photo above: Giselle Fetterman, as Second Lady of Pennsylvania (Today, wife of Pennsylvania State Senator, John Fetterman.

Women of Weed World is a series developed for Weed World Magazine UK,

profiling women in the global cannabis industry who may not receive the recognition they deserve.

Ruby Deevoy, UK Writer & Advocate

A conversation on the calling to right the wrongs of cannabis & psychedelics.

Ruby Deevoy of Scotland, has made a niche for herself writing intelligently of cannabis, CBD-rich hemp, and psychedelics for many publications throughout the UK, including mainstream publications, The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian. Tabolids include, The Sun, The Mirror, and The Express.

One column she’s penned, Ask Ruby, published by UK cannabis platform, Leafie, doesn’t just answer questions posed by its readers, but offers up a buffet of information, dipping into science, history and the culture of a highly misunderstood plant. Another column written for Top Sante.co.uk, focuses solely on hemp and cannabis, with Top Sante being the only mainstream publication in the UK to host a column dealing with this subject matter.

Recently, she was named Executive Director of NORML UK, after a restructure of the organization. Glamour magazine named her CBD Expert for its Wellness awards for 2023.

As with my own story, Deevoy’s journey down the garden path into cannabis publishing was not completely her own. We in this space are called to write of the healing denied globally to many, due to a lack of accurate information.

It’s no secret that 10 years ago, after being helped myself with cannabis for breast cancer and subsequently replacing pharmaceuticals, I was called to cross over from mainstream media. Like Deevoy, I’ve been compelled to write about the stories of healing shared with me.

In doing so, we’ve both learned that everyone who comes into the cannabis space has a story to tell surrounding the plant. Whether it be for personal healing, industry, or advocacy, the plant speaks to us and we are compelled to repeat the lessons learned. For word of mouth is all we’ve had to tell the truth of the plant, share stories of healing, and swapping recipes over the proverbial garden gate.

Both of us were already writing of environmental and subsequent health issues, when we were helped medicinally with cannabis. Both had a child who suffered with unusual illness, eventually helped with alternative treatments and plants. And both suffer from anxiety, helped by the plant.

But, it was injustice that led us both to putting words to paper for the greater good.

Accidentally Healed

“Twelve years ago, I was going through a rough patch emotionally and couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I had tried everything, and then took a homeopathic tincture that worked. When I read the label I could see that there was a trace amount of cannabis in the formulation.”

This led Deevoy to to try cannabis for the first time, switching from the homeopathic formulation to vaping whole plant flower, finding that the results were even more effective.

But it wasn't until her son was born with severe reflux disease in 2017, when she stumbled across a pediatric study where cannabidiol (CBD, one of the cannabinoids) was used to treat GERD, a severe reflux disease, that caused her to do a deep dive into CBD.

By 2018, Deevoy was commissioned to write 40 blogs for a CBD marketplace, and that's when she really fell down the rabbit hole. 

“When I found out about the endocannabinoid system, and the overwhelming amount of evidence to support cannabis being used as a medicine, I began to interview patients, cannabinoid researchers and doctors, like Professor Mike Barnes and Dr Mark Ware, just to find out more.”

The knowledge she gained, combined with the realization of the tremendous propaganda effort put into cannabis prohibition, and the corruption and suffering behind it, Ied her to the decision that she didn't want to write about anything other than cannabis.

“The world needed to be educated about this incredible plant, and the lies they had been told, and I was here for it,” she affirmed.

The initial realization of the endocannabinoid system (eCS) was in 1992, when Dr. Lumir Hanus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and American researcher Dr. William Devane, discovered the endocannabinoid anandamide, leading to the full discovery of the eCS, the biological system that accepts and processes plant-based beneficial compounds in the body.

“I was on the opposing side for a very long time,” she admitted. “I bought into the entire devil’s lettuce propaganda and believed that cannabis was far worse than any other drug - that it could, in fact, lead you to use other addictive substances and bad behaviors. Then, when I began reading about the eCS, it was a light bulb moment and I wondered, why don’t doctors know about this?”

Dr. David Allen took it upon himself to conduct a phone survey, posing that very question to 137 medical schools, with just 13 percent reporting the eCS was merely mentioned within the curriculum. Meaning, chances are your doctor has no idea about the modality that carries beneficial plant compounds throughout your body, addressing all of your biological systems, keeping you in homeostasis or a place where illness cannot dwell.

Deevoy’s view of cannabis was tainted at an early age, having been sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old by someone who used cannabis. A friend’s absentee father was also known to use cannabis, and her boyfriend who was often depressed smoked it daily. 

“I know now that the stigma created led me to judge others, and that my boyfriend used cannabis because he was depressed - not because it caused his emotional issues” she shared. “I get it now. But with all the negative information being fed to us about the plant over the years, it was easy to be convinced it was bad.”

Writing to Right the Wrongs

Like myself, Deevoy began college courses, but didn’t finish. Driven instead to do the work ahead of a degree in real time.

“My search for education was ambitious,” she laughed. “I focused on all the wrong things in college, with too many majors and minors, like photography and sign language. For instance, I should have studied english literature instead of languages. And I didn’t really want to go to class anyway. There were other things to do in the afternoons that I considered to be far more important, like hanging out in the pub and doing karaoke! Honestly, I don’t regret it.”

Not a fan of journalists, per se, Deevoy said she was frowned upon for being in their space without the degree once she began being published. As for myself, I stopped correcting people who introduced me as a journalist. As a features writer, I prefer the moniker of storyteller.

“I just knew I wanted to write about the poison in our processed foods, the toxins in shampoo and perfumes, and the carcinogens in everyday products like teflon - that so many still cook with” she explained. “I felt this burning desire to warn others about what I had discovered.”

Much of what she knew about natural products and homemade remedies came from her current partner, who makes his own shampoo out of sweet smelling herbs.

“Because I was once an ignorant skeptic about cannabis, I knew that you just couldn’t shout at those who didn’t believe, no matter what the subject,” she surmised. “Now, I feel like it’s a super power, having been on the other side. That’s what separates me from the journalists, I suppose. It’s the calling of the message itself that brought me to the table, not the career.”

#Not Just Cannabis

This past year Deevoy became disheartened with the cannabis industry’s seeming greed and corruption, with legislators ignoring the science, and continuing to play politics with the plant.

“It’s frustrating to have this knowledge, to do the work of researching and writing of the truth of this plant, only to have the same rhetoric from decades ago still being repeated, forcing us backwards, not forward,” she said.

Last year, after being invited to the UK’s first ketamine clinic, Awakin, her interest in psychedelics was ignited. And, just like with her work in cannabis and hemp, she began researching everything she could, interviewing experts and patients on their transformative experiences.

“I interviewed a group of combat veterans who were cured by Ayahuasca for The Times at the end of last year, and that was mind blowing,” she said. “Then I attended the first ever psychedelics conference in Iceland in January of this year and listen to amazing talks from experts, such as Rick Doblin from MAPS. Since then I’ve interviewed many on their experiences and the stories have been beautiful to hear.”

Deevoy said the experience turned out to be deeply moving, life and career changing. She began penning stories for Psychedelic Spotlight.com on everything psychedelic, with the same passion she has for cannabis, health issues, and saving the planet.

“I’ve realized that my medicine is my voice,” she surmised. “I’m giving my voice to these causes to help others. To wake people up to their own power of healing, and in turn, play my role in changing the world. I know it sounds grand, but that’s the message I received from a recent psilocybin trip I took myself.”

She also realized that the plants aren’t just about psychoactivity or getting high.

“It’s really all about freedom,” she concluded. “People need to be able to heal any way that they want. Freedom from the poisons forced on us, and the illusion we are being taken care of, when  historically, it’s been the opposite. My hope for my work is to show people that there’s so much more than what we’ve been told. Whether you choose to heal with cannabis or choose to reset with a hallucinogenic experience, that choice should be yours alone.”

For more information about Ruby Deevoy visit, http://rubydeevoy.com/contact 

Follow her on Instagram @rubyDeevoywrites and Twitter @RDeevoy

Grace Elisea, Owner, Cabo Cannabis Company

Saving Grace

Grace Elisea, owner of the Cabo Cannabis Company, located in downtown Cabo San Lucas, just celebrated her one year anniversary of having a retail shop.

“Tourists and locals alike come in out of curiosity, but they often leave a patient,” Grace said of the work she does in educating about cannabis and the healing compounds found within from behind the counter..

Everyone’s path into the garden of the cannabis space is similar. I liken it to the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where we are all seeing and experiencing the same thing, all drawn to the plant, with those lucky enough to be healed, then helping others. It becomes a calling. A calling wherein we must ignore the unjust laws, and heal ourselves in the face of great persecution.

Grace’s story began in Arkansas, where she was born into a high profile family, surrounded by drugs and alcohol. Sadly, she was given drugs at a young age by her addicted parents. But her path to the garden was already forged, and when she discovered cannabis, she changed the trajectory of the life laid before her.

“My mom would give me a handful of pennies for my school lunch, because my parents spent there money on drugs,” she shared. “I’d leave for school with this handful of pennies, and there would already be lines of coke laid out on the coffee table.”

Her first son was born in California, with a lineage directly linked to Hugh Hefner, with the young man the spitting image of the late Playboy founder.

“My child’s father was also addicted to drugs,” she said. “I never saw him get clean. He was in and out of prison, and the last time he was released he overdosed on Fentanyl and died just one day out.”

She began selling edibles to survive, but said that it felt right, because she knew the plant was better than the other drugs she grew up surrounded with.

When she was arrested on cannabis charges in Southern California, she went through one year of drug rehabilitation and three years of trials, testing, and watching Child Protective Services put her son in one Foster Care home after another.

“Once I was in the system I was judged harshly,” she added. “It didn’t matter that I had a California Medical Script from a doctor, because they used Federal law against me anyway. They always looked at me as a criminal, no matter how many hoops I jumped through - and there were many. Some days I would be on busses all day long - having drug tests done by three different agencies in the same city. I could have been a junkie, but I was saved by this plant. I knew that, and I made the decision to leave the country when my son was four years old.”

On the Lamb in Mexico

Grace ignored her last court date and crossed the border into Mexico with her son and just a backpack with the bare minimum. Holding her breath as they crossed, hoping no one would ask for her ID, or do a records check.

“I only knew one friend of a friend in Puerto Vallarta, and he picked us up from the bus stop and helped us for a few days,” she said. “I became the weed brownie girl on the beach, walking with two trays of brownies, one infused and one non-infused, selling to tourists.

She met Jesus, her current husband, who’s also a contractor and builder, and together they made a life for themselves. Grace continued to make and sell medibles to tourists and locals, until a line was crossed and the Cartel had its say.

“Jesus was kidnapped by the Cartel because we were involved in distributing cannabis products,” she explained. “It was a terrifying time and we lost everything we had worked so hard for.”

The failed War on Drugs in the U.S. began the organized crime that would infiltrate into the illicit cannabis market, globally (see sidebar, Weed Traveler, Understanding the Cartel). Those who don’t pay off local authorities and/or the Cartel aren’t protected.

Jesus was released, the family made its way to Cabo San Lucas, and never looked back.

While the Cartel is still present in Cabo, Grace said they’ve taken the backseat on CBD sales and production, while monopolizing both THC edibles and oil for vaping/smoking. 

“With supply and demand at an alltime high, surely there’s enough for everyone to thrive side by side within this industry for the greater good,” she surmised. “We just need to keep educating on the benefits, because you can’t stop the healing effects of this plant.”

Life in Mexico

Grace loves Mexico and its people. She said she has the soul of a Mexican and speaks near fluent Spanish, but because she looks like a Gringa (i.e. a female American), locals often speak to her employees first, assuming she won’t understand.

“I have very little connection to my American families,” she said. Everything we have we’ve worked hard to get for ourselves and our family here in Mexico.”

She and her family celebrate and honor Mexican traditions and holidays, and the food she makes and infuses with her team is definitely influenced by the flavors of Mexico.

Drug War Orphan

Grace is grateful for the plant, grateful for the path into the garden, but still fearful of the powers that be.

“I have a real problem with trusting authority now,” she said. “I know my truth and what this plant can do to heal people, and there’s no turning it around.”

Grace said she gets criticized for making strong medibles and infused meals for clients, not because they necessarily need the high doses for recreation or their chronic pain, illnesses and disorders, but because of what they are used to at home in the US.

“My American clients are used to opiates and their tolerance is very high - no pun intended,” she laughed. “But, it’s really very sad. In Mexico, they don’t prescribe opiates first. Americans come down and freak out if they can’t find their pills, so I need to make their doses higher for that reason.”

The U.S. makes up just 4.4 percent of the world’s population, yet consumes 80 percent of the world’s opioids. American pharmaceutical companies know what its people crave and they are more than happy to supply it in excess. Valium mimics alcohol, adderall is meth, but oxy went beyond heroin, with Americans dying in catastrophic numbers, with 91,799 dying in 2020 alone, and opioids making up 82.3 percent.

In the end, it’s all semantics. Exchange the moniker Pharma with Cartel, and they are both meeting supply and demand in an unhealthy way, with the Cartels now supplying its own lethal doses of Fentanyl into the states -  a habit began by US pharmaceutical companies. The plant should have never been in the criminality mix in the first place. 

To add another layer, the THC was upped by human hands over the years. CBD or Hemp was hybridized back down to what was referred to as the God plant, by hybridizer Lawrence Ringo in Southern Humboldt in California, with low THC and the same full compound profile.

“As I’ve said, many come to Cabo for vacation and they end up getting help and getting educated in my shop,” she said. “And not just on cannabis. If only people knew that they can get healing effects with tea tree oil or chamomile, they might not reach for the synthetic over-the-counter stuff or pharmaceuticals.”

Education is and always will be key when talking plant-based medicine. Until doctors learn about how plants work with the endocannabinoid system, addressing all of our biological systems to keep us in homeostasis or healthy, evangelizing the plant by word of mouth is how the truth has been and will be told, globally.

Until the Health Agencies of the world are enlightened and begin passing out their own pamphlets on plant medicine, this is how we teach, one person at a time, and one success story will lead to another. Those with the knowledge to make remedies, as Grace has learned, are compelled to help others.

“I’m not a medical professional by any means,” she surmised. “I’m an orphan of the pharma regime. I never had parents that were pill-free. In my teens, when my parents began sharing their drugs with me, I abused anything I could get ahold of. I thought it would fill the void of love I never had or felt, but it only left me numb. This plant saved me - it was and is my saving grace, it will be my calling to help others for life.”

For more information on the Cabo Cannabis Company follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit the shop in Cabo San Lucas on the Boulevard Marina Plaza Los Mariachis, or call +52 (624) 688-7679.

Gisele Fetterman, Second Lady of Pennsylvania

Speaking out for the Greater Good

Gisele Fetterman is the Second Lady of Pennsylvania, as wife of John Fetterman, Lt. Governor, second to the Governor. But the title and position doesn’t automatically garner respect or privilege.

“I already have three strikes against me,” she shared. “I’m an immigrant, a woman, and a cannabis patient. There have been two points of contention since I began working by John’s side, my immigrant background and my thick eyebrows!”

In the town of Braddock, where her husband, Lt. Governor John Fetterman, was once Mayor, it was said that a vote for John was a vote for Gisele – that’s how loved she was and continues to be as Second Lady.

“Pennsylvania is somewhat a conservative state – it’s actually pretty purple, but our community is a little patch of progressive blue,” she laughed. “My focus is on community services, and making sure no one goes without. That includes dealing with food, clothing, and household need insecurities.”

Gisele has a unique perspective on living the American Dream. Her family arrived to the U.S. from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil via New York in 1990 when she was just eight years old; fleeing the violence in her country.

The family decided to leave their beloved homeland and headed for New York City, after her aunt told her mother how happy she was that she had only been robbed seven times that year. But, once in the U.S., the fears changed drastically.

“We felt safe, but not completely free, as we were undocumented,” she explained. “My mother would send us off in the morning saying, ‘I love you, have a great day, and be invisible,’ so I kept my head down all through school,” she explained. “For 15 years, I grew up in fear of a knock at the door by immigration. Once I knew I could speak up and speak out, I did and have.”

Her newfound voice led her to what she calls, her adult work, creating non-profits to fill the holes of insecurities she witnessed as a third-world citizen coming to the land of plenty. She’s spoken out for women’s rights, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and anyone marginalized or as invisible as she once felt.

Recently, she added cannabis advocacy to her list of causes, coming out of the smoky closet, after a state legislator made a derogatory comment about cannabis users.

Though cannabis has been legal for medicinal use in the state since Gov. Wolf signed Senate Bill 3 in 2016, legalization for recreational use is being hotly debated on a pending Bill.

“I’ve witnessed, first hand, the positive, medicinal benefits of cannabis,” she said. “My own story of being helped by the plant is my truth, and I’d like to see more people understand it, rather than fear it – and that includes the very misunderstood THC, the compound that causes euphoria.”

There is actually no psychoactive THC in the cannabis plant. The compound is called THCa and is non psychoactive until it’s heated. The levels of THC are the culprit when it comes to a new patient not used to the effects. But, it’s important to note, that we as a species upped the level of potential THC to what they are today via hybridization for recreation.

That said, aside from non-psychoactive deliveries, THC is beneficial in its own right, with cancer-fighting properties discovered in Israel in the 1960s.

A person just needs to start with a low amount and titrate up until they find their comfortable dose. No patient wants to feel wasted, with healing and well-being the ultimate achievement. A person recreating at the end of the day may choose alcohol, valium, or cannabis – it’s all self-medicating to feel better. Better than what, is nobody’s business.

A lineage of healing

An openness to plants didn’t hinder Fetterman in using cannabis for a lifetime of chronic pain. Her mother had been a nutritionist and hospital administrator in Brazil, and she was raised knowing that food is indeed medicine and what the body needs to be healthy.

“I wanted to follow in my mother’s nutritional food footsteps,” she said. “I grew up knowing nature is better, so, in that respect, I was open to cannabis.”

Fetterman initially majored in math at Kean University in New Jersey, but switched to nutrition, earning a license in Integrative Nutrition.

Although she said she had experimented with smoking cannabis as a teenager, it became her serious pain medication much later in life.

“I had a horse riding accident as a child, then a series of car accidents,” she explained. “Every memory in my life I’m in pain. Every photo taken of me back then, I’m in pain.”

She said she did all the right things before discovering the analgesic properties of cannabis, but she never took the pharmaceuticals offered to her.

“I’ve worked with the distribution of Narcan and have seen firsthand the suffering that opioids and other addictive drugs have caused our community,” she said. “I never wanted to go there.”

Her litany of tools to manage her pain includes an inversion table and a Dharma Yoga Wheel. She’s worked with chiropractors, acupuncturists, and more.

“All these things help, but they are not sustainable for a lifetime of chronic pain,” she explained.

Surprisingly, Fetterman does not yet ingest cannabis for her pain, but keeps it at bay by smoking concentrates from a vaporizer pen or flower from a pod.

“I would like to learn more about ingesting for my pain, and to strengthen my immune system – for prevention of illness,” she said. “But, for now, the vaping of concentrates and flower has been working well.”

Legalize to Educate

The myth of legalization is that more people will partake to get high… and, “What about the children?” The reality is, when a state legalizes, more people feel comfortable to experiment, with desperate parents turning to the plant for help for their sick and suffering children, and opioid numbers dropping substantially, as cannabis concentrates are proving to replace addictive pain killers across the board.

That edible turns into a medible very quickly when the partaker is a patient with real ailments. When that happens, the recreational laws written to protect from the evil weed no longer make sense. The theory is that we actually “medicate to recreate,” as the beneficial compounds of the plant are being delivered into the biological system whether you just want to get high or not.

Combatting negative rhetoric on the campaign trail has been a given where cannabis is concerned. Education is everything, and Gisele knows she has her work cut out for her.

As of this writing, both her husband and Gov. Tom Wolf formerly requested the state General Assembly to legalize cannabis, informing that the taxes derived from cannabis sales would specifically help bring the state back from the financial ruin from the COVID-19 pandemic, facing a $3.5 billion deficit.

Pennsylvania’s medical market reached $275 million in 2019, with a projected $500 million in sales expected this year and $1 billion within the next few years.

With 62 percent of Pennsylvania voters in favor of a recreational market, its conservative House and Senate doesn’t seem to be supporting the will of the people. But money talks and the revenue generated from other legal states is telling, with cities across the country using cannabis as a way to get out of the red.

Interesting to note, the City of Desert Hot Springs in California had filed for bankruptcy prior to allotting nine acres to the farming and manufacturing of cannabis products in its city in 2016, with the Mayor at the time declaring, “We just want to fix our pot holes.” No pun intended, as its infrastructure was literally crumbling. Today the city of just under 30,000 residents is thriving, and expects to see $3 million in cannabis tax revenue by 2021, next year.

After Colorado became the first state to legalize seven years ago, the state saw $683.5 million in sales in its first year, to $1.75 billion in revenue in 2020, with numbers showing no signs of retreating. Recreational retail shops in the state have sold more than $8.2 billion in products since inception, from January of 2014 to March of 2020. An estimated $40 million from the excise tax goes to school construction, with the remaining going to school funds. The rest goes into the Colorado’s general fund.

Fetterman said plans for part of Pennsylvania’s assumed revenue from the legalization of cannabis will go towards infrastructure and bringing back the state’s historically disadvantaged businesses. A portion will also go towards restorative justice programs, righting the wrong of the approximately 20,000 per year incarcerated for cannabis in the state for decades.

Both Lt. Gov Fetterman and Gov. Wolf understand there’s already a thriving cannabis market in the state, it’s just not being taxed, it’s not regulated, and there’s too much room for error in safety of the processing and manufacturing of products.

“The people are already healing themselves and enjoying cannabis recreationally ahead of legislation all around the world, not just in Pennsylvania,” she surmised. “I’d like to see the progressive part of our state rise up to the occasion. And I’ll be there right next to them, watching our state thrive, and continuing to learn about the plant’s many benefits – whether you are medicating or recreating.”

Sailene Ossman: Owner Brewja Elixir, Joshua Tree, California

This California girl is advocating for the plant for life

Sailene Osman’s list of entrepreneurial projects within the cannabis space reads like a fine-tuned map on her journey in educating herself and others on the benefits of cannabis as a beneficial and spiritually guided tool in the kit of transformative processes.

But her journey on becoming a public person didn’t start with weed. Her path was put before her when she managed Abbott’s Habit, a coffee house on popular Abbott-Kinney Avenue in Venice Beach, California, in the mid-1990s.

Known as the Queen of Venice, the coffee shop she ran was referred to as a legendary hub of the local community. But, little did many know, at the time she was this very public person, she also had a very private life.

After California became the first state in the country to allow cannabis as medicine, Sailene quietly opened up the first cannabis delivery service (with no name) in the eclectic beach community.

While she and her team were delivering, she was also facilitating private parties via her Privee Social Club, hosting infused gatherings and dinners around the country for the likes of P. Diddy. 

About the same time she began producing and hosting Smoke in the Kitchen, with Mama Sailene, for Snoop Dogg’s Merry Jane Network. 

As if this wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she then co-founded the Glowing Goddess Getaways, the ultimate camp-out for weed-loving ladies, where the dab bar opens at 7 a.m., and Mama Sailene herself leads the morning meditation.

Rolling Stone further dubbed her “The goddess earth mother you always wished you had… Mama Sailene, the nurturing and cheery feminist cannabis guru.”

Busted & Blessed

Osman’s delivery service had a base membership upwards of 5,000. She met supply and demand under the guidelines of the compassionate care program, with Proposition 215, making California the first state to accept cannabis as medicine in 1996. 

By 2003, she and her delivery girls homes were raided after a mole informed on them. 

“My husband called me and said I had better get home, because there were officers waiting,” she said. “I smoked five joints on the way, and dropped off the weed I had with me at a friend’s home. We had heard someone was going to do something, so I had the wherewithal to pull material from the house, but they had already confiscated material from my delivery girls’ homes.

Osman was given 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $20,000 restitution fee.

“I put in 100 hours at the County Morgue alone, and another 100 feeding people at a homeless shelter. At the end of the day, I considered the whole experience a blessing, because I was able to meet and get to know one of the greatest criminal defense lawyers of all time, specializing in cannabis, Eric Shevin.”

Shevin reaffirmed to Osman what she already knew in her heart, that she was doing the right thing in distributing cannabis - a plant he also loved and understood to be medicine, telling her that everything she did was beautiful and that she was helping spread the love.

“Being sucked into the Federal criminal system is scary, but having an attorney who gets what you are doing and supports you fully, was a gift,” she added. “He told me I just need to follow all the rules, because we’d slacked and became a little too confident. It’s easy to do when the demand for the plant in the community is so great.” 

Acquiring a false sense of security on a local level is easy to do when business is booming. But, forgetting that the plant is still illegal on a Federal level, controlled locally, is where many in the industry get into trouble. 

In 2004 Osman redirected her energies into private events for celebrities and the entertainment industry, catering to the MTV crowd of Los Angeles, and starting up her cooking show with Snoop Dogg.

Finding her Medicine

Aside from Osman’s success in business, discovering the plant as medicine began after she suffered from a near fatal car accident when she was just 19 years old.

Lucky to be alive, her injuries included a spinal fracture at C2, a fractured sternum, five broken ribs, a compound fracture of her right leg - nearly resulting in the amputation of her foot - chronic pain, arthritis, and neck degeneration.

It took months for her to learn to walk again, with her dad dubbing her his, “walking miracle baby.” She had a tracheotomy and was in traction on her back in the ICU, when a respiratory therapist compared cannabis to other medications as a bronchodilators - or a productive cough that would loosen the phlegm, preventing her lungs from filling up and causing pneumonia. 

“That’s when I realized she was telling me that cannabis was medicine,” she shared. “Once I got home I began researching the many ways I could use the plant to help me heal, stop the pain, and do away with some of the pharmaceuticals that felt like they were doing more harm than good.”

CBD for All

When Cider Mill Press came calling, Osman was asked to put together a book of classic cocktail recipes using CBD tinctures, botanical infusions, and infused bitters. It’s a clever book, titled, “CBD Cocktails: Take the edge off with over 100 relaxing recipes.”

Since CBD from Hemp, or whole plant cannabis high in cannabidiol, can be purchased and shipped across state lines in the US, any of the dozens of CBD tinctures listed can be easily acquired. The book is filled with traditional cocktail and mocktail recipes, with specific dosing from each manufacturer listed for each cocktail.

The book’s introduction has a brief introduction to the history of cannabis and its origins since 700 B.C.E., in countries we know today as China, Tibet, and India. Osman expounds on its use as medicine, but also its use in Shamnistic rituals, making its way to America approximately 400 years ago.

“Cannabinoid receptors in the body need higher levels of THC to be activated than those present in CBD products alone,” she writes. “This is why users find that the products containing only CBD are less effective, and why products using the entire plant, THC and all, work best, especially when it comes to pain management.”

Elixir Heaven

Shortly after the book was released Osman opened the first brick and mortar CBD and plant-based bar, Brewja Elixir Bar, in her new home of Josuha Tree in the California Desert.

The shop is as magical and eclectic as the desert town its in, complete with a mushroom room, where fungi is incorporated with other beneficial plants as healing and immune system boosting beverages, tonics and elixirs. 

“We’ve utilized an outside space to create community building through workshops, live music, with plant and fungi themed events,” she explained. “We’ve invited local musicians and artists to be involved and its quickly become a magical healing hub in the community.”

From Venice Beach to Joshua Tree, Ossman has created yet another place of community, with artists, musicians, and a large tribe to, once again, call her own. She’s even seen her beach friends make the trek to the desert, bringing her full circle with her entire California Tribe.

“When my husband and I first announced we’d be coming out to the desert, friends were skeptical, but they get it now,” she said. “We create our magic wherever we are - with music, art, and now libations - and the plants are a big part of that.”

In opening Brewja Elixir, she’s also become an integral part of the Cali Sober movement, where cannabis patients and partakers alike are shunning alcohol for mocktails of weed and fungi, otherwise known as healing and mind opening psychedelic mushrooms.

“These plants are miracle plants,” she surmised. “They’ve been with us on this planet for thousands of years, and we are just getting back to the garden as a species, after being led away from the garden for decades. I’m happy to be a part of this plant spirituality reemerging for us all. Come visit us in Joshua Tree and experience Cali Sober for yourself. Who knows, you may find more than yourself - you might find a whole other life!”

The Torabi Sisters of Austin, Texas

Restart CBD, educating on cannabis in a conservative state

When someone is helped with cannabis they are often compelled to share what they’ve learned with others. Patients-turned-advocates can make the most difference educating at the local level. Oftentimes, they alone are the ones educating and influencing legislators, who in turn can help change laws.

One young woman’s folly became the conservative State of Texas’ good fortune, when Austin born and raised Shayda Torabi was helped herself with CBD. She was 25 years old in 2015, facing a life of chronic pain, after being hit by a car as a pedestrian.

“I fractured my sacrum, had two breaks in my pelvis, and a skeletal fracture on my face and nose,” Shayda shared. “After going through physical therapy, and learning to walk again, I was taking steroid injections every week, but the pain was still there.”

Her doctor recommended surgery, but her mother, who was already open to natural and alternative therapies, suggested she look into cannabidiol (CBD) for the pain.

No strangers to cannabis, close members of the family had already been partaking of whole plant cannabis via smoking, in a don’t ask, don’t tell scenario common in states like Texas. Shadya admits herself that she also smoked flower with THC in an attempt to quell the pain, but without proper education on ingesting or dosing, she admitted to being challenged.

“Texas cannabis laws are not as advanced as, say Colorado,” she laughed. 

In 2015, especially in the conservative state of Texas, information on cannabis just wasn’t available, let alone how to dose cannabidiol, or hemp-derived CBD. So, like many patients, even in medically legal states, Shayda went through the proactive process of trial and error to find a dose strong enough to quell the pain.

After questioning surgery for her daughter, mom took a deep dive into sourcing and then making remedies to ease her pain. 

“My mom sourced isolates, then hemp material from Kentucky,” she explained. “She made edibles, tinctures - we tried everything. I’m really a fan of the ratio products of CBD to THC, and began experimenting with dosing.”

After taking a high ratio formulation upwards of 500 to 1,000 milligrams of high dose CBD, Shayda said she had an “aha” moment.

“I hadn’t been able to sleep on my left side, the pain was so persistent,” she said. “Then, one morning, I woke up on my left side with no pain. That’s when I realized the CBD had kicked in and I had found my dose.”

Finding a correct dose with CBD to low dose THC ratios is much more difficult in treating serious pain, as opposed to myriad anecdotal stories of relief using whole plant, high THC cannabis, either smoking or ingesting. But the State of Texas might as well be another planet when it comes to progressive topics such as bypassing pharmaceuticals and using a plant proactively for pain.

Don’t Mess With Texas

According to World Population Review (WPR), surprisingly, the state of Texas doesn’t rank on its top 10 list of most conservative states in the U.S. But, the City of Arlington, Texas, places fourth on the WPR’s list as one of the most conservative cities in the country. Just three hours south of Arlington, sits the State’s Capitol of Austin. Birthplace of the Torbai sisters.

Austin has long been thought of as a patch of blue in a sea of red (denoting blue for liberal/Democratic and red for conservative/Republican parties), paradoxically listed with the WPR as number 14, of most liberal cities in the U.S.

Since the failed War on Drugs began in the U.S. cannabis has become a top political tool and hot button for debates during campaign season. Empty promises have followed few changes in Federal cannabis laws year after year, with Federal Prohibition still intact; and cannabis continuing to be listed with the Department of Health Services as a Schedule 1 drug, alongside heroin, with no medicinal value.

At the State levels, however, there are now 37 legal for medicinal use; 19 states legal for recreational use; with the U.S. Farm Bill of 2018, making CBD (with .3 THC) legal and shippable throughout all 50 states, including Texas.

In June of 2019, Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 1325 into law, laying the ground rules for growing hemp in the state, while establishing minimal regulations for agriculture, manufacturing, and sales for CBD products testing with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) less than three percent, and five percent for medical patients who qualify for a medical cannabis card, referred by a doctor, with a narrow list of ailments approved.

The initial ban on smokable products in the state was done away with before it began, much to the relief of many hemp smokers in the state, with some stating they are hopeful it will leave the door cracked open when whole plant, high THC cannabis is finally allowed, if ever.

With the advancing interpretation of the 2018 Farm Bill, the sisters are now able to sell psychotropics, specifically Delta-8 and Delta-9. 

Delta-8, is a chemically derived THC isolate.. Both low THC Hemp and Delta-8 have a cap of point three percent, as outlined in the Farm Bill.

Delta-9 is THC, the psychoactive compound found in the Cannabis sativa plant, commonly known as Marijuana.

“Lots of customers use both Delta-8 and 9 - with many actually preferring Delta-8,” she said. “They anecdotally report back to us that they have less anxiety or paranoia than with a high THC product. For pain management in Texas, having access to some THC is a positive - and considered harm reduction, as compared to taking high doses of opioids.”

According to analysis led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, a decline in opioid related emergency visits have been noted in states that have legalized cannabis, whether for medicine or for recreation.

CBD Sisters

Shayda received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Concordia University in Austin, so running a business was always foremost. 

Her personal experience led her to educate, and she began a podcast, a WordPress site, and uses WooCommerce as a retail platform.

Shayda also sits on the executive board of the Texas Hemp Coalition, is a Cannabinoids Council member for the Hemp Industries Association, and pens a regular column for the Texas Hemp Reporter.

Shayda’s sister, Sydney, as a former elite athlete on the swim team at the University of Texas at Austin, was initially skeptical about Shayda’s cannabis.

“Sydney was an athlete from a young age, and then a collegiate athlete, so that culture of being drug-free prevailed in her mind,” Shayda said. “She’s the Yin to my Yang. In high school, if there was a table of pot brownies, I was there - but Sydney had a different mindset.”

With a Bachelor of Science and Arts degree in nutrition sciences from the University of Texas at Austin, Sydney successfully played the devil’s advocate, in questioning efficacy, safety, and testing of just about all of its formulations.

“We came into the marketplace at a time when customers were also wanting to explore how to use these formulations,” she said. “My sister learned by observing my own success in quelling my pain, so we all learned by trial and error. The benefits to athletic recovery couldn’t be denied.”

Got CBD?

It’s line of products is impressive, including its newly established Delta 9 Rose Wine Sour Bears, and Delta 9 THC Mango Power shot, leading the way for Austin Sober, mirroring Cali Sober, or the California Sober movement, where recreational drugs and alcohol are swapped out for cannabis products, including infused mocktails.

“People are looking for alternative ways to unwind at the end of the day and still indulge in what they believe to be recreational partaking,” Shayda explained. “What we love about cannabis and CBD products is its wide range of applications from wellness to recreation. I personally no longer drink alcohol, but love our mango shots. I wake up feeling refreshed rather than suffering from an alcoholic hangover.”

Its CBD, Delta 8, and 9 products include gummies in varying strengths, vape cartridges, CBD cigarettes, pre-rolls, brownie bittes, chocolate squares, sour bears, chews, peanut butter nugs, soda, tincture, lollipops, live resin, shake, and too many more to list here. 

They also have a selection of capsules, tinctures and topicals, including salve and cream in varying strengths. Its pet line also includes bone shaped dog treats and CBD tinctures. 

Its Hemp Flower Box is delivered monthly throughout the U.S., at $59.50, said to be an $89 value, filled with flower and everything you need to partake.

Texas Green

As of this writing, on Friday, June 24, the Texas Supreme Court issued its final rulings on smokable hemp. One step in the right direction, and when the state adds THC to the mix, the Torabi sisters will be ready.

“While smokable hemp has been legal for retail sales and cultivation, the court’s decision was to make the manufacturing and process legal,” Shayda added. 

With its physical dispensary right next door to their dad’s insurance agency, the sister’s CBD shop is a family affair.

“Dad fully supports us,” Shayda concluded. “We have a lot of houseplants in the shop, and he’ll come over to water for us. Everyone lends a hand.”

The shop, located in North Austin, was voted #1 Dispensary in Austin, priding themselves on education first, and removing the stigma from this beneficial and versatile plant. 

“I love the feeling of THC, and partake when I’m in legal states,” Shayda said. “As the industry grows, we’ll continue to provide accessible information and science-backed resources alongside high-quality products for all consumers. Because we understand that the plant is not a one-size-fits-all remedy. But we do know it works for many - including us. That’s the thing, we are our own customers, so our products reflect what we need, as much as what our customers need.”

For more information on Restart CBD visit, https://www.restartcbd.com/

Follow Restart CBD on Instagram @restartcbd Twitter @RESTARTCBD 

Opioid decrease in cannabis legal states, https://www.upmc.com/media/news/071221-drake-cannabisrcl 

Texas ruling smokable hemp, https://mjbizdaily.com/texas-supreme-court-upholds-smokable-hemp-ban/

Corrie Yelland, Cannabis Advocate

Pointing people in the right direction for the greater good

In 2011, British Columbia citizen, Corrie Yelland, was diagnosed with anal cancer and faced with undergoing radiation, said to cause second and third degree burns vaginally, rectally, and across her buttocks; damaging her spine for life, and probably fusing shut both her vagina and rectum.

Already suffering with intense chronic pain from Post Sternotomy Neuralgia Syndrome five years after a heart attack and open heart surgery, Yelland was daunted at the thought of the radiation and the consequences thereof, when a friend sent her a copy of the Rick Simpson Story, Run from the Cure.

“After watching the video and hearing Rick and other patients give testimonials about curing themselves of myriad diseases, including end-stage cancers, I was feeling hopeful for the first time,” Corrie shared.

In addition, Yelland said the sheer number of studies from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s site, Pub Med, on cannabis and its ability to heal were overwhelming evidence of its efficacy.

“But, when I told my oncologist that I’d like to think about it before doing any radiation, he murmured something about a ‘death wish,’ telling me I had two, four, maybe six months to live, and left the exam room in a huff,” she explained.

Simpson, a fellow Canadian from a small town in Nova Scotia, had found an old cannabis oil recipe online, after suffering from his own serious ailments. Once healed, he began sharing the recipe via word of mouth nearly 20 years ago now, with the recipe and Rick traversing the globe ever since.

Stove Top Remedy

Undaunted by her oncologist’s response, Yelland began the task of sourcing cannabis to make her own oil. Only able to afford small amounts of plant material at a time, Yelland said she made small batches, ingesting small amounts, slowly getting used to the high THC.

“Ten days into the treatment the pain that had plagued me for four years in my sternum, and the nerve pain, completely stopped,” she informed. “You have to understand, I had resigned myself to a life sentence of pain and agony, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be pain-free ever again.”

Yelland said she began sleeping through the night, doing away with the sleeping pills she’d needed for years that had only worked up to a couple of hours at a time.

Her entire demeanor changed, with previously cannabis-skeptical friends now commenting on visible changes within her physical stance and mood.

“I evolved from a pain wracked, hunched over, shuffling along individual, to a vibrant, high energy person,” she shared. “Even my complexion improved. I think it's understandable when I say I get very emotional when I think of how far I've come. Cannabis didn’t just change my life, it saved my life.”

Initial reports just weeks after she began taking the oil showed the tumors shrinking, with Yelland penning in a journal, “I know in my heart it’s only a matter of time before I will be completely cured.”

THC, not just for getting high

Discovered as a beneficial compound in Israel by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam in the 1960s, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, is the compound found to kill cancer cells.

The total dose for the cannabis oil that Simpson shared to treat cancer is 60 grams, ingested orally in 90 days, with a starting dose the size of a half a grain of rice. This dose is gradually increased, bringing the patient up to one gram a day for the remaining protocol.

It takes one pound of whole plant material (stems, leaf, and flower) to make approximately sixty grams of oil, give or take, depending on the compound count of the cultivar.

This oral step-up dosing regimen allows the patient to get used to the activated THC, measuring upwards of 80 to 90 percent, cooked down in an alcohol reduction (see Weed World, issue #144 Kitchen Apothecary/cannabis oil recipe).

Researchers are discovering that adding additional CBD or cannabinol to the formulation may be beneficial for some cancers. Protocols using various amounts of different terpene and cannabinoid combinations are also being developed for certain cancers and ailments. But for now, Rick’s whole plant recipe is most commonly used, globally.

Yelland has found that using a combination of cultivars for one batch of oil insures a rich formulation of compounds, in what’s referred to as an entourage effect, with many compounds working together for maximum healing.

(Author’s Note: The oil made for my own breast cancer was made from such a mix, referred to as a “salad,” by the maker, Pearl Moon of The Bud Sisters, Southern Humboldt, Northern California.)

A Miraculous Plant

“I initially put the oil on two skin cancers on my neck, and within 48 hours there was a change,” she explained. “I was elated and hopeful the oil would attack the cancer in my body in the same way. If all it did was keep the cancer at bay, I would have been happy.”

Yelland ended up filling gelatin capsules with a mixture of the oil with olive oil, then inserted them rectally, as you would a suppository.

“I figured I might as well put it directly where the cancer is,” she explained. “After just two months into the 90-day treatment, I went under the knife again for an unrelated procedure. The surgeon told me he couldn’t see any cancer. For the first time I dared to hope that maybe, just maybe the cannabis oil was working.”

Using suppositories gives no head high, as the delivery bypasses the digestive system and liver, getting right into the blood stream for faster relief from pain and greater healing. Suppositories also promote more effective healing, as they allow a larger dose faster – bypassing the oral step-up protocol.

Because she was unable to tritrate up to the suggested one gram a day of the oil orally, she was convinced the cancer may still be there. Subsequently, she waited nearly a year, until fall of 2012, before having her original surgeon perform three biopsies, just to be sure.

Yelland said her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear whishing in her ears. And then he said, “It’s gone, I can’t find anything at all, not even scar tissue. I would never have known you ever had cancer.”

“I was shaking, looking at him in disbelief, tears streaming down my face,” she remembered. “I hugged him mumbling, ‘thank you, thank you,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘No, thank YOU! You’re the one who did this. You did it Corrie! You pulled it off, you pulled it off!’ And I said, ‘No, doctor, cannabis oil and I pulled it off.”

Author’s note: Corrie Yelland and I went through the cannabis oil treatment at the same time, with both of us going realizing remission in the fall of 2012. We found each other on social media shortly after, with both of us helping people globally with this knowledge ever since.

Pointing them in the right direction

When she was researching alternative methods to treat cancer, she met a woman in Texas diagnosed at the same time with the same type of cancer, and the two felt fortunate to have found each other.

“This woman and I were identical in every aspect – age, diagnostic procedure, same stage of anal cancer – with radiation the recommended treatment” she shared. “I’m very sad to tell you, she chose radiation and died early on from infection and radiation burns. She left behind a husband and 12 year-old daughter. This is another reason why I advocate for cannabis.”

For the masses, knowledge of cannabis has mainly come from America’s failed Drug War via misinformation, with medicinal knowledge of the plant quelled for decades. In Canada, Yelland was under the same impression of the plant – that it was used for recreation only to get high, with little medicinal value.

Like many who have been helped with cannabis, she was compelled to tell everyone she could, initially sharing her story on Facebook. Teaching moments came in unexpected places, and whether she was in line at the grocery store or sitting at a café, the subject had a way of coming up everywhere she went, with Yelland posting her teaching moments to a fast growing audience on social media.

When sponsorships allow, she’s told her story at cannabis conferences around the world, with videos of her testimonial on YouTube garnering tens of thousands of views.

Teaming up with fellow Canadian and radio personality, Ian Jessop, Yelland co-hosts, Cannabis Health Radio, interviewing others around the world using cannabis oil with successful outcomes.

Yelland spends her days answering emails and talking to people via Skype around the world, “pointing them in the right direction,” as she is known to say – for no compensation whatsoever.

“I speak to dozens of people a day, tens of thousands over the course of a year. My day begins at six in the morning and ends at eleven at night, every single day,” she said. “Initially, I spent much of my time trying to talk people into using cannabis oil, diet, and dosing. I would research their particular cancer or ailment and send them studies on their conditions and how it reacted with the oil. But now, my focus is on helping those who are on board for the treatment. There are enough that want to be helped, I’m done trying to convince anyone.”

Her focus is on helping people obtain and/or make quality oil themselves. In the past, Rick Simpson himself encouraged the use of Indica cultivars only. But, cultivars are not stable or reliable and Yelland has found that a multi-cultivar oil gives a larger profile of beneficial compounds. Often referred to as a salad, it was the formulation used for this writer’s breast cancer.

She also warns of snake oil scams, while steering them away from CBD only as a cancer treatment.

“The CBD only oils make me really crazy!” she exclaimed. “I can’t begin to tell you how many patients have died as a result of all the press and misinformation surrounding CBD. I always say, there is a reason the cannabis plant has hundreds of cannabinoids, terpenes and other beneficial compounds – all working synergistically as one.”

Highlights since going into remission and coming into the cannabis space have been speaking at Cannafest in Prague, where people she’s helped and work with came to see her as far away as Vietnam; Bristol, England; Poland, and Los Angeles.

“Meeting people who I’ve helped save their lives has been an incredibly emotional experience,” she said. “One little girl I helped, Cheyenne, was 18 months old when she was sent home to die with Neuroblastoma, tumors throughout her body. The doctor told her parents to take her home and ‘make memories.’ We met two years ago when she was six, she’s turning eight in March of 2020. Stories like Cheyenne’s keep me going.”

Yelland remains humble in her advocacy, drawing all attention to the plant. But the fact is, in celebrating more than seven years of remission, she has walked thousands of individuals from diagnosis to completely resolving their cancer or serious ailments, educating further by sharing outcomes on social media.

“I said all along throughout my own cannabis oil treatment, if this worked I would spend the rest of my life telling people about it,” she declared. “As a result, that’s what I’ve done virtually every single day since finding out I had won my battle with cancer. Cancer isn’t going away anytime soon, and my dream is that cannabis oil will not continue to be a last resort, as it is now – but, a first choice for a safe and humane treatment.”

 To connect with Corrie Yelland visit her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/corriega.yelland.5

For more information on Cannabis Health Radio visit, www.cannbishealthradio.com

Cannabis Health Radio YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn57GncDqxB7Sm8bY78EqBw

For support with cannabis oil visit Facebook Group, Phoenix Tears Cannabis Oil Advice with Corrie, Janet and Jenn https://www.facebook.com/groups/474089696057739/

1st Lady of the West Coast

First Woman of Color to have her own cultivar, 1st LADY Kush

Known as the 1st Lady of the West Coast, or simply, 1st Lady, she was raised in Oakland, in the Bay Area of California, across the bay from San Francisco.

A Renaissance woman, the 1st Lady is a poet, artist, and singer/songwriter with her own label, 1st Lady of the West Coast Music Group. As a cannabis farmer, she’s the first black woman to have her own cultivar, 1st LADY Kush.

Her handle came to her while medicating with cannabis, with her third-eye fully open.

“I was visualizing my life, and God placed the name in my heart,” she shared. “This was in 2007, right after high school – before I had any idea I’d become a musician or a farmer.”

Having been raised a Baptist, she shared she’s no longer interested in organized religion.

“I’m not really that religious in the true sense,” she added. “I don’t believe in organized church any longer, but I do have a personal relationship with God. That’s my higher power. I also had a keen sense the plants that helped me were God’s plants.”

Becoming a Covert Cannabis Patient

The first time she smoked weed was in 2005, while a senior in high school. Her mother was at work as a probation officer for the City of Oakland, while she and some friends partook in her backyard.

“I won’t lie, I was scared and felt paranoid,” she said. “When I walked into the house it smelled like weed. But, fear aside, it helped me immediately. That first time I smoked, I knew it was medicine.”

1st LADY had attempted suicide as a teenager several times, and was diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder; a mood disorder with extreme highs and lows, combined with mania in the high state and severe depression in the low state.

“I tried to take my life, but God had a plan for me – I’m supposed to be here” she said, knowingly. “They put me on a lot of pharmaceuticals, but everything they gave me made me feel like a zombie. I couldn’t function. After smoking weed, I felt alert and alive. The herb made me feel creative again, and I could run and exercise. It really helped with the depression - and it helped me get up off the couch.”

Sneaking off to get high, or self-medicate with cannabis, became the norm. Her mother had retired as a probations officer from the Oakland Police Department, but the stigma remained.

“My sister also smoked weed and mom was always after her,” she said. “I tried to tell my doctors, but they all told me to stop smoking or they’d report me to the police. When I told them it was helping me, they said that was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard. No one believed me.”

After high school, her family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, but, 1st LADY traveled to Colorado, then Atlanta – leaving the conservative region to head back to California after just three years.

“California is where I feel most at home,” she said. “It’s also where my medicine is legal.

Becoming a Farmer

Once back in California, 1st Lady obtained a medical marijuana card under the state’s Compassionate Care Act. California was the first state to become legal for cannabis as medicine in 1996. Today, there are 33 states legal for medicine in the U.S., with 11 legal for recreational/adult use, including California.

Shortly after returning to West Coast, she met Joseph “Resin” Rezenee, a longtime cannabis farmer and breeder, formerly with Harborside, an infamous dispensary in Oakland, run by brothers, Steve and Andrew DeAngelo.

She told Rezenee she needed to learn how to create a cultivar with beneficial properties to treat the symptoms she’d struggled with, nearly costing her life – specifically for depression and mood swings.

The cultivar came to her in a premonition, while star-gazing in California at 17, sharing, “I remember closing my eyes and saying to myself, ‘God, you hear me? It would be really dope to have my own strain line.’ I manifested this.”

After Rezenee taught her how to grow, she then moved to a suburb of Los Angeles to start her own operation, Founding Herb of Life Cultivation, LLC. By 2016, the first cultivar developed was her namesake, 1st LADY Kush, with the help of Duke of Herb. Black Girl Magic OG and December Nights OG followed.

“1st Lady Kush is a sativa-heavy hybrid, good for the menstrual pain and back spasms – but, it also treats the symptoms of Bi-Polar, including the depression I’ve struggled with for years,” she shared.

Music, Weed & Black Lives Matter

1st LADY began singing at four years-old, by eight, she was writing her own music. She studied graphic design at the Art Institute in Los Angeles, but then became an audio engineer, recording her own music.

She’s worked with 880 Style, Inc. record label for 17 years; but in 2014, DPMG signed her, securing a distribution deal with Ingrooves, through Universal Music Group. Shortly thereafter, she was offered a Sony distribution deal and an Interscope marketing deal with an international DPMG deal to follow in 2015.

Finally, in 2018, she launched her own record label, 1st Lady of the West Coast Music Group, with the intent of helping other artists be their own entrepreneur in the music industry.

“My music is my life,” she reflected. “The music and lyrics I write are meant to inspire young ladies and men to remind them that they are Queens and men are Kings. Women hear the word B*tch so much, they forget who they are,” she said. “Not just black women, but women of all colors.”

That said, with the Black Lives Matter movement now circling the globe, she’s refocused on her black sisters.

“Black love is an important part of black life and black life mattering,” she waxed poetic. “I support black love, and I’ve had to learn to love myself. It’s been a process I’d like to share with others – and I can do that with my music.”

All in the Family

Retired from the army, her father became a contractor, specializing in disasters, like chemical spills. Today, he’s her business partner in cannabis.

Both parents were “health freaks,” but it wasn’t until her mother retired from the police department, that she was able to learn about the benefits of cannabis and how it helped her daughter.

“My dad taught me the benefits of apple cider vinegar and nutrient drinks when I was young, and it was nasty!” she laughed. “When you are young you don’t want to listen. But we’ve all been turned around now, with both my parents seeing how it helps me. My dad said, ‘If the world is going to support my daughter, I’m going to support her first.’ Like I always tell people, you don’t push anything on anyone, you educated them by example.”

1st Lady said she’s and her family are still learning about the plant and all it can do.

“People say we need more studies, but the studies are out there – maybe not in the U.S., but around the world,” she declared. “I’ve read papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals, like Neurology, Rheumatology, Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Journal of Clinical Oncology, and the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology – all documenting the health benefits of cannabis.”

Rattling off a list of ailments helped, 1st Lady said she’s tired of seeing people doing time for a plant, with so much proof of the healing it brings.

“This is my medicine,” she declared. “This plant has helped me more than any pharmaceutical I’ve ever taken – and I tried a lot. To see people still imprisoned – especially my black brothers and sisters, who are incarcerated more often than any other race, for this plant. It just doesn’t make any sense”

Her goal, she said, is to make sense of it all for people by educating through her line of cultivars, her art, and her music.

“I’m grateful for my parents and my sister in allowing me to go for my dreams,” she concluded. “I still have my talks with God, because God sees all and will continually bless me for my hard work and big heart. Everything good that’s come to me through this plant is a blessing, with all credit ultimately going back to God.

 For more information on the 1st Lady of the West Coast visit, www.herboflifecultivation.com

Find her on Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram @1stladyofthewestcoast Twitter @flotwc

Cathleen Graham, RN, Certified Hospice Nurse

Cannabis Use in Hospice

The American Nurses Association of America (ANAA) published a statement in October of 2016, asking the federal government to further research on cannabis as remedy, proclaiming its support for the use of cannabis and specifically, cannabinoids, for use in treating disease and alleviating symptoms.

A faction of nurses in support of cannabis as remedy came out of the ANAA in 2006, led by Registered Nurse, Julia Glick, forming the American Cannabis Nurses Assoc. (ACNA) in 2011, along with longtime nurse advocate Mary Lynn Mathre.

The mission of the ACNA is clear, “To advance excellence in cannabis nursing practice through advocacy, collaboration, education, research, and policy development.”

Registered Nurse, turned certified Hospice Nurse, Cathleen Graham, has been open to helping hospice patients with their cannabis use for many years.

“Getting certified as a Hospice Nurse for palliative care was more difficult than getting my Registered Nursing certificate,” she shared. “There’s a lot more involved in caring for someone who may be in the final stages of life.”

Recently tasked in creating a curriculum for continuing education credits for cannabis as remedy for the largest hospice agency in the country. Graham is using her personal knowledge to develop the 25 hour program in an effort to bring the medical community on board, to better serve patients who are choosing to use cannabis.

And, that’s all we can say about that. For, the largest hospice agency in the country will not allow Graham to tell the world just yet that it’s developing the world’s first hospice cannabis protocols. This writer is now allowed to tell you what state Graham is working for or in.

Reason being, until the U.S. government admits that cannabis is remedy and takes it off Schedule 1 as a narcotic next to heroin (OxyContin is on Schedule 2), state agencies are shy to openly state acceptance, and government agencies who would like to help inform their constituents about cannabis are basically gagged from doing so openly.

Cannabis & Hospice

Today, Graham oversees eight teams of hospice, traveling throughout her state, speaking out at cannabis and mainstream events, educating medical professionals, legislators, and lay people, alike.

The reality is, as of June, 2019, 84 percent of Americans agree with the use of cannabis as remedy; with tens of thousands (if not more) in legal and non-legal states already benefiting from the plant – while waiting for legislation to catch up.

Once a cannabis patient goes into hospice for end of life care, they do not stop being a cannabis patient.

In a study published in the Journal of Palliative Care, more than three hundred palliative care professionals from 40 states, with 91 percent supporting hospice patients using cannabis. Of the nurses, doctors, and administrators questioned in non-cannabis-legal states, all said they wished it was available to their patients.

Three quarters of those surveyed said they were caring for patients who use cannabis as remedy, with the most common usage in managing symptoms like nausea/vomiting, pain, and anxiety.

The study also indicated that the demand for cannabis as remedy came from patients and their families, not healthcare providers; with the footnote that physicians will not discuss cannabis with their patients unless asked, and that patients are starting to ask more and more.

Graham is careful in choosing how she frames responses to questions regarding cannabis and its acceptance in the medical realm.

“You can generalize and say that cannabis increases or decreases the use of prescription medications,” she explained. “But you can’t say here’s a list of medications that cannabis replaces or may interact with – because the list doesn’t exist.”

Educating the Politicians

Graham said when her state was poised to legalize cannabis as recreation, she was the only healthcare professional coming forward to educate elected officials. Typically, the only opposition are the activists, standing at curbside, holding signs and wearing tie-dyed t-shirts – even though their intentions may be true.

“The ‘free the weed’ people lack the professional ability to communicate with our elected officials,” she said. “It becomes even more difficult for an elected official to engage in a rational medical discussion, as they have preconceived notions on reefer madness.”

Having a register nurse to speak out on behalf of patients who sorely need advocating is a plus. Having a nurse come to the table to educate elected officials, opens doors activists just can’t broach.

Interact or Replace? That is the question…

“The complications with using cannabis, from a medical professional’s perspective is, we require an active ingredient list to ensure safety of the patient,” she explained. “This is due to the unknown territory of possible negative drug interactions when combined with cannabis.”

A study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) suggests when cannabis or cannabinoids (CBD) is added by their doctors, opioid use is substantially lowered. In an earlier trial with AIDS patients, it was found that adding cannabis increased the efficacy of prescription medications by 25 percent or more.

Cannabis patients have long since known about replacing prescription medications, once they begin ingesting cannabis concentrates. Typically, this is done in a natural transition from pharma, with little thought of the consequences. This is due largely in part to a lack of general education, and Graham said its past time to do the research.

In my own work in writing of opioid patients transitioning using cannabis and other beneficial plants, the transition is somewhat benign, as the strong analgesic effect of cannabis quells the initial pain that may have required the prescribed drug, while dealing with the pain, nausea, and other acute symptoms of withdrawal.

(Weed World online: Amy Mellen “Transitioning from Oxycontin to Cannabis” https://www.weedworldmagazine.org/2018/09/07/patient-profile-amy-mellen-transitioning-from-oxycontin-to-cannabis-by-sharon-letts/ )

“My goal as a healthcare provider is to ‘do no harm,’ and without evidence-based research, an active ingredient list, and a full microbiological analysis, it can be challenging,” Graham shared. “Many health care professionals learn by observing patients successfully using cannabis for medicine, as I have.”

This writer replaced upwards of ten prescription medications, while using cannabis oil to put cancer into remission. The cancer going away was a gift, but doing away with all the other pills was a definite bonus.

(Weed World online: Sharon Letts “Take Five Leaves & Pray” https://www.weedworldmagazine.org/2018/03/08/take-five-leaves-and-pray-by-sharon-letts/

When a patient (such as myself) begins treating one symptom or ailment with cannabis (or other plants, for that matter), additional symptoms and subsequent medications fall by the wayside, as well. That’s how it works. My doctor observed me doing away with sleeping pills and pain killers in the first 24 hours of taking the oil.

A quick search online found three drugs with possible negative interactions with cannabis: Warfarin, Theophylline, and Clobazam, as listed in a MD Linx.com paper.

Cannabis can cause the blood thinner Warfarin to increase in efficacy, and may actually cause bleeding. It’s also known to be a blood-thinning and blood-pressure-lowering agent, with many cannabis patients sharing they’ve done away with the pharma for the plant.

Theophylline, for example, is used to treat respiratory diseases, such as COPD. When used in conjunction with cannabis, the drug’s effect may be lowered. Cannabis, on the other hand, is said to treat symptoms of chronic inflammation and other maladies associated with COPD.

Clobazam is a medication used to treat seizures, and CBD is said to increase the side effect of sedation, causing sleep – a perceived negative side effect. That said, cannabis, or CBD only oil – such as Charlotte’s Web fame from Denver, Colorado - has been proven to treat and prevent seizures.

What this tells the average researcher is, we need more research regarding cannabis replacing prescription medications, rather than what negative side effects may come from the combination thereof.

Cannabis Use in Real Time

Graham speaks from personal experience, from her years as a nurse, then hospice nurse and now administrator and speaker.

“I’ve seen medical cannabis accomplish many things during the final days of a patient’s life,” she shared. “Controlling nausea of a patient undergoing chemotherapy; and stimulating appetites – preventing waste away and malnutrition; easing muscle spasms and decreasing pain. But, the most pronounced effect of cannabis is the improvement of the ability to focus and interact.”

While pharmaceuticals are available that reduce the symptoms while the body goes through the process of shutting down, she said they are extremely sedating, leaving the patient incoherent and unable to interact with loved ones.

“A patient shouldn’t be medicated to the point coma to manage these symptoms,” she said. “Cannabis has been shown to help many patients achieve a balance of symptom relief and quality of life, while allowing interacting with their extended family and friends.”

Graham also shared how surprising it might be too many that most of her hospice patients did not smoke cannabis, but ingested it.

“They would do everything from drops under the tongue, to a wide variety of edibles – from cake to pizza,” she explained. “They would also use capsules, vaporizers, and applied topical applications of gels, oils and lotions.”

Dosing is key, and Graham said proper testing and labeling is everything.

“Credible labels are essential to guide both medical professionals and patients in making informed decisions,” she encouraged. “Cannabis must be available in a form that will allow for a specific dosage to be taken and charted, like with all other medicine.  Without that, it will be difficult for medical cannabis to be taken seriously as a medicine.  Please understand, a ‘joint’ is not a unit of measurement.”

Graham also believes that every patient who has been physician-certified and eligible for hospice care, should automatically become eligible to use medical cannabis.

“In that same respect, all patients should have the right to impartial access to medical treatment regardless of his or her legal use of cannabis medicine,” she said. “Today’s health professionals were trained to see cannabis as a problem – not a potential solution. There needs to be continuing medical education that provides evidence-based information on how and when cannabis therapy can be beneficial.”

Spreading that knowledge, Graham surmised, will certainly expand the availability and quality of medical cannabis. And that will ultimately make her job easier as a hospice nurse, in supporting the cannabis patient.

“Someone has to speak for the dying patient,” she concluded. “As someone that’s worked as a case manager, who has pronounced way too many deaths and was present at the time of death way too many times - it’s their faces I see, their voices I hear, and their concerns I hold in my heart that gives my own voice the strength to carry on and speak for them. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously – so that their concerns and their journey are not forgotten.”

 For information on the American Cannabis Nurses Assoc. visit, https://cannabisnurses.org/History-ACNA

Aimee “Ah” Warner: Founder, Women of Weed

WOW!

In 1988, Indiana native, Aimee “Ah” Warner, arrived in Seattle, Washington. In 1994 she walked into the now historic Fremont Hemp Company just outside the City of Seattle, changing her life and mind forever.

The Fremont Hemp Company opened in 1993, filled with everything hemp and nothing cannabis, purposefully. Its owners and founders, Cory and Erica Brown, were said to be 20 years ahead of their time, offering up a hemp experience, as detailed in a history of the shop by former partner, Paul Grusche on Groosh.com, “Our goal was to provide a retail environment where people could see, touch and taste hemp.”

“I said, ‘what the hell is this?’ she remembered. “It was the first time I saw the possibilities of hemp – and the first time I realized the United States Government lied to us. I was pregnant at the time, full of new possibilities – it was life shattering. Then I saw Jack’s book and it blew my mind.”

Jack is the late, great hemp advocate, Jack Herer. The book was “The Emperor Wears no Clothes,” a generation’s manifesto on the deceit, manipulation, and corruption of the failed War on Drugs in the United States. The book laid out the theory of Hemp and Cannabis’ calculated demise by the U.S. Government, in cahoots with big oil, big pharma, and interests in trees for industrial use.

“I started reading everything I could on this multifaceted plant,” she shared. “There weren’t a lot of natural baby care product manufacturers out there at that time, so I decided to make my own. The first formulation I made was for my daughter’s diaper rash. It was a basic salve with hemp seed oil, chamomile, comfrey, and all kinds of beneficial herbs.”

Food as Medicine

Cannabis as remedy wouldn’t become legal in Washington State until 1998, two years after California’s historic vote for its Compassionate Care Program. Warner began making products with hempseed oil, hemp nut and hemp protein powder in 1995.

“I had heard of cannabis being medicinal, but up until this point I had only used it for enjoyment and motivation,” she said. “At the time hemp was an easier plant to wrap my head around for remedy, as it’s packed with Omega six and three essential fatty acids that our bodies don’t create – we need to get them from what we eat and from our skin care.”

The Omega fatty acids found in hemp offer optimal cellular performance for human skin, and Warner said it actually modulates functioning of the skin, while protecting and promoting collagen health. It also has anti-inflammatory properties on its own, without the CBD.

“It wasn’t until 2012, when I helped a friend set-up a medical cannabis shop that I starting diving into the medicinal properties of cannabis and CBD,” she explained. “Hempseed oil is still the foundation of everything we do at Cannabis Basics and its sister company, Hemp Basics, under the corporate umbrella of Mother Earth’s Green Services.

CHABA, Mainstream Ingenuity

Though CBD only products are now a booming business, available across the U.S., Warner said her products fall under a new set of rules for the State of Washington that she co-authored in 2015.

The rules for Cannabis Health and Beauty Aids, or CHABA, allows mainstream retailers in Washington State, bypassing state regulated shops, to sell cannabis products for topical use only with less than .03 percent tetrahydrocannabinol or THC,” she explained. “In other words, less than 85 milligrams of activated THC in a one ounce finished product.”

The state rules have nothing to do with cannabinoid (CBD) products, and everything to do with the final product count of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis.

Under the rules, Warner’s brand, Cannabis Basics, uses whole plant, full spectrum cannabis with high THC plant material, then formulates it with other blends of herbs and carrier compounds until the mixture measures in at the acceptable percentage of THC for the mainstream marketplace.

“This gives a full profile of all the compounds in the plant,” she said. “It also allows the other beneficial herbs in the formulation to enact the entourage effect – helping them all work together via a topical application.”

CHABA rules have nothing to do with the Farm Bill signed into effect in 2018, allowing Hemp with high CBD testing with less than three percent THC to be added to all personal care products for the regulated market.

“In the 90s I could only use hemp seed and derivatives,” she added. “This new Farm Bill made me feel safe enough to add hemp-derived CBD to my line and launch it nationally. It also means that chiropractors, reflexologists, and naturopath doctors can sell these products in their offices. It’s been four years since we’ve been offering topical personal care products with this low amount of THC in the mainstream marketplace and the sky has not fallen.”

Warner said CHABA is a profound law that not many know exists. She said she’d like to help other states and countries enact it, but it would take dedicated people in each state to do the work. The International Cannabis Health and Beauty Aids Producers Alliance (ICHABAPA) has been set-up under her umbrella of companies to support other CHABA manufacturers.

Black Market Beginnings

Warner was just 14 years old when her sister, who was ten years older, passed her a joint while watching the satirical television comedy, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

“I remember giggling a lot, and thinking, is this show really that funny?” she laughed. “Years later we’d watch Saturday Night Live and Fridays, but my emotional ties were with the Mary Hartman show, because it was my first time getting high. My sister never felt good about being the one to turn me on to weed, but look where I am today – look what that started!”

By the time Warner was 16 she was measuring ounces on a triple beam scale set up in her best friend’s father’s home office, while he was wintering in Florida.

“Those scales used to be stolen from the science lab in high school,” she added. “I was popular in high school, but it wasn’t because I was a cheerleader – it was definitely because I was meeting supply and demand of everyone’s favorite herb. But, cannabis has a long history in my family – my grandpa smuggled weed in the brim of his hat across the Mexican border back in the day. The material I sold was Mexican rag weed that came from my brother - who had hair down to his ass.”

Women of Weed

Being a female business owner in the cannabis space, Warner wanted the company and comradery of other women – not for networking for business, as the national organization of Women Grow has accomplished, but for social gatherings and support in the male dominated cannabis industry.

She began Women of Weed with little fanfare and no media attention. This reporter was asked to leave her camera behind for one of the first events in 2013.

“As my business and activist efforts started to take over my world, I felt the need to create a space just for fun,” she explained. “Washington was the perfect setting for a private social club for women in the hemp and cannabis space. We cultivated a safe space where we could come together, smoke weed, eat beautiful food, and share our love and respect for the plant and each other.”

Women of Weed was never designed to be a business association or activist group, with the only agenda within the first five years being, not having an agenda.

“We have a limited membership of 300, and to date we have 130 spots open,” she said. “You must be sponsored in to join, then are given a number. We are taking our time growing the club, as our membership consists of some of the most impactful and important cannabis women from around the country and the world. We call them the Honorary Women of Weed.”

Her goal was to get what are called the “OG’s” in the club first – commonly known as the “Old Guys,” or “Old Gals,” in this case. Women who have been a part of the cannabis industry moving forward – not just for business, but for advocating for change and acceptance. Women who have worked against the stigma of the plant, and for education on remedy and the freedom to recreate.

“Among us are patients, activist, naturopaths, nurses, herbalists, extractors, hash makers, entrepreneurs, political analysts, agronomists, inventors, scientists, graphic designers, nationally published writers and photographers,” she boasted. “And of course, we have international experts, policy advisors and law influencers.”

Infringement of the Women of Weed trademark is rampant, with High Times Magazine being the most high profile offender to date, using the name for its annual awards contest, High Times Women of Weed.

“Infringement of our trademark confuses the marketplace, while lowering our ability to do good by our legally owned intellectual property,” Warner declared.

Polite notes sent out to stop the use of the name were ignored, causing Warner to enlist attorneys to the fight. The publication has since stopped the use of the name and apologized, firmly establishing Warner and Women of Weed as sole owners to the title.

“What started as a social club, just for fun, has turned into an intense labor of love with vast potential through banded merchandise for fundraising efforts,” she said. “One hundred percent of WOW merchandise profits will be given back to the community.”

The first three recipients of what are called “block grants,” will go to Students for Sensible Drug Policy in honor of WOW member #7, Betty Aldworth; Seattle Hempfest, in honor of WOW #78, Sharon Whitson; NORML Women of Washington, in honor of its director, WOW #10, Danica Noble. The numbers correlate to the order of when the members were invited into WOW.

Plans for a larger manufacturing facility are in the works, with Warner visualizing her solely owned company being a hemp homestead with tours of the manufacturing base and an educational center to keep spreading the knowledge of what hemp.

“Twenty-five years into this and I still feel like I’m in the middle of the journey! The good news is, I’ve got a few good years left in me,” she laughed.

 For more information on Cannabis Basics, Hemp Basics, Women of Weed, and Women of Weed Gives visit, https://www.cannabisbasics.com/

Cannabis Basics and Hemp Basics can also be purchased on Shopify.

To purchase The Emperor Wears no Clothes, by Jack Herer visit, https://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Wears-Clothes-Marijuana-Conspiracy/dp/1878125028