I’m sitting in a coffee shop, sipping apple juice with a suburban
schoolteacher who’s wearing running shorts and polar fleece on a chilly
summer day.
This teacher’s students and the students’ parents might be startled
by today’s agenda: Teach is headed to a guy’s house to do bong hits.
And not just any bong hits. This teacher’s dealer has a gravity
bong—an often-homemade jug bong that delivers a more intense hit;
gravity bongs can be taller than some people. Teach is also going to
buy some weed.
“When I buy from him I get an eighth and he smokes me out,” teach
tells me, “so I get, you know, the bonus round.”
The only thing more remarkable than teach’s drug use is teach’s
gender. Fiona is that rarest of species—a female stoner.
Smoking pot is a guy thing. Guys are the ones who deal, buy, and
smoke. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated
that adult males were 50 percent more likely to have smoked marijuana
in the last month than females. (Alcohol use showed only a 12 percent
difference.) All illegal drugs show this approximate divide between the
sexes (except illegally obtained prescriptions—women use those in
substantially higher numbers).
Why don’t women smoke pot as much as men? Marijuana isn’t like other
illicit substances; it’s more accessible than most drugs and safer than
cigarettes or alcohol. A joint is not a crack pipe.
Are women scared of being out of control? Maybe, but if that were
the case, wouldn’t women drink less than they do? Maybe women are
scared of getting arrested—pot is harder to sneak than pills. But
women don’t take prescription drugs to get a feeling of euphoria (you
know, high), but to cover up for a lack of confidence or to lose
weight, according to the Associated Press. And smoking pot definitely
does not help you lose weight.
Perhaps the obstacle to female toking is a fear of looking lazy.
Getting stoned is, in effect, a great way to relax. Men are allowed to
be lazy—being stoned is part of their farting, pajama-wearing,
video-game-playing pantheon of acceptable male relaxation techniques.
Since Jeff Spicoli made his debut in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont
High, and continuing into the entire oeuvre of director Judd
Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up),
stonerdom is an accepted part of modern maleness. Their sloth is even
kind of adorable.
But modern women are not allowed to be lazy, adorable stoners. Women
have to go to college (which they’re now doing at higher rates than
men), and then get their careers going quickly, before their biological
clocks run out. Then they have to have kids and take them to all of
their activities. There is no time for women to be slovenly and
relax—and if women do relax, it has to be at a gym.
One of feminism’s original goals to subvert traditional male and
female roles. So how come pot culture, which one would expect to be
receptive to the feminist message, has changed so little?
Thirty-five-year-old Fiona (her name has been changed to protect her
stonerdom) has been a teacher for ten years. She and her boyfriend
spend about $120 to $160 a month on pot, an expense that’s figured into
their household budget.
“There’s such a focus on achieving things and gaining materialistic
things,” says Fiona, “that people have this view of people who smoke
pot as Deadheads or hippies.”
Fiona is no hippie. In fact, she has her life completely together:
She drives an almost-paid-off 2005 model car, lives in one of Seattle’s
nicer neighborhoods, and even paid off her student loan in a year. She
also plays in a regular Ultimate Frisbee game. (Ultimate Frisbee is for
jocks these days, not hippies.)
“My parents were hippies, and I was always embarrassed of how they
smoked pot when I was growing up because I went to Catholic school,”
she says in an even tone, pushing her red hair out of her face as she
speaks. “They tried to grow it but the cats would always eat it.” She
didn’t start smoking weed until high school—and she did it to
rebel against school administrators, not her parents.
Now she says she smokes weed pretty much every night, and on the
weekends she smokes more than once a day. “I have to be on my game when
I am at work, but it’s very stressful, so I come home and I just want
to relax and chill out at my house.”
Smoking pot helps her mellow out after work, but it also helps her
with her job. She reflects on problems she had that day: “Sometimes
[smoking pot] helps me to be creative in my problem solving.”
But it’s not all about her professional life. “A lot of girls drink
to be social, and when you smoke pot, you’re kind of in for the night.”
But when Fiona goes out, she’ll smoke weed before she starts drinking.
When attending a recent Daft Punk concert, she smoked a little pot
before she went into the venue: “It definitely helps deepen my
appreciation of music.”
* * *
Women, of course, aren’t supposed to smoke pot and then go drinking
at Daft Punk concerts. They aren’t supposed to turn to pot to help them
with work.
A woman’s role in pot culture? Like the case of this year’s Hempfest
poster, women are supposed to be cartoonish sexpots who cater to men
(guess that’s Hempfest’s demographic) or sympathetic poster children
for medical marijuana.
And when a woman does smoke weed on film, she’s not generally a
cute, bumbling, child like Apatow’s male characters. She’s a girl who
is in trouble, a girl with low self-esteem, or a hippie-redux
character. Even Kim Kelly (Busy Philipps) in Apatow’s television series
Freaks and Geeks smokes pot because she’s troubled, not
because she’s a regular girl. The message? Men can handle pot. Women
smoke pot when they can’t handle their lives.
Fiona believes that media images have a lot to do with why so few
women smoke pot, but says that fear of weight gain also plays a large
role. “You get the munchies, you know?” says Fiona. “A lot of girls
wouldn’t want to sit on the couch and eat chips all night.”
With all this social pressure on women not to be stoners, the gender
divide is not surprising. Every aspect of getting stoned is banned from
women’s psyches—relaxing, eating, and feeling pleasure. It’s
reminiscent of old-school ideas about female sexuality—orgasms
aren’t ladylike so why would women want to have them?
But women should ignore that sexist Hempfest poster, and, like
Fiona, hit Hempfest this weekend. (It’s August 18 and 19 at Myrtle
Edwards Park with five stages of music and speakers and brownie vendors
galore.) They should also feel free to upend stereotypes all year long
and, like Fiona, put their feet up after work and take a long toke from
a gravity bong. 
For more information about Seattle Hempfest and a full schedule
of musicians and speakers go to www.hempfest.org.
wow…im a female stoner
and i dnt think smoking pot is jus for males…like seriously i can handle pot FOR SURE.
I’ve been a stoner girl for 35 years. I have lots of stoner girl friends. We have lives, jobs, boyfriends, even children. I think we are just better at being discreet about it. If you saw me driving my minivan, you would never suspect my middle-aged white lady exterior hid a major stoner.
i absolutely do not think women smoke pot because they can’t handle their lives. i a female stoner and i have a handle on my life thank you. although i am a hippie and i will openly admit it.
i’ve been a girl for 53 years…i’ve been a ‘stoner’ for 35. not a daily smoker, but an i gotta get baked this weekend just cuz i can stoner.
bonus; i personally love giving head when i’m stoned….maybe that’s why the boys all bring a bag when they visit.
This is odd, I don’t know about the statistics but when I was in college I lived in a house full of stoners and the girls smoked along with the boys. Maybe fewer girls smoked every day but I only knew one girl in the group who wouldn’t take a bong hit when it was passed and she just couldn’t deal with smoke–but she ate brownies with me.
Maybe this isn’t true for anyone else, but another reason why fewer women smoke pot regularly could be safety in buying it: you’re going alone to the house of someone you don’t know well, for an illegal activity. Not that this applies to all dealers, but it strikes me as a situation that carries significant risk of sexual assault. I’m not a stoner and this is partly why.
wateragainstthefarshore,
You are very correct in thinking this, I have two dealers, one of which I do not see alone. My boyfriend wont even “let” me deal with him…he’s Kind of a scary, big guy, and has a bunch of weapons, I absolutely do not want to associate myself with him. Unfortunately, the inability to obtain the herb in a safe manner is a major side effect of prohibition. If it weren’t for my friend with weed, (the other dealer) I would not regularly smoke the herb.
im a guy stoner, and if anything, most girls who dont smoke weed are trippin, and the 1’s that do smoke are hella bomb, guys have probs too ya digg? pot DOES release stress, and help with stuff when somethin goes down, y not light up? sets the mood perfectly every time, never fails 😀 bottom line, weed should be shared between everyone, think the world would b a much chiller place
I don’t smoke pot because I’m a grown up now, and long term use of it makes me stupid, lazy, and not happy in general.
@notastonergirl You’re a fucking loser. Take the stick out of your ass and stick a joint in your mouth.
I’m 29, former Army soldier, surgical tech, currently enrolled and almost finished with school and hope to be working in my second career soon (broadcasting). I don’t have children, a criminal record, or a life in shambles. I’m confident, intelligent, and vivacious. And I smoke weed every single day almost without exception; sometimes only at night, sometimes throughout the entire day, and sometimes just when that friend/family member/coworker comes by to spark one up. I smoke right before I have to write to be inspired. I smoke right before bed because I mellow. I smoke before I start a fun night out because it’s a way to help me socially drink a little more (I’d rather just smoke the entire time at the bar but…weed is so bad therefore illegal and I’m forced to drink that safe alcohol that’s never given anyone a problem before). Sometimes it makes me lazy and I don’t do the dishes. But so does post coital bliss or hitting my ulnar (funny bone). Sometimes it inspires me for class and life. Sometimes it makes my boyfriend say “Looks like you’ve calmed your ass down.” It all started as a way to alleviate the severe pain that my menstruation cycles and polycystic ovarian syndrome caused. As a teenager, my father would recommend it to my boyfriends (so he wasn’t on the hook for condoning I always assumed) as a way to help with my ADHD and anger that I harbored before I went to the Army. It helped, and now that I don’t have health insurance anymore, I use it in lieu of my ADHD meds and I can concentrate better. For me, marijuana has different effects on me at different times. My high is completely dependent on the situation and physical and emotional state that I’m in. I wish more people were open minded about this “drug.” Because we’re only hurting our future, our economy and our health by ignoring and denying that this plant is a good way to help all of these.
In BC, virtually everyone smokes weed. From lawyers, to my fitness instructors, to my boss, the professors at my school, my doctor, the homemaker that lives down the street, the police, etc. you get the point. All the women that I know also smoke pot on a regular basis, so I was fairly surprised after reading this article. I always thought Seattle was very pot-friendly as well … it is, yes? Maybe I just don’t know enough people.
And $160 a month on pot? Here in Vancouver, I know where to find an 1/8th for around $20 of you name it. Blueberry, purple, pineapple, various hybrids, sometimes white rhino (but that’s hard). The last time I went to Seattle, I travelled around Pike Place, all the way down to the waterfront area, and the cheapest I could find for regular BC bud, was $35. Lame.
women are scared 2 admit they smoke pot because they usually serve as role models and unfortunatly must conform to external social pressures, im a pot smoker and former ceo,grandmother,mother,and community leader.i know many many women like me, lets work to legalize and stop pretending its a crime, your grandma or mother may get arrested for a homeopathic pain relief medication called marijuana
What a strange article! I have always smoked pot, all over the world in fact, and growing up in Seattle definitely set the stage for my future in pot.
I’ve never thought of a gender divide in relation to being a stoner. I grew up around stoners, and as I was a child in a single family dwelling, was surrounded by women, smoking pot!
I’m not troubled, I have a family of my own now, I work full time, I don’t stop running til 23:00 most nights, and when I do, I have a big spliff! I don’t really drink alcohol, hate how I feel after drinking, smoking is calm, and I’m always clear in my mind. (Unless I let it wander, but there is always control to bring it back, unlike with too much alcohol consumption).
Perhaps this article is just a distraction so women don’t think too much about the Real Gender Divides that exist in our society.
Wake UP!
im a female 43 i smoke only one joint a day before bed time to relax except when i have my period then i smoke several i have 4 children
most of my girl friends also smoke i actually smoke more than my husband i know more women then men who smoke if it were legali would probably smoke a lot more i hate being a closet toker
Women SHOULD smoke pot. It’s one of the most healthy ways a woman can deal with stress…when I’m high I am in contact with the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Wisdom….I believe that all women should use pot to help center and calm them…when I’m high I don’t need to engage in destructive habits to handle my stress…I don’t yell at my kids, I don’t compulsively shop, I don’t ignore my responsibilities and I dont’ drown then in booze…I engage the world around me more fully when I am high…pot puts me in direct contact with the Divine and gives me the insight I need to be a better wife and mother….I believe with everything in me that marijuana was given to women by God to help me be better wives and mothers…
Women SHOULD smoke pot. It’s one of the most healthy ways a woman can deal with stress…when I’m high I am in contact with the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Wisdom….I believe that all women should use pot to help center and calm them…when I’m high I don’t need to engage in destructive habits to handle my stress…pot puts me in direct contact with the Divine and gives me the insight I need to be a better wife and mother….I believe with everything in me that marijuana was given to women by God to help me be better wives and mothers…
What an idiotic article. I know more females that smoke weed regularly than guys – and none of them are cliche “stoner” characters. They are all super successful, independent women who own their own places, cars, etc…What is the impetus of this silly article? By the way I am a gay male stoner, the supposed ‘contradiction’ to media sterotypes, even though most gay smoke weed on a fairly regular basis. When are “journalists” going to stop relying on inapplicable statistics and media portrayals for editorials like this? This is the Pacific Northwest, not the Midwest!