[Music Playing]

Voiceover (00:00):

Welcome to the Matcha Guardians Podcast, brought to you by matcha.com. Here we focus on the biggest trending health topics of our time, featuring the greatest and upcoming wellness advocates. Now here are the Matcha Guardians, licensed dietitian, Diana Weil, and medical journalist, Elara Hadjipateras.

Elara Hadjipateras (00:17):

Hello-hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Matcha Guardians.

Diana Weil (00:22):

This week we are joined by Joyce Gerber, who is an attorney, advocate, writer, and host of the award-winning podcast, the Canna Mom Show, love the name. She advocates for normalizing cannabis and aims to crush the stigma around cannabis by sharing the voices and stories of women breaking barriers and building businesses in the cannabis industry.

She's also active in many civic and community organizations in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Welcome, Joyce.

Joyce Gerber (00:49):

Thank you. Love being here. I love talking about moms, cannabis, everything. The combination is perfect.

Elara Hadjipateras (00:55):

So, Joyce, first question. When did you first, I guess I shouldn't say smoke weed, but when was the first time you used cannabis?

Joyce Gerber (01:03):

So, again, thank you for having me here. When I share my own story, I always say cannabis is not my natural habitat. As you can see, I'm a middle-aged lady. I'm a lawyer by training. I have a law degree. I've been married for over 30 years. I've got two kids in their 20s.

I play tennis. I literally wear pearls. I mean, this is my thing. And I really believed all that stuff. I believed it was dangerous and killed brain cells and I was kind of into my brain.

So, I don't know. I used it during college. I recognized that it was probably good for me, looking back. I was much calmer and happier when I was smoking pot than when I was drinking. But I really did believe all the stigmas.

Then when my kids were little, I did have a couple of mom friends and I kind of joke about this. I'm not really sure where we got it, but somebody would get something like a bud or two, I don't even know where it came from.

And we would go far away, really far, to their Cape house, no children, no one around, God forbid anyone should see us. And we'd smoke and just be so happy. And then we'd drink our wine and then we'd just … it was like a weird thing.

So, I say I had a cannabis awakening. I'm out here in Massachusetts. So, it was 2016. My kids were teenagers. I did a trip. I went on a trip with my husband to Denver, Colorado and I thought it'd be fun. The industry was legal there then. And I thought it'd be fun just to go for a tour of the industry.

So, I'm not really a party girl. I didn't want to go on a party bus. So, I set up a private tour. It was great. So, this woman picked us up, she vetted us before she picked us up. She took us to a growth facility. She took us to a dispensary and she just kind of told us the history, what I didn't know.

And it was the first time I realized that cannabis was a business because these guys were showing me around. Cannabis is all about compliance. That's what it is. So, this business guy knew everything per inch, how much water he was using, electricity, it was very detailed.

I was like, “Oh, it's not just a dude sitting on his couch eating Cheetos. That is not what this is. This is a business.” And the history surprised me.

Anyway, so I come back to Massachusetts, my kids are teenagers. The joke is I sat them down and I said, “Kids, everything I know about pot is wrong.” They were psyched.

I was also, again, I'm a mom. I'm a woman who's got a law degree. I've been in and out of the world of monetized work. 2016, I was back at work making money. And 2016 was also the same year that Massachusetts voted to approve it. We had a ballot initiative. The ballot initiative passed.

And then at the end of that year, a contract position I was working on ended. And then in 2017, I couldn't get a job. That's really how we started cannabis. I wanted to make money. That was the idea.

I could see that law firms were starting to set up cannabis divisions. It was new law. You never get to be part of something new. And I just kind of went on this deep dive of what cannabis was and where I could fit in. That's kind of how it started.

And now I was consuming by then and I could see how it was like helping me, but that's another story. But that's really how that it all started.

Diana Weil (03:54):

That's a real shift going from this is bad for my brain to kind of all in.

Joyce Gerber (04:00):

Well, it's shame. Now that I'm in it and I see it, it's like there's so much shame about this plant that you don't even see it. My kids are 25 and 22, and I'm a big PTA mom. I ran for school committee. I was all in and I could literally wear “I'm a wine mom” and people would embrace me and just think it was awesome.

I could yell across my office; I'm stopping at the packie before I go to daycare, and people would've been, of course you are. That's not normal, but that is what we've considered normal.

But if I'd smoked a joint outside my kids' daycare to calm me down because I used to be a family law attorney and then picked up the kids, I would've gotten in trouble. So, it's a big shift because the stories that we've been told is really bad and wrong. And honestly, we live in the anomaly of history. This has been really impressive, how far the story has gone and now it's shifting around.

Diana Weil (04:48):

For those of us who don't know it. This is actually something that was new to me. A packie is a liquor store in Boston, which is where Joyce is located.

So, one of the things, Elara and I have actually discussed this a little bit as we've journeyed into motherhood ourselves. The mommy/wine culture scene is actually something that I take a little bit of … I don't know if — I mean, I don't want to insert judgment here because everyone needs to do what they need to do.

But I do find it very interesting, and I don't know if I agree with it. What are your thoughts on the mommy/wine culture and is there a mommy weed culture?

Joyce Gerber (05:23):

Yeah. Alright. So, this is what I'll tell you about cannabis and smart women and the idea that we have to take care of these little people who sometimes really irritate us. What they want is our attention. That is all they want.

And in this very busy world and in this world where we are doing all sorts of many things all the time, it is very hard to slow yourself down. Literally slow yourself down and focus on them because that's really all they want.

And I had a really hard time doing that. I'm very honest about that. And I probably would've enjoyed parenting much more if I had been able to slow myself down. That is the thing that cannabis gives you, because we are so anxious and so filled with all sorts of things that we can't be in the moment.

And for me, that was the magic of it. It kind of just … when I first got into this and I didn't really understand it and I went to talk to my doctor and there's so much shame… I can go into the shame about it, but I said, “What do you think of this?”

And he was very open. He didn't judge me. He just said, “It takes away a lot of the stuff that's exterior. It helps you focus in on the moment,” which if you're a dude playing a video game for 12 hours at a time, maybe that's not awesome. I mean that's the image we have.

But if you're a mom who can calm herself down and play Legos for 45 minutes with your kids, that's a gift. For real.

But the mommy wine culture, no one asks their mother ever to have another martini. We're not that awesome when we aren't drunk and maybe we're having fun, but I'm not sure the kids are, and alcohol is literally a poison. I mean, that is literally what it is. And because it works in our body in a certain way, we enjoy that.

But I don't think it helps you in any way focusing on what needs to be done at the moment, which is what you have to do when you're a caregiver.

Elara Hadjipateras (06:56):

I think what I tend to struggle with around the idea, and I was a huge cannabis user before getting pregnant and now breastfeeding, is when is the right time to start using cannabis as a parent?

Because what scares me as someone who's nursing versus me say just having a glass of wine at the end of the night during my last pump and that's going to be out of my system in a couple hours and not be transferred to the baby. I keep reading all these studies saying, if I smoke, that's going to be in my system for a few weeks and that's going to be transferred to them.

Joyce Gerber (07:25):

So, this is my thing on motherhood. I'm actually doing a panel tonight. I'm going to be at Sensi magazine in Massachusetts- they are doing a Canna Mom event. And I have this panel of great women from Massachusetts and one of them is really about, we talk a lot about parenting. Cannabis during pregnancy, often women are using it and replacement of other medications. That's a whole other issue.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding, we don't know because we can't study it because we can't actually talk about it when you go to the hospital. So, one of the biggest issues right now, an issue for me, I don't think anyone else is thinking about it, but a big issue for pregnant women who are using cannabis specifically in Massachusetts, where it is legal medically and as adult use- who can be honest with their doctors that they're using it instead of other medications are still being reported as endangering their children.

Because it is a schedule one drug and there are medical professionals who believe you're endangering your child, which means that women can't be honest, and we can't test the children.

That's the other issue. If we had real data, we could figure this out. I mean, I have plenty of anecdotal data, I'm like deep in this world of Canna Moms who are using it and their kids seem fine and whatever.

I mean, I was very stressed out when I was a pregnant woman. I was in law school. So, I'm sure the stress wasn't good for the child either. But there's a lot of things that women bodies go through.

But what I can say about cannabis is if it's helping you heal, which is the thing these women are using it for, if it's making you feel better, you're able to care for other people better. So, I think that's where the balance come in.

But that is a conversation I have all the time with all sorts of people. And I don't know, I'm not a doctor, I have no idea. I don't really understand how the human body works.

But these are the things I've been hearing about and learning and again, it's science. This isn't magic voodoo, this is science. And if we could study it and if it gets rescheduled, maybe we'll do a better job and we'll help mothers and children be healthy.

Diana Weil (09:10):

So, that’s something that's in the news right now actually that I was just reading about this morning, is that it sounds like they're going to reschedule it from a class one to a class three drug. And I am just curious your thoughts on that. What will that change in the industry? Where do you think we'll go from here?

Joyce Gerber (09:25):

So complicated. Okay, so to understand my stance, you have to understand why it's on the Controlled Substance Act to begin with. The history of cannabis is complicated. We've always used it as medicinal all throughout history.

For a hundred years. It's been illegal since the 1970s. Richard Nixon put cannabis on the Controlled Substance Act, not as a schedule five or schedule three as a schedule one, having no medicinal benefits. And it's criminalized; that's a problem.

Alcohol is not on the Controlled Substance Act. Tobacco is not on the Controlled Substance Act. Cannabis is and reasons for it are political, really, and not very nice.

Anyway, so here we are stuck in this situation. We've done a lot of damage and there's a lot of people out there working to reverse this. I was in Washington DC last week with the Last Prisoner Project and it was also a bipartisan coalition of law enforcement growers.

This is a bipartisan issue. Everyone wants it available, and they want it in different ways. Last Prisoner Project is obviously getting people out of prison. A lot of business people, this is really complicated. I mean we can get into the business part. It is really complicated because it is illegal federally. You can't have banking, there's no advertisement, you can't market it.

It's treated like heroin but it's a billion-dollar industry here in Massachusetts. So, the business part of it is complicated too. You can't take normal tax deductions, blah, blah blah. So, there's money issues and there's human life, social equity issues.

I would like it off. But if we move it from one to three, it will help with some of the federal issues in terms of taxation, it'll maybe help in terms of science and research because it'll be easier to research because one and two have all sorts of other issues, but you can research three.

It may help in terms of banking, but it'll still be criminal. It'll still be a scheduled drug, which in the worst-case scenario could end up just being part of a pharmaceutical agenda and not being accessible to small businesses and healers like I talk about all the time.

So, it's complicated, but there is a lot of excitement because we haven't had any movement in a while. So, that's my little nutshell, but it's very complicated. I'll say that.

Elara Hadjipateras (11:34):

So, kind of taking things back a second, why do you think — so Diana's going to hit you with the hard-hitting questions. I'll just throw the softballs, why do you think weed is particularly beneficial to moms? Like top reasons why moms should be using cannabis?

You mentioned the story, but okay, it helps you be in the moment. I completely agree with that. You're not worried about the giant mess in the room and you're just focused on building the Legos with your kids. In what other ways is it beneficial?

Joyce Gerber (11:58):

I mean, so I'll say, I talk about women my age and older, so there's different issues. But when I talk about my issues and my friends' issues, it's always sleep, anxiety, depression. I mean, I'll say I probably use it as an antidepressant now that I know how to use it. 

When I was in the era of leaning in and I had a job and kids and a dog and never stopped, I was offered pharmaceuticals or alcohol or suffer. Those were my choices.

This is another choice. I do talk about it like it is a miracle drug, which may not be for everyone. So, I don't want to oversell it, but it should be a tool in the toolbox for women to access because we have a lot of anxiety which we can't control necessarily with alcohol.

And we don't always want to take pharmaceuticals, and this is just another tool that could help you. And everyone's always so worried about being high, which I have to kind of go back and be like, what are you worried about?

I think it's the being out of control. What I say is a lot of times it just makes you feel normal because I will say personally, I'm a type A personality. I was pregnant in my third year of law school, took the bar, passed, and then had a baby. I'm all type A, I'm down.

But if I had been able to step back a moment, it would've been helpful to slow me down. So, for me it works really well because it takes down my anxiety and it makes me feel, I would say normal. You know what I mean?

Anxiety isn't normal. I've gotten used to that. I always was in that mode of anxiety. And then when I stop feeling, I'm like, “I don't have to feel shitty all the time. That's weird.” It's like it motivates you at some point, but it's like at some point it should go away. Yeah.

Elara Hadjipateras (13:36):

No, absolutely. I agree. There's that fine line of it motivates you but then there's too much anxiety and that's not productive and then you're paralyzed and stuck in second place and yeah. That's not a fun feeling by any means. Which I have also experienced.

And suffered from more when I was pregnant because I stopped smoking because that was something that really helped me for a long time. It just kept me even-keeled, high functioning. I wouldn't say that I'm Type A. I like to say that I'm Type E for Elara.

But it's always suited me, and I've never been the best drinker as far as kind of taking the edge off. And I've always loved it. I've always been a huge advocate of it. So, for you, as far as using it for anxiety, is it something that you tend to use first thing in the morning?

Joyce Gerber (14:19):

Yeah. I'm like, well, I mean it depends on the day, but I find that — I don’t know, I think of it like a supplement at this point. I've always been a micro doser. I've experienced with edibles and things. Edibles don't always work with me. I've learned they’re metastasized differently. There are all sorts of reasons for this.

But for me, my personal experience has been, I'm feeling anxiety, in the past I would just would've like kind of pushed through it and managed it and figured it out. But now I know if I take a hit, it literally just goes away. Which is weird. What? You know what I mean?

Elara Hadjipateras (14:48):

It just cuts it.

Joyce Gerber (14:49):

It just cuts it.

Elara Hadjipateras (14:49):

It's so funny you mentioned the thing about the edibles because I've always loved smoking and that's always done it for me. One or two hits and yeah, I'm great.

But whenever I've had edibles, it's so hit or miss. I've had times where I've taken an edible and I was watching that show Yellowstone and I swear I couldn't even understand that they were speaking English. And I would consider myself to have a pretty good tolerance. I was like, “What is happening right now? This is too much.”

Joyce Gerber (15:11):

I mean, what I've learned from my medical professional people, again, this is biology, chemistry, it's all in your body. First of all, you got to know where it's derived from, there's so many issues now with the hemp derivatives versus the cannabis derivatives, which is, I can go into that. It's the same plant, but there's a chemical thing where you do the biology.

And hemp is legal across the country, so it is very under-regulated. So, you don't even know what you're getting half the time. And if you're going into a dispensary, those are tested, those are supposed to be tested and you're supposed to actually figure out what's in them, so you know what you're taking.

So, I don't know, in that part in terms of being a consumer can be a little confusing. You know, it's just very state dependent and it's like, not even state dependent, it's like municipality dependent.

In Massachusetts we have local rule. So, every town gets their own decision of how they handle this. It's interesting to be part of a pioneering industry that's sort of trying to figure out what's going on. And if it goes to schedule three, that's going to be another whole big shift in the industry across the country.

Diana Weil (16:12):

This is interesting because you guys both really like cannabis, and I actually don't like it. I don't like the feeling. It gives me anxiety. And I haven't used it in probably, I don't know, maybe eight years. Because every time I use it, I have — I just … and I do have anxiety in my life, but anytime I use cannabis, it makes it so much worse. And I'm curious, I kind of from both of you have you had bad experiences with cannabis?

Joyce Gerber (16:39):

Hasn’t everybody? I mean like the edible thing. Always the edible. But again, so yeah this is-

Elara Hadjipateras (16:43):

One time with the edible. Yeah, Yellowstone edible. Never again.

Joyce Gerber (16:46):

But this is, again, this is your body. Again, I think of it like a nutrient. We have— it's called the endocannabinoid system. So, we create cannabinoids. So again, cannabis has been taken out of our system for a hundred years.

Hemp feed, there used to be cannabis and hemp products around us all the time we ingested it was probably part of just the system. So, we had cannabinoids who are part of our bodies. It was made illegal basically when they did the tax act and then ‘70, it was really criminalized.

So, this is not in our bodies anymore. It's like a supplement. So, maybe some people actually create more, maybe the foods you're eating are supplementing you, maybe you don't have an imbalance. These are all questions I have for scientists.

I'm like, “Is there going to be a day when we can actually test your cannabinoid needs?” I mean it just seems like this is just one more system in our bodies that needs to be studied and figure out how we manage it. Because we all have different metabolic internal systems that are going on.

And I don't know why that's true, but it seems to be true for everything else. So, why wouldn't it be true for cannabis?

Diana Weil (17:42):

Yeah, fascinating. I've also wondered too, and one thing that I hear about from my mom's generation smoking a joint versus ours is that it's just much stronger these days. And so, I also wonder if what we're getting from a dispensary is, I just overdose myself really easily. If maybe I'm very sensitive to it.

Joyce Gerber (18:01):

Yeah. I mean, there's the extreme. So, again, you go into the dispensaries, everything's like 40, 30, whatever the crazy percentage, it's insane. And then the edibles are lower dose. And I do talk a lot about women's products because my friends really, again, anxiety, sleep, depression, it's all the same trifecta. And they always want to try something.

So, my own sister, I gave her a five-milligram edible and I knocked her out, then I gave her two milligram and it was perfect. But you have to be, have access to these lower dose products or people aren't going to be able to figure out if it works for them.

They're just going to assume they're going to get knocked out and feel bad. It's personalized medicine. And even when we're talking about people starting with this, talking about taking a journal, because sometimes you don't even know what's working.

Again, you stopped consuming. So, the anxiety that you had forgotten you had, came back because you weren't experiencing it, you know what I mean? So, sometimes in the morning your head hurts or you got a backache or you're just mad at your dog or whatever it is.

You write that down in a journal, you take your dose, whatever it is, if you want to take a tincture, you want to take some CBD, whatever it is that you trying to forget if it works and think about it again in an hour. Literally just forget about it and come back.

And then just being very self-aware of whether or not you feel better. And I think even just being self-aware is part of the healing process. That's part of just being aware of what's going on instead of constantly distracting yourself.

Diana Weil (19:13):

Do you have any advice for people who are maybe of the older generation who … I've worked with some clients in my nutrition practice who have wanted to use cannabis medicinally but are still of that mindset that this is dangerous, this is bad, and don't really know where to start. And can you trust if you just go into a dispensary and say, “Hey, this is the issue that I'm working with.” Can they help? How do you get help?

Joyce Gerber (19:36):

So, my mother was in assisted living. (She) thought I was in a drug cartel to the day she passed. She just would not listen to me. But I always bring samples of really quality CBD products. That is what I carry with me in my purse all the time.

So, when I was walking around talking to her friends, I would give them a little tiny thing for their hands, like a little cream or salve and they would put it on and they'd be like, “That worked.” And then they would ask me for something else.

I think the power of my podcast and the power of podcasting is the story. So, the stories are what's opening up hearts and minds and then they have to experience it. So, never get your products in a gas station. You just don't know what they are.

And if you try something that doesn't work for you, you're going to think nothing works. So, I tell people-  I have areally good friend who works with elderly patients and she's always giving them the hand cream. So, they try that and they're like, “My hands feel better. I'm having a little trouble sleeping.” And they'll try a tincture.

People don't really love tinctures, but they are another way to access cannabis because it's pretty quick and it's seems sort of familiar. Cannabis comes in pill forms now. Everyone thinks of it as edibles are always sweet. It shouldn't always be sweet.

I went to a cannabis infused dinner the other night. Everyone always thinks of sweet things with cannabis, but there's different ways to take it so it feels a little bit more like medicine, which is what people are used to.

And you don't always have to have THC included in it. But if you can try a quality CBD product and maybe you'll feel something, then you can maybe up it up a little bit and see if a little bit more THC will help her. Maybe it won't.

I have a good friend going through cancer treatment. She's having a lot of nausea that nothing with THC was working for her. I found her CBD flower that she could vape. So, vaping is another way to … and not the oil vape, it's a flower vape. So, it's a dry vape and it was a lighter smoke and that is the thing that took away her nausea.

But you have to go through some experimentation because there are a lot of products out there now. So, low and slow is what they say. But I always say start with a good hand cream.

Elara Hadjipateras (21:28):

If they don't have an amazing friend like you, Joyce, do you have any advice on specific resources that people can use online or a book that they can read that can help them learn more and guide them a bit?

Joyce Gerber (21:39):

There are so many people. I mean there are cannabis nurses, I can't think … I've spoken with the Cannabis Nurse Associations. There's literally a Cannabis Nurse Association if you want to talk to a real medical professional.

Again, my mother's issue was she just didn't — it's hard to get past this issue of what you really … people believe what they believe. I liked your talks — you talk about my kid and brain stuff. People believe what they believe. No one wants to believe they're wrong. And until people see something like I … the stories I found are the most powerful, the healing stories.

So, usually it's a mother who's either she's healing herself from an issue or her child and the people around who are really judgmental can literally see, they can see this person is better and then it opens up their mind just a little bit to say maybe what I think about cannabis is wrong.

Anyway. So, there are cannabis nurses out there, but when I was working with a cannabis nurse for my mother, she was the first to try to figure if I could actually access this for her. She was the first person who asked, who questioned her about her prescriptive medicines.

So, the other thing about cannabis is you could titrate down on your other pharmaceuticals. That's a big thing for people who may be on other medicines. And I hear all these miracle stories about people getting off opiates.

So, there's a whole world of way of using this that medical professionals, maybe once it's descheduled or rescheduled, will be able to help medically. But right now, you just have people like me talking about it. Some cannabis nurses, there are books out there.

If you live in a state where it's legal and you have adult use or a medicinal dispensary, they should have good staff. That's really part of the budtender's job to understand what the products are. And I don't know, pay attention to what's going on in the news. Again, just don't buy it at the gas station.

Diana Weil (23:20):

What do you think about the different strains and do different strains really impact your experience as much as people say they do?

Joyce Gerber (23:29):

Again, they're plants. They're like children. They're all different. Honestly, the first time I've grown a couple of times, I'm not that great. I say I can't grow anything but children. But I have tried growing a couple of times and I remember talking to my friend, I'm like, “They all look so different.” She's like, “Your kids look different.” I'm like, “That's true too.”

Anyway, so these are plants. They had some genetics that are similar. It's a lot of components. There are the cannabinoids, which we talk about endlessly. We talk about THC and CBD, but they're like a hundred or more. They don't really know it yet.

There are the terpenes, which is the flavors and the smells, which just like any other product, think about pine, if you're outside and you smell pine, it kind of wakes you up. There's a pinene, there's limonene. That's lemon.

That's also kind of activating. That's when they talk about more invigorating. We have things like limonene. I mean, linalyl like lavender. So, there's a strain of how these are impacted because they're plants. That's part of the testing.

They market it as sativa and indica, which is actually old. It's an old way of thinking about it. So, for me, that doesn't really help. I think moving forward in terms of the business model, these products are really going to be marketed more about effect than about what's in it.

Because to understand all that, there's a lot of labeling and there's a lot of testing, but people don't even know what they're looking for. So, it might not be that useful. I do ask for that stuff, but I think most people, it's just too much, honestly. But strains are different because their plants are different.

Diana Weil (24:54):

Elara, do you have a strain that you like? What do you do for strains?

Elara Hadjipateras (24:57):

My top strains that I've loved I've always been a big fan of Blue Dream and Headband. Those are probably my two tops. I would say.

Joyce Gerber (25:07):

I like fruity scented. So, I like things like Tropicana Cookie or Forbidden Fruit. They're a pretty plant. Again, before I was in this industry, I didn't know it was a plant really. I don't know what I thought it was. And I did know it was pretty.

These are really pretty plants. The one I grew was very purple and dark and had a nice scent to it. I know people are always about going on about the scent of cannabis, but when it's growing it's kind of sticky and they're pretty.

And each plant has a different … like mint is different than oregano. It's like these are different products that you experience differently I'm sure because of our own microbiology.

Elara Hadjipateras (25:45):

Yeah, it is difficult to grow though. I also went through my fair share of trying to grow and I did not have that much success.

Joyce Gerber (25:52):

Well, I have a friend of mine who was training a class and I'm like, “Okay, if you can teach me how to grow, you can teach anyone.” So, I took a class a couple years ago, it was online, and I mean there's a lot of steps.

I mean, figure out what equipment to get, that was a whole stressful thing. Figuring out how to test the pH level that actually put me over the edge. I'm like, “I can't do any of this.” Then you have to figure out where to get the seeds, what kind of seeds you want to get, the lighting, you have to keep track of it.

There are a lot of steps to getting to the point where you feel comfortable. And then how do you harvest it and then how do you dry it? I know there's a lot. It's a lot.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:25):

The timing, for me it was the change in-

Joyce Gerber (26:27):

Yeah, the light.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:28):

Humidity levels, and temperature. And then it was growing mold, and I was like, “Oh my God, this one has mold. Do I need to separate it from the other ones? Do I trim it off?”

Joyce Gerber (26:34):

And then, if they're not feminized and they're boys, you have to remove them.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:37):

Yeah, you got to take them out.

Joyce Gerber (26:38):

Can’t have boys. This is a feminine plant.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:40):

You only want girls. Only girls are useful when it comes to growing.

Joyce Gerber (26:42):

Exactly.

Diana Weil (26:42):

Well, you know, that’s women.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:46):

Not surprising.

Joyce Gerber (26:48):

That's so funny.

Elara Hadjipateras (26:49):

Going back, can you share advice on how to discuss weed with your children? You mentioned, you came back from Denver, you kind of had a conversation with your kids. So, get into that.

Joyce Gerber (27:00):

Obviously, it depends on how old your kids are. So, my kids were teenagers. There's a whole different conversation. I am meeting so many more women now who are — they’re cannabis users before, so their children know what it is. I think that's how we're crushing the stigma by changing the story.

They're very open about it. And I will say these kids are smart. These kids know that their mom needs her medicine. They'll literally say to mom, “I think you need to step out mom.” No one ever asked their mother to have another drink.

So, they know what this is, and they can see the packaging and especially women who are working in the industry, you know not to touch it. I would lock it up. Kids aren't trustworthy, put it away where they can't get it but they should know what it is.

I think this is some of the mystery is that when you don't know what it is. So, there are actually children's books now. I have a friend named Mskindness Ramirez. She wrote a book, What's Growing in Grandma's Garden. I have the book.

There's a couple of kids' books out there. Why Mommy Gets High. Again, our life is devised by stories, literally stories and the story of why cannabis is dangerous was made up. I mean for real made up.

So, we are changing that story. We're crushing the stigma by changing the narrative and by telling our children different stories. They're going to believe different things. So, little kids, read them stories, talk about it. It's a plant. For real it's a plant and you could grow it, and this is whatever.

They can see the packaging. They don't want to drink your alcohol. They don't really want to take your pharmaceuticals. If they kind of think it's the same thing, they're just going to acknowledge that it's an adult thing. When they're teenagers you can't trust them with anything anyway. So, that's a whole thing.

But I'm telling you, if you're consuming, if your mom and dad are consuming, they don't think it's cool. And the other thing about kids, and I'll say this, there are a lot of children who are taking pharmaceuticals.

My son was of that generation. They were just like, “Something’s wrong with them, give him a pill.” And my son would not … he actually literally wouldn't take medication, which I’m grateful. And he discovered cannabis on his own at some point. And he's now a professional musician.

But the thing is, we could talk about that. Once I understood that this is why he was using it, it made a difference in our relationship. So, as a teenager, if they find it, you can talk about it in a normal way or they're just not going to want to use it because you're using it because of how cool could it be?

Or you could actually help them. I have a couple of scenarios on the podcast. We talk about children with severe seizure disorders or autism. There's this whole study on autism and helping with that. And these parents have discovered cannabis as literally a last resort because it's not a tool they're offered and now they're using it to help their children who are becoming advocates because they can access it.

But there's still issues with school. School nurses can give you an opiate, but they can't give you a CBD capsule. So, in terms of like helping your kids understand what it is, that part's a little tricky.

But I think just normalizing it, talking about it, telling them stories, having them see you use it. I know there's a lot of shame the mom's always in the bathroom or spraying yourself stuff, but whatever.

I think it's a normalization by just being and you guys are young, and your kids are young. So, if they just grow up with it, they don't think anything about it.

Elara Hadjipateras (29:56):

So, you think I should, what? Should I start reading stories to my son Koa now about-

Joyce Gerber (30:00):

Yeah. I have it over there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's What's Growing in Grandma's Garden. I have it over there somewhere.

Elara Hadjipateras (30:06):

I love that, What's Growing in Grandma's Garden.

Joyce Gerber (30:07):

Again, it's just, it's a plant. And your kids are curious about it.

Elara Hadjipateras (30:11):

But would you say that there's a preferred method to use weed in front of your children? Like should I be taking an edible or is it okay that I'm smoking a joint in front of them?

Joyce Gerber (30:19):

I mean, so you don't have that much time for a joint, I'm sure. I'm always surprised. I talk to a lot of women, I always ask them what their favorite way to consume is and a lot of the moms, you have the little kids, they're like “Dab, I just got to go.” It's like a dab and go.

Elara Hadjipateras (30:34):

Really? Dabs have always intimidated me.

Joyce Gerber (30:36):

I mean they intimidate me. They look little bit like with the fire and everything. Yeah.

Elara Hadjipateras (30:39):

Yes, the fire and the whole melting. It's, yeah …

Joyce Gerber (30:43):

I think it depends on the situation. I, I think taking a chocolate that's an edible in front of your kids is a little tricky. I think any of the candy stuff is really … that's off limits. I don't even know what to say about that. That's just a little confusing for them.

But if you're using your medicine, if you're taking a tincture, I mean you could smoke. It depends, maybe if you're outside, it depends on what your family thinks. I've had so many people come on the show who think their kids don't know. They'll be in the basement, whatever.

And then one day the kid will — one of the kids is like, “Why does the house always smell like skunk?” So, I think the transparency, it's when you're hiding stuff, it's when they're curious. But when you're open they don't really care, honestly.

Elara Hadjipateras (31:19):

I like your opinion on really making it known like this is mommy's medication. She's using it for this use. And off the top of my head I was thinking, it's not going to be a good idea to have chocolates, gummies, things like that.

Because they have their own chocolates and gummies. That becomes confusing because “How are mommy's chocolates and gummies different from my chocolates, so why can't I just have a bunch of those if I find them in mommy's purse.”

Joyce Gerber (31:38):

Exactly. Although, I mean they are warning, I mean, just like any kind of other poison, they can tell. I don't know. How do you teach your kids anything? It's hard. I'm done. 22, 25. I kept them alive this long. You guys are starting out.

But yeah, I really think it's transparency. And I will say like even with our family during the lockdown, during COVID, I did not know cannabis would be essential. And I was running around, my kids were in college, they were sent home, they had to come back home, and I was running around buying salves and tinctures and flour and we had no toilet paper, but we had all sorts of cannabis products, and we were really nice to each other.

It was much nicer to be in lockdown with a stoner than a drinker. So, that was my lesson, hanging out with my kids over the COVID.

Diana Weil (32:19):

At what age do you think it's appropriate for people to start experimenting with cannabis?

Joyce Gerber (32:24):

I mean it depends but you so if you're talking about CBD … again, a lot of the moms I talk to, again, I'm like an old school New England, I literally play tennis and wear pearls. But people use this as medicine, they use CBD salves, so the kids know if my hand hurts, I put a salve on.

Or they use CBD tinctures because they know they don't use aspirin, they use — so that's one way to talk about the plant.

Again, I don't know what's going to happen with your kids' generation, but everybody was medicated, and it was just normalized, which I don't think is good. So, maybe your children are having some anxiety, maybe there's something going on with them. Maybe they can't sleep at night, maybe not the THC.

Again, THC is another … the scientists I talk to say the THC actually for older people is helping our brains, which is weird, but like anything for children, we don't really know what's happening. So, that is the one, the psychoactive components, anything that changes your mood and behavior, those are the things that they're worried about. I mean, and that's really all psychoactive means.

So, depending what's going on, maybe they're in a state where their mood and behavior should be changed. You know what I mean? Maybe you have a 14 or 15 or 16-year-old who's really depressed or really, really anxious.

And the one thing is helping them is like taking a THC gummy at night that helps them sleep. You know what I mean? I wish you could talk to your doctors more about this. You shouldn't be getting advice from me. But these are all things that are real and this is just another tool in the toolbox.

Diana Weil (33:42):

And what do you think about, I mean, if I'm around someone who's smoking cigarettes, I'm like instantly just so grossed out. But I also don't like being around the smoke aspect of it.

And I think, one of the criticisms around cannabis too is the smoke, okay, we can talk about the medicinal purposes of the plant, and I think it's really clear that obviously there are many benefits. But what do you think about the smoke aspect and maybe damage for lungs or kids being exposed to smoke in the household or something like that?

Joyce Gerber (34:12):

Okay, so again, I'm not a doctor. A lot of the issues with tobacco smoke are all the chemicals and stuff that are in the cigarettes. It's a different thing.

Cannabis smoke has not been proven to cause lung cancer, but it hasn't been disproven. So, there are people out there looking for that. I'm sure putting anything toxic in your body is not — I mean, anything that's not supposed to be in there is probably not that great.

But our environment is filled with all sorts of weird stuff. So, the cannabis in your system might actually be counteracting some of the other negative things that are coming in. So, I really don't know about that. But I mean, I get the whole smoke. People hate the smoke, so I don't know what to say about that.

Diana Weil (34:47):

But it’s not something, you don't worry about it. You're not concerned about the smoke part of it.

Joyce Gerber (34:51):

I just kind of feel like it's the thing that works for me. I mean, maybe it'd be better if I did take a tincture or vaped or, I mean probably, but I don't have that many vices I guess. I don't know. I just don't, I feel like this is the thing that works for me.

And if I'm traveling and stuff, I do take more tinctures or pills just because they can't really smoke. But when I really want to have relief at night instead of having a glass of wine or drinking a martini, I smoke a joint with my husband and we talk. That's fun. It's nice. So, that's how we consume.

Elara Hadjipateras (35:19):

I love the ritual of actually rolling a joint.

Joyce Gerber (35:22):

Yeah. People love that. Yeah.

Elara Hadjipateras (35:23):

That’s part of it for me as well.

Joyce Gerber (35:24):

And it's part of the calming down part and, and I think the thing I think about the smoking, what it is, which is why I think people smoke cigarettes too, you're (inhales) inhaling and (exhales) exhaling, and you just don't do that during the day.

So, I totally get why that is. My mother-in-law was a smoker who in the end couldn't breathe at all, but she was very anxious all the time. But when she smoked her cigarette, she stood still for a couple of minutes and went (inhales, exhales). That's the ritual I think of actually smoking that sometimes actually helps people calm down as well as the cannabis product itself, I think.

Elara Hadjipateras (35:57):

Diana is this conversation making you rethink your stance on weed and maybe trying it again in the future? Obviously maybe once you're past your pregnancy journey and-

Diana Weil (36:08):

I take no issue with people using weed. In fact, usually I'm like “Harley, go get gummies.” We live in a state where it's not legal. So, if we're traveling, I'm like, “Sneak them back, take your gummies.” I'm very pro-other people doing it.

I just have had so many negative experiences that I think I need to step away from it for a while longer and then maybe come back to it in another 10 years. And that's with all drugs, to be honest. Any drug, I've just have put on pause at the moment because I just have had so many bad experiences with them.

Joyce Gerber (36:43):

We're perpetually becoming … I'm 58, almost 59. When I was your age, my life was very different. And even the women, I talk out here, I'm actually talking to a woman today who when she was pregnant with her first child went through the whole thing in Massachusetts because she was using cannabis for an epileptic seizure disorder.

They were going to report her because she was a danger to her child and she got the hospital to stop testing here in Massachusetts. So, it was like this great victory, whatever.

Now she's pregnant again. She's in a different part of the state. Same situation. They said they would report her because on her chart— she's actually not using cannabis during this pregnancy, but because she's a medical patient, it says she's a cannabis on her medical records wherever they go.

So, they are this whole like threat that they're going to test her, test the baby and bring in children's services. It's just a weird issue. So, pregnant women have a lot of other issues going on. So, not using any cannabis products is probably smart.

But again, at some point you're going to want to sleep again. Maybe you take some CBN that just kind of relaxes you, maybe you start using again, the people when I talk about older people, maybe you're having some pain in your back. You can use a patch, a CBD patch on your back.

Maybe you have suppositories. I love talking about vaginal suppositories. That's another way to get this into your system because whatever, there's so many other ways to use this product to help balance you. That's the whole thing about the endocannabinoid system. It's about balancing.

Diana Weil (38:10):

So, you focus on women in this space, which I think is fascinating because I think that this is, especially in the business aspect of it, is a very man centric, when I think of someone who owns a cannabis shop, I think of a man.

And I'm really interested to hear about like the women's stories as cannabis business owners, and also from your perspective as someone who's a pearl-wearing, tennis-playing Massachusetts mom.

Joyce Gerber (38:38):

So, again, I talk to women in the industry intentionally. My joke is when I go to events, I'm like, “Oh my God, there are men here too.”

So, I live in my own little bubble again. I am almost 59-years-old. I lived in the era of Sheryl Sandberg. I got my law degree while pregnant. That wasn't the best idea I ever had. And I leaned in really hard and I failed. I mean that's kind of my story. I couldn't do it and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do it all.

Now I understand because it's impossible. And the world that was built for me to walk into was not built for caregivers. And that's kind of where I come from. So, I see this plant as a caregiver. We are the caregivers.

These women I'm meeting who are staying in this industry, which is really hard for so many reasons, have healed themselves or healed their children and often come to this as a last resort. So, they're kind of they're either evangelized or just-

They want to become the people they needed. I think that's what I see across the board with the women leaders who are also healed. Who else has healed leaders? And these women really want to be in the industry and make it look different and try to create it in the image of the caregiver.

The problem with cannabis is that it is illegal, it is criminalized, and you can't get access to capital. So, the only people who can really get into it are people who have access to capital. When I started this podcast, I talk about cannabis. I incorporated as the Canna Mom Show, I trademark the Canna Mom Show and I could not get a bank account. I could not get a checking account from September of 2019 until March of 2020, no one would open up a checking account for me.

So, that's from a while ago. But these issues of capital are really what's hindering the business. Not to mention if you want to go into accounting issues, they can't deduct normal business expenses, which is a just called a 280E issue. It's taxed at an abnormal amount of money, and you also are treated like heroin.

So, they have a lot of additional business expenses, and they have to be really, really good neighbors. Every cannabis dispensary … I mean, that's just one part of the industry. But every dispensary has to be a really good neighbor or they can't even get the host agreement here in Massachusetts to exist. Yeah. It's hard to be in it.

So, the women I see are trying really hard because they are evangelized and they're willing to put up with a lot of this. And they're pioneers. They are doing things differently. I'll say, I talk a lot about women ownership of dispensaries. I'm actually on a panel, I'm moderating a panel tonight. And one of the issues business owners have is, you cannot bring your children to the dispensary.

So, you can't bring your children to work. Which means that if you have childcare issues, my friend who's got a store on Newbury Street in Boston sends her kid down the street.

She's like, “Go find someplace to stay,” because they can't come into the dispensary where she works or they have to rent another space where their kids can go because sometimes your kid gets sick or you default whenever it is. Sometimes your children are with you because that's how it works when you're a mother.

So, they're having mothers is having very specific issues about maintaining visibility in this industry. It's hard, like anything else. Is that depressing? Sorry.

Diana Weil (41:42):

No, I mean I think that's so real. And I mean those are issues that I didn't even think about, which I think is important to bring up.

Joyce Gerber (41:47):

Yeah. My dream is that we crush the stigma. We talk about this as a caregiving plant. We create a new industry. When do you ever get to be part of a new industry? For real.

Again, I went into this to make money. I've become an advocate, but I can see how we could be doing things differently and we're happy to other men join us. It's just every time I've tried to fit into a man environment, I'm just kind of done with white men.

I never fit in. I was never good enough and it kept feeling so personal and my whole generation, there was like one woman who could be in the room. I'm like, “I'm just done with that, I can't be part of that anymore.”

So, connected to all these women talking about the story, elevating what they're doing, trying to create the next generation until the Supreme Court says women aren't human, I'm going to be out there fighting.

And I'm part of a generation that no one even knows exists. So, we're kind of invisible, the Gen Xers, but we're here and we all had our degrees, and our kids are grown and we got a lot of energy and this cannabis is good for us.

Elara Hadjipateras (42:39):

You mentioned before about how THC is beneficial to a certain age. At what age does THC become beneficial for the brain?

Joyce Gerber (42:45):

So, I was at an event. There's Dr. Staci Gruber, I think she's from McLean Hospital, was at a panel a couple weeks ago. And I don't know if there's a cutoff, but there have definitely been studies for older Americans who are using this, that it's helping with their cognitive abilities.

And again, this is science. It needs to be studied. I mean, there are lots and lots and lots of scientists out there who are trying to figure out how bad this is for us and never could because it isn't.

And now if we can start having scientific studies that we're actually trying to figure out why it works, because we know it works and to try to understand really why it works instead of demonizing it, this could help a whole nother generation of older Americans as well.

Cognitive decline is the scariest thing. And we always thought cannabis was creating cognitive decline, but if it's actually something that's helping to protect our brain, at some point we should understand why that is and what, how it's actually working.

Elara Hadjipateras (43:33):

I would love to see more research on that topic because once again, I think it goes back to it's a balance. And it's a balance that's different for everyone to depending on their system. And how they metabolize it. So, having more knowledge around that is going to allow people to use it in a beneficial way. In a moderate way. That they're not going to overdo it.

Joyce Gerber (43:50):

Yeah. Your grandparents are in the back of the senior citizens center putting gummies in that they probably got from their grandson, but they don't know what they're doing. So, if they could work in a community and talk about it, and I always say, I want to go into nursing homes, talk to people about this with my nurse friends.

But there's still the federal issue. I mean, nobody wants to lose their federal funding, so medical professionals are in a really tight spot at this point. But they can see it; medical professionals are learning from their patients. They can see that it's helping them. They aren't necessarily discouraging them. They just can't help them, which is unfortunate.

Diana Weil (44:19):

What are some things that you're excited about in this space? Is there anything that you feel really energized or positive about?

Joyce Gerber (44:24):

I think hemp. I think hemp is way more … when we talk about cannabis and hemp are the same plant, it's just a level of THC, it's all kind of made up.

But hemp has so much possibilities to transform our world. And that is really the most bipartisan issue there is. I got my Trumpiest, Arkansas farmer who wants to grow hemp to create products. It's American made, it's patriotic. It could actually literally replace everything oil does now.

It's good for the environment. It takes toxins out of the ground. My son, I don’t know if you could see behind me, so I just did a campaign. My son made a guitar out of hemp wood. We did a giveaway. It was awesome. I was advocating down in Washington.

I had pictures of the guitar. I actually met with a Republican congress person and a Republican senator talking about hemp. That's kind of what excites me, that the idea that this plant exists in this form that could really change how we live for real.

If we could get past this stigma and try to figure out how to engage people to grow this and use it as a product that helps heal us. I mean, much bigger than cannabis, it's much bigger than that. It everything from criminal justice to cosmetics, it's everything.

Elara Hadjipateras (45:32):

Do you think that we need to get involved on a local political level to help move these things forward? Is that the main lever that people have to kind of make what you're describing a reality?

Joyce Gerber (45:44):

I think, I mean I like local politics. Again, in Massachusetts it's pretty local rule and one of the roles I thought I could take initially was to work in the legal sector or working with the municipalities because I could walk into local town meetings and I look like this and I didn't scare anybody and I could talk about it.

Yeah, just connecting people, people see me, I'm a real person and I really do use cannabis every day. And I talk about it ad nauseum. And I might not look like the normal stoners or it's just the advocacy people seeing you talking about it. Especially smart women.

This is the thing, the smartest women I know are using cannabis, they aren't drinking. I mean that might also be the other issue with aging people is by the time you're older, if you've been drinking all those years, that is not good for your brain.

But maybe the cannabis at some point is kicking in and helping you, whatever. The more people see you and know you exist, and PTA meetings and whatever, everyone just knows. It just stops being an issue. And that's how we're going to change hearts and minds and that's really how we're going to make things move forward.

But as long as there's a stigma and people really believe it's so dangerous, you need to be in jail forever. That is a really a hard thing to get over. So, these stories are changing hearts and minds. So, really just being existing I think is the best thing to do.

Elara Hadjipateras (46:49):

Being open about your use.

Joyce Gerber (46:51):

It's hard. I know even like at family events now, because I'll go out, I'll smoke a joint and I'll come back in and my sister-in-law, will be (side-eye), and I'm like, “It makes me social and happy to be here. Don't you want that from me?”

Diana Weil (47:05):

And do you drink at all or just cannabis?

Joyce Gerber (47:07):

I do not take aspirin anymore and for most time, I don't drink anymore either. And it's not intentional, it's just, I don't feel like — it just doesn't fit into my life the way it used to.

And I play tennis and so I have aches and pains and, but I find the CBD salves really work for me. A lot of those … I do. Like literally I use the patches and then I smoke. That's kind of like, that's how I consume it for the most part.

Diana Weil (47:29):

How do you find a good CBD product? Because that is something if I don't want that mental, the mental aspect of it, but I do believe that there's healing. But I've tried CBD products, and I don't feel like any of them have done anything. I also think that there's a huge quality problem.

Joyce Gerber (47:43):

Huge. So, I'm out here in Massachusetts. It's a great company. It's a woman owned called The Healing Rose. Those are the little things that I give out to people. They have lots of salves which go from low dose 600 milligram salves to like 1200 milligram salves, with all sorts of different botanicals in it that can also help with the pain or whatever issue you're having.

They have tinctures, she makes suppositories. So, I think that's a good company. I would look for a hemp farm. I don't know where you are, but if you know a hemp farmer who is making products that is your best source. It seems a little excessive, but you can be getting these products from anywhere. The way they distill the cannabis is through a solvent.

So, that's sort of the issue with some of these products. If you're not sure they're really clean because they may have actually extracted it incorrectly. And you just don't know where stuff is coming from, I guess that's the issue.

But The Healing Rose is a good product, I know here in Massachusetts. You can look around where you are and see if you know anybody who actually has a hemp farm who's making good products.

It's like a lot of it is reputation at this point and you should be looking for cannabis or CBD companies that are testing it like THC products because they have access to these labs. I just interviewed a woman here in Massachusetts, you can get this certificate of analysis if you want. You can actually know what's in it.

So, the steps that you can take for good companies that are doing it the right way.

Elara Hadjipateras (49:04):

So, Joyce, to round out our episode, we have two questions that we'd like to ask. What's a life lesson that you've had to learn the hard way?

Joyce Gerber (49:12):

Just because I can do something doesn't mean I should. Yeah. That's hard with us ladies.

Diana Weil (49:21):

That is a good one, I can relate to that one.

Joyce Gerber (49:23):

Especially as a mom who is working and got a husband and maybe you still want to look good and I don't know, there's a lot of things that we can do. And I do joke, if you want something done, ask a busy woman. But learning at some point how to set boundaries. I think that's really what it comes down to.

Elara Hadjipateras (49:38):

How to say no to things sometimes.

Joyce Gerber (49:39):

Yeah. How to say no. How to say no. Yeah.

Elara Hadjipateras (49:40):

You can't do everything.

Joyce Gerber (49:42):

Because you can’t do everything. I know you guys are superhuman. You can do everything but yeah, not …

Diana Weil (49:49):

Okay. So, the second question is kind of the opposite of that one. What is a mantra or something that you live by that you learned from a parent, a friend, a teacher, a mentor, something that you didn't have to learn the hard way?

Joyce Gerber (50:03):

I want to be snarky and say what my dad would always say, which is “No good deed goes unpunished.” That's not very nice.

I think I learned everything the hard way. I mean, growing up is a little bit tricky, and I made lots of mistakes, but just got to keep moving forward. I mean, even becoming a mother. Like I used to grow …

When I was growing up, the one thing I was not going to be was a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs. That was my mantra, which I literally became, although I didn't move to the suburbs, and just the idea that we're constantly becoming.

I think that's what I've learned as I've gotten older that the person I was at 30 is literally not the person I was at 40. I've had a lot of professional setbacks, I guess. But my mom life has been really good.

And the things that I have been doing as a caregiver, even though at some point in my life I thought they weren't as valuable because I grew up in that culture with what do you do? That's always the first question, what do you do?

And then when I was taking time off from the world of monetized work and I was just a mom doing all the stuff that moms do. And it took me a long time except that that is good.

But that is a weird mindset that I had, that was a hard one to learn because I kept feeling like I wasn't good enough because I wasn't doing everything. But sometimes you can't do everything. And now my kids are grown and I'm back in this world of trying to figure out what my life is outside of them.

But the truth is I've always been doing stuff for my community. I've always been doing things to add value and that's what we're here for, to add value to the world.

Diana Weil (51:29):

I love that you distinguish between monetized work and work. Because being a mom and a wife- that is work. And just because you're not getting paid for it doesn't mean that it's not work.

Joyce Gerber (51:38):

But it's devalued and I devalued it in my own head, which is really like a head game that women play on themselves. Yeah.

Elara Hadjipateras (51:44):

Yeah. In other cultures, outside of the United States, it's insulting to ask what you do.

Joyce Gerber (51:48):

Yeah. It is.

Elara Hadjipateras (51:50):

It’s such a silly question in my mind.

Joyce Gerber (51:52):

It is a silly question. And even with children, we shouldn't be asking, what do you want to be when you grow up? And if you're going to be talking about being, are you going to be kind? Are you going to be generous? Are you going to have lots of friends?

Those are the things we should be instilling in our children. This idea that you be your work is really a strange mentality that we've incorporated in America. And I had to get out of that. I really had to get out of that headspace.

Because that was sort of the focus. If you want to be equal, I was a girl growing up in a man's world. I went to law school; I did all the things the boys did. More than half of my law school class were women. That's the truth.

My classmate is now the governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healy. So, she became governor, and I had a baby. And then I spent all these years trying to figure out why I couldn't do it all. Because there are no structures in our country that are set up for caregivers.

And that comes back to cannabis. We could set up a new business model, we could value caregivers. The cannabis plant is a caregiver. We could do something in her image. And that is why I'm so passionate, I suppose, about elevating these women's stories or else it's just going to be another white dude business. And that's really unfortunate.

Diana Weil (52:55):

Well, Joyce, this has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Elara Hadjipateras (52:59):

You have been magnificent. I want to keep picking your brain and just, I feel like you've been pumping my tires up as well this whole time.

Joyce Gerber (53:07):

Good. That's what you're there for. I will say all those years when I was in and out of the world of monetized work, I felt guilty because I felt like, what kind of model am I showing to my daughter?

But we literally had a moment where we left our kids at home. We left our kids at home because my husband went to work, and I went to work, and we didn't — whatever. And when we realized we had done that, it was so horrifying.

It's a whole long story, but it's kind of why I ended up just dropping out of work. My friends had all done it. If we're concerned about going to court, then we have to make sure our kids are alive. That is a problem. So, it's taken me a long time to get here.

I wish the best for the next generation of women. I worry about what's happening at some level, but I know you guys exist. We created you, you're here and we exist.

And my mother's generation, my mother couldn't even have a credit card in her name. You know what I mean? They could fire her because she was pregnant. So, we have made some progress, and we are here, we should be using our voice. And I think cannabis, the industry is really an interesting place for us to be.

Diana Weil (54:05):

Makes me feel safer knowing that there's a whole (group of) Gen X women standing in front of us who have time and energy.

Joyce Gerber (54:11):

We're literally invisible. No one sees us. We're high and invisible and running around fixing the world. So, I don't know. I hope for the best. I do what I can. I can't control much. I do a podcast from my daughter's bedroom.

But it's an interesting topic and I love doing this podcast because I think these will help people hear about it and they change hearts and minds by listening to stories. Stories are really important.

Diana Weil (54:34):

So, where can people find you?

Joyce Gerber (54:34):

They can find me everywhere. You can find me on my website, the Canna Mom Show, where we have all five seasons. I'm also everywhere you listen to your favorite podcast. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram. We're a little bit on Facebook and we are on YouTube now.

Elara Hadjipateras (54:48):

Well, it's been an absolute pleasure, Joyce.

Joyce Gerber (54:50):

Thank you, ladies. This was fun.

Voiceover (54:51):

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