This article by Johnny Green was originally published on Cannabis & Tech Today, and appears here with permission.
The lazy stoner stereotype is as old as reefer madness propaganda. “Cannabis consumers are lazy,” is a claim that has been hurled a lot throughout history by cannabis opponents.
Anti-cannabis ads have often portrayed cannabis consumers as being “couch potatoes” with no ambition to participate in physical activity.
Those ads are usually coupled with jokes about “the munchies” or in the case of one anti-cannabis ad, the person was literally melted into a couch unable to move.
Similar portrayals occurred in movies and TV shows, with the “stoner” characters almost always unfit and lazy.