The legalization of marijuana and medical marijuana laws is a divisive subject that plays along political, spiritual and cultural lines. Here is some of the recent news involving medical marijuana:

• “Pot Like Wine” – Attitudes towards legalizing pot in the United States are changing. As of April 2012, 12 states have pending bills to legalize the use of medical marijuana and five more are pushing legislation for the regulated use of recreational marijuana: California, Colorado, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington. These bills, such as California’s “Regulate Marijuana Like Wine” and Colorado’s “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol” would make marijuana a taxable item sold to those 21 years of age and older, with a penalty for selling pot to minors. Missouri’s bill even proposes the legalization of growing plots up to 10 feet by 10 feet in size.
• Demographic Support – The majority of the bills are expected to pass, with the California, Colorado, and Oregon bills receiving overwhelming support. The fate of the Washington initiative is less certain, a between more conservative Spokane and pot-friendly Seattle. Overall, men, young adults and liberals are more in favor of legalizing pot than conservatives, senior citizens and women. Some of the biggest detractors of the legalization initiatives, however, are medical marijuana dispensaries. The dispensaries are afraid of losing business if marijuana can be legally obtained elsewhere.
• Those in Favor – The legalization of marijuana would be a boon to those looking to earn social work degrees, as well as those who are denied medical marijuana cards. Legislation would legalize medical marijuana for people under 21 who would benefit from it usage. A recent Angus Reid poll shows that the majority of Americans are in agreement that legalizing pot would do more good than harm. In the poll, 55 percent favor legalization, while only 40 percent are against.
• Legislation Process – The key to legalizing pot is mobilization and support. California’s petition gathered 10,000 signatures in just two weeks. Pro-pot America is actively trying to pass pro-pot legislation. For those interested in learning more about the legislative process or even obtaining an online JD degree, educating yourself about the system is a powerful way to help end prohibition.

Sources

Denver Westword Blogs (2012)

StoptheDrugWar.org (2011)

Hey everyone! Just a quick post to let you all know about our Facebook contest we just started! All you have to do is share or like the photo that is on our Facebook page to be entered to win! Very simple!

Hope you all have a great week and an awesome 4/20! I will do the draw on Friday. Thanks to our friend at Smokewire for providing this awesome pipe to giveaway

Peace!

Breathe easy, tokers. Smoking marijuana in moderate amounts may not be so bad for your lungs, after all.

A new study, published in last month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, tested the lung function of over 5,000 young adults between 18 and 30. After 20 years of testing, researchers found some buzzworthy results: regular marijuana smokers (defined by up to a joint a day for seven years) had no discernable impairment in lung activity from non-smokers.

In fact, researchers were surprised to find marijuana smokers performed slightly better than both smokers and non-smokers on the lung performance test. Why? The most likely explanation seems to be that the act of inhaling marijuana—holding each puff in for as long as possible—is a lot like a pulmonary function test, giving marijuana smokers an edge over their cigarette smoking counterparts.

For most of human existence, cannabis has been considered a medicine. Queen Victoria used it to alleviate her menstrual cramps. Extracts were prescribed by doctors and available at every pharmacy in the U.S. According to Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, attitudes toward cannabis only shifted when Americans began to notice and object to its use by immigrants around the turn of the 20th century. Said Schlosser in a PBS interview:

“What’s interesting is if you look at origins of the marijuana prohibition in this country, it coincides with a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. . . really since the early years of this century, the war on marijuana has been much more a war on the sort of people who smoke it, be they Mexicans or blacks or jazz musicians or beatniks or hippies or hip-hop artists. It’s really been a war on nonconformists and the laws against marijuana have been used as a way of reasserting what are seen as traditional American values.”

Attitudes are changing, however. Sixteen states now offer medicinal weed legally for patients, and the number is growing. More students are now smoking marijuana than binge drinking or smoking cigarettes. Weed-friendly communities like Oaksterdam, unthinkable a decade or two ago, are sprouting up and campaigning to have marijuana revenue regulated and taxed like alcohol.

As marijuana enters the mainstream, studies like the one published in JAMA might dispel false assertions about the plant’s deleterious health hazards and promote its medicinal benefits. According to Dr. Donald P. Tashkin, a marijuana researcher at UCLA medical school, THC is known to have anti-inflammatory properties, which may prevent lung irritation from developing into the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that frequently devastates the lungs of tobacco smokers. Since inhaling the unfiltered smoke of a combusted marijuana plant isn’t exactly the best delivery system for this panacea, he suggests that those who want to unlock its chemical potential find lower impact ways to get high.

“The smoke in marijuana contains thousands of ingredients, many of which are toxic and noxious and have the potential, at least, to cause airway injury,” said Tashkin in TIME. “In an ideal world, it would be preferable to take it in another form.” Vaporizer, anyone?

Source

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – More than three dozen Washington state lawmakers sent a letter to the federal government on Monday, asking for marijuana to be reclassified as a drug that can be prescribed by doctors and filled by pharmacists.

Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule II drug would allow it to be prescribed by doctors and handled by pharmacists. Marijuana is currently classified a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it’s not accepted for medical treatment and can’t be prescribed, administered or dispensed.

In the letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the lawmakers said they supported Gov. Chris Gregoire’s previous request on the issue. Seven Republican lawmakers were among the 42 in both the House and the Senate who signed the letter.

In addition to the letter, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, introduced Senate Joint Memorial 8017 making the same request to reclassify medical marijuana. The joint memorial was scheduled for a hearing in the Health & Long Term Care Committee on Thursday.

Gregoire and Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee filed the petition with the DEA last November. Washington and Rhode Island are two of 16 states and the District of Columbia that have laws allowing the medical use of marijuana.

Washington voters approved a medical marijuana law in 1998 that gives doctors the right to recommend – but not prescribe – marijuana for people suffering from cancer and other conditions that cause “intractable pain.”

Last year, Gregoire vetoed most of a bill that made major reforms to the state’s medical marijuana law, saying state workers could be prosecuted under federal law the way the measure was written.

A separate bill this year is attempting to provide medical marijuana patients with easier access to the drug. The new proposal would allow local governments to regulate nonprofit patient cooperatives, which could grow up to 99 plants.

Under the latest proposal, nonprofit patient cooperatives would be prohibited in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents – mostly rural areas – unless local jurisdictions enact ordinances allowing them. The cooperatives would be allowed in counties with a population of more than 200,000 unless local jurisdictions opt out through an ordinance.

The plan would create a voluntary registry for patients.

Source

A new poll suggests Canada may have reached the tipping point and a 66-per-cent majority favours legalizing marijuana.

Hallelujah! Finally we might get a sensible public policy discussion in this country about what to do about a relatively benign substance that has been demonized and outlawed for a century yet is as readily available in schoolyards as cigarettes.

The prohibition and a 40-year-long “War on Drugs” have led to pot being more widely accessible, taxpayers considerably poorer, gangs richer and thousands upon thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens branded “criminal.”

Another 50,000 or so Canadians are busted every year for possession; throw in 20,000 or so traffickers and producers and this so-called war is costing us as much as $400 million annually in law enforcement, court and corrections.

Bearing in mind a million dollars a year buys roughly 12 new cops, 14 teachers or public health nurses, ask yourself: Couldn’t all that money be better spent?

The federal Liberal party obviously thinks so – 77 per cent of delegates at the weekend convention voted to legalize the herb, echoing the Senate special committee on illegal drugs (chaired by a Conservative), which 10 years ago urged the government to free the weed. Four decades ago, the LeDain Commission similarly called for an end to the criminal prohibition of cannabis.

Across the country today, more and more people agree.

Read More

Cannabis smokers in Switzerland will soon be allowed to grow up to four marijuana plants each at home to stop them buying drugs on the black market.

In a bizarre twist to the new law, four people sharing a house can grow up to 16 plants – but only if each person tends to their own crop.

The deregulation of Switzerland’s already lax cannabis laws has been agreed by four neighbouring regions in the French-speaking part of the Alpine country.

A spokesman for the Neuchatel region said: ‘We have agreed these new rules to prevent drugs tourism between regions where the rules are different, and to stop them buying it on the streets.

‘But one person can not start growing more than four plants just by claiming they live with other people.

‘In this case, these other people have to actually be cultivating the plants themselves.

‘This means attending to the plant in such a way as to make it grow.’

Swiss daily Le Matin quipped: ‘This basically means that you can grow four more plants for every housemate you have – just as long as they know how to hold a watering can.’

The rules will apply in the cantons of Vaud, Neuchatel, Geneva and Fribourg from January 1 next year.

Read more

A man who got a visit from police after a pizza delivery driver smelled marijuana at his home is getting free pizza from a different restaurant.

Police visited Frederick Smith of Aurora after a Papa John’s International Inc. driver reported he smelled marijuana in the home last week and saw a child there. Smith told KUSA-TV in Denver he’s a registered medical marijuana user. He says police searched his house then left.

Papa John’s has said it stands by its employee.

On Thursday, Denver-based Sexy Pizza said it’s offering Smith one free pizza monthly until Colorado voters decide a proposed 2012 ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. If voters pass it, Sexy Pizza says, it’ll extend the offer for life.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting tougher on pot growers than he is on rapists of children. Under the Tories’ omnibus crime legislation tabled Tuesday, a person growing 201 pot plants in a rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone who rapes a toddler or forces a five-year-old to have sex with an animal.

Producing six to 200 pot plants nets an automatic six-month sentence, with an extra three months if it’s done in a rental or is deemed a public-safety hazard. Growing 201 to 500 plants brings a one-year sentence, or 1½ years if it’s in a rental or poses a safety risk.

The omnibus legislation imposes one-year mandatory minimums for sexually assaulting a child, luring a child via the Internet or involving a child in bestiality. All three of these offences carry lighter automatic sentences than those for people running medium-sized grow-ops in rental property or on someone else’s land.

A pedophile who gets a child to watch pornography with him, or a pervert exposing himself to kids at a playground, would receive a minimum 90-day sentence, half the term of a man convicted of growing six pot plants in his own home.

The maximum sentence for growing marijuana would double from seven to 14 years, the same maximum applied to someone using a weapon during a child rape, and four years more than for someone sexually assaulting a kid without using a weapon.

Read more @ The Province

It’s been quite a busy month. I’ve recently started working at a headshop so I haven’t had as much time to work on the site. So I figured I will round up some of the top 10 posts here on I Love Weed for your enjoyment.

6 Awesome Pro-Marijuana Ads [pics]

Top 11 Marijuana Documentaries (with videos)

How to make Weed Brownies

How to Make “Green Dragon”

25 Animals that Love Weed!

Guide to Bud Quality, Quantity, and Smoking Devices

Bong made out of ICE!

Sorry, I’m Illegal [pic]

We’re so baked! [comic]

71 Gram Joint Video

Also, be sure to ‘Like’ us on Facebook for the latest updates. We are also on Twitter.

A bold petition is shaping up in California, spearheaded by a group of renowned activists who support recreational use of cannabis. Their challenge is to acquire a whopping 504,706 signatures by December 19. Accomplishing this will allow their Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative to be placed on the June or November ballots in 2012.

Proponents compare marijuana prohibition to alcohol prohibition, and hope to see them meet the same ultimate demise. Prominent activist and former candidate for Governor, Steve Kubby, touts the economical boon California could receive with legalization. He points out that the plan will impose “a sales tax on the biggest crop in the state.”

It is no secret that California is in dire need of an economical boon, having the second highest unemployment ratein the nation. Taxation of cannabis is a convincing argument in the face of pouring precious resources into ineffective interdiction policies. California also faces emigration issues, with citizens fleeing to places like Texas, in hopes of cheaper living, and employment opportunities.  The widely predicted tourism boost from legalization could give much needed revenue to the state, and would hopefully provide job growth and opportunities within the state.

Opponents are worried that legalizing the drug would result in social backlash, namely higher addiction addiction, drugged drivers and the usual tug-of-war with federal authorities.  However, supporters point to studies that suggest overall cannabis use will not show any dramatic shift after legalization.  As such, it is unlikely that the social complications will transpire. It is true, however, that at this time the federal government is not looking to change their policy regarding federal drug enforcement. With any luck, that will change naturally, with the myriad political events that will transpire in the next few years.

Kubby, who has been a long-time Californian activist and helped write the 1996 law that legalized medical marijuana in the state, recognizes the failure of the infamous Proposition 19. A major issue that haunted Prop. 19 was the seemingly convoluted way marijuana would have been regulated at the local levels. The new proposal seeks legalization “within a [statewide] regulated model.” It would be a simple, streamlined process, that would hopefully avoid costing valuable resources in the smaller arenas.

Supporters are also optimistic about the timing on this attempt. Since it will be coinciding with a presidential election, voter turnout should be much higher. Ideally, this will shift the voting demographic to the left, as younger, more liberal voters are statistically more likely to attend. The timing of this attempt is even more crucial, as states get desperate for revenue. All across the nation states are raising fines and fees to deal with budget shortages. Economic promise may play a key role in securing voter enthusiasm.

California has long been a fierce battleground for marijuana activism. If recreational use is deemed legal by the state, it would put an enormous burden on federal agencies to police the area. It could be a political stronghold for nationwide success, and a potential tipping point in the public perception of marijuana. In the meantime, it is up to individual activists to chisel away at the plague of prohibition, and help realize this goal.

By: Marijuana News

As reported a week ago, The first Congressional marijuana legalization bill is now in Congress — please support it!

H.R. 2306, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, would remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act and limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or interstate smuggling. States would be able to legalize and regulate marijuana, or to continue to prohibit it, as they individually choose.

Please use this web form to contact your US Representative and your two US Senators in support of this historic bill. Please follow-up by calling their offices too — if you don’t know their numbers (or aren’t sure who they are), you can reach them by calling the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) will introduce “bi-partisan legislation tomorrow ending the federal war on marijuana and letting states legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana without federal interference,” according to a press release from the Marijuana Policy Project that just hit my inbox. More from that email:

Other co-sponsors include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA). The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal. The legislation is the first bill ever introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.

Rep. Frank’s legislation would end state/federal conflicts over marijuana policy, reprioritize federal resources, and provide more room for states to do what is best for their own citizens.

I called Morgan Fox at MPP to ask about the chances that this bill will get any serious debate time in the House (a fair question, considering that it has only one Republican supporter at the moment). “It’s definitely going to get a serious debate, probably more in the media than on the floor of the House,” Fox told me. “But I think it needs to be debated on the floor.”

What does MPP see as obstacles?

“Someone in the prohibitionist camp could hold it up as long as they wanted, but the slew of opinion pieces that came out last week calling for the end of the failed drug war will give this momentum,” Fox said.

While Paul’s status as a declared presidential candidate should help with media pick-up, Frank is leading the press teleconference tomorrow, and Paul’s not even on the call.

Previous Frank-Paul partnerships include a 2010 op-ed to reduce military spending and a marijuana decriminalization bill introduced in the House in 2009. In the intervening two years, Arizona and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, and the Connecticut legislature has moved to decriminalize it. Now former U.S. Attorney John McKay and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes are organizing to completely legalize marijuana in Washington State. The time is ripe.

Source

Deputy District Attorney Jeff Greeson holds up a jar of marijuana obtained from defendant Joel Castle’s hotel room ore than a year ago. Castle, left, was ultimately found guilty of possession and sale of marijuana. He chose nine months in prison rather than three years’ probation.​

A California medical marijuana patient said he prefers being behind bars to being told he can’t use cannabis. Joel Castle is going to prison for nine months rather than spending the next three years on probation, because a condition of the probation a judge offered him was that he quit smoking pot.Castle, the former Chico Cannabis Club operator who was found guilty last month of two felonies associated with a guitar-for-pot trade in January 2010, was sentenced earlier this month, reports Meredith J. Graham at the Chico News Review.Judge Robert Glusman at first offered Castle three years’ probation. But the medical marijuana patient refused, and was sentenced instead to two years, eight months in state prison.”It was the first time I really spoke my mind to that judge,” Castle said.

Castle ended up being ejected from the courtroom during his sentencing, never a good sign.

Source (Toke of the Town)

The Bulldog, Amsterdam

The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from “coffee shops” and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe’s most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.

Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.

“In order to tackle the nuisance and criminality associated with coffee shops and drug trafficking, the open-door policy of coffee shops will end,” the Dutch health and justice ministers wrote in a letter to the country’s parliament on Friday.

Under the new rules, only Dutch residents will be able to sign up as members of cannabis shops.

Dutch customers will have to sign up for at least a year’s membership and each shop would be expected to have only up to 1,500 members, a justice ministry spokesman said.

The policy will roll out in the southern provinces of Limburg, Noord Brabant and Zeeland by the end of the year and the rest of the country next year, the spokesman said.

Amsterdam, home to about 220 coffee shops, is already in the process of closing some in its red light district. Some officials have resisted the measures, saying they will push the soft drug trade underground.

Some Dutch border towns including Maastricht and Terneuzen have already restricted the sale of marijuana to foreigners.

Conservative Stephen Harper could win a majority government with as little as 34% of the vote on May 2. We must ensure this does not happen, or S-10, and mandatory minimums like it, will be law in 100 days. The most important thing you can do is VOTE on May 2!

WhyProhibition.ca is finalizing its list of strategic votes and will be releasing that with the latest poll information this weekend.

Why so late?

The NDP, led by Jack Layton, has been on an historic and unprecedented rise in the last few days, overtaking the Liberals for 2nd place nationally, and within 5% of the Conservatives as of Friday. Depending on how the votes split riding by riding, this could potentially yield a Conservative majority government but could also result in an NDP minority government. The outcome will likely be decided by who turns out to vote.

The NDP under Jack Layton has been the most positive party in the House of Commons on marijuana law reform and medical marijuana, and is truly a friend to our community. Jack Layton is a man we have personally met with many times, and he has always been honest, open and very friendly. He understands the failures of prohibition, and is not afraid to talk about them.

Beyond Prohibition Foundation and WhyProhibition.ca have no doubt that an NDP government would be the best electoral outcome for our community and would represent the best chance for cannabis law reform in Canadian history.

The Conservatives have spent this campaign using a strategy called “micro-targeting” which involves focusing on specific areas in specific ridings to get a majority government with the lowest percentage of popular vote, possibly as low as 34%.

We must ensure that Stephen Harper can not micro-target his way to victory.

By voting strategically, we can not only stop Stephen Harper from obtaining a majority, but could potentially usher in the a government ready to make substantial change to Canada’s marijuana laws.

Please, for our country, for our friends and for our future, get out and VOTE on May 2.

Source

Happy 4/20 everyone! Time to get baked!

Today in R v. Mernagh the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found the entire regulatory scheme governing medical marijuana (the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations) to be invalid. As a result sections 4 (prohibiting possession) and 7 (prohibiting production) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act were stricken. The government has been given 90 days to fill the legislative void or it will become legal to possess and produce marijuana.

The basis for the decision was that the government’s controversial decision making allopathic physicians the only gatekeepers to patient access created a scheme that was too restrictive and made it too difficult for Canadians to lawfully acquire the medicine. In the Court’s words “…it is long past time for the government to provide the medical access to marihuana that was directed by the Parker court over ten years ago…” Parker was a 2000 decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that gave rise to the MMAR scheme.

“Complaints about the doctor-as-gatekeeper role, from patients and physicians, have been a constant feature of this flawed system,” said Kirk Tousaw, the Foundation’s Executive Director and a BC lawyer that successfully argued R v. Beren, in which the BC Supreme Court found certain supply-side aspects of the scheme to violate the Charter. “This decision represents a huge step forward for critically and chronically ill Canadians that want to access this safe and effective medicine without being turned into criminals for doing so.”

Jacob Hunter, the Foundation’s Policy Director and an authorized medical cannabis consumer, also hailed the decision: “I know how hard it has been to find a supportive physician. There are a million medical cannabis consumers in Canada and, in ten years, less than 10,000 have been able to become legal. That just isn’t right.”

The Foundation urges the upcoming new government of Canada to work with patients, producers and distributors of medical cannabis over the next 90 days to craft a legislative model that works. “Who knows,” speculated Tousaw, “the government could always choose not to re-legislate, as did with the abortions laws after the Morgentaler decision, and finally put an end to the harms being caused by marijuana prohibition. ”

The Foundation congratulates Mr. Mernagh and counsel Paul Lewin for their outstanding efforts and salutes all those that assisted in the case.

Source

Public support for marijuana legalization continues its upward trend and has “never been higher,” according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll had support for marijuana legalization at 45%, up four points from the same poll a year earlier.

Half of respondents (50%) still opposed legalizing pot, but that number is down two points from last year and continues a two-decade long trend of declining opposition. In 1990, 81% opposed legalization; by 2000, that number had declined to 63%, and has continued to drop since then.

The upward trend line for legalization and the downward one opposing legalization are nearing the convergence point, and support for legalization will soon surpass opposition, if current trends continue.

Pro-legalization sentiment was strongest among 18-to-29-year-olds (54%), Democrats (53%), and people with some college education (50%). Among liberal Democrats, support rose to 66%.

Keeping marijuana illegal got the strongest support from Republicans (67%) and people over 65 (66%), and women (54%). Men were evenly divided on the issue.

The new Pew poll is in line with other polls in recent years showing a steady increase in support for marijuana legalization, but that we’re not quite there yet nationally. Still, we are getting tantalizingly close. You can review our archive of Chronicle articles about polls here.

- Article originally published at www.StopTheDrugWar.org

With 14 states and the District of Colombia allowing the legal medical use of marijuana, acceptance of the issue is steadily growing in America. A new poll shows that 57 percent of Floridians support legalization of medical marijuana as buzz grows that the issue could be placed on the ballot as soon as 2012.

Bob Norman reports that the poll was conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican firm that worked with Rick Scott’s gubernatorial campaign. The pollsters asked point blank: “If there was a Constitutional Amendment on the statewide ballot to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes only when prescribed by a practicing physician and the election were held today, would you vote YES to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes or NO to stop it?”

57 percent said they would vote YES (roughly 41 percent said they definitely would, and about 17 percent said they probably would). A recent ABC News poll found that across the nation 81 percent of voters support medical marijuana. It’s possible that this poll may even be conservative in estimating support.

Norman reports that such an amendment could come to the ballot in 2012, but 60 percent of voters would need to check yes for such a measure to pass.

While there wasn’t a big statistical difference based on gender and race, slightly more woman were supportive of the measure than men. 59 percent of white voters and 58 percent of Hispanics would vote yes, while only 55 percent of black voters would.

Voters in Miami would support the measure at 58 percent, but West Palm has the biggest munchies for medical marijuana with 73 percent. 79 percent of voters 18 to 24 would vote yes, while even a majority of voters 65 and up are supportive of the measure with 53 percent support.

Source

Breaking news: Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen smoke weed. OK, maybe it’s not so surprising, considering the “stoner” movies the two have been involved with in the past, but Smith sat down with MTV News to explain how funnyman Rogen recently turned him onto marijuana — and how it’s the best thing that has happened to him in five years.

Smith, who directed Rogen in 2008′s ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno,’ claims Rogen is one of the most talented people he’s ever worked with.

“I got so much from him,” he said. “He re-energized me in a weird way. I became a stoner because of Seth Rogen.”

Smith was in awe of how Rogen could be a “functional stoner,” showing up to the movie set and be “brilliant” and “constantly writing [and] productive.”

The director had only tried marijuana a handful of times in the past and said it was his idea to share a joint with Rogen on the last day on the movie set.

“It was awesome,” Smith said about the experience. “We sat back, watched some footage and sat there smoking. And I loved who I was. I loved how the inhibition dropped away and I loved just being honest.”

And he hasn’t stopped since. The director claims he’s had the most productive years of his career thanks to Rogen — and weed.

“That dude gave me the greatest gift I’ve had in the last five years,” Smith said. “The moment I start smoking, I start working. … No one could ever say, ‘You fat, lazy piece of s**t stoner!”