The Bong Next Door - Inside America's Most Stoned Suburbs

Ambling through America's most stoned suburbs.

- Reeves Wiedeman

Should we smoke before we pray?”

Cynthia Joye asked, tapping the Bible resting on her lap. Joye had just arrived at her friend’s home in Centennial, Colorado, a suburb south of Denver, for the fifth or sixth meeting—it was hard to keep track—of Stoner Jesus Bible Study. “I think the plant is sacred,” said Joye, a 51-year-old mother who wore her gray hair in a ponytail, as a pair of pipes made their way around the circle. “It puts people in a frame of mind where you think of God.”

“The Bible didn’t say you couldn’t smoke weed,” said Mia Williams, who had been raised a Southern Baptist. Someone cited Genesis 1:29—“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herbbearing seed’ ”—and though no one smoked when they went to church, everyone agreed that Jesus wouldn’t mind if they did. “Jesus didn’t hang out with the Pharisees,” Joye said. “If somebody passed him a pipe, he wouldn’t say no.”

Stoner Jesus Bible Study is the creation of Deb Button, a 40-something mother of two who had never considered smoking pot until last year, when Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational marijuana for adults over 21. “I was majorly conservative,” said Button, who was wearing a navy cardigan and jeans cuffed at the calf. Earlier this year, while going through a divorce, she’d tried an edible on a friend’s advice. This had proved a revelation. “I expected to see unicorns,” Button said. “But when I started smoking I just got so connected to God.” Joye was the only person to show up when Button posted a listing on Craigslist for Stoner Jesus Bible Study; she arrived to find Button “so baked out of her head she forgot that she’d invited me over.” They talked for four hours.