Purr-spectives on Pot

High Times with a Feline Friend

Photo of me in my garden

There is a lot of talk about weed these days, especially here in Canada, where it has been legal for a few years now. It seems everybody is smoking it, growing it, eating it, or rubbing it all over their bodies.

I’m not really into The Ganja, but I know many people who are. My husband, for one, makes his own edibles and “micro-doses” to help with his chronic back pain. This will be our fifth summer growing a few plants on our property, and while I don’t participate in weedism, I really love the plants. So much so that I always end up naming them. Last year we had Penelope, Clementine, Josephine, Esther, Margaret Mary, Matilda, Emmaline, and Beatrice. I relished going outside at twilight — when their scent seemed most intense — to give “the girls” a drink of water and chat with them. They’re beautiful plants; I swear they liked me as much as I liked them.

I’ve heard claims cannabis can stave off Alzheimer’s, that it can help with insomnia, manage pain and anxiety — even stop cancer cells from spreading. I know people who smoke it in ornate pipes, who eat it in watermelon-flavoured gummies — who slather green butter all over themselves from head to toe and swear by its healing properties.

Maybe all those claims are true; maybe they aren’t, but the truth is, marijuana never did…