A Community Story

On my very first day of graduate school, way back in the analog days, I was assigned to write a short paper on the meaning of community. I remember thinking about my family, my friends, those of the same faith, my neighborhood, my city, my state, my country, the world.

Where are the boundaries of my personal community?

How expansive or restrictive should I be?

I never came up with a solid answer beyond an understanding that my community includes those I’m willing to protect and believe would step up to protect me.

And honestly, I’ve been thinking about what community means ever since.

For a while now, I’ve been welcomed into the world of people employed in cannabis. A wildly  diverse collection of people, business and issues that impact everything from cosmetics to criminal justice. I’m also a member of an even more niche cannabis community, Jews in Weed. But that niche community is just one part of my expansive personal community.

I’ve come to think of community like a financial investments, best to diversify.

One community I’m very passionate about are the women leaders in cannabis.

There are so many women like myself working in cannabis, and I would like to believe the evolving cannabis marketplace would elevate these competent cannabis women. We need women leaders who are able to create strong communities that see each other across stories of division and difference to recognize that we are better in connected and collaborative communities.

For most of my lifetime, professional women who could be leaders in cannabis were not able to be honest about their cannabis use.

There’s been so much shame around cannabis because we’ve been siloed, fed lies and propaganda about a plant. We’ve been intentionally isolated from each other so that we couldn’t know the power cannabis held. But as we end our silence, we’ve found purpose through being vulnerable and open so that together we can crush the story of shame.

Although I stepped away from cannabis advocacy almost two years ago, I still want to part of this expanding community of women in cannabis. I want to influence the conversation around cannabis and caregivers by normalizing cannabis through storytelling.

That was my mission with The Canna Mom Show podcast.

When the podcast ended I found myself with more time and space to create. During that time I envisioned stories for my cannabis community where women who enjoy ganja are the stars of their journeys.

So I took action.

I wrote a book.

It’s a contemporary romance, but for cannabis lovers.

She’s Taking a Break is a cannabis romance. It’s the story of a sophisticated stoner who is the heroine of her story. In today’s blog I’m inviting you to join me on a heroine’s journey, because unlike a hero, heroines never journey alone.

We step up.

We offer help.

We collaborate.

And I need people to help me.

If you’ve read this far, thank you!

Now the fun part. I’m looking for readers who are excited to read and review She’s Taking a Breakbefore we official launch on, you know it, 4/20/26!

We are going to be launching the eBook for the pre-launch price of just $2.99. And all I ask is that once you finish is that you either leave me a review in Amazon or reach out to me directly at Joyce@TheCannaMomShow.com.

THANK YOU!