{"id":23638,"date":"2017-02-14T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/"},"modified":"2017-02-14T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T21:00:00","slug":"george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/","title":{"rendered":"The Founder of Men’s Wearhouse Has Smoked Weed for 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Zimmer, founder of successful clothing retailer Men's Wearhouse, has openly discussed his fifty-year history of marijuana use<\/a> to help combat the negative stigma associated with cannabis. After being fired from the board of the company he created in 2013, the 68-year-old entrepreneur is now devoting his time to marijuana advocacy, along with his new business, Generation Tux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Zimmer donated $50,000 to support an unsuccessful attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in California. This week, he will be the keynote speaker at the Cannabis Collaborative Conference<\/a> in Oregon, and he has previously addressed marijuana conferences in California and Nevada. Zimmer said that supporting pot legalization “was just one of those little things that I did over my life that pissed people off."<\/p>\n

Zimmer said that he began smoking weed in the 1960s, once smoking six joints in an hour with Ram Dass<\/a>. He also credits marijuana with helping him quit drinking alcohol 35 years ago. "The fact is — and I mean the scientific fact — [marijuana] is less toxic and dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, which are the main drugs in the United States," Zimmer said.<\/p>\n

The businessman said that he was inspired to champion marijuana after seeing how it has been demonized by the government and press. "I'm just following a kind of lifetime passion of mine to help correct this myth,” he said. In addition to helping him quit alcohol, Zimmer said that pot helped him cope with losing his job at the business that he created.<\/p>\n

"I refer to [marijuana] as harm reduction," he said. "So the way cannabis helps is, when you lose your job, you don't go on a two-week bender." <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re gonna like the way George Zimmer smokes, we guarantee it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3035],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Founder of Men's Wearhouse Has Smoked Weed for 50 Years - Merry Jane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Founder of Men's Wearhouse Has Smoked Weed for 50 Years - Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You\u2019re gonna like the way George Zimmer smokes, we guarantee it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-14T21:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/GeorgeZimmer_WIDE.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1118\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"610\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"MJ Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b90d5b22bd5e702cf8cbd8e406675f7b\"},\"headline\":\"The Founder of Men’s Wearhouse Has Smoked Weed for 50 Years\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-14T21:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-14T21:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\"},\"wordCount\":303,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/GeorgeZimmer_WIDE.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"CULTURE\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/george-zimmer-mens-warehouse-founder-has-smoked-weed-for-fifty-years\/\",\"name\":\"The Founder of Men's Wearhouse Has Smoked Weed for 50 Years - 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