Treetops
Active member
Guess I'm out of touch....LOL...Bout time it came to this level...I'm glad it has.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/fashion/more-older-americans-use-marijuana.html?ref=marijuana&_r=0
For Cher Neufer, a 65-year-old retired teacher, socializing with friends (all in their 60s) means using marijuana. Once a week they get together to play Texas Hold ’Em poker “and pass around a doobie,” Ms. Neufer said.
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The Fight Over Medical Marijuana
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Times Topic: Marijuana and Medical Marijuana
Piggs Peak Journal: Grandmas Grow Gold in Swaziland (August 15, 2012)
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Dan Gill for The New York Times
Vickie Hoffman is organizing a Missouri chapter of Grannies for Grass.
When company stops by her home in Akron, Ohio, she offers a joint, and when it’s someone’s birthday, a bong is prepared. She even hosts summer campfires where the older folk listen to the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles; eat grilled steaks and hot dogs; and get high (not necessarily in that order).
“It’s nice,” Ms. Neufer said. “It’s just a social thing. It’s like when people get together, and they crack open their beers.”
Statistics suggest that more members of the older generations, like Ms. Neufer, are using marijuana. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported in 2011 that 6.3 percent of adults between the ages of 50 and 59 used the drug. That number has risen from 2.7 percent in 2002.
And anecdotal evidence points to much of this use being sociable rather than medical.
When 70-year-old Robert Platshorn, a marijuana activist who was jailed for three decades after dealing the drug, moved into a gated community in West Palm Beach, Fla., three years ago, he said he “met people in my development who were looking strange at me.” Now, he said, couples invite him to their condominiums to get high together (Mr. Platshorn insisted he never accepts these offers).
Moms for Marijuana International, a pro-marijuana group that brings people together to socialize and learn about the positive aspects of the plant, has received so many queries from older people over the past year that it is creating chapters called Grannies for Grass in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri.
“There are groups out there that have trivia night and they have get-togethers,” said Vickie Hoffman, 46, a grandmother of three and a former bartender who is organizing the Missouri chapter. “It is fun, and it’s a group of great people.”
Mason Tvert, the communication director of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that works to change marijuana laws, said he started consuming marijuana about two years ago with his grandparents, Helen and Leo Shuller, who are 82 and 88. Now, when they get together, they “have a little bit off the vaporizer,” he said, either before or after dinner, and enjoy the effects.
The dinners aren’t “centered around using marijuana, like a little invitation with a leaf on it,” Mr. Tvert hastened to point out. “There just happens to be marijuana available.”
It makes sense that the baby boom generation and people a little younger might be more casual and open about marijuana use; after all, they grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, when getting high was the norm. According to Richard J. Bonnie, the author of “Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States,” in 1971 a national commission on marijuana drug use even recommended decriminalizing the drug, something that, for many people, was “recognized as a perfectly sensible proposal,” he said.
Some pot smokers of decades ago simply never stopped indulging with their friends. Indeed, Ms. Neufer, a self-proclaimed hippie (“I will be forever in my heart, and in my mind,” she said), started smoking at 21 and has been growing pot in her backyard and organizing drug-fueled sing-alongs ever since.
She pointed out that those who have moved on from corporate work might feel more comfortable revealing and sharing their marijuana use.
“Most of us are either retiring or are retired,” Ms. Neufer said. “You don’t have to worry about your job knowing, so it’s a little easier for us. I don’t care if you use my name, I don’t care if they know!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/fashion/more-older-americans-use-marijuana.html?ref=marijuana&_r=0
For Cher Neufer, a 65-year-old retired teacher, socializing with friends (all in their 60s) means using marijuana. Once a week they get together to play Texas Hold ’Em poker “and pass around a doobie,” Ms. Neufer said.
Multimedia
The Fight Over Medical Marijuana
Related
Times Topic: Marijuana and Medical Marijuana
Piggs Peak Journal: Grandmas Grow Gold in Swaziland (August 15, 2012)
The Collection: A Fashion App for the iPad
The Collection
A one-stop destination for Times fashion coverage and the latest from the runways.
Download It From the App Store
Follow Us on Twitter
NYTimesFashion on Twitter
Follow @NYTimesfashion for fashion, beauty and lifestyle news and headlines.
Enlarge This Image
Dan Gill for The New York Times
Vickie Hoffman is organizing a Missouri chapter of Grannies for Grass.
When company stops by her home in Akron, Ohio, she offers a joint, and when it’s someone’s birthday, a bong is prepared. She even hosts summer campfires where the older folk listen to the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles; eat grilled steaks and hot dogs; and get high (not necessarily in that order).
“It’s nice,” Ms. Neufer said. “It’s just a social thing. It’s like when people get together, and they crack open their beers.”
Statistics suggest that more members of the older generations, like Ms. Neufer, are using marijuana. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported in 2011 that 6.3 percent of adults between the ages of 50 and 59 used the drug. That number has risen from 2.7 percent in 2002.
And anecdotal evidence points to much of this use being sociable rather than medical.
When 70-year-old Robert Platshorn, a marijuana activist who was jailed for three decades after dealing the drug, moved into a gated community in West Palm Beach, Fla., three years ago, he said he “met people in my development who were looking strange at me.” Now, he said, couples invite him to their condominiums to get high together (Mr. Platshorn insisted he never accepts these offers).
Moms for Marijuana International, a pro-marijuana group that brings people together to socialize and learn about the positive aspects of the plant, has received so many queries from older people over the past year that it is creating chapters called Grannies for Grass in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri.
“There are groups out there that have trivia night and they have get-togethers,” said Vickie Hoffman, 46, a grandmother of three and a former bartender who is organizing the Missouri chapter. “It is fun, and it’s a group of great people.”
Mason Tvert, the communication director of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that works to change marijuana laws, said he started consuming marijuana about two years ago with his grandparents, Helen and Leo Shuller, who are 82 and 88. Now, when they get together, they “have a little bit off the vaporizer,” he said, either before or after dinner, and enjoy the effects.
The dinners aren’t “centered around using marijuana, like a little invitation with a leaf on it,” Mr. Tvert hastened to point out. “There just happens to be marijuana available.”
It makes sense that the baby boom generation and people a little younger might be more casual and open about marijuana use; after all, they grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, when getting high was the norm. According to Richard J. Bonnie, the author of “Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States,” in 1971 a national commission on marijuana drug use even recommended decriminalizing the drug, something that, for many people, was “recognized as a perfectly sensible proposal,” he said.
Some pot smokers of decades ago simply never stopped indulging with their friends. Indeed, Ms. Neufer, a self-proclaimed hippie (“I will be forever in my heart, and in my mind,” she said), started smoking at 21 and has been growing pot in her backyard and organizing drug-fueled sing-alongs ever since.
She pointed out that those who have moved on from corporate work might feel more comfortable revealing and sharing their marijuana use.
“Most of us are either retiring or are retired,” Ms. Neufer said. “You don’t have to worry about your job knowing, so it’s a little easier for us. I don’t care if you use my name, I don’t care if they know!”
