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November 20, 2014 4:16 AM   Subscribe

A group of YouTube filmmakers got three grandmothers together in Washington State who had never smoked pot before and got them high.
posted by gman (53 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to this. They were three people, smoking a bit of weed, acting exactly like three people smoking a bit of weed, just like WE would act after smoking a bit of weed (well, especially me, since I'm a grandfather and probably a tad older than those folks).

So, I guess I'm going to file this into the same file as "kittens being cute doing what kittens do", the kind of videos that don't really show us anything surprising, but make us smile....

Because, if I don't put it in THAT file, I've got to put it in the "point and laugh" file, and then I would have to post some rant about how we shouldn't do that on Metafilter, but, it's too early to compose that rant and I'm still on my first cup of coffee and there would be a lot of indignant and angry typos.
posted by HuronBob at 4:45 AM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


I don't get a point-and-laugh vibe from it at all. Seems to me more like see-it's-no-big-deal, which is a nice message.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:50 AM on November 20, 2014 [27 favorites]


Have your coffee and come back to it, because it feels to me like you're just looking to get angry.

I mean, there are still a lot of people who say things like "pot is the gateway to heroin" with a straight face and the media still talks of legalization efforts with anything from a terminal refusal to take it serious to outright ridicule and derision.

Anything discussing pot that isn't "gateway to hell" or "lol stoners" is a positive good. The criminalization of this stuff has lead to horrible outcome for everyone but law enforcement across the board, and the supposed sea change that is coming or is here doesn't seem to be reflected in media reporting or the political sphere outside a handful of renegade states.

I'm going to go on to suggest that if you already know the above is nonsense, and as a self-proclaimed Old who is hip to the cause, then you're probably not the target audience of this video.
posted by absalom at 4:59 AM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Normalization is the deal. Legal weed is going to do for substance abuse what e-cigs are doing to tobacco use. Mostly safe recreational psychoactive substance, with little to no hangover or addiction/withdrawal side effects, and little to no long term health effects.

On the other hand, a bong is terribly old-fashioned and not a very neat or polite way to indulge - vaporizers if you must inhale, and edibles will suit most everyone else. Not as dramatic to watch little old ladies eat a few chocolates and relax around each other, tho.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:04 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


absalom: "I mean, there are still a lot of people who say things like "pot is the gateway to heroin" with a straight face"

Well, check these grandmothers out in another, say 10 years .. and you will see what the drug has done to their brains ... and I can bet most of them would be dead within 20 years.

Isn't it weird that they start smoking pot and die within 20 years. Is that what you want for your kids? to be dead by the time they are 20?

pot is the gateway to death.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 5:06 AM on November 20, 2014 [35 favorites]


Next, imagine that your grandparents must have once had sex.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:08 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


vaporizers if you must inhale, and edibles will suit most everyone else

I just don't think edibles are a good idea for a lot of people, even low-potency edibles, probably even strictly dose-controlled edibles. The effect is variable enough and the time-to-onset long enough that titration is really hard. Vaporizing (whether plant matter or oils) seems like the friendliest use case.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:10 AM on November 20, 2014 [17 favorites]


"Next, imagine that your grandparents must have once had are still having sex."

FTFY
posted by HuronBob at 5:19 AM on November 20, 2014 [10 favorites]


This is delightful! Legal weed would do so much for Thanksgiving family dinners.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:24 AM on November 20, 2014 [27 favorites]


Note to lame ass journalists : this is how you burn a few down for the first time.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:58 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Note to lame-ass journalists: Stop doing the TV news appeal-to-emotion thing where you refer to someone as a grandmother, yet the grandchildren aren't even part of the story. I bet these ladies don't go around introducing themselves, "Hi, I'm a grandmother."
posted by emelenjr at 6:28 AM on November 20, 2014 [14 favorites]


The woman on the left acts as if she's been waiting for pot to be legalized for DECADES!
posted by any major dude at 6:31 AM on November 20, 2014 [10 favorites]


I thought these ladies were delightful and funny, and I definitely didn't laugh at them. I hope we are ready for the generation of retired/retiring pot smokers we are about to get, it's going to be very interesting.

"I could iron all day. I love ironing."
"You're weird."
posted by LooseFilter at 6:35 AM on November 20, 2014 [26 favorites]


Charming! I was sad that they got them to play CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY, which I'm not a fan of. Unless they're all players of the game already, and I'm making assumptions.

I always slightly despised cannabis as a teenager: fun and all, but not a vibrant, exciting drug like alcohol. Now I've mellowed out and aged, I'm seeing the attraction and advantages, especially over the demon drink. Not that cannabis is legal in my jurisdiction, alas.
posted by alasdair at 6:37 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


The thing about ironing would be, are you SURE you turned the iron off? That could eat at you.
posted by thelonius at 6:42 AM on November 20, 2014 [6 favorites]


TheLittlePrince: "pot is the gateway to death."

Nah, man... Life is the gateway to death.
...
Pass the cheetos, please.
posted by symbioid at 6:44 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


"Next, imagine that your grandparents must have once had are still having sex."

Seeing as all four are deceased, I'm now stuck with the mental image of a Very Special Episode of The Walking Dead. I have to admit that while it is the most disturbing visual I've ever experienced, it is at the same time one of the funniest.
posted by dances with hamsters at 6:48 AM on November 20, 2014 [9 favorites]


"Grandmothers" is kind of relative seeing as Joni Mitchell is 71 years old.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:54 AM on November 20, 2014



I bet these ladies don't go around introducing themselves, "Hi, I'm a grandmother."

LOL. Maybe. Maybe not. If the missus gets half a chance she'll whip out her pics of the great grand kids.
posted by notreally at 6:56 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


and edibles will suit most everyone else

Nope. I haven't done pot much but smoking it is a mild buzz for me at the best of times. The one time I ate some (albeit a lot) I had a much more intense experience. You can't really smoke enough to do what a large dose can when eaten, and eating can be debilitating for a period if you do too much.
posted by jimmythefish at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2014


This is delightful! Legal weed would do so much for Thanksgiving family dinners.

I have a hard enough time getting a caramel roll for myself with my family as it is. Don't go giving them the munchies.
posted by xingcat at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


I got my dad high on his seventieth birthday. He wasn't a fan. "It doesn't taste good like cigarettes used to and it just makes me sleepy and hungry. I'll stick to bourbon, thanks."

He then did walk around the house chuckling at the cat for an hour or so, so I guess it wasn't a total bummer.

I could never convince my mom to try it, which is a shame, because my mom is a screechy and high-strung person who could benefit from some chillaxation.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2014 [17 favorites]


Okay, now do MDMA!
posted by orme at 7:09 AM on November 20, 2014 [5 favorites]


I think the idea of identifying them as grandmothers is about getting the intended audience to identify them with their own grandmothers.

This video seems like it's kind of on the same spectrum as "famous person publicly comes out as gay" thing albeit maybe on the less serious end.

I imagine that their goal is for people not already in favor of full legalization to think, "Wow, those perfectly normal, nice grandmothers used some weed and nothing much happened and they seemed to enjoy it. I suppose that means that my grandmother could use weed, nothing much would happen and she would probably enjoy it. Maybe full legalization wouldn't be so bad."

Also my grandmother might not only know what a dildo is but might talk about them like she has used one before (like the lady on the left did when they handed her the vape). HOLY CRAP MY GRANDMOTHER USED TO BE A YOUNG PERSON!
posted by VTX at 7:26 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Spartans elders would get the helots drunk then show them to Spartan youth as an example of how not to live your life.

On the one hand, well, we are talking Spartans; on the other, sobriety isn't such a bad thing.
posted by IndigoJones at 8:21 AM on November 20, 2014


Next, imagine that your grandparents must have once had sex.

Are you suggesting that someone might make a video of old people having sex? And put it on the Internet?
posted by straight at 8:22 AM on November 20, 2014


"Smooth"
posted by billder at 8:23 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Legal weed would do so much for Thanksgiving family dinners


Maybe legal IS the key. Illegal weed was a bit of a bring down at Thanksgiving family dinners past in my book.
posted by psylosyren at 8:25 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think the idea of identifying them as grandmothers is about getting the intended audience to identify them with their own grandmothers.

Exactly. It's an appeal to emotion.
posted by emelenjr at 8:34 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


So if you're around retirement age right now, you were a young adult in the late sixties and/or early seventies. I'm guessing that a lot of grandmothers have quite a bit of experience with getting high in their past. Heck I know a few people in their sixties and seventies who never stopped and have been toking for the last fifty years.
posted by octothorpe at 8:45 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Yeah, saw this yesterday, and I'm cool with the "laughing with, not at" aspect of it, but there is still a sense of pointing and laughing to this video that doesn't sit well with me. But maybe I'm just a grump who hasn't had enough coffee yet.

They did seem very game and unselfconscious, and I give the ladies themselves a lot of credit for being good sports about the whole thing. Getting high is one thing, getting high for the first time on video and then having to sit at a table for an hour is another.

Still, this probably went better than a similar video showing "three grandmothers getting drunk on tequila for the first time" might have gone.

So I guess I'm conflicted about the overall endeavor, but I respect these three random women and their (surprising) willingness to try new things on camera. You go, ladies!
posted by mosk at 8:47 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


My takeaways: Grama on the left is the one i'd want to get high with; they would have had a better time if there had been MUSIC ffs; and I'm glad I live in Wa. even though I don't smoke weed (anymore).
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:00 AM on November 20, 2014


Okay, now do MDMA!

Oh great, we're going to create the adorable grannies version of Tao Lin.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:17 AM on November 20, 2014


The needed to put on some old LP's from their teenage years.
posted by ShakeyJake at 9:27 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


As I age, will I automatically become a "grandma" purely because I'm grey? I never had kids, by design. Not sure why this irks me but it does.

Cute video though. Anything that devilifies the Herb is a good thing.
posted by kinnakeet at 9:29 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


So if you're around retirement age right now, you were a young adult in the late sixties and/or early seventies. I'm guessing that a lot of grandmothers have quite a bit of experience with getting high in their past.


Yeah, my mum is about the same age as these ladies. She has a story about when she quit doing pot. Lets just say that pot brownies left out to cool on a counter and hypoglycemia are a bad combination.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:29 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


My mother, who is the grandmother of my children, recently accompanied my father to an academic conference in Amsterdam. While there, she and several of the other faculty wives went to a coffeehouse and got high. For several of the younger women, it was their first experience with marijuana; my mom graduated college in 1967, so not so much for her.

I will leave the details up to your imagination, except to say that her stories are HILARIOUS and may one day be the subject of a one-act play.
posted by KathrynT at 9:37 AM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]




Apparently nobody has yet thought of having the "3 grandmothers" do a Reddit AMA. During that they could publicize the "3 grandmothers' 2015 Calendar" and the "3 grandmothers' gettin' high" song (and ringtone) available on iTunes. Also, 3grandmothersgettinghigh.com is still available for $2.99. Somebody's asleep at the wheel here.
posted by spock at 9:56 AM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


As someone who eats a lot of pot I can say with some authority, edibles are not for the inexperienced. It's very easy to eat way more than you want to and the effects last a lot longer, so if it does go south, you're stuck there for several hours instead of a 1 or 2.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:36 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Charming! I was sad that they got them to play CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY, which I'm not a fan of. Unless they're all players of the game already, and I'm making assumptions.

I kind of agree. I actually think it would have been equally funny, if not funnier, to see them playing bridge or whist or something. More organic conversation --> more moments like "I love ironing" / "You're kind of weird."
posted by en forme de poire at 11:30 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Weed is not legal on Thanksgiving? How are we supposed to get through it??
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:21 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]




Apparently nobody has yet thought of having the "3 grandmothers" do a Reddit AMA.

Also, "Three grandmothers smoke pot and make a Crazy Quilt"

posted by mmrtnt at 12:28 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Brandon Blatcher: "This is delightful! Legal weed would do so much for Thanksgiving family dinners."

Ugh, no it doesn't. I have plenty of Republican with libertarian mindsets relatives in the Midwest that do smoke on occasion and it doesn't change the Obama Brownshirt Death Panel discussion one bit.
posted by wcfields at 12:28 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think the idea of identifying them as grandmothers is about getting the intended audience to identify them with their own grandmothers.

As much as I dislike the "grandma as a catch-all for older woman" thing, this is a good point.

My grandmother is now in her 90s, and her health has been faltering badly. Last year, when she began struggling with appetite issues, she was given a prescription for Marinol. Say what you want about the stuff—like how we're taught to distrust drugs until they come in the form a of a marketable pill—but it worked like gangbusters. Grandma began eating again, and putting on muscle mass, and her energy levels came back, and she was suddenly way less moody and anxious. Great stuff, all around.

And then she found out that Marinol is related to pot, and she immediately stopped taking it, because for her entire life she's been told that marijuana is life-destroying and evil and addictive.

We tried so, so hard to dissuade her, but it was no use. She stopped taking it, and she stopped eating, and her anxiety and depression returned, and she lost the muscle mass she'd gained, and she started falling again.

And it makes me so fucking mad that she was lied to, and that, in a sense, her health became collateral damage in the war on drugs.

Last week, I had a gyno appointment and was given a talking to about the fact that I smoke weed a whopping three to five times a year. When I asked why that's a problem, I was told, "Um, because it's disorienting." Fair enough, but I was then told that up to four alcoholic drinks a week is totally a-okay.

It is almost 2015.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:35 PM on November 20, 2014 [24 favorites]


I have plenty of Republican with libertarian mindsets relatives in the Midwest that do smoke on occasion and it doesn't change the Obama Brownshirt Death Panel discussion one bit.

Sure, but it makes it easier to pretend they're wah-wahing like Peanuts grownups.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:37 PM on November 20, 2014 [8 favorites]


My mom-in-law, who is 74 (and a grandma, but not sure what that has to do with it), has to be talked into every hit she takes despite a decade of debilitating neuropathy.

Having said that, I want to QFT - edibles are NOT for the inexperienced or the person who has to be somewhere and sober any time in the next 12-18 hours.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:41 PM on November 20, 2014


kinnakeet: "Anything that devilifies the Herb is a good thing."

Hasn't the herb been devil-ified enough? ;)
posted by symbioid at 4:34 PM on November 20, 2014


Edibles are no longer pot-brownies or homegrown magic butter. Carefully measured doses in standardized sizes are now the thing in Colorado. 25mg/bar chocolates, up to 300mg/bar, medical doses are typically 100mg/bar divided into pieces that contain 8.3mg of THC each.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:02 PM on November 20, 2014


I think the grandmother thing was great thinking. Teens with baggy pants, metal and tattoos smoking pot/shooting up heroin/snorting cocaine is the image endorsed by the anti-drug coalition; now it's to be replaced by three genteel grandmothers smoking some pot and having a little harmless fun with their afternoon tea.

Pot becomes respectable! Yes!

I knew a man who died of lung cancer whose way was made SO much more comfortable thanks to marijuana. I wonder what my kids would think if I suggested this as a Thanksgiving treat -

I'm proud of my state of Washington in many ways and the legalization of pot is one of them.
posted by aryma at 6:56 PM on November 20, 2014


The woman on the left acts as if she's been waiting for pot to be legalized for DECADES!

I'm guessing that a lot of grandmothers have quite a bit of experience with getting high in their past
.

As a woman of grandmotherly age (but not a grandmother) I can assure you that both of these things are true. I waited over thirty years.

They should film a woman of a certain age actually visiting a recreational dispensary and buying legal weed. It wouldn't matter if this person had been high before or not - the process of "scoring" is so much more pleasant and less fraught than I expected it to be that I wish everyone knew. When I told the budtender it had been thirty years, he said, "Welcome back." I wish it hadn't taken so long, but it was worth the wait.
posted by caryatid at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


This would work better if they were reading aloud from The Dog is Us at the same time.
posted by Nevin at 9:35 PM on November 24, 2014


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