Women of Weed World

12/07/2023

Women of W**d World continues, profiling Mary Jane Oatman. an advocate of the plant and its relationship to indigenous people.

From the story:

Mary Jane “MJ” Oatman is the Founder of THC Magazine, “Tribal H**p & Cannabis,” a publication focusing on H**p and Cannabis freedoms of Indigenous people on tribal land in the U.S. And, yes, Mary Jane is her given birth name. Mary Jane Oatman Representing Indigenous People and their Relationship to Cannabis on Tribal Lands in America.

THC Magazine’s first cover and feature, published in February of 2020, profiled her Grandmother, Alice Johnson Warden. Warden had served time in prison for growing cannabis in 1985 on the family’s reservation in Idaho. Her family hails from the Nez Perce Tribe of the Columbia River Plateau – where the tribe has made its home for more than 16,000 years.

My grandmother has been my inspiration,” she shared. “She taught me that cannabis has been a part of tribal culture for centuries, used by Indigenous people around the world medicinally, culturally, and spiritually in a positive way.

Mary Jane “MJ” Oatman is the Founder of THC Magazine, “Tribal H**p & Cannabis,” a publication focusing on H**p and Cannabis freedoms of Indigenous people on tribal land in the U.S. And, yes, Mary Jane is her given birth name. Mary Jane Oatman Representing Indigenous People and their Relation...

10/05/2023

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine UK, profiling Grace Elisea of the Cabo Cannabis Company in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California, Mexico.

From the story:

Grace is grateful for the plant and 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 very sad. "In Mexico, they don’t prescribe opiates first. Americans freak out if they can’t find their pills, so I need to increase their doses.”

American pharmaceutical companies know what their people crave and are more than happy to supply it in excess. The U.S. makes up just 4.4 percent of the world’s population yet consumes 80 percent of the world’s opioids. Va**um mimics alcohol, Adderall is m**h, but oxy went beyond he**in, with Americans dying in catastrophic numbers, 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 Cartel now supplying its 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 H**p 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 over-the-counter synthetic stuff or pharmaceuticals.”

Education is and always will be critical when talking about plant-based medicine.

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

10/04/2023

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine, profiling Sailene Ossman, owner of Brewja Elixir, a cbd/mushroom/ and herbal elixir bar in Joshua Tree, California. But Sailene's history with the plant began when she started the first cannabis delivery service in Venice Beach, California. From the beach to the desert, this Cali girl is 100 percent for the plants... and fungi.

From the story:
Sailene Ossman’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 to becoming a public person didn’t start with w**d. 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 that 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 also facilitated private parties via her Privee Social Club, hosting infused gatherings and dinners around the country for the likes of P. Diddy. At 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 co-founded the Glowing Goddess Getaways, the ultimate camp-out for w**d-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.”

Sailene Ossman’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.

07/06/2022

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine, profiling Halle Pennington, next gen Humboldt Seed Company, began in Humboldt County in Northern California by her father, Nat Pennington.

"My mom and dad were living in a commune or group home called Black Bear Ranch,” she explained. “It’s still there, two hours past the Salmon River. It was an old mining claim they took over and made into a kind of commune. That’s where I was conceived.”

Her mother, Nicolle Morris, was an activist working to save the redwoods. After hooking up with Nat at the ranch they decided their paths were different. Nat was just getting involved working for the fisheries and Morris left for Alaska to lay down in front of logging trucks in protest of clear cutting. She was in a remote logging area when she noticed her moon cycle had skipped a beat.

“We still have the letter she wrote my dad letting him know she wouldn’t be able to do a pregnancy test until she went into town,” Halle continued. “In the letter she told him she had a dream that she gave birth to a girl and she told my dad to think about what they should do.”

Once the test was confirmed positive Morris made her way back to Humboldt and to Nat’s arms, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Halle Pennington is a second generation legacy farmer in Humboldt County, California, now being groomed to fill her father, Nat Pennington’s shoes..

04/03/2022

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine UK with a profile on CannaBoomer, Patricia A. Patton.

"After noting that most in the cannabis space were preaching to the choir (this writer among them), Patricia Patton, also known as CannaBoomer, founded the Cannabis Business Alliance (CBA), with a mission – to attempt to educate a larger audience about the benefits of the plant as medicine for a growing and aging population

She founded and began curating CannaBoomer.net with the intent of educating the older generation on cannabis as a remedy, without the hype from the emerging recreational market. She went on to found CBA, with the intent of reaching a broader audience to educate.

“It’s the only reason I started the alliance,” she shared. “I found that educators were talking to older people, like myself, as a market, not trying to understand what we may want or need from the plant. ”Patton worked to earn a BA in Romance Linguistics from the University of Washington State but dropped out during her second year.

“It was 1968, and I dropped out of university and moved to San Francisco,” she informed. At that time, the Summer of Love was one year away, and many young people were responding to the call by famed psychedelic Psychologist Timothy Leary to Tune-in, Turn-on, and Drop Out. “It’s not that I didn’t want to participate in college; it’s just that I wanted to participate in change – not just be an observer,” she said. “There were so many things happening in the world – from assassinations of people I believed were trying to make a change to arrests of people my age working to change the world."

Patricia Patton, Founder, Cannabis Business Alliance. This CannaBoomer speaks to the older generation about cannabis.

06/02/2022

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine, profiling Irene Villanueva, Harvest Director for The Source, Nevada.

"Irene Villanueva’s mother brought her to Southern California from Sinaloa, Mexico, as a child.

Her mother was hoping to keep her away from the family business of working with cannabis, as her grandfather and cousins all worked for the cartel within the illicit cannabis market. Her mother’s cousin was best friends with El Chapo, now serving life in prison (plus 30 years) in a U.S. Federal prison for heading up the infamous Sinaloa Cartel.

The plant had been all around her, yet she knew little about growing it – with warnings from her conservative Hispanic family to stay clear of the industry altogether. It’s why her mother brought her to California in the first place, she’d say – and Villanueva obeyed. “I grew up with a vegetable garden,” she shared. “We ate from the garden, and used plants for medicine. We’d put aloe vera in our hair and on our skin. My mother loves to garden. She has two acres now here in Nevada. We used to tease her that she spent more time in the garden than with us kids.

Now I understand why. ”It wasn’t until she relocated to Nevada, working her way up the green ladder in grow rooms in Las Vegas, that she finally understood what the fuss was all about. Not just about cannabis, but gardening in general. “I had never smoked cannabis until I had my first job with Las Vegas Cannabis,” she said. “When I was younger I tried it, but always felt it was too strong. Then I began trying different strains at the end of my work day in the industry and found it helped me unwind. I finally understood what everyone was talking about."

Irene Villanueva, Post-Harvest Director, The Source, Nevada: Breaking through the grass ceiling of the corporate grow op.

08/12/2020

The cover feature profiling Gisele Barreto Fetterman for Women of W**d World, can now be read online at W**d World Magazine. W**d World is published in the UK, distributed internationally.

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.

20/10/2020

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine, with a profile of 1st Lady of the West Coast, FLOWC, a true pioneer in w**d, music, and change for the greater good.

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.”

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.

29/09/2020

Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine, with a cover feature on Gisele Fetterman, Second Lady of Pennsylvania, who recently came out of the smoky closet on her cannabis use for a lifetime of chronic pain, after a state legislator made a derogatory remark about cannabis users. Pennsylvania has a Bill pending now to legalize its use in the state. Watch for the issue on stands soon, globally. The story will be posted online soon after.

04/09/2020

Happy to announce, the October/November issue of W**d World Magazine, with have a cover feature of Gisele Fetterman, the Second Lady of Pennsylvania, as she advocates for the legalization of cannabis for her state. Gisele is a cannabis patient, treating a lifetime of chronic pain.

17/05/2020

Women in Cannabis: A Living History, asks questions of women such as: Why did they join the industry and what hurdles do they face?

According to facilitators, so far, the survey has garnered nearly 650 responses, with enough data to report on all women as a collective group. That said the sample size must be increased in order to a**lyze and show differences between communities within the whole.

Surveys are still needed in the U.S. for the following demographics; Black/African American (12), Asian (17), Native Americans and Alaskan Natives (30); Veterans (33), entry-level (14), Republicans (10), Libertarians (21); and in the states of Massachusetts (16), Maine (22), Nevada, Arizona, and Illinois.

There are currently 27 surveys completed from the UK, with 102 in Canada and a need for more to be completed worldwide.

A grassroots survey intended to provide monthly and quarterly reports on women in the cannabis industry has been circulating on social media, begun by Ladyjane Branding and Wolfe Research & Consulting and sponsored by several companies in the space.

05/03/2020

Women of W**d World continues with a profile on BC resident, Corrie Yelland, who cured herself of terminal illness using cannabis oil, swearing to help others for the rest of her life. And, she has, seven days a week, "pointing people in the right direction for more than seven years now.

In 2011, British Columbia citizen, Corrie Yelland, was diagnosed with a**l cancer and faced with undergoing radiation, said to cause second and third degree burns va**nally, rectally, and across her buttocks; damaging her spine for life, and probably fusing shut both her va**na and re**um.

11/01/2020

My series Women of W**d World continues for W**d World Magazine with a profile on hospice nurse, Cathleen Graham.
“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.” - Cathleen Graham, RN, Hospice Nurse

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.

23/12/2019

There are many teaching moments where cannabis is concerned. Those who put themselves out there for the greater good, make a difference for all.
"Don't just get stoned, get educated!"

Miss Canada didn’t take home the winning tiara, but thanks to her costume entry, she was able to bring a little bit of attention to cannabis activism at the international competition.

22/11/2019

From the archives, profiles of women of w**d south of the border and adjacent, including Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, and Spain.Originally published in W**d World Magazine (issue 138).

Historically, men have farmed the plant, toiled in the soil, and brought home the harvest but the women in the cannabis industry are quickly being recognized as the caretakers of the soul of the plant, mirroring her female qualities with strength, determination, and healing in the mix.

16/11/2019

16/11/2019

The first installment of Women of W**d World for W**d World Magazine, featuring Ah Warner, founder of Washington State's Cannabis Basics; and private women's social club, Women of W**d (WOW).
This series will profile some of the women in the cannabis industry who might not ordinarily get noticed.
“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 h**p and cannabis space. We cultivated a safe space where we could come together, smoke w**d, eat beautiful food, and share our love and respect for the plant and each other.”

Aimee Warner, CEO of Mother Earth’s Green Services, and founder of Washington State’s Woman of W**d and Women of W**d Gives.