Note: This article includes discussions of self-harm and suicidal ideation.
When I became pregnant with my first child, I did what I thought good moms do: I stopped smoking weed.
Then, in 2017, about two years after giving birth to my firstborn, I began to notice trending stories about so-called “marijuana moms.” These women were smoking pot because it made them better parents, and many outlets seemed open to normalizing this concept by amplifying their stories. Perhaps, I thought, this is a sign that the stigma around mothers who use cannabis was beginning to dissolve.
To my dismay, however, the images of this cannabis-based alternative parenting lifestyle did not include anyone who looked like me. Of course, it was suddenly OK (and even liberating) to consume weed as a mom — as long as you’re white.
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It appears that the racial stigma of cannabis use permeates every single social demographic. To disrupt that as best as I could, I created Blunt Blowin’ Mama, an online cannabis lifestyle community that aims to normalize conversations around weed use by Black and brown mothers while highlighting the BIWOC impacting change. I have spoken to hundreds of women since launching the platform, and they’ve