Stoners are trading in their tie-dye Grateful Dead shirts for stilettos. A growing number of the pot-smoking public are successful career women, Marie Claire reports in its November issue.
They’re women with killer careers who feel that at the end of a long, grueling day, the best way to kick back isn’t with a Cosmopolitan, but a bong hit.
“We’re talking about highly functioning women,” Joanna Coles, editor-in-chief of Marie Claire, said on the “Today” show Wednesday. “These are not people who are lying on park benches … They’re casual recreational users who find [marijuana] very effective.”
Eight million women over the age of 18 report having smoked marijuana in the past year, according to a study cited in the magazine. The trend may be connected to the fact that marijuana has been decriminalized in 13 states. So being caught with pot in your pocket is a minor offense, akin to a parking ticket.
In California, where pot was legalized for medical purposes in 1996, some 31,000 residents are now card carriers for the medicinal plant. “Everybody has a friend who has a card,” one 29-year-old L.A. resident told Marie Claire. “My friend will call me up and say, ‘I’m going to the store, you want anything?’ It’s just not very hard to get.”
Even the stereotypes about getting the “munchies” and getting fat don’t phase some regular smokers.
“My mom told me that people would lace pot with PCP and that I’d get hooked, or that I’d get the munchies and get fat,” another woman told the magazine. But none of that’s true, she claims, even noting that she’s dropped 25 pounds despite smoking regularly.
When it comes to relaxing at the end of a long workday, some women find pot to be a better option than a few cocktails, which often come with a hangover the next day, Coles said on “Today.”
“[Marijuana] is cheap, they can do it in the privacy of their own home, and it [is] a very effective way to calm down,” she said.
But it’s not all fun and games, insist critics. Like cigarette smokers, some argue that pot smokers are at higher risk for lung and neck cancer (though experts have yet to find a strong correlation between cannabis and cancer). And it’s not just health risks. The importing and exporting of drugs can be dangerous business, often leading to other violent crimes like robbery or even murder, say critics.
Still, some women with anxiety problems, prefer the effects of the herb to prescription medication.
One New York attorney who requested anonymity chooses to toke after finding the anti-anxiety drug Xanax left her feel groggy and numb.
“Look, every female attorney I know has some vice or another,” she tells Marie Claire. “It’s really not a big deal.”
By Amy Eisinger
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2009/10/01/2009-10-01_stiletto_stoners_more_professional_women_turning_to_pot_for_stress_relief_relaxa.html
