Recently, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Natalie Portman said that she is “too old to smoke pot.” Portman currently stars in the stoner comedy flick Your Highness and is involved in upcoming stoner buddy comedy Best Buds. She’s also pregnant and a Harvard graduate. And at 29, she thinks she’s past smoking marijuana.
Now, obviously no one should be smoking while pregnant. But I have to wonder, what is this “too old” crap? Why should anyone be considered too old to smoke weed? I know people who are over 50 who smoke proudly. And, okay, I understand Portman has a public image to maintain. Still, nearly half of the population supports marijuana legalization. Plus, she stars in movies that aren’t shy about the drug. Best Buds is about skipping a wedding in favor of a marijuana-fueled road trip. Not exactly the kind of movie an Oscar-winning actress would be in if she were anti-bud.
Why is it that people have this image of pot as something for the young? Whether you view it as a medicinal herb or a recreational drug should make no difference here. There is absolutely no reason to think of marijuana as a thing to give up when you “become an adult.” Portman said that she smoked in college but that she wishes she were “that cool” and that she is “like an old lady now.” At twenty-nine. “I’m in bed by 10 p.m. I can’t do that anymore,” she says. To which I can only reply, “Why not?”
This is one of the problems the anti-marijuana crowd has, I think. The plant is associated with reckless youth. It’s seen as something that we did when we were kids, and weren’t we crazy? But now we’re adults and we have to work, work, work, and there’s no time for things like weed. (Yet these same people will drink like they’re paid to do it.)
Personally, I hope I never get to a point where I think I’m too old to do anything. But that’s just me. What do you think? Should people stop smoking at a certain age?
Don’t you have better stuff to write about than this? Seriously?
Its a double edged sword. On one hand you have the nay-Sayers who continually call Marijuana the gateway drug which makes it sound like the “young” drug we all first try out. In fact it is the first drug most people have indulged in. So, that statement is not a huge stretch. On the other hand you have the the partakers who represent weed in a negative way particularly in movies. I personally have been using for 22 years however I tend to agree with the nay-Sayers on the maturity aspect due to the fact there is such an immaturity about it. Cheech & Chong, Dazed & Confused, Half-baked along with countless other foolish portrayals of what a “stoner” acts like. Like totally dude we should like totally grow up and stuff. LOL
Sugar is the gateway drug.