A woman rolls a joint while attending the Colorado 420 Rally at Civic Center Park in Denver on April 20, 2014. (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)

Here’s why New York mag’s Vulture is celebrating ‘Stoner Week’ right now

If you’ve stopped by Vulture’s homepage today, you’ve likely seen that New York magazine’s all-things-culture site is celebrating something they’re calling “Stoner Week.”

No, this Stoner Week isn’t marking the beginning of the recreational weed era in Oregon — nor is it celebrating the first medical marijuana sales in Minnesota. It’s more a result of publishing deadlines — and today through Thursday will see 10-11 new cannabis-focused stories from the site’s staff.

Today’s entries include “The making of the modern stoner,” a smart Jeff Weiss essay that explores the trip from Cheech & Chong movies to “Broad City.”

From Weiss’ piece:

Even if total national legalization isn’t imminent, no one is shocked to see photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence or Michael Phelps lighting up. Seth Rogen, who via films like Pineapple Express and This Is the End has inherited the mantle of Public Stoner No. 1, comes off less as a dissenting gadfly than he does a mildly dazed schlub-next-door. On Workaholics, Broad City, and High Maintenance, weed is less of a wholesale marker of cool than an idle inhibition. Even the staid folks at the National Geographic network have a show about the green gold rush in Colorado, and Coachella and Burning Man festivals exist as annual open-air drug bazaars. Cheech and Chong would look around and feel at home. Well, mostly. They might have a bit of a hard time recognizing other stoners, because these days, the other stoner is you.

As New York senior editor David Marchese told us, the timing was right for Stoner Week.

“Jeff Weiss mentioned this in his essay that went up today, and it’s alluded to in the intro to the stoner cannon piece, too: (Marijuana) is a lot more widespread and accepted than it used to be, and increasingly legal, and accordingly there’s been a shift in how it’s been portrayed in pop culture, which is the heart of his piece,” Marchese said on Monday.

“The depiction of the stoner in pop culture has changed and normalized in a lot of ways, and there’s a different stigma – and not really a stigma – to people smoking pot anymore. Or certainly there’s less of a stigma than there used to be. The larger world’s changing, and has changed, so it’s a good opportunity to try and get at that a little bit with a package on Vulture.”

Some of the stories the site will debut in the next couple days, according to Marchese: A business writer dissecting the celebrity weed game — from sponsored vaporizer deals to strain and shop endorsements. A panel of stand-up comedians, Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman included, talk about legal weed’s impact on modern comedy. A couple pieces on the types of culture we like to ingest while stoned. And another piece, what Marchese calls the “counterpoint” to the package, where former Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala “talks about why he gave up smoking pot,” Marchese said.

“There’s something interesting in the culture happening now,” said Marchese, “and we wanted to play with that in various ways.”