The Stars Come 'Out'

By Ellen Komp, AlterNet. Posted June 14, 2004.

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield's new autobiography, It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (HarperCollins), contains surprising news: he smokes marijuana. Dangerfield, 82, says he's been smoking pot for nearly 50 years, joking, "I was a hippie long before hippies were born."

Dangerfield's neglectful parents left him with little self esteem, and he admirably channeled his despair into his act. The ugly, unloved kid had quite a full life, and his book is full of interesting anecdotes, interspersed with hilarious jokes. His first "I don't get no respect" joke was "I used to play hide and seek. They wouldn't even look for me." As well as giving us 50 years of great jokes, Dangerfield has helped foster the success of countless young comics, by hosting an HBO comedy showcase and running a comedy club in New York City.

Dangerfield tells of drinking heavily to counter his depression, but had better results with marijuana. He writes, "Booze is the real culprit in our society. Booze is traffic accidents, booze is wife beating. In my life I've seen many doctors and psychiatrists, and all of them have told me that I'm better off with pot than with booze." Dangerfield now has a doctor's recommendation from a California physician to use marijuana medicinally for high blood pressure and pain. He cautions against smoking on the job, however, saying his comic timing is off while "high" and he does not perform under marijuana's influence.

Dangerfield's admissions are part of a wave of revelations that is being compared to the gay movement's "outing", a strategy that ultimately helped gays achieve greater civil rights. The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has launched a campaign to enlist VIPs to their cause with an advisory board that includes Michelle Phillips, Bill Maher, Jesse Ventura, Dr. Andrew Weil, and former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. VeryImportantPotheads.com tells stars' stories and issues "Outie" awards to celebs who come clean. Another site, cannabisconsumers.com, encourages ordinary folks to come out, too.

Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand and Emmy winner Jennifer Aniston have come "out," McDormand to High Times magazine and Aniston to Rolling Stone and the foreign press. Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted he smoked pot in the 1970s just before winning the governorship of California. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) recently ran ads quoting New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg saying of marijuana smoking, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

Talk show host and former Navy intelligence officer Montel Williams devotes a full chapter to medical marijuana in his new autobiography, "Climbing Higher" (New American Library). Williams, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, uses marijuana for medicinal purposes. When interviewed after marijuana was found in his bag at a Detroit airport in November 2003, Williams made no apologies. "I think it's time for a change," he said. "I hope to inspire others to take a stand." Williams said he uses marijuana to ease pain and depression, in lieu of pharmaceutical drugs. "Oxycontin and Vicodin are extremely addictive. Percocet didn't work. Marijuana is the best tool for me," he said.

Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was similarly outed in 1999, when marijuana was discovered in his bag at a Toronto airport. He was merely fined when he said he uses marijuana to alleviate the nausea associated with migraine headaches that have bothered him for years. Former NBA star and Senator Bill Bradley admitted to smoking pot on a pundit show during his run for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, prompting Sam Donaldson to out himself also. At the time, Bradley was running against admitted pot smoker Al Gore. John Kerry also inhaled.

More surprising is the fact that Newt Gingrich smoked pot, and introduced a bill to ease federal restrictions on medical marijuana in 1981. On March 19, 1982 he wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant."

Out with the Old

Celebrities coming out for marijuana decriminalization, based on their own experiences, is nothing new and it isn't just entertainment figures and politicians who have spoken out.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead testified before Congress in favor of the legalization of marijuana in 1969, and she told Newsweek that she had tried it once herself. Noted scientists Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan used pot, and Sagan said it inspired some of his work.

Paul McCartney helped pay for a 1967 advertisement in the London Times that called for legalization of pot possession, release of all prisoners on possession charges and government research into marijuana's medical uses. "I think we could decrimalize marijuana, and I'd like to see a really unbised medical report on it," he said after being deported from Japan for bringing nearly half a pound of marijuana into Tokyo for a Band on the Run concert tour in 1980. (John Lennon told a Paris newspaper that their band smoked pot at Buckingham Palace before being decorated by the queen in 1965.)

Ellen Komp manages the website www.veryimportantpotheads.com. Sources for this story appear there.

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