Medical Marijuana Barbie is the alter ego of Dr. Tracy Blevins, one of the most colourful characters in the movement against the prohibition of cannabis for medicinal use. 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 in 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.
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. A number of people have since been arrested selling postcards of this.
Another time, she invited Prince Charles - who is known to have asked at least one multiple sclerosis sufferer whether they had tried using cannabis - to the Medical Cannabis Valentine Dance in Camden, for a night of reggae music and hemp-based vegetarian food, and a chance to meet a few medicinal cannabis users. As far as I know he turned down the invitation, as well as the request that he should intercede on behalf of fellow campaigner Colin Davies, who is currently in jail on charges relating to Manchester coffee shop the Dutch Experience.
Shame about that.
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread7676.shtml (an article from the Palm Beach Post)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02.n221.a04.html (Christian prude)
http://www.schmoo.co.uk/mbarbie.htm (Open Letter to Prince Charles)
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news349.htm (Crap Arrest Of The Week)
http://www.hookersforweed.com/ (Tracy & husband)
Barbie is a Register Trademark of Mattel Inc., with which Medical Marijuana Barbie bears no known affiliation.
Read about the Barbie trademark here: http://www.trademarks.org/barbie/