Stoner movies. We’ve all watched them and laughed at their expense. The cult comedy form birthed by Cheech and Chong has changed steadily throughout the years, but the jokes usually revolve around the same goofy, nonsensical punchlines you enjoy most while stoned.
They’re also not always correct or based on truth. That’s why Vulture asked Michael Zaytsev, founder of High NY — New York’s largest cannabis advocacy organization — to debunk some of the myths found in stoner movies. Check below to read a couple of our favorites.
On Reefer Madness:
“Cannabis can enhance listening to music and the joy one derives from that. It can encourage you to hear it differently. But in this scene, this guy is losing his mind slowly but surely. Depending on what you’re puffing on, that can happen temporarily. I don’t think that losing your cool in a fit of rage then going in and killing someone is a honest portrayal.”
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On Pineapple Express “cross-joints”:
“Almost everyone I know is some stoner MacGyver. The term I prefer is stonerd. The future is now I have to say. Because there isn’t just these feats of engineering, but all other sorts of amazing ways to roll joints. You have to be an origami master to actually craft. The creativity of a motivated pothead can astound.”
On Dazed and Confused:
“Martha Washington does indeed sound like a hip, hip lady based on that description. It’s hotly debated whether the Founding Fathers grew hemp or smoked cannabis. Many people don’t know there was a time when, in the colonies, you could pay your taxes with hemp. So there is legitimacy to some of what he was saying. Though, of course, people were growing hemp for industrial use and agricultural use and not the species of the plant that has psychoactive effects.”
