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Is Marijuana Booming Among Boomers?
Posted by CN Staff on May 17, 2013 at 05:05:32 PT
By Robyn Griggs Lawrence
Source: Forbes
USA -- Like many of her peers, Zoe Helene, 48, smoked marijuana in her early 20s but gave it up as her career in the digital world took off in the 1990s. Today the multidisciplinary artist and environmental activist lives in Amherst, Mass., and is building a global network of trailblazers called Cosmic Sister. Since she married an ethnobotanist in 2007, she has returned to using cannabis occasionally — “as a tool for evolving and expanding my psyche.”Helene is among a group of women that Marie Claire magazine has dubbed “Stiletto Stoners — card-carrying, type-A workaholics who just happen to prefer kicking back with a blunt instead of a bottle.” She’s also one of a growing legion of boomers who are returning to marijuana now that the stigma and judgment (and laws) surrounding its use are becoming more lax.
Massachusetts, which decriminalized pot in 2008, became the 18th state to legalize medical marijuana, last year. In the 2012 presidential election, which New York Times columnist Timothy Egan called America’s “cannabis spring,” Colorado and Washington voters legalized recreational use, launching weed into the national spotlight and spawning a flurry of marijuana initiatives. Since then, decriminalization bills have been introduced in 10 additional states, and legalization is being considered in 11 states and Puerto Rico.This trend, along with decriminalization in cities like Chicago, Boston, New York and Denver, has removed a major “barrier to entry” for law-abiding citizens who would use cannabis as medicine or a substitute for alcohol. No longer worried about breaking the law or having their kids discovering their “dirty little secret,” many boomers are returning to a substance they once enjoyed. Others, who never stopped smoking, are coming out of the closet (or the garage) about their use.The Return of ReeferWhile boomers looking for stress relief turn to exercise, yoga, meditation or religion, plenty relax with alcohol or pharmaceuticals. For those who don’t drink (or can’t anymore for health reasons) or take prescription drugs but still want to unwind at the end of the day, laxer laws and attitudes have made marijuana acceptable.Many respected doctors, homeopaths and naturopaths tout cannabis as natural medicine for a range of conditions, both physical and mental — especially when it’s ingested by means other than smoking. And with the rise of medical marijuana and legal dispensaries, adults don’t have to resort to clandestine meetings on street corners with black market strangers. They can with a prescription walk into a legitimate business establishment and choose from a variety of strains with the help of a “bud tender.”‘Everybody Smokes Dope After Work’Clearly there’s been a sea change. In 1969, 84% of all Americans opposed legalizing marijuana. In April 2013, Pew Research found that for the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, more Americans than not (52%) want marijuana to be legal. And that’s not just college kids: Among boomers the number is only slightly lower (50%).A segment of the boomer generation never stopped smoking pot, but many did. In the 1980s, while starting families and building careers, they were influenced by the zeitgeist: Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, known as DARE, in their kids’ schools. People didn’t want to be associated with the stoner caricatures they saw depicted in movies, like Sean Penn’s iconic Jeff Spicoli inFast Times at Ridgemont High.President Bill Clinton’s confession that he had smoked marijuana once but “didn’t inhale” did little to encourage open use. Contrast that with President Barack Obama’s statement that not only did that he inhale frequently but “that was the point.”Legalized marijuana is gathering increasingly high-profile support. Last year chef, author and TV personalityAnthony Bourdain told The New York Times that “everybody smokes dope after work.” And a host of respected public figures — including Paul Volcker, Deepak Chopra, Michael Pollan and PBS’s Rick Steves — have been vocal advocates for legalization.Another sign of the changing times is the proliferation of marijuana lifestyle stories in the media. In February, The New York Times Style section ran an article on marijuana etiquette, soliciting “an Emily Post to hack a pathway through this fuggy thicket, particularly given pot’s increased presence in the mainstream.”The Cannabis Closet: Firsthand Accounts of the Marijuana Mainstream, published in 2010 by The Dish, surprised a lot of people with its candid testimonials from pot-smoking corporate executives, government officials and responsible parents.Pot PrescriptionsNot all the rebudding boomers are coming back for recreational purposes. A large segment isn’t after the buzz but is using marijuana for a panoply of health issues. In the 19 states (plus the District of Columbia) where medical marijuana is legal, it’s being prescribed to alleviate symptoms associated with cancer, glaucoma, gastrointestinal disorders, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, AIDS, migraines and chronic pain and countless other maladies. Some studies show that it might even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and fight tumors. Steve DeAngelo, 55, executive director of Harborside Health Center, which operates dispensaries in Oakland and San Jose, believes marijuana can be “part of a more holistic approach” to health care. Many of his clients suffering from insomnia, anxiety or lowered libido are using cannabis as an alternative to “pharmaceuticals that come with a list of side effects reading like something out of a Stephen King novel,” he says.Medical marijuana entered the national consciousness in 1991, when San Francisco physicians were first allowed to prescribe it. Five years later California voters approved the first statewide medical marijuana laws. (Interestingly, marijuana was listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942 and wasn’t illegaluntil the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The U.S. government categorized it a Schedule 1 substance without medicinal value in 1970.)Like a slow train gathering steam, other states followed California’s lead. The train took off like a bullet in 2009 when Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would essentially look the other way if state-approved dispensaries complied with local laws.Today medical marijuana is a highly profitable industry. Precise customer numbers are elusive, but as acceptance spreads, the head count grows. To obtain a medical marijuana card, patients have to be diagnosed with an approved condition by a licensed physician and register with the state.Once their doctor writes a prescription, users can enter a marijuana emporium, offering a dizzying array of cannabis strains as well as new delivery systems, including electronic vaporizers, capsules, tinctures, teas, honeys, drinks and oils. Marijuana-infused food products, aka “medibles,” have expanded way beyond pot brownies to include pizza, pasta sauce, popcorn, ice cream, soda and even salad dressing.This booming business, which was the subject of a recent Fortune cover story, is estimated to generate annual revenues of $36 billion — and that number is expected to double over the next five years. Targeting the Boomer MarketThis expanding market segment isn’t lost on marijuana cultivators, who are hybridizing varieties with particular appeal to users more interested in preventive health care and pain maintenance than catching a buzz. These strains are higher in the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD, which has anti-inflammatory properties and provides pain relief but doesn’t affect thinking and productivity.Established players are using their business acumen to shape the industry. Former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively (aka “the Bill Gates of Cannabis”) recently took things in a new direction when he opened Diego Pellicer, which bills itself as “the first legal retail brand in the United States focused exclusively on legal, premium marijuana for pleasure and creative pursuits.” Shively has said that he’s specifically appealing to “baby boomers with disposable incomes who smoked during college years but took a 30-year break to raise a family.”Private equity firms are getting in on the action by strategically investing in the legal cannabis industry — and they’re targeting boomers. Michael Blue, co-founder of Privateer Holdings, says that midlifers represent about 40 percent of the visitors to his company’s first acquisition, Leafly.com, where “discerning connoisseurs who select cannabis strains like they select fine wines” can rate and compare marijuana.A prime target: Zoe Helene, whose casual use is part of her holistic vegetarian lifestyle. She occasionally eats her husband’s “marjoons” (marijuana macaroons) to heighten her creativity, loosen up her body for dance and yoga, and help her grow spiritually.“I’m not a pothead,” the boomer says. “For me, cannabis is a loving plant spirit that helps me understand myself. It heightens my senses and reminds me of higher levels of consciousness I can attain. And then I attain them, without it.”Boulder, Colorado–based writer Robyn Griggs Lawrence is working with a group of professional chefs on a cookbook that will help people safely and responsibly make and eat haute cannabis cuisine.Source: Forbes Magazine (US)Author: Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Next Avenue ContributorPublished: May 16, 2013Copyright: 2013 Forbes Inc.Contact: readers forbes.comWebsite: http://www.forbes.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/bBD8kTIkCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #10 posted by afterburner on May 21, 2013 at 07:33:41 PT
museman #9
I totally agree about the power of live and living music. I prefer to hear concerts to recorded music. Or better still to play live with friends. I used to play harmonica on the bus, usually appreciated, sometimes criticized by the over-stressed. Bob Dylan once sang 
"And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seeing that he's chasing." Bob Dylan - Mr. Tambourine Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE_hDWMftgcYears ago, a girlfriend turned me on both to Bob Dylan and to cannabis. Ironically yesterday, I started writing some updated lyrics to the tune of Woodstock, dealing with soil biodiversity. Another song I'm working on deals with global warming to the tune of Instant Karma. Folk tradition keeps music and ideas fresh and relevant, as times change and people's needs change.The Bible was Jewish oral tradition before the scribes wrote it down in fear that its wisdom would be lost in a big war.Casper Solomon, an Ojibwa elder, was opposed to writing Ojibwa stories and teachings, preferring to let them remain oral and alive. The music "business" was more creative, interesting and inspiring when groups used to share tunes and songs more freely, before the corporate lawsuits. When friends Jan and Dean blatantly copied the tune of The Beach Boys' "Catch a Wave" to perform and record "Sidewalk Surfin," a new craze was embraced by the kids. The skateboard craze remains alive to as city kids surf the streets and parks on the skateboards and scooters.Catch a Wave - Beach Boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLgWbH-qhVoJan & Dean - "Sidewalk Surfin" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO2qn1DFAu8
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Comment #9 posted by museman on May 20, 2013 at 09:50:51 PT
afterburner
Mammon.There is more to it than just "money." Propriety and possession." Boundaries and fences. Power and "authority."
It is the worship and "service" to those principles and principalities that is the error of errors.To me, "Mammon" represents the virtual 'god' of these corrupted human attributes, and is a disgusting thing to be trodden underfoot.Through art and music, poetry, prose and fiction, the Spirit of man has shone through. In my understanding and experience, it is that clear and pure intention of truth, love and beauty that makes any expression 'art' -not the packaged, watered down, bought-and-paid-for tripe of mainstream corporations intending to use the power of music -for example- as a means to control consumer trends.In this world the 'servants of mammon' are currently all of us that aren't mammon itself.But there are degrees of 'service' and non-service.The time has come to say goodbye to mammon forever. Of course I am well aware that the general masses haven't even recognized -completely- the nature of their bondage to that beast, yet, and getting them to let go of millennia of false values and beliefs is going to be the hardest thing our race has ever done. The process was begun a long time ago. Various religions would claim their particular 'teacher' as the 'initiator.' They were all of the same Spirit of "Truth, Light, and Way" that Yshwh referred to in a cosmic riddle that some few thousand on the planet now understand.This may seem like an insignificant number, but not when one steps back and sees the implications aligning with the actual timeline events.The days of the false orders is over, even though they are ignorant of their own demise, and will attempt much fear and loathing before they are done. Marley, Lennon, and many others served as guides in our hour of need, and for that they will be forever revered. Yet everyone must look around for there is much much more that still lives and breathes, a multitude of voices and songs waiting to be heard and shared, maybe on youtube, but youtube is too easy, digital toys too easy to apply, and the old grease of mammon gets the traffic as much there as it did with TV, radio, religion, and law.Playing music with a recording might be ok for some, but I prefer to play music with live people. Having gone full circle from lowly folk singer with a beat up acoustic, to a fully equipped recording studio and a few bands along the way. After more than 10 years of internet presence, I am now globally known (as a musician) by about 100 or so people - part of an experiment I started in 2000 has demonstrated to me my original belief that 'success' in the world of mammon, requires a certain amount of mammon grease and homage to that god before it ever happens. Internet traffic is driven by money paid to create SPAM and near spam and search-engine priority etc. Marketing in the digital age is still about profit, not quality. Though my long net presence has made my name & site #1 in google search of it, my music and writing for free -the very fact that it is free has disqualified it from the consideration of mammonites -consumers-When Marley was alive, he was only known in certain parts of the world. His music certainly was not played on American radio except on some specialty radio stations in L.A.The funny thing is that the 'Rasta' movement didn't even happen here until after he died. Then it was safe to let the truth that Marley sang out of obscurity, because it would never grow, or change, or get to the point that Marley would have got to had he the chance. For the msot part, only Jamaicans had the opportunity to kow Marley.What would the world be like if great men like Marley and Lennon had not been taken out (and I do not believe for a moment that Marleys death was a 'natural' event, or that Lennons assasination was a random act of a madman.) -how would they view the world now? Would they have something new to say? We can never know.But we can know, because everything they would have come to know and sing, is right out there, right now, pouring out of the hearts and spirits of innumerous obscure aritsts who are not given the time of day becauue they are constantly compared to the industry standards, and the works of dead men.All of the greats were only men and women, like you and me. Like you and me they had the same faculties of awareness, and the same things to look at. Unfortunately what makes them 'great' in the eyes of history is almost more about their deaths than their lives. This society worships dead idols and heros -the rulers want it that way. Its easier to control the words of a dead man than a living one. I give you religion as the supreme example of that.'The Living Word" Only lives when it is alive an moving through us. As soon as it becomes static and unchanging, unable to morph with the flow of humanity, it becomes just another brick in the wall. And since Marley -for example- is dead, he cannot step up and correct the errors being made in his name.I have often pondered the possibilities of what might happen to my music once I am gone. A few decades ago I thought it an imperative to get it all recorded 'for posterity'. But a recent loss of one of those 'great men' that only a few of us know about (for reasons already stated) put it all in perspective for me.One day someone will be singing one of my songs. There is a fifty-fifty chance the one singing it will know I wrote it. There is also a fifty-fifty chance they won't have a clue. -because I chose to make mammon my enemy instead of a vampirical 'muse.' And I payed and sang for free 98% of the time.Fortunately, I have a large musical family, who will carry on my works, and probably sing them all much better than I ever could. I avoided the polgroms that caught my peers, by staying out of the spotlight, but though that sacrifice may have ensured the 'life' of my works, it denied me the recognition. I knew in 1985 that I had to get off the front lines, so the 'fame' I had (under another name) disapeared almost overnite, though I still hear that old name of mine echoing through the ranks of old Rainbow hippies now and then.I don't listen to music the same way most do. I cannot deal with 'background' music -particularly if it is good. I listen to the music, move with the tones and vibrations, and take the meaning of the words into my holistic embrace. Once that has been done I hardly need to do it over and over again. Ever since The Wall came out in 1979 -and some how there was an early relseas of it that summer at the rainbow gathering- I have listened to it a few times. I watched the movie on a B&W TV with a rolling picture, and Tim Leary's recipe allowed us to see it in color and not even notice the rolling frames. I learned to play some of the music, I liked it so much. But then just last year, I was gifted with tickets to see Roger Waters do it live.I could never listen to that old Pink Floyd rendition again without feeling its age and faded glory.The livng deserve the support. Marley and Lennon can't play what's in their hearts and minds any more, and what was there, though still maybe appropriate, it is static and dead. The only way I can 'lively up' the music is by playing it live on instruments. So is it the song, or the songwriter that is most important? Is it the message or the messenger?All this is meant as an explanation and nothing else...LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #8 posted by afterburner on May 19, 2013 at 10:16:18 PT
museman #7 
I agree with you regarding the tendency of society to worship the dead artist. Vincent Van Gogh didn't sell a single painting during his prolific painting career. However, after his death his paintings fetched massive prices due to the takeover by Big Money, those art dealers and collectors, making his art into investments for the few. I would hate to see that happen to Bob Marley. As a person who was alive during Bob Marley's career and who saw him live, I celebrate his message of truth and rights and the global reach of the resonation as many citizens of the world embraced that message of hope and empowerment. Bob's message was/is for the many. Let he who has ears hear.Bob Marley and Money (interview) https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=MiWFCiM3AL4&feature=endscreen"You cannot serve God and mammon [money]." Matthew 6:24"22The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light. 23But if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6:22-24
http://biblehub.com/matthew/6-24.htmToday's music business is controlled by Big Money, corporate-owned with pro-corporate messages. Groups like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Doobie Brothers, and Bob Marley and the Wailers broke the mold briefly to let some true light of truth and refreshing musical nourishment through for the many. Timothy Leary called it the process: "Life, Structure, Death, Life, Structure, Death" I, too, stopped listening to the radio around 1975, preferring vinyl and cassettes. Now, we have YouTube and iTunes (albeit, also corporate-owned) to give the individual more choices.
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Comment #7 posted by museman on May 18, 2013 at 10:01:11 PT
afterburner
Reggae is not my favorite music, though I surely do appreciate Marley. The 'white rasta posers'(as we call 'em 'round here) totally spoiled it for me, much like the deadheads ruined the Grateful Dead for me.As a musician myself, having written over 100 songs -all about truth, love, and Spirit (my first (mistake) I find inspiration comes in all kinds of ways. One thing I have found is that it does not come by willing it, though the intention helps.I have also found that all the heroes and role models of our generation who were taken out while they were still young, might seriously have matured in ways we don't know.I do find it hard to take the fact that the dead (and I don't mean the band) are given more credibility than the living, even if it is Marley, or Lennon...In a way this is the point that Kapt and I were beating around at- the rejection by the mammon-based social norms and standards that are narrow minded, right-wing oriented, of humanistic, Spiritual truth. And worst of all is the packaging of the appearances - the look and the talk of 'New Age' and Spirituality, without the actual living of the life and walking the walk. - And I do respect Marley for this-I don't believe, and will be very hard to convince that any music and art produced by mainstream corporate industry is not propaganda, and steeped in connotative symbolisms that support the rejection of all things really good, so that only the exclusive elites can get the benefit of it.I stopped listening to the radio in 1975, and as far as I can tell I haven't missed much.LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #6 posted by afterburner on May 17, 2013 at 22:54:55 PT
Lively Up Yourself
museman #2 & kaptinemo #3 The double standard and the propaganda attacks using outdated, disproven, but still emotionally charged language continues. We must charge forward until we reach the highest ground.Does the lively life and activity of this world-renowned musician match the stereotype of the lazy stoner?Marley (2012) Official Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0kOHI9fn-sExcerpts: { The routine: getting up in the mornings, train, do a lot of running, exercise, go to the beach.Rasta - based on eternal life and taking care of your body as the temple of the Lord.Cane River Falls - best massage you can get. Football (soccer) field, like small scrimmage.In everything that Bob does, very competitive.He had a passion. He just didn't play for the fun of it:
it was part of the process. 
 
Before he wrote a song, burn a spliff, then you go run, you lively up yourself, and get inspired, so that the lyrics come out. }
Bob Marley - Lively Up Yourself (Live) 
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on May 17, 2013 at 17:57:48 PT:
Once more, awreness of the manipulative techiques 
is paramount."“I’m not a pothead,” the boomer says. “For me, cannabis is a loving plant spirit that helps me understand myself. It heightens my senses and reminds me of higher levels of consciousness I can attain. And then I attain them, without it.” Think of that statement in terms of the male-dominant cultural parameters that I have mentioned in my last comment. What does this say to someone who comes from either a 'proletarian' background...or a Investor Class one? It says, 'Airy-fairy', 'fluffy-headed', 'unreliable', 'shallow', 'goofy', 'New-Agey'. It says 'outside the mainstream', 'weird', etc. It makes the tacit implication that said Boomer is being a hypocrite with the latter part of her statement making her out to be the very 'pot-head' she she herself denies being. It presses all the subconscious buttons of a country brought up to worship business culture and businessmen (this is Forbes magazine, remember, the mouthpiece of millionaires and billionaires) as idols and shun that which even remotely reeks of sloth...which is one of the stereotypical behavioral traits that cannabis consumers are supposed to be marked by.Never mind that she is right. She will never be seen as such by those who either have not had such a cannabis-inspired epiphany or who actively hate the idea as it challenges all those cultural presuppositions that help keep the Investor Class in power.Subtle, so subtle, but once you know how to deconstruct it, using awareness of those cultural parameters I mentioned, you see it plain as day.
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Comment #4 posted by Sam Adams on May 17, 2013 at 17:14:50 PT
propaganda 
no kidding this article is brimming with propaganda. Look at the first sentence..."like many of her peers, she smoked MJ but then stopped as her career took off"That's funny, most everyone I know from Gen X that used it in their 20's is still using it now, running companies and living in huge housesAnyone that reads this statement is going to conclude that the speaker is basically an idiot, but then this also articulates hypocrisy, which of course is our #1 value:“I’m not a pothead,” the boomer says. “For me, cannabis is a loving plant spirit that helps me understand myself. It heightens my senses and reminds me of higher levels of consciousness I can attain. And then I attain them, without it.”
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on May 17, 2013 at 16:20:30 PT:
Pay attention to the connotations!
Notice the emotionally charged use of words to see what the intent behind the article is:For example, the word 'lax' and its' derivations. To the business world, this connotes a lack of discipline, as leads to sloppiness on the job, poor productivity, etc. All the bugaboos that prohibitionists constantly clamor about.For an authoritarian, especially those of the religious stripe, the words 'lax', 'laxer' and 'laxity' connote moral turpitude, sleaziness of character, etc.Another trigger word is 'soft' and 'softening', particularly when it is used in conjunction regarding drug law reform. The (negative) connotation is that in a male-dominated society, anything 'soft' is inherently weak; anything that smacks of 'softness' must be expunged lest it lead to 'weakening of moral fiber' (not to mention the tacitly unstated assumption that anything 'soft' is effiminate and insufficiently masculine). The word 'permissive' has similar negative connotations in this culture...and for similar reasons. Hence the use of these words by the prohibs; they know what subconscious mental behavioral triggers these words can pull with regards to the masses. Propaganda hidden in a (ostensible) 'news' article is nothing new. Be aware of how you're being manipulated.
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Comment #2 posted by museman on May 17, 2013 at 09:11:32 PT
getting on the wagon
Anybody can do it, all you need is fame and fortune, then if you say something like, “I’m not a pothead, For me, cannabis is a loving plant spirit that helps me understand myself. It heightens my senses and reminds me of higher levels of consciousness I can attain. And then I attain them, without it.”Whalla you are acceptable! Of course if I say it, and point out that I have been saying it for over 40 years, I am just a 'drug user,'Geez, what a lopsided, unfair set of crap we have for a civilization/society.LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on May 17, 2013 at 07:47:52 PT
I tried to go shopping at Target...
...but I missed! My Mom always said, "Don't run with scissors unless you are a barber and you are late for work".
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