420 GIRLS

Sales of medical marijuana kicked off last week under a new statewide program offering a new form of relief for patients suffering from conditions that require an opioid prescription. On Friday morning, Tashena Altman became one of the first patients to purchase cannabis under the new Opioid Alternative Pilot Program, an offshoot of the state’s medical pot program. Altman, of...

Cannabis has long been Anthony Reyes' passion. Like millions of Americans, he first self-medicated with marijuana as a young man, purchasing from underground dealers as so many other weed enthusiasts do. But cannabis was always mainly about healing for Reyes: His uncle was a curandero, a medicine man, in his native Cuba and used cannabis as part of his...

I had a medical marijuana card for nearly two years before I worked up the nerve to buy legal weed. Living in laid-back Vermont, I had access to a friend’s homegrown herb, which my husband used to make me cannabis-infused coconut butter in the family Crock-Pot. Applying the butter topically soothed my chronic pelvic pain and relieved symptoms of the...

Macon, GA: Leslie Johns waited 13 years to hear her son, Darrell, call her “Mama.” Darrell was born with hydrocephalus and epilepsy, two neurological conditions that have stunted his development and made it nearly impossible for him to get through the day without a seizure. When Georgia legalized some medical marijuana in 2015, Johns immediately applied for a medical card. Six...

Ida Ruggiero, an opinionated great-grandma, remembered the deep embarrassment that crept over her when she told each of her five adult children her news. Ruggiero, 81, was using weed, twice a day. With her doctor's permission, of course. Yes, the same substance that she had sternly warned them not to try when they were teens growing up in a middle-class home...