Meet Maria

I grew up in the D.A.R.E.* era, when marijuana was dubbed a “gateway drug”, and went on to become a law student wanting to stay on the “right” side of the law. As such, I felt both uninformed of the benefits and inherently fearful of weed.

*D.A.R.E. was a drug abuse prevention education program intended to give kids skills to resist peer pressure to use tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. It taught a fear-based, “zero-tolerance orthodoxy” that was drummed into the head of every child growing up in the US, indoctrinated to grossly misunderstand cannabis, to the point of fearing it.

This was me taking my first steps without a walker after my fifth back surgery. After decades of chronic pain and years of surgeries, I had made a deeply personal decision to use cannabis as part of my pain-management journey instead of relying on opioids.

Having to find a way to live with 35 years of chronic pain, I found myself on an opioid regimen that was unsustainable to my long-term health, and experiencing trauma caused by repeated surgeries. I had to find something else to help me! At the time, I wished that there was a reliable, unbiased source of educational content about cannabis. Instead, I was met with:

• Conflicting information
• Misguided budtenders
• Incentivized brand loyalists
• Recreational users that fit my preconceived stereotype of “potheads”

All of which just caused me even more anxiety. Perhaps you can relate? While disruptive, these experiences have opened my eyes to the cannabis space, for which I am eternally humbled and grateful.