It’s High Time for This

It’s High Time for This Barbie

Naturally, they enjoyed every minute of them.

And yet, dear reader, our female staffers have recently had reason to feel as if their hours spent with Barbie were missing something. Not that they didn’t possess many of the accoutrements necessary to delight in the wonders of Barbie: They had Malibu Barbie, Surfer Ken, Breast-Implants Barbie, Unhinged Nation-Magazine-Reading Barbie, &c.

What, then, was the problem? We, dear reader, are overjoyed that you asked.

It’s actually quite simple: Even with all their various Barbie toys, they did not possess one crucial accessory: Medical Marijuana Barbie.

What—or who—in the Lord’s name is Medical Marijuana Barbie? Again, dear reader, we are delighted that you asked. In fact, your questions make it far easier for us to segue into new paragraphs.

Well, Medical Marijuana Barbie, according to the curious “website” Everything2.com, “is the alter ego of Dr. Tracy Blevins, one of the most colorful characters in the movement against the prohibition of cannabis for medical use.”

Aha! So Barbie has acquired an advanced degree, eh? Who said that girls found math hard?

But wait, dear reader; there’s more interesting information about this bloodshot Barbie:

She is attention-grabbingly pretty, although—in keeping with her character—she looks a bit like she could be made out of plastic, with her improbably bright pink hair and clothing. Hailing from Houston, Texas, she received her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Texas.

I met Medical Marijuana Barbie briefly at the annual Festival of Ganja in Brockwell Park (in South London). She introduced herself both by her real name and as her alter ego; we chatted a little, and she told me a bit about her work as an academic and activist, and informed me that it’s pointless and harmful to hold ganja smoke for as long as most people do, since the THC is absorbed before all the other crap has a chance to settle. A little while after we talked, I listened to her deliver an entertaining speech about medical marijuana and what she’d been doing to promote it, to a stoned but interested audience.

We know what you’re thinking, dear reader: It’s really awful that the Festival of Ganja audience wasn’t paying full attention to Dr. Medical Marijuana Barbie. Although we’ve never attended a Festival of Ganja, we can only presume that the people who show up are normally more alert. Perhaps they just don’t respect women. The incorrigible sexists.

All of this must have left you wondering what the Good Doctor Medical Marijuana Barbie does in order to draw attention to her cause. Wonder no more:

So far the stunt that has brought Medical Marijuana Barbie the most attention was the time she climbed up on top of a bus stop in London’s Oxford Street and stripped down to her tiara, revealing a hand-painted cannabis leaf where modesty would have demanded a fig leaf, and the words Medical Marijuana inscribed across her buttocks.

This left us wondering: Does Dr. Medical Marijuana Barbie consider this part of her work as an activist or as an academic? Or perhaps both? (Given the vicissitudes of contemporary academe, maybe there’s no difference between the two.)

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” also contemplated other stunts this Cheech of Barbies could pull off.

Perhaps she and Same-Sex Unions Ken could ride horses throughout Central Park and hand out copies of Peter Tosh’s album “Legalize It.” Or maybe she and Condoms-for-High-School-Students Ken could ride through Detroit in a giant Bong-mobile.

Or perhaps she’ll just get the munchies and gain a bunch of weight.