“In cannabis we see an economic alternative for women”, an interview with the weed nuns

“ If the women of the world want to join our movement, all they have to do, is start their own cannabis activism and cultivate: Our objective is to create a movement of cannabis women worldwide”. We speak to Sister Kate, founder of the Sisters of the Valley, more commonly known as the Weed Nuns.

Laura Rueda: Why do they call you nuns?

Sister Kate: They don’t call us nuns, but sisters. But the media started to call us nuns and we decided that we agreed with the name. If you look at the definition of nuns, there is nothing that specifies catholic. It’s a dying profession in this country: the average age is 78 years old.

There is a new generation of young women, daughters of hippies, of people that left the church, that weren’t educated in religion: They don’t know anything about spirituality and that’s wonderful because should be the ones who develop the basis of our new religion, which is based solely in cannabis and plants.

L.R. They call you sisters and the majority of you are women. I’d like to know of you consider yourselves feminists and if you think that marijuana empowers women.

S.K. Women are lagging behind. Cannabis is the road forward, a way that women can take control of the ship and have economic independence. Because whether we like it or not, the world is a hard place to live in and you have to eat and pay the bills.

We see in cannabis an economic alternative for women, so that we can control the business connected with the plant. Our community is formed by women and we live together, plant the fields, make medicine, take all the decisions…. So, to answer your question, yes, we are feminists.

We are very inclusive with men. Many of them work with us, they are our brothers. So long as they are in agreement that the women are the ones that make the decisions about the business.

L.R: Do you cultivate your own marijuana? How did you decide to dedicate your lives to cultivate and sell cannabis?

S.K: Yes, we cultivate our own cannabis, but we have many limitations on the amount that we can grow. So we stock up with merchandise from Colorado, Germany, Northern California…. For some women, just working with the plant, manicuring and all the process is highly curing. It is a sacred process.

L.R: There are a series of rituals you follow when you produce your products.

S.K: I recruit free spirits: anarchists, activists… then we ask them to do the same thing every day. It is a little difficult to maintain a routine. For this reason we have certain spiritual practices: We women cover ourselves totally when we work with the plant. We bless the tools and our hands. We prepare the atmosphere with music and candles. Whilst we work, we meditate and give intent to cure. We don´t know how transparent energy works, but we believe in it.

The medicines are made in an environment where men are not allowed to enter. They can only enter if they are invited by the sisters once every so often. In the kitchen where we produce neither telephones nor internet are allowed.

L.R: What kind of clients do you have an what illnesses can be treated with your products?

S.K: Suffering and pain are very democratic. They reach all segments of society, all types of people of all types of ages. For this reason we don’t have a profile of a typical client: We have republicans, democrats, people from all cultures…. There is no place in the world we don´t send our products.

L.R: Now you are very popular and i imagine more people are ordering. How do you manage this?

S.K: We spend a lot of time in front of our computers answering. Our priority are not the methods, but the patients: people that don’t understand what CBD is, and need it. We only sell CBD because it is the only thing we can send to the rest of the world. But we believe in the properties of THC.

We are very serious and rigorous giving information about the medicinal properties of cannabis. The fame hasn’t changed anything, it has just added to the emails from people who want to document the plant or interview us. And we answer them all.

L.R: In many interviews you talk about the multiple properties of CBD, does this mean you support just medical use, or recreational as well?

S.K: We support all uses, we think that there should be no kind of regulation about the plant, that it should be free to use. We think it is immoral and racist to regulate the plant.

This is our position and we are very radical. On the other hand we are very interested in generating money from taxes for our small towns and escaping the black market.

L.R: What do we need to do to stop the plant being stigmatized?

S.K: We need to put it in our kitchen, just as we supplement ourselves with calcium or vitamins.

I think the key for everybody to see that the plant is powerful is in distancing ourselves from stoner culture. All the governments in all the world forbid you to cultivate. We tell women all over the world to start planting everywhere. It is an anarchist movement.