When Giants Pass: A Marijuana Memoriam
Who Carries The Torch?
This 'marijuana memoriam' is gonna be a little somber, I’m afraid.
I’ve been off a few weeks with the ‘vid (Or, I had been when I started writing this), so I apologize if this isn’t as timely as it would’ve been a month or so ago. Still, I think the post remains worth making, so I’m going for it.
Over the course of my lifetime, there have been numerous artists, politicians, and other celebrities that have aligned themselves in some regard with cannabis. Whether they’ve admitted to ‘dabbling’ with it at some point, or perhaps indulging in claims that they ‘never inhaled’, marijuana has been lurking just behind the frontlines of most western art and culture for just short of an entire generation.
At least for me, it always felt ‘one step away’ from true, mainstream acceptance until very recently. The few who chose to align themselves with marijuana as a cause were mostly artists, comedians, actors, and other people working in creative fields. They were the first ‘ambassadors’ of weed, at least for me. I definitely saw an actor smoke weed in a movie long before I held a real, live joint myself.
I’m not sure how common that is among smokers in general, but I think it’s a trend that’s becoming more common. The portrayal of cannabis in media has changed significantly in a very short time, thanks in large part to the power of music and film.
Stoner comedies emerged in the late 70’s and early 80’s, bringing marijuana to the big screen. At the same time, rock stars were getting in trouble for bringing their cannabis over the border. Weed took a bit of a hit when rock took a backseat for the disco and pop of the 80’s, but quickly soared back into prominence after the 90’s brought hip-hop and grunge to the table.
From that perspective, it’s been almost 50 years of marijuana being in the public eye to reach the point we’re at today. Along the way, we’ve seen a lot of influential people come and go, a few of whom have really left a mark on marijuana culture and the part that marijuana has to play in the overall zeitgeist.
What Did You Just Say?
Zeitgeist (gesundheit). Look it up!
What I’m getting at is this: over the years, we’ve had a lot of awesome cannabis ambassadors who helped to prop up marijuana culture, and who acted as a driving force behind the massive movement that eventually led to the legalization of our favorite former schedule-1 substance.
Unfortunately, many of those same ambassadors have since passed on. Some were taken far too young, while others were lucky enough to enjoy a full life of working, smoking, and spreading the word about cannabis. The culture we enjoy today couldn’t exist without titans like these in the past, and personally, I think it’s time that we honour those people for their countless contributions to the world of weed.
You’re probably familiar with some of the most famous cannabis ambassadors- Guys like Cheech and Chong or Snoop Dogg. They’ve been cultural ambassadors for most of their careers, to the point that it feels difficult to talk about their lives without mentioning weed whatsoever. These are people that have represented marijuana for so long that it feels weird to see them separate from it.
The names I just mentioned are some of the biggest, for sure, but they’re far from the only historical champions of marijuana to come out of the last generation. There have been a lot of smaller voices, too, that echo the sentiments posed by the cultural giants of weed that we recognize.
Many of those smaller voices get forgotten over time, and that’s why I’d like to remember them here. I think it’s wrong to credit the historical shift in society’s views about cannabis to a specific few people, when in reality it was an uphill, multi-generational battle. A lot of the soldiers who started the fight weren’t able to survive to see the end of it, but battled their entire lives to build a better future for both cannabis and those who use it.
Some of them might not be quite as cannabis-focused as the guys I mentioned earlier, but still contributed to marijuana culture. Maybe they weren’t talking about smoking weed or dropping tracks about it, but they might have been the guys whose shows you watched when you were stoned and hanging out with friends. It doesn’t seem like much, but that’s all part of stoner culture, too!
I’d really like to demonstrate just how diverse that pool of people is, and just how many voices had to lend themselves to cannabis before it reached the mainstream recognition it enjoys today. There a ton of tiny, little pieces to this puzzle that encompass decades’ worth of people, all the media that they created, and the influence that they exerted on and through the world of cannabis.
I’m hoping that the majority of people that I post about for this segment will make you say “Who?” Or maybe more along the lines of “How do they relate to cannabis?” Hopefully, you’ll learn a bit about some people that you might not otherwise have cared about.
You’re Gonna Make Me Care?
I’m gonna try!
At the very least, it might equip you with some awesome trivia abilities once bars start doing that again. Are they already doing that again? I honestly don’t know. One of my favorite bars does trivia online now, but it’s not the same. No one laughs when I protest that ‘spinning’ is a valid link between Wheel of Fortune and Emperor Palpatine.
Hopefully, that changes soon.
If not, I’ve got a lot of awesome posts to write about some seriously interesting people.
Expect the first entry within the next couple of weeks!