Seth Rogen
The man known for smoking “ungodly amounts” of pot and making pottery soon after. It is hard to imagine stoner cinema without the transformative normalization of cannabis gifted to us by comedian Seth Rogen. Where would our community be without the groundbreaking Pineapple Express or Knocked Up? Groundbreaking stories of stoney friends and enemies coming front and center to American cinema and becoming beloved fan favorites was at one time considered unreasonable. Seth didn’t care about what society said, he listened to his bong instead, and the world is better for it.
Rogen, a member of NORML himself and a constant advocate for cannabis justice, is an outspoken social activist on social media and on screen, and is beloved by fans for his bellowing laugh, quick wit, pottery skills, and joint rolling talents. And now, by the grace of Seth, a new brand of cannabis will soon be hitting shelves. Rogen’s Houseplant, a project he calls his “life’s work” and says was ten years in the making, will not only sell cannabis, but ashtrays, lighters, and Seth-inspired ceramics! The recent announcement was so popular that the increase in web traffic broke their website.
Seth Rogen, like the cannabis outlaws that came before him, espouses the same values of his predecessors by not only openly enjoying his weed, but doing so with a social conscience. Through film and activism, Rogen has not only made it normal to use cannabis, but hilarious and memorable. By exposing audiences to the harmlessness of marijuana, he has almost single-handedly eased generations of misinformed Americans about the highs of elevating oneself, and steered us away from the factually void anti-cannabis propaganda of the past.
Sarah Silverman
Universally beloved as one of the funniest and raunchiest people in comedy, Sarah Silverman has been puffing the magic dragon at home and on screen for decades. Beginning her career on SNL and on David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s zany sketch comedy Mr. Show, Silverman has always championed a unique and commanding presence.
On screen in The Sarah Silverman Program, the actress and her co-stars would occasionally light up in casual and unsurprising scenes of the show. Silverman has also appeared on shows like Getting Doug with High and the popular Netflix documentary Have a Good Trip, where she freely spoke of her experimentations with elevation.
As a cannabis outlaw, Silverman has been a vocal activist for legalization, going as far as to show off her bud-laced vape pen at an interview at the 2014 Emmys and her weed-filled purse at the 2019 Emmys. She’s accidentally fed edibles to her dog (don’t do this at home!) and shared highs with her sisters, her stepmother, and father. Sarah loves pot, and she’s never been afraid to say it, even in her early career when it was unfashionable to do so.
Ilana Glazer
The new kween of comedy, this Broad City star has uniquely made in-roads with young people, normalizing cannabis use as a comedic device. Whether stashing her bud where the sun doesn’t shine or FaceTiming her BFF Abbi Jacobson with a Pax at the ready (vape life!), Ilana Glazer is a cannabis outlaw who tells it like it is and forges her own path.
Beginning her career with her breakthrough webseries for which the Comedy Central hit show would be named, Glazer set out to tell a story for the mid-20s something that hadn’t been seen on screen before: capturing an authentic experience of millennial single life in New York City. Glazer’s depiction of her eponymously named and self-exaggerated character Ilana breaks many barriers; she and her character identify as queer, she and her co-star Abbi constantly share cannabis on screen, and ambitiously deal with political and social issues in a way that is serious enough but never take themselves too seriously.
As a cannabis outlaw, Glazer doesn’t simply position pot as something fun or as an escape, but as a way to enhance the spirit and make life more open. The authenticity of Ilana Glazer will forever be her super power, and she has brilliantly humanized the act of enjoying cannabis in her performances in a way yet unseen by many corners of American society. Cannabis is never the focus of Broad City, nor is it simply a background cultural artifact, but rather, a unifying force that brings people together for goodness and love. What could be more symbolic of cannabis?
Sources
https://old.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030912chong0912p5.asp
https://www.healtheuropa.eu/tommy-chong-were-going-back-to-the-future-with-cannabis/104007/
https://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/david-crosby-joins-norml-advisory-board/
https://hightimes.com/culture/david-crosby-talks-marijuana-his-upcoming-weed-brand-joni-mitchell/
https://uproxx.com/movies/seth-rogen-weed-company-houseplant/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/sarah-silverman-tells-us-how-to-live-it-up-in-our-twenties
https://www.tubefilter.com/2014/12/05/hannah-hart-sarah-silverman-my-drunk-kitchen/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nCM6L_Gz2Y
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/20/11469508/ilana-glazer-time-traveling-bong-interview-420-weed
