Grief has a way of hollowing you out. For many, it’s a darkness we try to numb or outrun. But for a growing number of people—myself included—cannabis isn’t about escape. It’s about connection, healing, and learning to live again.
After my father passed, I found myself in a fog where life felt unrecognizable. Nothing made sense anymore. But through cannabis, I began to rediscover a sense of peace—not by dulling my pain, but by softening its edges enough to explore what was underneath it.
As more people turn to cannabis to process trauma and loss, science is beginning to catch up with what many of us already know: this plant doesn’t just change your mood. It can change your perspective on life, death, and everything in between.
I was drowning in grief, barely hanging on, when cannabis found me—or maybe I found it. Either way, it became my medicine, my teacher, and my reason to stay.
My father raised me on his own after my mother left when I was a baby. He was my world—my family, my anchor, my safe place. When he passed from colon cancer in 2016, everything fell apart. I wasn’t suicidal, but I wasn’t really living either. Grief filled every corner of my life.
Desperate for relief, I went to my doctor and was handed a list of prescriptions—antidepressants, sleeping pills, the works. Deep down, I knew I didn’t need something to numb me; I needed something to help me face the pain. I told the doctor I’d explore more holistic options and circle back.
I never did.
Because soon, cannabis would step into the waiting room of my collapsing mind and call my name—softly, but unmistakably.
A New Kind of Medicine
In the throes of depression, I smoked weed for the first time as an adult. Within minutes, I felt something shift. The fog didn’t vanish, but for the first time in years, I felt a release. Unlike the old anti-drug commercial where the girl melts into the couch, unable to move or speak, I was melting into myself.
Cannabis didn’t cloud my mind; it laid out a roadmap to emotional release. It wasn’t about getting that giggly kind of high; it was about finding my reason why.
Like many raised by parents shaped by the ’60s and ’70s, I grew up in a world where emotions weren’t easily shared. Feelings were brushed aside, humor replaced honesty, and vulnerability was something to “get over.” My dad carried those walls, and, without realizing it, handed me a few of his own. So, when grief hit, it didn’t just take my father; it revealed how unprepared I was to face what came after.
After that first experience with cannabis, I felt those walls begin to crack. I could express my emotions for the first time: to feel and release what no longer served me.
Like the Entourage Effect—where cannabinoids and terpenes work in harmony—I mixed weed and grief and found the truest kind of freedom.
Science is starting to explain why that happens. A study in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that changes in the body’s endocannabinoid system are linked to how people process grief, with cannabinoids helping regulate mood, reduce anxiety, and improve sleep. Other research suggests that cannabis can support trauma survivors by easing emotional intensity and supporting mood regulation.
When I later read those findings, I felt hope. It felt like science had finally caught up to what the plant had been teaching me all along.
Five years after my father’s death, I was slowly finding my footing. Healing can be lonely—especially when your medicine still carries stigma.
At the time, I didn’t have a single friend who used cannabis, so I started a small local group for others who did. What began as a few people sharing stories became a supportive circle of people using the plant to reconnect with life.
That’s when I realized grief isn’t a solitary journey. Healing from loss is universal—and cannabis, in its own quiet way, brings people together in that space between pain and possibility.
Curiosity soon turned to creativity. I learned to decarboxylate, made edibles and tinctures, and explored how the plant could ease both emotional and physical tension. Each batch became a small ritual of release—one that helped lighten my grief while offering comfort to others.
When Loss Becomes Direction
Grief kept reshaping my life, sometimes through what looked like a coincidence. After years of struggling to return to a “normal” job, I longed for something that aligned with my healing. I planned to study medical billing and travel in a small camper—a new start.
Then, in a single week, both the program and the camper disappeared. It felt like another wave of loss, but this time I didn’t collapse under it. Instead, I listened. A few days later, I came across St. Louis University’s Cannabis Science and Operations Program—an accredited study of the very plant that had helped me survive.
When the insurance check arrived for the stolen camper, it covered the tuition almost exactly. I took it as a sign that grief hadn’t just taken things from me; it was guiding me somewhere new.
Finding Purpose
That program became the bridge between my pain and my purpose. I immersed myself in cannabis science: cultivation, extraction, endocannabinoid research, advocacy, and regulation.
I drew inspiration from Brownie Mary, the 1980s activist who baked cannabis brownies for AIDS patients when compassion was still criminalized, and from Rick Simpson, who created a cannabis oil that helped him recover from skin cancer.
As I learned, I began creating products focused on women’s wellness and emotional balance. What started as survival evolved into a small business that supported me for five years.
Even on my hardest days, I’d think back to that first encounter with grief and remember: this plant gave me back to myself.
And I realized I wasn’t alone. Across the country, more people—especially women—are turning to cannabis as emotional support. A 2023 study in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that women increasingly use cannabis to manage trauma-related symptoms and mood regulation, often citing it as “a more natural path to self-connection.”
For many of us, cannabis isn’t rebellion—it’s reclamation.
A Shared Healing
Today, I see cannabis as more than medicine. It’s a spiritual ally. A teacher. A reminder that nature always has our back if we’re willing to listen.
Grief and trauma are something we all share, but so is growth. And cannabis, at its highest potential, helps us remember that both are sacred.
So, to anyone standing in that space between who you were and who you’re becoming, trust the process, trust the plant, and trust that healing doesn’t always fit in an orange prescription. It often starts when the smoke clears.
Treat this plant as a loving teacher and watch your unconsciousness become pure consciousness because, maybe just maybe—that’s exactly what the world needs now, more than ever.
This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
