'd take out a joint and light it and pass it around to the band. It was great, it relieved all my tensions. Other acts heard about what I was doing - Little Anthony and the Imperials, people like that - and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out."

Popeye the Sailor Man - Since his creation, the pipe-puffing Popeye has become a global phenomenon, with millions of kids heartily munching on spinach in hopes it will make them as strong as the legendary sailor man. There is evidence that Popeye's strength-giving spinach was meant as a clear metaphor for the miraculous powers of marijuana. In the 1920's and 1930's, the era Popeye was created, "spinach" was a very common code word for marijuana. One classic example is the Spinach Song, performed for years by jazz bands in clubs thick with cannabis smoke. Also, anti-marijuana propaganda of the time claimed that marijuana use induced super-strength. Overblown media reports proclaimed that pot smokers became extraordinarily strong, and even immune to bullets. Further, as a "sailor-man," Popeye would be expected to be familiar with exotic herbs from distant locales. Indeed, sailors were among the first to introduce marijuana to American culture, bringing the herb back with them from their voyages overseas.

William Shakespeare - He may have relied on more than his genius to write his plays and sonnets. Researchers have unearthed fragments of clay pipes dating back to the 17th century near the garden of England's greatest playwright which have shown traces of cocaine and hallucinogenic drugs. Cannabis sativa, the plant from which marijuana is derived was also available in Elizabethan England.

Thanks to a friend for this little tidbit.