Sicard - Mary Jane: The Complete Marijuana Handbook for Women

Copyright 2015 Cheri Sicard

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

sealpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sicard, Cheri.

Mary Jane : the complete marijuana handbook for women / Cheri Sicard.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-58005-552-9

1. Marijuana--Health aspects. 2. Marijuana--Therapeutic use. 3. Women--Health and hygiene. I. Title.

RM666.C266S54 2015

615.32345--dc23

2014035544

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Interior design by Megan Jones Design

Printed in China by RR Donnelley

Distributed by Publishers Group West

Turn on the news, read a magazine, or watch a television talk show these days and you are likely to encounter stories about Marijuana Moms, who say the herb makes them better parents, Stiletto Stoners, successful career women who prefer ganja to an after-work glass of wine or cocktail, or Grandmas Smoking Pot as a natural replacement for a host of pharmaceutical medications.

While these stereotypes are little more than clichs, they still tell us something important: The media are finally waking up to the fact that their longtime portrayal of the typical marijuana user as a male slacker who resembles Cheech and/or Chong is old school, outdated, and embarrassingly limited.

Until recently, men have dominated the world of cannabis, from the top master growers to the most vocal activists to the male-centric stoner rap music and stoner buddy comedy movies. This is pretty ironic when you consider the fact that marijuana itself is matriarchal. After all, its only the prized flowers from female marijuana plants that we smoke, vaporize, or turn into concentrates or edibles. And you can bet if you overhear a marijuana grower talking about the girls, hes not talking about his daughters or even referring to his wifes breasts, but rather his crop of female cannabis plants.

So why havent more women been involved with this female-centric plant world before? The reasons are manyfrom social stigmas to fear to being misinformed about or unaware of the real, undisputable facts about marijuana.

I too used to be one of those uninformed people, and truthfully I didnt careI believed that, because I didnt use marijuana, the issue did not affect me. As you will see in the pages ahead, I could not have been more wrong because the cannabis issue crosses over into so many others that marijuana legalization, or the lack thereof, affects everyoneregardless of whether or not they themselves ever actually light up.

I came late to this party. Other than the occasional puff at a party, I didnt use marijuana until I was almost forty. After a host of pharmaceutical and homeopathic remedies had failed, my doctor recommended I try cannabis for a chronic nausea problem. (He said it off the record because the HMO he worked for did not officially allow him to suggest this.) I tried it and it worked, immediately.

After a few months, I also noticed that the chronic gastrointestinal pain and discomfort that had plagued me since childhood had disappeared. I also no longer felt the need for my prescription antidepressants.

Because the public is beginning to understand the truth about this plant that corporate and government interests have tried to keep hidden since the 1930s, women are coming out of the Cannabis Closet like never before, and not just celebrities like Rihanna, Melissa Etheridge, and Jennifer Aniston (to name only a few) but ordinary women like your friends, neighbors, relatives, and perhaps even you! Just as they did when ending alcohol Prohibition, women are repeating history and making significant contributions to ending marijuana prohibition. These powerful, successful, and inspiring ladies have come to realize the war on cannabis does far more harm to their families and society at large than the substance ever could, even if all the reefer madness propaganda was taken at face value.

This book will be your guide to the wonderful world of weedit will dispel the myths and misinformation you may have accepted as truth, and teach you how you can best incorporate marijuana into your life in a way that makes sense for you. Ill strip away the hype and sensationalism to give you the straight dope (pun intended!) on the science and insider culture of cannabis, and to answer the questions Im asked over and over again on my blog and at speaking engagements and classes. In other words, expect this book to cover a spectrum of marijuana knowledgefrom critical and potentially lifesaving to fun and frivolous.

Marijuana truly is the great equalizer. People who would otherwise have little to nothing in common have been known to connect and bond over cannabis, and in the process learn they actually have far more in common than they originally perceived. Just think what this could do on a global scale.

Id like to buy the world a toke!

Cheri Sicard

Welcome to Mary Jane University, the very best place for your higher education! The very first step we must take is to get one important piece of information out in the open:

Marijuana is safe.

There has never, ever been a single death credibly attributed to marijuana overdose. It is virtually impossible to fatally overdose on weed. You could technically eat enough of it to burst your stomach or choke on it, and there were recent news reports of a South American man who was crushed under thousands of pounds of it, but thats about it.