Women Growing Older with Cannabis

“This is where you’re talking to some people and, you don’t know what to believe. You don’t know what’s true, what’s not, that sort of thing.

It could get muddled in your mind with so many people telling you so many different things about marijuana.”

“ I have freedom to walk in a way that I haven’t been able to. It is strengthening my muscles and my view on life really,

because I was feeling really down…. I see a future. I see something to look forward to because my sister and I, 
except for the pandemic, we have done it every year. We go camping or something down South.

Now I can go in the ocean, that year I didn’t because I wasn’t strong enough to go in the ocean. But I could walk, I walked in the surf, and I walked in the water. And I got stronger, and I got hope.

It (CBD) allowed me to go on a holiday, a holiday that I hadn’t had in I don’t know how many 
years.. The CBD oil gave me hope.”

“This is my son, who was just about to learn how to walk. And we tried growing some pot in our yard. This picture shows to me that since I was eighteen, it has always been apart of our lives. And I guess, because we were growing it in our yard we were sort of taking a real risk because it was really heavily policed and punished. So it was always risky, it was always secretive… but it has always been apart of our lives.”

“This is my current bucket list thing I am working on. I have had a life-long interest in rocks. And one of the things that was on my forty-year bucket list was to be able to make jewelry. And now, I am increasingly more able to cut and polish rocks. 


… My hands were really the first part of me that came quite affected by osteoarthritis. My entire adult life has become a case of progressively trying to raise my pain threshold to do the things I have wanted to do, most days…


I do not have time to muck around with this (CBD and pain) for twenty years. My bucket list keeps growing, there is such an enormous wonderful world out there, and there are so many people I have not met yet. Being physically comfortable, enables your mind to do other stuff, than just try figure out how to get around the discomfort.”

“My biggest concern is what is it doing to my body. I was also concerned about what it is doing to my memory, but I realized everyone my age whether they are tokers’ or not are forgetting words and writing everything down.

My main concern is what is it doing to my body – because I was smoking it. But I also want to know what it is doing to my body when I am vaping it… so that is what I worry about, the health of it.

Because I don’t know, because nobody has really talked about it like they do about Tabaco – I am kind of putting it aside in my mind because the effects that I am getting are better than knowing about the risks. It is not playing on my mind … it’s not something that’s like I’m not going to do because …

I would rather have that peace of mind everyday. The quality of life is more important than the quantity.”

“This is the document that came from Health Canada with my newest prescription from the LP with my new prescription from Ontario.

Look at it, ‘know the facts’ they have two lines of information. Two lines of information! How sad is that? Oh my god, I could sit here for days spouting out facts. This is not enough information for the general public let alone for people who are ordering cannabis from the proper legal channels. This is all you get. And this is your whole information on your prescription and how to use and everything. This is it. There have not been many clinical studies… especially on other ways of ingesting like salves … so it is all anecdotal information and that not been valued by the pharmaceutical industry and yet I think that kind of anecdotal information is highly valued by the population.”

“This picture is on the positive side of when I have my stash...I can follow a recipe and be pretty proud that I can bake and cook all things I learned and being in nature and listening to music are all part of my mental well-being. Being in nature grounds me and seeing all the creatures who give me a sign that all things will be turn out.”

“I used to work at the public library, and they were going to throw this book out and I saved it. …

And it’s really full of specific to seniors’ information and very readable. We’ve enjoyed reading that book quite a bit.”

“This is the way that women my age want to use their cannabis. This is a photo of my butter making process. This is decarboxylated cannabis that has been sitting in the crock pot for 4 hours with butter and water. This is the plant material that is left after the first filtering process, and this is still useful and Still you can get medicine from this. It has vaped, it has been boiled in butter, and then I usually take these little ones here and twist it up and tie it off and it can be heated and if I am sore, I can just kinda pat it around on my knee and the pain will be gone within 10 minutes. I can take it and drop it in the bath and get soothing relaxation that way. “

“More needs to be looked into how this can be incorporated in everybody’s daily prescriptions, because it does help ground people. It takes them off of different medications. It keeps me grounded as part of my harm reduction and my daily life and everything that I do. 
It keeps me at bay from not going and choosing that alcohol or picking up that chemical drug…like cocaine, or anything like that to fall back into. It keeps me focused and on a path where I know that this stuff works for me… it’s my body and this is the thing that I need to keep my whole being in balance.”

“The idea that that great big, long page of side effects… is considered normal and established medicine, as opposed to the five- or six- or eight- or ten-thousand-year history of natural healing offends me, frankly.

I think they are the alternative. The so-called holistic methods are traditional. They’ve got it flipped around…”