EDITOR’S NOTE: Watch “Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports: Weed 8: Women and Weed” at 8 p.m. ET Sunday, April 19, on CNN and streaming on the CNN app on April 20.
When I started filming the first “Weed” documentary back in 2012, I could not have predicted where this journey would take me — or the stories that would keep unfolding long after that initial exploration into the world of cannabis.
At the time, I thought I was making a single self-contained film about a controversial plant and its place in modern medicine. What I didn’t realize was that I was also beginning a long, evolving conversation about hope, healing and who gets to be taken seriously when talking about something as provocative as medical marijuana.
Over the past year, I’ve traveled across the country filming the eighth installment in this decade-plus-long series. This latest chapter focuses on women and weed — a natural progression, and one that felt overdue.
Ebony Jones hosts a bonfire party in her backyard in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jones calls herself a "cannopreneur" and hosts educational cannabis events for women in the community. - CNN
What I immediately learned was that cannabis has become a lifeline for countless women who feel unseen by conventional medicine. They are grandmothers trying to ease the side effects of cancer treatment, athletes managing endometriosis, teachers navigating the sleeplessness and mood swings of menopause. Everywhere I went, I heard versions of the same story: “I tried everything else, and nothing really worked. Cannabis was the only thing that helped.”
As we learned, this is unfortunately a familiar pattern rooted in a long history. For as long as medicine has been practiced, women’s health concerns have been minimized, misdiagnosed or dismissed.
As a young doctor, I saw this with my own mother, and then again 20 years later with my wife. Conditions like autoimmune disease, postpartum depression and chronic pain syndromes were too often chalked up to stress or hysteria. Even now, women remain underrepresented in clinical trials, even though biological sex can dramatically affect how medications work or if they even work at all. This exclusion has left major gaps in our understanding of how best to treat half the population, and women have unquestionably suffered as a result.
When it comes to menopause, the situation is particularly problematic. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) once promised relief, but warnings and controversies about potential risks left many women worried. Faced with few good options, it’s no wonder so many are turning to cannabis. In the data, you see it clearly: Women now outpace men when it comes to cannabis use, especially among middle-age and older adults.
In the stories I gathered over the past year, I heard something profound: a quiet revolt against being ignored.
One of the most surprising places I found this revolution unfolding was Oklahoma. The state that once had some of the toughest drug laws in the country is now, somewhat affectionately, called “Tokelahoma.” Since medical marijuana was legalized there, an entire industry has sprung up seemingly overnight — scrappy, local, women-focused and driven by a can-do ethos that could only happen in America’s heartland.
April Ayers, right, advises Brenda Tsukas on which cannabis products are best for the pain relief Tsukas is looking for. Ayers owns Cowboy Kush Dispensary in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and says her primary customers are women ages 45 to 60. - CNN
I met women who had become unlikely entrepreneurs, building businesses powered by equal parts grit and compassion. There was April, a mother in Tulsa who pivoted from selling houses to dispensing cannabis-infused edibles that help women manage chronic pain. There was Bonnie, a young businesswoman in Tulsa growing strains that could help women with everything from sexual dysfunction to insomnia. And then Ebony, a trained chef who moved to Oklahoma to make edibles, is now a community doula and cannabis educator at the heart of a community of users called cannamoms.
What struck me most was how mission-driven these women were. For them, cannabis wasn’t about escaping reality; it was about reclaiming agency.
These women are rewriting the narrative around cannabis — rooted in scientific data, which they are slowly starting to gather as well. They’re creating products specifically for women, guided by empathy and experimentation rather than stigma or shame. It’s a movement born not in laboratories or boardrooms but in kitchens, home gardens and local dispensaries.
The larger conversation about medical marijuana also continues to shift at record speed. This year alone, several major medical organizations have called for a reevaluation of cannabis’ classification as a Schedule I drug, arguing that the evidence for its medical use can no longer be ignored. There’s promising research into cannabinoids for neurological conditions, chronic pain and even autoimmune diseases. Women are leading the way there, too. Dr. Staci Gruber, a pioneer in cannabis research at the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery, known as MIND, in Massachusetts, is putting a spotlight on cannabis for endometriosis and symptoms related to menopause. Dr. Hilary Marusak, a developmental neuroscientist at Wayne State University in Detroit, is at the forefront of how cannabis affects the brain across every stage of life.
But for every scientific breakthrough, I have found there’s still a frustrating lag in policy — and a deeply human cost to that gap.
Meeting Charlotte Figi more than 10 years ago, and hearing her story, changed everything for CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. - CNN
To that end, I can’t talk about this subject without mentioning Charlotte Figi and her mother, Paige. Charlotte’s story changed everything for me. She was just a little girl with a rare form of epilepsy — Dravet syndrome — who went from having hundreds of violent seizures a week to almost none, thanks to a high-CBD cannabis extract. Telling her story in my first “Weed” documentary opened the world’s eyes to the real medical potential of cannabis and made the abstract heartbreakingly personal. Charlotte’s life — and her death in 2020 — continues to guide my thinking about this plant and its power.
When we spoke with Paige again recently, she told me she still hears from families who began their own journeys because of Charlotte: mothers desperate to help their kids and women desperate to help themselves. Her grace and determination remain an anchor for my thinking about this topic, a reminder that behind every “case study” is a family trying to survive and a woman refusing to be told there are no options left.
That spirit is what drives “Weed 8.” This isn’t a story about drugs; it’s a story about dignity.
It’s about women who are learning to trust their own experiences, even when the medical system doesn’t. It’s about communities where science, storytelling and compassion collide. I’ve seen women in Oklahoma farm fields and urban greenhouses who talk about cannabis with the same seriousness they’d bring to any other treatment plan. They study and teach all about terpenes and cannabinoid ratios; they share lab results; they hold each other accountable.
It’s “grass-roots” medicine in the truest sense.
What makes this moment so extraordinary is that we’re watching two revolutions intertwine: one social, one biological. The first is the broader destigmatization of cannabis, as state after state dismantles old laws and outdated myths. The second is a more intimate one, happening in living rooms and small businesses across the country. It’s the realization that healing doesn’t have to wait for permission.
Cannabis is not a cure-all. I want to be clear about that. But for many women, it’s a start. It’s a way to soothe what’s broken, to reclaim rest, to reconnect the body and mind. And perhaps most important, it’s a conversation begun on their own terms.
As we present “Weed 8” to you, I find myself thinking back to Charlotte, the spark who lit this entire journey. Her story reminds me that change often begins with one brave person willing to challenge the status quo.
The women I’ve met this past year carry that same spark forward. Together, they’re cultivating something larger than any single crop or product. They’re growing a movement rooted in belief: that women’s pain matters, that women’s research matters and that sometimes, the path to progress starts in the most unexpected soil.
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