Grandparents smoke pot, too

The baby boomer generation changed America, and still likes to alter reality.

If you were around 20 years old in 1967, you were at a prime age to enjoy the Summer of Love and all that came with it: the “free love,” the freed minds, the freely flowing substances. Your age puts you at the front end of the baby boomer generation, that massive population that defined a new America with its anti-establishment principles. Oh, and here’s more good news: You're now eligible for Social Security.

Casual relationships and passionate social activism may be well behind most baby boomers today, but some still are enjoying altering their reality. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of adults over age 50 who smoke marijuana has been steadily rising for a decade.

So many older people have come out as pot smokers, The New York Times reports, that one pro-marijuana group has launched Grannies For Grass, an affiliation of happy advocates with chapters in three Midwestern states.

Aging baby boomers helped coin a term and create an age-defying economy around the “midlife crisis,” but that’s not what boomer-toking is about. Quite the contrary, in fact: The crisis for them is over.

Retirement has liberated many members of the older generation from concerns about work performance, and as empty-nesters their parenting responsibilities are diminished as well. The easing of legal restrictions around marijuana possession and consumption also contribute to a social environment in which grandparents playing pinochle can spark up a joint nearly as casually as they might crack open a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

One interviewee in the NYT piece had no qualms at all about the possibility of bosses identifying her from the newspaper’s story. Pictured in her Ohio home next to a blanket with a giant pot leaf on it, Cher Neufer proudly proclaims, “I don’t care if they know!” Another couple now in their 80s is named by the grandson who occasionally catches a buzz with them.

Plus, we all know that increasing age can be accompanied by decreasing concern about the judgments of others. Said another way, toking baby boomers probably don’t give a damn what you think about what they smoke. It seems ironic, but the generation who sang along to the Who lyric “Hope I die before I get old” is recovering some of its rebellious spirit with age.