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CNN Special Reports
Weed Eight: Women and Weed. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 19, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
DEAN: All right, Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for that.
And a reminder, the eighth installment of "WEED" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta airs at the top of the hour, in just a few seconds, right here on CNN, and then tomorrow on our CNN app. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us tonight. And remember, if you're here in the U.S., you can now stream CNN whenever you want by using our CNN app. Visit CNN.com/watch for more on that.
I'm Jessica Dean. We're going to see you right back here next weekend. Have a great night, everyone. We'll see you then.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to Oklahoma. You know, for more than a decade, we have traveled the globe reporting on cannabis. And now our travels have brought us to the American frontier.
Centuries ago, during the land rush of the 1800s, people settled here looking for land and opportunities and a fresh start. And then in 2018, when medical marijuana was legalized in this traditionally conservative state, a whole new sort of land rush began. It was called the green rush.
Cannabis brought this explosion of users and growers and dispensary owners to Oklahoma. In fact, at its height, there were nearly 400,000 medical marijuana patients, almost 10,000 growers and 3,000 dispensaries. Oklahoma became known as Tokelahoma. And in the midst of this green rush, a somewhat surprising pot pioneer started to emerge.
(Voice-over): Women, of all ages, mothers and grandmothers growing, selling, using cannabis. Women searching for a better, healthier, happier life.
APRIL AYERS, OWNER, COWBOY KUSH DISPENSARY: I was a soccer mom. Trust me, if we had all had an edible before those games, we would have been great.
GUPTA (voice-over): From menstrual cramps to morning sickness, to menopause, women in Oklahoma and all over the United States are turning to cannabis for relief. Now more than ever. DR. STACI GRUBER, DIRECTOR, MCLEAN HOSPITAL MARIJUANA INVESTIGATIONS
FOR NEUROSCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: Women are largely underserved and underrepresented in medicine and for lack of any other option are more than willing to try cannabis and cannabinoid based therapies.
GUPTA (voice-over): In fact, for the first time ever, women are outpacing men in the use of cannabis.
These women say they are changing their lives and their health for the better, but in some cases also potentially putting themselves in harm's way. The scientists searching for answers are all research pioneers, and perhaps no surprise, many happen to be women as well.
GRUBER: I had a lot of colleagues tell me that I was probably throwing my career away.
GUPTA (voice-over): I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta. This is WEED EIGHT: WOMEN AND WEED.
December 2025. Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Seventh Annual Cowboy Cup, a celebration of all things cannabis in the Sooner State.
Organizers expect thousands of people to come through this tent. It's known as the festival tent. But I got to tell you, it's really much more of a consumption tent. There's education, there's entertainment, and there's lots and lots of cannabis consumption. All of it, by the way, legal as long as you're 18 years old and have a medical marijuana license.
(Voice-over): As I walk through this smoky haze, I was struck by this. All the women that are here. Turns out they are the fastest growing consumers of cannabis.
When you come here, are you looking for something in particular?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Just fellowship. You know, just togetherness.
GUPTA (voice-over): Trish and Morgan came from Oklahoma City.
With cannabis, are there certain things that you look for? Like for sleep or for pain or for anything? Or --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Definitely for pain.
GUPTA: For pain?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anxiety.
GUPTA: Anxiety.
(Voice-over): Then I met April, a dispensary owner.
It's a little smoky in here, April.
AYERS: It is already, I know.
GUPTA: I see.
AYERS: You see the cloud.
GUPTA: I can smell it and see it.
AYERS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
AYERS: How are you? Oh, my god.
GUPTA (voice-over): And then April introduced me to two more women.
Hey. Sanjay. Nice to meet you.
AYERS: This is Chelsea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
GUPTA: Hey, Chelsea.
(Voice-over): Chelsea, a grower. Kendra, a cannabis tech entrepreneur.
AYERS: So they're all going to have a different smell to them.
GUPTA (voice-over): They've known each other for years now. All connected by a shared passion for pot, the plant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really does save lives.
GUPTA: So this is Oklahoma medical marijuana. This is what it looks like. All women, a dispensary owner, a grower, an executive.
[20:05:05]
They call it breaking the grass ceiling. I love that. No kidding. That's what's happening here.
(Voice-over): And then on the other side of the tent, I saw a woman I had heard so much about.
BONNIE CALDWELL, CO-FOUNDER AND COO, F5 FARMS: I feel really empowered here.
GUPTA (voice-over): This is Bonnie Caldwell. She's the chief operating officer of one of Oklahoma's largest marijuana growers. F5 Farms. They also own three dispensaries called Seed.
When I came to Oklahoma, I thought traditionally conservative state.
CALDWELL: Yes.
GUPTA: I was surprised to see something like this.
CALDWELL: There's a need for people to feel better. Use the medicine and then also have the chance to come together. GUPTA (voice-over): But the Cowboy Cup is more than camaraderie. It is
a serious competition with awards for the best in the Oklahoma bud business.
You guys won it last year?
CALDWELL: We did. It just really helps us to be able to continue to put our name out there and show them that, you know, we're a reputable source.
GUPTA (voice-over): I really wanted to see where they grow their award-winning plants.
Wow. It's amazing. You get -- you get the sights and the smells of it pretty quickly. But to also like, look at this and sort of imagine these flowers turning into medicine.
CALDWELL: Yes. My dad used it to treat his cancer and his rheumatoid arthritis. He's used it for years and almost everyone on our team has some personal story about cannabis, how it's helped them.
GUPTA (voice-over): This all started as a family business when medical marijuana was legalized in Oklahoma.
CALDWELL: This is my brother, Ben Caldwell. Ben is the director of cultivation.
GUPTA (voice-over): And together they came up with the name F5.
CALDWELL: Oklahoma, we're known for tornadoes and the biggest one is F-5. So we wanted to show that we're strong.
GUPTA (voice-over): Makes sense as cannabis gave her strength during a very difficult time in her own life. Like more than 30 percent of college aged women, bonnie suffered from depression.
CALDWELL: I had used cannabis for more of a social thing, and then I started to realize how it could really help more than just socially.
GUPTA: The medications versus cannabis. What was different in terms of how they affected your depression?
CALDWELL: It was almost like hitting a mute button. It maybe helped, but it just, I knew it wasn't a long term solution for myself versus cannabis you can use it and then not use it.
GUPTA: Was there a lot of stigma?
CALDWELL: In college, I was around a lot of people who were OK with it and used it, but as soon as you go back home, you feel like you need to hide it.
GUPTA (voice-over): Politics made growing a pot business hard here, and so does the climate. Oklahoma's weather is unpredictable, so F5 grows cannabis inside where they can control everything. CALDWELL: We're trying to mimic the different phases of nature and the
different seasons in our rooms. You're changing how much feeding goes into it, the humidity that goes into it, the light intensity.
GUPTA (voice-over): This place is buzzing 24/7, 365 days a year.
CALDWELL: In a month, we're producing upwards of 300 pounds of the bud itself, and then around 300 pounds of trim. We have many dispensary partners that we take it to, including our own.
AYERS: How can I help you today, Sarah?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I'm just looking to get some edibles today.
AYERS: Sure.
GUPTA (voice-over): April Ayers is one of those dispensary partners. In 2023, April opened her dispensary in nearby Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It's called Cowboy Kush. It's a business by women for women.
AYERS: I find that women, they're really not there to get super high. I am very medicinal.
GUPTA: How unusual is this?
AYERS: Very unusual.
GUPTA (voice-over): The place is filled with products specifically for women.
AYERS: These are bath salts. These are THC and CBD combo. Really great for the menstrual cycle time. Helps calm the cramps down a lot.
GUPTA (voice-over): This building used to be a Taco Bell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have your medical card in your bag, so don't forget that.
GUPTA (voice-over): The drive-thru still comes in handy.
AYERS: It's really advantageous for those moms that have the kiddos which you can't leave in the car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a wonderful day. Thanks.
GUPTA (voice-over): An Oklahoma native, April's first experience with medical marijuana was several years ago. Dear friend with cancer heard that very early preclinical studies showed how some of marijuana's active ingredients could slow tumor growth.
AYERS: She was like, can you get me some cannabis? I had to call a few people from high school and say, hey, how do you find this stuff? But just being able to watch her live a life, why wouldn't I open a cannabis store?
[20:10:06] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How's your day going?
AYERS: It's going, you know.
GUPTA (voice-over): A surprising career move for a real estate broker who had never used cannabis herself. But she threw herself in.
AYERS: All the reds are going to be sativas.
GUPTA (voice-over): Literally experimenting and learning as much as she could about the plant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I'm liking that one a bit more.
GUPTA (voice-over): She doesn't claim to be a doctor, but calls her customers patients.
AYERS: It's going to be some trial and error, but when you find that right one, it's like you hit gold. I've owned this store for three years and I wish I had been in it from the beginning. Not for money, but just for the people that we can help. And that's my whole passion with it.
All right. Take care. Bye, ladies.
GUPTA (voice-over): A passion she shares with so many women in Oklahoma.
EBONY JONES, CANNABIS EDUCATOR, COMMUNITY DOULA: Welcome to my humble abode. There's food, there's friends.
GUPTA (voice-over): Including a growing group of women redefining mom's night out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUPTA (voice-over): As the sun is setting in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
JONES: Going to put these lights outside.
GUPTA (voice-over): Porch night is about to start.
JONES: It's always BYOB. Bring your own blunts. Bring your own blankets. Bring your own joints.
GUPTA (voice-over): Now, a fair warning, what you're about to see is not for everyone, but for these women they say it offers benefits both for the mind and the body. Every month, Ebony Jones hosts mom's night or better put canna-moms night.
I love that term.
JONES: Everyone knows I am the safe consumption house, so typically when they're coming to my house, we are consuming cannabis. I love the porch parties because we just come together, kick it, chill. JASMINE FROST, CANNA-MOM: I needed a night out that wasn't consumed
with my little one. I'm a stay-at-home mom currently and it takes a toll.
GUPTA (voice-over): Jasmine Frost's 20-month-old daughter is back at home with her husband.
FROST: It just helps me relax within my night and just kind of forget the worries, so to speak. And just live.
ANNETTE HENDRIX, CANNA-MOM: Some moms get together on the weekends and they have a wine party.
GUPTA (voice-over): Annette Hendrix uses cannabis to help ease the pain and inflammation caused by Crohn's disease. That's a chronic bowel disease that affects women more severely than men.
HENDRIX: The biggest thing that I have to combat is people thinking, I can't care for my child if I've consumed cannabis.
STEPHANIE LOGIE, CANNA-MOM: It allows me to be a better mother. It allows me to be a better human..
[20:15:04]
GUPTA (voice-over): Stephanie Logie is a mother of two. She uses cannabis as an alternative to alcohol and also to help with depression.
LOGIE: I think a lot of moms hide it. I choose not to hide it.
GUPTA (voice-over): Not even from her children who are 17 and 8.
LOGIE: And I explain to them, this isn't medicine. This is what I choose to use, you know. Instead of going to the pharmacy to pick up a bunch of pills, I go to the dispensary.
JONES: Thank you so much for bringing the sexy plant spray.
GUPTA (voice-over): Ebony also hosts several other events in the area.
JONES: Prop Swappers of OKC.
GUPTA (voice-over): This one is a monthly plant swap.
JONES: So you came to get you some plants today?
GUPTA (voice-over): And there are also frequent educational gatherings.
JONES: Head upstairs so we can get started with the event.
LOGIE: And I am 19 years sober. Thank you. Thank you. And that is ultimately due to cannabis.
GUPTA (voice-over): Ebony has become a beacon for the canna-mom community.
JONES: Thank you all so much for just showing up.
GUPTA (voice-over): Now here's the thing. Ebony believes cannabis saved her life. At one point, she was addicted to pain pills to manage menstrual cramps and stomach ulcers. She also had PTSD from childhood sexual trauma. Then she turned to marijuana, and she says it helped. Then wanting to help others, she moved to Oklahoma in 2020, soon after medical marijuana was legalized.
JONES: It was a leap of faith, but I know this wasn't nothing but God. I am very content that I'm walking in the calling that He needs me to be.
GUPTA (voice-over): Just a few miles away at Cowboy Kush Dispensary, April also hosts events for canna-moms and grandmoms.
AYERS: How about we learn a little bit about cannabis?
GUPTA: How are you doing?
AYERS: Anybody else? No THC. So you just won't be anxious.
I think there is definitely a need out there to bring in more education. Women tend to take care of everybody else around them and not themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you choose to explore cannabis for emotional and hormonal health, consider starting small.
GUPTA (voice-over): It's all information that April, who is now an empty nester, wishes that she had had when her kids were young.
AYERS: There's so many women that I talk to that really are just like, I would have been a better mom 30 years ago if I had been able to microdose.
GUPTA: What would have been different?
AYERS: I felt like in my 30s, I sweat the small things and I think if I just had that gummy that I could have just taken just to take the edge off.
Here do you want it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do.
GUPTA (voice-over): April now calls herself a microdoser, meaning she takes small doses, typically one to five milligrams of non- intoxicating cannabis strains throughout the day to deal with the pain and insomnia that has come with aging. Some, like April, swear by it. But make no mistake, even small doses can cause anxiety, dysphoria and memory loss.
Do you wish you had started using cannabis earlier in life? AYERS: I do, so do my kids. When they were in high school, they're
like, I think I want to smoke a joint, I'm like, absolutely not. Have a glass of wine. I wish I had done that so differently. I wish I had actually educated myself on what it could have done for me. But again, I was in part of that stigma.
GUPTA (voice-over): A stigma, not just breaking down here in Oklahoma, but all over the country. The canna-mom movement has now spread nationwide.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They're called cannon bombs, and there are groups all around the country and right here in the Sunshine State.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Here in Missouri, recreational cannabis has been legal since late 2022.
GUPTA (voice-over): It's almost impossible to know exactly how many mothers are using cannabis in the United States. A lot of women may still be fearful to share that information, but the most recent study of the nation's drug users estimates nearly 19.5 million women aged 12 or older consume marijuana within the last month. With more than 85 million mothers in the United States, it's reasonable to believe that millions of them are consuming cannabis in some way.
I traveled to Boston to learn more about this from a pragmatic, science-backed voice, someone we have leaned on over the years for these weed documentaries, Dr. Staci Gruber.
How have things changed, would you say, over the last 12 years or so when it comes to cannabis?
GRUBER: There is a seemingly almost universal acceptance at this point that cannabis or cannabinoid based approaches to things like medicine and therapy are alternatives for folks where we didn't used to think of them as options before.
[20:20:06]
In the very beginning, it was much more of, are we really sure there's anything to this? And I had a lot of colleagues tell me that I was in large part probably throwing my career away.
GUPTA (voice-over): Her research institute, which is called MIND, Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery, has a specific women's health initiative, and many of her subjects, you guessed it, canna-moms.
GRUBER: They live their lives. They drive their kids to appointments. They go grocery shopping. They're responsible for dinners and planning vacations. And cannabis is part of their day-to-day routine.
GUPTA: Do you think that's been driven by the decrease in stigma? The dissatisfaction with alcohol? Or what do you think is going on?
GRUBER: Yes, I think the answer to that is yes.
GUPTA: All of that.
GRUBER: Women are more likely to lean into things that will help them, whether it's taking, quote, "the edge off" at the end of a day or to help quietly, maybe not so obviously, address sleep disruption, mood dysregulation, or chronic pain.
GUPTA (voice-over): And it turns out all of these issues affect women more than men. Sleep disruption? That's more severe for women than men because of the hormonal changes of menstruation, pregnancy, menopause. As for chronic pain, women are disproportionately affected by painful conditions such as migraines, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. And then there's depression and anxiety. One in five mothers are impacted by those mental health conditions.
GRUBER: There are many more women now in the cannabis industry helping other women understand the whats and the whys, and the hows, and that is a game changer for people.
AYERS: There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
AYERS: Thank you. Good to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good to see you.
AYERS: I think that canna-mom, I hope it takes over the soccer mom because I was a soccer mom. And trust me, if we had all had an edible before those games, we would have been great.
GUPTA (voice-over): But it's important to be cautious. Is cannabis really that great for all canna-moms? I started to hear about a growing trend that really concerned me. Pregnant women using cannabis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:27:10]
GUPTA (voice-over): What you're watching right now will shock you. Pregnant women using cannabis. It's happening now more than ever.
BIYYIAH STRICKLAND, RESEARCHER, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY: That has pretty much doubled since about 2002, 2003. So it's very, very common these days.
GUPTA (voice-over): Biyyiah Strickland is a researcher at Wayne State University in Detroit, which is now at the forefront of studying cannabis use in pregnancy.
I think for a lot of people who may be watching, this may be the first time they've even heard of this or considered this. How widespread is this?
STRICKLAND: Younger moms, we have where the prevalence of cannabis use during pregnancy is upwards of 40 percent. What we're seeing here in Detroit, some preliminary findings with our study, 26 percent of moms are using cannabis during pregnancy.
GUPTA (voice-over): I saw it firsthand when I was traveling through Oklahoma.
FROST: Hello.
GUPTA: Hello. Do you remember the day you found out you were pregnant?
FROST: I was feeling shock, disbelief, but also gratitude..
GUPTA (voice-over): While the news filled canna-mom Jasmine Frost with joy, she was also consumed by anxiety. That, along with depression, are clinical diagnoses she had been treated for most of her life.
FROST: When I was on Xanax and Klonopin and antidepressants, anti- anxiety meds, either I was a zombie and I was just staring into space, or I was in complete breakdown mode.
GUPTA (voice-over): Jasmine says she was able to stabilize her mental health for the time being by using different strains of CBD and THC, and then in 2024, she got pregnant. First came the nausea, then the lack of sleep, and she was riddled with anxiety. So once again, she turned to cannabis.
FROST: I needed something to help ground me, so I wasn't taking pharmaceuticals because that's something I did not want to do.
GUPTA: And did your mom instincts ever trigger you and say, hey, maybe I shouldn't do this?
FROST: No. Didn't trigger me to say no, but it triggered me to be more mindful. I definitely tapped down on my consumption.
GUPTA: I think the initial instinct for anybody would be like, hey, you got -- I mean, we're talking about an unborn child here and the potential harm.
FROST: Beforehand like I've kind of done a little bit of research on consuming cannabis with pregnant mothers. So as far as me feeling like there might be a potential harm, I needed more data to support that, especially from my standpoint and personally, I knew that I wasn't doing anything that was going to be extremely harmful for her, but only boost me in order to boost her.
[20:30:05]
GUPTA (voice-over): Jasmine did not feel comfortable telling her obstetrician. She thought she would be judged, but she did reach out to Ebony, who is a trained pregnancy doula who also studies cannabis for medicinal use.
JONES: I asked, do you know the risk and the benefits of cannabis consumption.
GUPTA (voice-over): It's something she asks all of her pregnant moms.
JONES: It's my job to make sure that they are educated and making the best decisions for themselves.
GUPTA (voice-over): Jasmine gave birth to Aria in July 2024.
FROST: Absolutely perfect little bundle of joy.
GUPTA: Has there ever been any adverse effects, do you think, from consuming cannabis during pregnancy on Aria?
FROST: She's meeting and beating all of her milestones.
GUPTA (voice-over): But that's just one story, one experience. This type of cannabis use is controversial, and here potentially criminal.
There has been a bill proposed here in Oklahoma specifically targeting the use of cannabis during pregnancy, essentially making it illegal. And there's been another bill proposed as well that would require dispensaries to post very explicit warnings about the potential dangers.
(Voice-over): And it's not just legislators who are against it.
AYERS: I just don't believe in it. You've got another body in there, and the couple of women that I have had come through that were pregnant, the infants were not healthy.
GUPTA: You're due in February?
MARY LANE, PRE-PREGNANCY CANNABIS USER: February 4th. Yes.
GUPTA: Congratulations.
LANE: Thank you.
GUPTA: How are you thinking about cannabis and pregnancy?
LANE: So I don't just because there are two studies I read that had nothing but one study said they're not sure. And so just to protect the baby, I decided not to use it. Honestly, there's not as much information as you would like.
GUPTA (voice-over): And the information that is out there can be confusing. Yes, there are a lot of studies which point to the risks. Premature birth, low birth weight, heightening anxiety, aggression, hyperactivity, autism.
They don't talk about a direct cause and effect, and no definitive link has been created between cannabis use and some of these harms. There's association studies.
DR. GENESTER WILSON-KING, OBGYN/PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF CANNABIS CLINICIANS: Right. And that doesn't mean cause and effect.
GUPTA: Do you think in some ways that's been interpreted as a green flag for women to use cannabis?
WILSON-KING: Some people can interpret it that way. Absolutely. I don't want it to be a open door for people to just say, oh, well, let's just keep using cannabis throughout pregnancy.
GUPTA: There's a lot of this telehealth now?
(Voice-over): Dr. Genester Wilson-King is president of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians. Over the years, this board certified obstetrician has had pregnant patients use cannabis in rare cases. The first time she suggested a patient try it was almost 20 years ago.
WILSON-KING: She had experienced hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy.
GUPTA: She was vomiting, nauseated nonstop.
WILSON-KING: Yes. Couldn't keep anything down. She was almost hysterical and was considering termination.
GUPTA: Presumably she tried other things at this point?
WILSON-KING: Absolutely. As it turned out, throughout the first trimester into the early second trimester, it took maybe two or three puffs a week, and she didn't experience the hyperemesis like she experienced it before.
GUPTA: How did the baby do that you're talking about?
WILSON-KING: Great. She's just gone to college.
GUPTA (voice-over): Now, again, let's be clear. These are anecdotes. They are not science. They are not conclusive proof of safety for the developing fetus.
WILSON-KING: We don't know. We don't know all of that.
GUPTA: That sounds scary.
WILSON-KING: That is very scary.
DR. HILARY MARUSAK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY: So these are human brain specimens.
GUPTA (voice-over): Back at Wayne State, Dr. Hilary Marusak is a developmental neuroscientist trying to understand fetal cannabis exposure. She loves brains, something I can certainly relate to.
MARUSAK: It's the most interesting organ in my view. And I hope you agree.
GUPTA: I mean, without question.
(Voice-over): For starters, I wanted to know, does cannabis cross the placenta?
MARUSAK: Clinical data shows like there is a mechanism by which cannabis can cross the placenta and deposit into the fetal brain. Like that's been really well-studied. And that's about week seven of gestation. So we're at Wayne State University's MRI research facility. We're
finding that kids exposed to cannabis prenatally are showing differences in structure as well as functioning about a decade later. So when they're in their early teen years.
GUPTA (voice-over): They're seeing subtle differences and weakening in the neural pathways of the brain.
MARUSAK: This is the hippocampus, as you know well. It's really important for emotional learning and memory. It has a high density of cannabinoid receptors, which is how we think that cannabis interacts with the brain in the body. And that area in particular seems to be really sensitive to developmental cannabis exposure.
[20:35:07]
GUPTA: Is there a most vulnerable time when it comes to the brain?
MARUSAK: In utero, it's when the system is really active and critical for making sure that the brain is wired up properly. But that continues, as you well know, through the adolescent period and even into young adulthood. And that's when a lot of these systems are being crystallized.
GUPTA (voice-over): Now, that's very important. Cannabis' impact on the brain. There is a long period of vulnerability.
MARUSAK: Brain development extends through the 20s. It doesn't just stop when you're, you know, legally an adult at age 18.
GUPTA: People are making some of the biggest decisions of their life at that time.
MARUSAK: Yes, the irony.
GUPTA: Like starting to drive. They vote. They may pick, you know, partner for a family, jobs, all that sort of stuff. But at the same time, you're saying that's the most vulnerable time when it comes to cannabis use for frontal lobes and judgment.
MARUSAK: That's right. Yes. There are so many different views about cannabis. Half the people say it's amazing. And then the other half say it's terrible. I think as a scientist, it's really important to be really balanced in our view about what the data actually shows. Like a lot of things, a one size fits all approach is way too simplistic.
GUPTA (voice-over): That's something Staci Gruber agrees with as she investigates an overlooked and sometimes ignored group of women who are increasingly turning to cannabis to help with their love life.
GRUBER: The big challenge is what they try and how they try. And that's the real question.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:41:29] GUPTA (voice-over): Back at the Cowboy Cup in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
AYERS: Look at you all cowboyed out.
GUPTA: You like this, huh?
AYERS: I do.
GUPTA (voice-over): With dispensary owner April Ayers.
So what are you looking for here?
(Voice-over): She's on the lookout for new offerings.
AYERS: And I just found out they came out actually something just for women. For that kind of sexual mood. So.
GUPTA (voice-over): Cannabis for sex. It came up a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can cannabis help me get aroused?
GUPTA: How are you doing?
(Voice-over): And several other times, as I traveled around Oklahoma.
You say arousal, you mean like for sex?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct. Yes.
AYERS: This one, I love this one. This is the love.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It helps with sexual wellness. It gives you heightened sexual intensity.
GUPTA (voice-over): It's perhaps not entirely surprising 50 percent of women entering midlife reported poor sexual well-being. Up to 78 percent of women in perimenopause experienced sexual dysfunction. That number is even higher for those in menopause.
AYERS: We are an all-female staff up here.
GUPTA (voice-over): And turns out that is the most common age range of April's cannabis consumers, 45 to 60 years old.
I feel like in some ways the last demographic that you'd think would be using this regularly would be perimenopausal, postmenopausal women.
AYERS: Right.
GUPTA (voice-over): But that seems to be the fastest growing population.
AYERS: I agree 100 percent. I really feel like once you hit perimenopause, menopause, post, whatever it is, it's literally like being on your period for 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. GUPTA (voice-over): Twenty-four hours a day, round the clock of
shifting hormones, which can cause everything from mood swings to joint pain to hot flashes to sleep problems, to lowered libido.
AYERS: The other thing with menopause is you have memory loss and stuff like that.
GUPTA (voice-over): April knows. At 55 years old, she is in menopause and this is her routine, a CBD and CBG gummy in the morning. Those cannabinoids don't get her high, but keep her calm, she says. A CBD drink later in the day.
AYERS: In this way, I'm nice and friendly.
GUPTA (voice-over): And at night, she says, a low dose psychoactive THC gummy with CBD and CBN gummy to help her sleep and minimize hot flashes.
AYERS: It's helped my mood be very steady and most of Western medicine hasn't helped with those mood swings.
GUPTA: How does it work?
WILSON-KING: The endocannabinoid system, which helps balance sleep, eating, memory.
GUPTA (voice-over): The endocannabinoid system, or ECS, is often called the body's master conductor. It controls pretty much everything, from mood to sleep to appetite to pain. The ECS keeps us in tune, in balance, and that means just about anything can activate the system. A common problem, inflammation. Your body reacts by making endocannabinoids.
Think of them as your body's own naturally produced cannabis. They lock onto these receptors throughout the central nervous system called CB1 or CB2, and they help decrease the production of inflammatory molecules and fast. The problem, though, as we age, we don't make as many endocannabinoids as when we were younger.
GRUBER: As it turns out, the aging endocannabinoid system may very well benefit from a little tiny bit of a nudge from an exogenous cannabinoid in ways that we wouldn't necessarily expect in younger users.
[20:45:04]
GUPTA (voice-over): The symptoms of menopause have been notoriously challenging to treat. Until recently, there was a black box warning on hormone replacement therapy, but that is still the first line choice.
WILSON-KING: It's the gold standard, but there are women that don't want to use hormones or are unable to use hormones because maybe some conditions that contraindicate the use of hormones. So cannabis can help.
GUPTA: Is it the general approach, say, look, we've tried everything and now we're going to do cannabis? Or is it thought of increasingly as a first line therapy?
GRUBER: I generally see people who have tried pretty much everything. I almost always say this is sort of like a last ditch effort.
AYERS: Let me grab your med cards, please.
GUPTA (voice-over): That was the case for Brenda Tsukas and her daughter, Anna Henson.
AYERS: You also have $10 in loyalty points.
BRENDA TSUKAS, CANNABIS USER: Oh, awesome.
GUPTA (voice-over): They started using cannabis when it became medically legal in Oklahoma. Brenda has been a long time sufferer of fibromyalgia, a painful autoimmune disorder which intensified during menopause.
TSUKAS: I felt instant relief.
GUPTA: Wow. Did that surprise you?
TSUKAS: Oh, it shocked me. It shocked me because I'd been in pain for years.
GUPTA (voice-over): For her daughter, an Iraq war veteran struggling with physical pain and PTSD, cannabis turned out to be a better option than the pain meds she was prescribed, especially now that she's in perimenopause.
ANNA HENSON, CANNABIS USER: I'm night and day. Before I wouldn't come out of the house, I wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't go anywhere. It helps so much. It helps with everything.
GUPTA (voice-over): But again, as compelling as these stories are, they are still just stories. Staci Gruber is now busy trying to collect the data.
GRUBER: Most people don't realize that most studies are not conducted with women in mind. They're just not. And women comprise more of the population who is -- who are in need than not.
GUPTA: It's ridiculous. Right?
WILSON-KING: Yes. It's didn't -- they didn't start including women until the '90s.
GUPTA: They didn't start including women, they say, well, because women have hormonal cycles, they're not going to be as good a subject for study.
WILSON-KING: Right.
GUPTA: All this sort of stuff.
WILSON-KING: And they may be pregnant. We don't want to get involved in that.
GUPTA (voice-over): So most research and drug development has traditionally focused on men, not women.
GRUBER: And that's why I think it's important to have empirically sound data to help follow these types of movements, if you will, because everybody says it's great to have this, but we don't have any data to lean into.
AYERS: There is trial and error in it. And like it's like anything in life, if you're not open to that change, then you can't expect a different outcome.
GUPTA (voice-over): And as the business of cannabis continues to grow, so do the regulations around it. Back in Oklahoma, we meet one woman putting her life at risk to make sure the industry is safe.
I couldn't help but notice when we walked in here, you have security.
ADRIA BERRY, DIRECTOR, OKLAHOMA MEDICAL MARIJUANA AUTHORITY: Yes.
GUPTA: That was a little surprising to me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:52:19]
GUPTA: We're driving to a secure location outside of Tulsa, a small town called Sperry, Oklahoma. We're going to go meet a woman who is hated by some in the cannabis community so much that she now has to travel with security because of the death threats she's been receiving.
Hi. Sanjay.
BERRY: I'm Adria Berry.
GUPTA: Yes. Sanjay.
BERRY: Nice to meet you.
GUPTA: She's in good hands, I promise she's safe.
(Voice-over): Adria Berry is the director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
Couldn't help but notice when we walked in here, you have security?
BERRY: Yes.
GUPTA: That was a little surprising to me.
BERRY: A lot of that was coming from our call center receiving calls that they found worrisome. Our social media team finding kind of threatening statements. A lot of it was personalized towards me. I'm kind of the face of the agency. GUPTA: Did it ever make you want to quit?
BERRY: Yes. I have wanted to quit.
GUPTA (voice-over): Her journey with cannabis began in 2018. A lawyer, she was hired to oppose the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative. Like me, however, when she started to look at the science, when she started to hear the stories from patients, something changed.
BERRY: I've seen it throughout my lifetime that I've had friends that were obviously sometimes self-medicating with it, but it sometimes helped them with whatever they were dealing with. So I've always believed that this plant does have medicinal value.
GUPTA (voice-over): Surprising to hear from Oklahoma's chief cannabis enforcer. But as we were touring a cannabis farm, it started to make sense.
BERRY: I see what will be medicine that will end up on dispensary shelves.
GUPTA: You're the regulator. And yet your first thought is, this is a medicine.
BERRY: Well, it absolutely is. And it will be once it grows into its full adulthood.
GUPTA (voice-over): And because she believes it's a medicine, Barry says safety is key. Every step must be regulated.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Local dispensaries worry greed is growing from all this green.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now it feels like everybody has got their hand in the cookie jar.
GUPTA (voice-over): She's cleaning up what has truly become known as the Wild, Wild West. At the height of the green rush, two years after legalization, there were almost 3,000 dispensaries and 10,000 growers, with almost 400,000 licensed patients, 10 percent of the entire state.
[20:55:02]
BERRY: So it was clear that there were some tightening up that needed to happen. We are cleaning up the industry. In the end, that means there will be safer product on the streets for -- and in dispensaries for patients.
CALDWELL: We like seeing her. We know our medicine is safe and we want other people's medicine to be safe, too. And so the more good actors in the game, then the better for all of us.
GUPTA: Are there a lot of bad actors?
CALDWELL: There's more enforcement, so there's been a lot of people who are no longer here. GUPTA (voice-over): It's a tough business. Bonnie told me that F5
Farms has been broken into several times. And for April at Cowboy Kush, there have been other safety issues that she's been dealing with as a woman.
AYERS: A lot of the men tend to think that they can take advantage of you because either you're stoned or you don't know what you're doing. And I've seen a lot of dispensaries where women have been sexually harassed.
GUPTA: Are you a fan of regulation or are you concerned about it?
AYERS: There's still a big black market out there. I do think inspections still need to occur. Licensing still needs to occur.
GUPTA (voice-over): There are also undercover shoppers from Berry's Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority. They secretly buy samples from across the state that are then tested in this new state-of-the-art facility in Oklahoma City.
BERRY: We're testing not just for THC potency, but we're testing for pesticides, yeast and mold, heavy metals. There are some innovators making some very high, like Delta Eight products. So our lab is testing for those kind of things also to find out what kind of new cannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids are entering the market.
GUPTA (voice-over): As she tightens up and protects the supply chain, there is one area she has not been able to change.
BERRY: In Oklahoma we have no qualifying conditions to get a medical cannabis patient license, so it just requires a visit to a physician who will sign off and give a recommendation to a patient. The patient then applies with our agency and they receive their patient card. So there are no qualifying conditions required.
GUPTA: So anybody can get a card basically.
BERRY: Yes.
GUPTA: That seems like it really blurs the lines then between medicine and recreation.
BERRY: Yes, that has been noticed and stated in Oklahoma.
GUPTA (voice-over): Without a cap on the number of licenses and who can get them, the distinction between the legal and illegal market is fuzzy at best.
BERRY: But the distinction truly is at the end of the day, if it's coming from a regulated market, it's tested. You know, it's grown properly. It has been through a tracking system. So you're buying a product at a dispensary that is better quality than what you're buying from the street corner if you're buying illicit products.
As far as medical versus a maybe an adult use or just anyone can utilize it, you know, you still do have to go through that step of talking to a physician here in Oklahoma. So that does differentiate from just a pure adult use market where anyone can walk into a dispensary at any time.
WILSON-KING: That's a difficult part. The adult use products are primarily and predominantly THC, and the way it's used, you know, you're using it to get high. Yes, some medical patients want to get high, but most of them want their symptoms relieved. And they use lower doses. The adult use much higher doses, much higher concentrations.
GUPTA (voice-over): I saw it up close at the Cowboy Cup.
How do you find the line between medicine and recreational?
CALDWELL: Cannabis can be fun, and sometimes recreation is medicine. Having fun and laughing, but also people can go home and be like, I need to sleep. So I'm going to use this, or I want to hang out with friends and be social.
GUPTA (voice-over): As the Cowboy Cup comes to an end, the votes are all in. Who is the best in Oklahoma weed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First place F5 Farms banana bread.
CALDWELL: Well, tomorrow it's back to the grow, back to the grind. You know, it's 365 days a year. It's a really tough industry. And so we just want to be able to be there next year, be there the next year after that and just keep, keep growing.
WILSON-KING: More women are using it. More women are getting benefits from it. We're driving the car now. We're the drivers.
AYERS: I think it finally says that women are comfortable with who they are, and they're not going to worry about what other people think. They're going to do what's best for them to be their healthiest version.
GUPTA: Do you feel like this is the era for women and weed?
AYERS: I do. I really do.
