Windy Borman, Mary Janes: The Women of Weed

Ellen Scanlon:

This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over. Welcome to How To Do The Pot, a podcast demystifying Cannabis for women. I’m Ellen Scanlon. Before we get into this week’s episode, I’d like to ask you to take a second and subscribe to How To Do The Pot’s Newsletter. We are working hard to grow our audience and you signing up will really help. The newsletter is a little reminder to feel confident about cannabis for health, wellbeing and fun. I love to hear from you too, so you could always reply and tell us about topics or guests that you’d like on the show. Please join the thousands of people who look forward to it twice a month by going to dothepot.com to sign up today. Thank you. I really appreciate your support for the show.

One of the biggest misconceptions about shopping for legal weed is thinking that you need to know a lot about cannabis before you go, and while you can’t forget your government issued ID, and it will make it easier if you bring cash, as more states legalize, visiting a dispensary is a lot like a regular shopping experience. This series is dedicated to providing you with a support system of other women who have been in your shoes. If you scroll through our feed and look for these first time stories, you’ll hear from women all across the country about their first time buying legal cannabis. While these women offer a lot of helpful tips and thoughtful observations, they are not without a few mishaps and laughs along the way too. I hope these stories make you feel supported, less alone and a little lighthearted when you decide to make your first cannabis shopping trip. I really want you to have fun.

Windy Borman is the Colorado based director of the documentary film, Mary Janes: The Women of Weed, which is available on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and many others.

Windy Borman:

So I had actually never tried cannabis before I started producing the documentary, Mary Janes: The Women of Weed. There was a lot of drug addiction and alcoholism in my family and I’m the product of the DARE generation. So I was told marijuana is a gateway drug and I never wanted to tempt the genetics in my family. So even though I’d had ample opportunity to try cannabis, I never did. But in 2016, I started filming the documentary Mary Janes: The Women of Weed, and that included interviewing over 40 women across the United States. And I was really inspired because not only were they entering this new industry, they were building gender parity, social justice and environmental sustainability into the framework of this emerging industry.

So from a core values perspective, that was really interesting to me and I knew I could tell that story, but to authentically tell that story, after interviewing all of these women, I figured I needed to try it for myself and see what all the fuss is about. So I was living in Denver, Colorado and I went to the Simply Pure Dispensary, owned by Wanda James, who’s one of the women featured in the film who we call Puffragettes, as in pot plus suffragettes. Wanda introduced me to her budtender Christian, and I explained the type of experience that I wanted.

So I had gathered a group of cannabis fairy godmothers, so I wanted a kind of fun, go with the flow, glass of wine with the girlfriend’s type of feel. So she pointed me towards a certain type of flower that I could purchase. She explained how I would need to grind it and vape it and all of the steps involved because mind you, I had not even smoked a cigarette. So I really did not know what I was doing. I needed a lot of help. I was also interested in an edible so we talked about how and how much and how long it might take to kick in. So I left the dispensary feeling really empowered and educated.

And that was important for me because in speaking to other women, their first time trying cannabis didn’t have that feeling. Maybe it was something that happened in high school or college, somebody passed them something at a party, maybe it was full of peer pressure, they didn’t really know what they were taking. And I felt like if I was going to put this in the film, I wanted to flip the script and make it a very warm, inviting, empowering, female-centric moment.

So that’s what we did. I had my group of cannabis fairy godmothers. They talked me through how to use what I’d purchased. I tried a little bit of an edible. I had about a quarter to a third of it just based on the dosage. And then I tried vaping and it was a very enjoyable time. So if you’re curious to see how it went, please check out the film. Mary Janes: The Women of Weed. It is available on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, Canopy, Voodoo, Vimeo and if you want to purchase a limited edition DVD, check out our website, which is maryjanesfilm.com. Thanks so much. Puffragette power.

Ellen Scanlon:

Thanks for listening to this episode of How To Do The Pot Pot. If you’d like to share your story about the first time you bought legal weed, please send a voice memo to high@dothepot.com or DM us at Do the Pot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit dothepot.com, and that’s also where you can sign up for How To Do The Pot’s newsletter. If you like How To Do The Pot, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show. Thank you to our producers, Madi Fair and Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon and stay tuned for more of How To Do The Pot.