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When Mary Pryor’s mother Deborah Ann, 63, suffered from multiple sclerosis-induced pain in 2015, she turned to cannabis after morphine stopped working, her daughter said.
As a result, before her death, her mother’s pain greatly diminished and “she was able to eat some of her favorite foods,” said Pryor, 39, who lives in New York City.
That same year, Pryor – co-founder of Cannaclusive, a group that promotes inclusive representations of cannabis users – began using cannabis to manage her Crohn’s disease after a list of 20 different drugs left her with. both in pain and confined to home for about a year. , she said.
“When I took more aggressive pharmaceuticals my system suffered more,” she said. Pryor felt she had to choose between cannabis or “a drug that makes my life miserable.”
When Pryor learned earlier this month that American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson would not be allowed to compete in the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for THC, the chemical in marijuana, which Richardson said he used to deal with her mother’s death a week earlier, it “hit me,” Pryor said.
She’s not alone: Pryor is one of five black women who told NBC News that they saw Richardson’s removal from Team USA as the product of enduring social stigma against cannabis, especially against cannabis. Blacks, who are about 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for possession of marijuana despite similar rates of use, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
But these women characterize the plant as the cornerstone of their personal care, especially in the past year when daily stressors have been exacerbated by both the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected so disproportionate black Americans, and by high-profile incidents of police murders of blacks. people.
An Olympic dream postponed
Richardson tested positive for THC based on a sample taken during Olympic trials in June. The United States Anti-Doping Agency has announced, based on new World Anti-Doping Agency rules, that she will be banned from competition for a month, opening the door to her placement on a relay team during the final games. of the Tokyo Olympics.
Richardson got a shorter ban after completing “a cannabis counseling program”.
“I want to take responsibility for my actions,” she said on NBC’s “TODAY” earlier this month. “I’m not looking for an excuse.
“I would like to say to my fans and my family and my sponsorship, to the enemies too, I apologize,” she added. “As much as I am disappointed, I know that when I walk this trail, I don’t represent myself; I represent a community that has shown me great support, great love.
USADA’s decision would not have prevented Richardson from competing in the 4×100-meter relay at the Olympics, but USA Track & Field did not select her for a spot on that team, the governing body said on July 6.
In a statement, USA Track & Field noted that he was “incredibly sympathetic to Sha’Carri Richardson’s extenuating circumstances and warmly applauded his responsibility,” but “our credibility … would be lost if the rules were applied only in certain areas. circumstances “.
The governing body also acknowledged that it “fully agreed that the merit of the World Anti-Doping Agency rules regarding THC should be reassessed”.
In a previous statement, USA Track & Field said, “We will work with Sha’Carri to ensure she has sufficient resources to overcome any mental health issues now and in the future.”
Marijuana is legal in Oregon, where the trials were held, but it is still illegal nationwide. Senate Democrats plan to reveal a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.
A Gallup poll from last year found that 68% of Americans support the legalization of marijuana – the highest rate the polling agency has found since it began measuring public opinion on the issue in 1969, when only 12% of the country supported it.
Cannabis as a way to “find center and calm”
Women are turning to cannabis en masse, constituting 59% of new cannabis users in 2020, according to research conducted by Brightfield Group, a cannabis market research company. He also found that 21% of women surveyed used cannabis on a daily basis and 81% of all respondents said cannabis had helped them cope with the stress of the pandemic.
For black women, these stressors have been acute. And for Ebony Andersen and Whitney Beatty, cannabis has been pivotal in getting through the past year: both have sons who were aware – and worried – about last summer’s uprisings in response to police brutality against black people, leading to women turn to the plant to deal with the stress of telling their boys about anti-black racism.
“My son is biracial – having a black parent and a white parent in the midst of what looked like war was very confusing for him. There was self-medication that happened for sure, just to survive during that time, ”said Andersen, 49. “It was very clear and obvious to me that we need to take charge of our own health and well-being. ”
Part of how Andersen and Beatty did it by launching Josephine & Billie’s, a cannabis dispensary slated to open in Los Angeles in September. (California legalized recreational marijuana use in 2016, but arrests continued to disproportionately target Hispanics and blacks, who were, respectively, about two and four times as likely as white Californians to be arrested for marijuana in 2019, according to the state arm of the National Organization for Marijuana Law Reform.)
Aiming to educate women of color on how to use cannabis as a form of self-care, Josephine & Billie’s will run classes for mothers and the elderly, among others, on how to make cannabis work for them. They will also teach clients how to use it in conjunction with meditation and other wellness practices, the duo said.
Beatty, CEO and founder of Josephine & Billie, and Andersen, its COO, started using cannabis after the medical establishment failed them, they said: and Andersen started using it to manage both insomnia and migraines. These experiences shape how they want to teach other women of color to use cannabis, especially in a society in which black women, like Richardson, continue to be penalized for doing so.
“It is a radical act of resistance. It is a radical act to take back a plant that our ancestors cultivated and cultivated, to use it for personal care and recreation, ”said Beatty, 42. “Sometimes it’s hard to find educational information that teaches you how to use cannabis specifically. We want to empower people to understand how to apply cannabis in their lives in a useful and meaningful way.
Wanda James is driven by a similar mission, as the first black woman legally allowed to sell cannabis in the country, she said. Denver-based Simply Pure dispensary owner James, 57, is dedicated to fighting the racial stigma that has existed for decades around cannabis – often by confronting it head-on.
“The way I standardize cannabis is that I talk about it – when I’m with someone who has a problem with it, I talk about it,” she said.
In Colorado, long-standing legalization means cannabis use is relatively normalized, James said: Voters approved a plan for medical marijuana in 2000, and recreational sales began in 2014. Black people make up less than 5%. of the state’s population, but they have been disproportionate. penalized for cannabis use, after being arrested on marijuana charges at nearly double the rate of whites in 2017, according to a 2018 state report.
These are among the inequalities that lead James to turn to cannabis for moments of peace.
“We live in a world where we have to find center and calm,” she said. “I believe, for me, that enjoying a joint is only five minutes [of calm]. … It’s calming, it’s relaxing, it helps to get back in hand.
For Jessamyn Stanley, cannabis is half of how she finds calm. The other is yoga, and the two are inextricably linked as part of her wellness practice, she said.
“Cannabis really allows a lot of patience and presence in a way that I think our lives in capitalist society don’t always allow,” said Stanley, 34. “In yoga, it allows you to really tap into your truest self, to connect your mind, body, and spirit – so cannabis is really the cleansing agent in you so you can have that internal conversation more. deep. ”
Stanley – who shares his yoga practices and cannabis use with more than 467,000 Instagram followers – started posting about yoga in 2012 and went public about his cannabis use about six years later, he said. she declared. The initial reaction from supporters was mixed, Stanley said.
“The stigma of what it means to be a cannabis user runs so deep,” she said. “This is something that, as a black woman, I am definitely very aware of how I am viewed by others. … Black women are subject to a completely different standard from that to which others are subject.
This double standard is part of what prompted Stanley to co-found We Go High NC, a “cannabis justice organization” dedicated to de-stigmatizing and decriminalizing cannabis use in the state.
Stanley is one of many black cannabis users who see the double standard at stake in Richardson’s case, she said. But, like James, she sees the power of the plant spoken of as a personal form of resistance.
“I realized that the reason I had never talked about cannabis was because of this stigma, then I thought, ‘I’m part of the stigma – my silence by not speaking is my co-signing on it. ‘whole system,’ ”Stanley mentioned.
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