Thousands of People Watch These Women Just Smoke Weed on Periscope

Meet the weed-smoking women who are watched by thousands on Periscope

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Complex Original

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Smoking weed. Putting on makeup. Playing with a dog. Those are pretty common things to do if you're a millennial in California. But what makes 28-year-old Coral Reefer uncommon is the fact that tons of people watch her do those exact things. Yep, she's one of a handful of weed-smoking women who are followed by thousands of viewers on social media. 

According to Refinery29, Coral Reefer is one of many WeedTubers, as they call YouTube personalities who discuss cannabis on YouTube. Reefer, from Santa Cruz, California, is a big name in #Perismoking, which is the community's term for smoking weed on the live video streaming app Periscope. (Be careful smoking weed on Periscope though. As NFL player Aldon Smith found out this summer, #Perismoking can land you in trouble.)

Weed-smoking women like Coral Reefer have become incredibly popular on social media. Her Facebook page is liked by more than 720,000 people. On Instagram, over 175,000 people follow her. Her YouTube channel has almost 120,000 subscribers. She has over 50,000 followers on Twitter, and another 23,000 followers on Periscope

Generally, adult men are about 50 percent more likely than women to have lit up in the past month (9.6 percent of adult males compared to 5 percent of females), according to a 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. And stereotypical stoners are often depicted as young dudes living in their mom's basement. But you never would've assumed that after seeing the young blonde Coral Reefer rip dabs, smoke out of a bong, or hotbox the car with her friend Camille.

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Reefer and others, Refinery29 explained "are attempting to revitalize the image of the traditional pot smoker, from the slovenly hippie to the cute girl next door, who can speak just as eloquently and passionately about state marijuana legislation as about her favorite hybrid strains."

Another one of those women is 28-year-old Ganjalina. Ganjalina (whose first name is actually Lina) goes by @ModestMaryJane on Periscope, where she has nearly 100,000 followers. She served in the military and, after she was discharged, she was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, according to Refinery29. That same year, 2012, was when the young tatted-up Washington state resident started smoking regularly. Weed, she explained, "opened up a new life for me." 

There's also Kandie, a 36-year-old divorced mother of two, who's been smoking since her mid-20s. When she was diagnosed with ADHD and sciatica, a painful medical condition, doctors prescribed her with painkillers and Adderall, which left her feeling like "a zombie." With those drugs, Kandie "had no control over my emotions" and "couldn't think for myself." With weed, though, she's "focused enough to relax, calm down, and do what I gotta do."

While Kandie was worried at first that being open about marijuana could get her into trouble as a mother, she eventually concluded, "There’s a part of me I’ve been hiding from people, and I want to be open with the world." Now, you can catch Kandie on Periscope inviting you to watch her "grind some flowers and take some dabs." 

In the past, women have been treated like objects in the marijuana community and were simply "hired to be booth babes and sell bongs for decades," according to Reefer. Now, though, Reefer explained, "We're at a point where women can reach a point where they say that's not what they want to do."

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