Eleven states have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use and a similar effort is underway to do the same thing in Arizona with Prop 207. Most experts firmly believe that Arizona is the next state to pass recreational marijuana laws. Four years ago, in 2016, the state’s first ballot initiative for adult-use regulations didn’t pass. But California and Oregon first failed to pass legal marijuana initiatives before passing them in a subsequent year, and considering that two-thirds of Arizonans support the legal recreational weed, the initiative seems all but certain to succeed.
With that in mind, you might want to start preparing your celebrations now. Thanks to COVID-19, you might not be able to get together with friends and smoke out your house, but you can still light up and enjoy some important elements of cannabis culture — namely, the movies. Here are some stoner flicks to line up in your streaming queue come November.
Reefer Madness
It’s hard to make any marijuana movie list without including the most famous cannabis propaganda film, Reefer Madness. Supposedly a cautionary tale of what happens when a good boy tries weed, this film has aged extremely poorly and now functions as a comedy farce for doja enthusiasts.
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Before The Hangover there was Dude, Where’s My Car?, the fantastical adventure of two stoners, Jesse and Chester, waking up after a blackout and trying to find where they parked their car. Not the most cerebral movie, this flick is best enjoyed when you are too stoned to think straight and need some lighthearted fun.
Bill & Ted
Believe it or not, Bill and Ted got a 2020 reboot, Bill & Ted Face the Music. As much to celebrate Arizona’s marijuana laws as to prepare for your viewing of the threequel, you should queue up both Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey, which see dumb-bros Bill and Ted traversing time, space and other dimensions .
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Like Jesse and Chester as well as Bill and Ted, Harold and Kumar are stoner buddies faced with a quest: to eat sliders at White Castle. We put so many of these movies on this list because they make excellent background atmosphere while you are enjoying a social smoke with friends, and it is easy to jump back into the flick when you are too stoned to function.
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny
If you are in a musical mood, Tenacious D blends the best of the stoner buddy genre with hard rock and roll. Surprisingly, the music is complex and incredibly enjoyable; you might even want to play the soundtrack after the credits roll or listen to other tracks by Jack Black’s band.
Up in Smoke
You might want to take it back to the very beginning of stoner pal flicks. Cheech and Chong’s doobie brothers routine paved the way for joking about weed way back in 1978; it might be thanks to their innocuous comedy that we have legal recreational weed today.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Similarly jumping way back in time to the beginning of marijuana movies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High stars a young Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, who became an archetype for less-than-intelligent stoners in future films.
Super Troopers
You might not be in the right headspace for an intricate mystery-crime-thriller — and yet that’s exactly what Super Trooper delivers. With a plot focused on the smuggling of huge amounts of weed, this raucous comedy has it all: outrageous drug use, orgies, pranks and romance.
Dazed and Confused
Before he directed serious and moody films like Before Sunrise and Boyhood, Richard Linklater was dedicated to portraying the suburban slacker on the silver screen. Matthew McConaughey’s Wooderson in Dazed and Confused is the epitome of cool and carefree, and even today he is inspiring teens to just keep “l-i-v-i-n.”
Friday
If you are looking for evidence of injustice in Hollywood, consider that most of the titles on this list of stoner movies contain an incredibly white cast. Not Friday, which showcases Ice Cube and Chris Tucker getting high on their front porch and watching the hood go by.
You should celebrate Arizona’s recreational weed law however you see fit — and if that means watching all 10 of these films back-to-back, then so be it.
