“Platoon” in 1986 was a jolt to people in the public who didn’t associate grass smoking with Vietnam. We were pretty frank about it and we had one of the first bong scenes ever, in which Dafoe puts his shotgun in the mouth of Charlie Sheen and tells him to take a hit. That surprised a few people, and I think a lot of veterans were pissed off when they saw it. They didn’t like that profile. A lot of veterans drank, but never smoked, and hated “the heads.” The heads, on the other hand, didn’t have much appreciation for a lot of the drinkers who would have a tendency to go out and fuck up civilians when they got pissed.
I personally never saw people smoke grass and go out and fuck up civilians, so I think there was a kind quality to the grass. It helped us keep our cool at times when we wanted to lose it. I never saw a man smoke grass and misbehave in the field. Vietnam was such an absurd and insane situation where we were fighting in circles going back to areas when we had lost men and would be required to take the same areas again and again. Catch-22. I think grass was, in a way, the most rational response to absurdity. Most of the grass smoking was in the rear, in the base camps, between missions.
But I’ll tell you this-- there was a whole lot of smoking going on and a whole generation came back enlightened about the ways of weed. Vietnamese and Thai grass at the time was some of the best stuff in the world. I think now that honor belongs to California as we progressed to this stage where independent growers are scientifically engineering the best stuff, as we show in our film “Savages”.
Oliver Stone
I personally never saw people smoke grass and go out and fuck up civilians, so I think there was a kind quality to the grass. It helped us keep our cool at times when we wanted to lose it. I never saw a man smoke grass and misbehave in the field. Vietnam was such an absurd and insane situation where we were fighting in circles going back to areas when we had lost men and would be required to take the same areas again and again. Catch-22. I think grass was, in a way, the most rational response to absurdity. Most of the grass smoking was in the rear, in the base camps, between missions.
But I’ll tell you this-- there was a whole lot of smoking going on and a whole generation came back enlightened about the ways of weed. Vietnamese and Thai grass at the time was some of the best stuff in the world. I think now that honor belongs to California as we progressed to this stage where independent growers are scientifically engineering the best stuff, as we show in our film “Savages”.