|
| |
|
|
REEFER OLDNESS
Potheads hijack AARP?!?
BY CAMILLE DODERO
|
|
|
|
|
Potheads are preying on the elderly! Or so went the accusation lobbed against the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) last week, when the conservative press-watchdog group Accuracy in Media (AIM) charged that the elder-advocacy organization had suffered "a counter-culture takeover." Last month, the Associated Press reported findings from an AARP telephone poll suggesting that the majority of older Americans favors legalizing medical marijuana — according to the AP report, 72 percent of the 1706 respondents supported the idea. Jay Leno even joked, "And you thought Grandpa used to forget stuff before!" But what got AIM’s tighty whities in a bunch was the poll involvement of AARP the Magazine editor Ed Dwyer, whom AIM described as "an admitted former drug user and dealer." Turns out, Dwyer co-founded the ganja-glorifying glossy High Times. Dwyer hasn’t tried to conceal his history with the Playboy-for-potheads. In the bud-loving bimonthly’s November/December 2004 issue — a 30th-anniversary hurrah featuring filmmaker Jim Jarmusch interviewing punk icon Iggy Pop, a Q&A with Norman Mailer, and a marijuana leaf on the front cover — Dwyer penned a nostalgic essay about the magazine’s embryonic stages, reminiscing about an early-’70s period that was "the most exhilarating and memorable stretch of my life." There’d been plenty of sex, nitrous, and pot strains with names like Maui Wowie to go around, even some to sell, he recalled. Dwyer’s AARP position was referenced beside his byline in the table of contents, reading, "BTW (and no kidding), Ed Dwyer now works as a features editor at AARP the Magazine." Since the AP report, Dwyer has been understandably mum. AARP spokesperson Steve Hahn says he knows little about the survey, clarifying that the parent AARP organization didn’t release the results, and that the study was exclusively a magazine initiative. "[The poll] was going to be in a magazine story that’s going to run this spring," says Hahn. "It wasn’t released by AARP." In any event, High Times editor Steve Bloom doesn’t see what the fuss is about. "[Dwyer]’s being attacked by a conservative organization. They’re looking at his background and saying, ‘How dare he work for [mature] publications?’ I don’t really understand the whole issue." Besides, Bloom believes seniors really do support medicinal marijuana. "It might be surprising that seniors support this. But if you think about the reality of what seniors are up against [physically] — they’re just open to anything that might work for them." He adds, "Many of them may’ve never smoked a joint in their life. Yet if they found that it will help them with a given ailment, they’ll try it or they’ll support somebody else trying it." In any case, Bloom doesn’t think Dwyer’s in the wrong. "If Ed does have an agenda due to the fact that he used to work at High Times, more power to him."
|
