What’s growing in Grandma’s garden? A book on how to talk about cannabis with children

What’s growing in Grandma’s garden?

Susan Soares, a California-based cannabis activist, aims to answer that question in a book written to help parents and children talk about cannabis.

 

 

Not so long ago, Soares was anti-cannabis and an active Mormon leader. That was until an injury sustained playing broom hockey led to a concussion and a ruptured eardrum.

In the two years that followed, she suffered extreme pain and stress as a result of the accident, to the point of experiencing suicidal thoughts. That’s when a friend who grew cannabis in her backyard suggested that Soares try cannabis to help control the pain. And it did.

Soares went on to dedicate herself to cannabis education and advocacy and to establish non-profit group Cannabis Awareness Rallies and Events (CARE). Unfortunately her community, family and church rejected her treatment–and Soares herself. Undaunted, she moved away, became a liberal democrat and continued her advocacy work.

The book tells the story of a small boy who visits his grandma.

PHOTO: @facebook

“He comes over and he loves Grandma’s garden. They plant together, he loves pulling out carrots and eating them while they’re so fresh. And they talk about good bugs and bad bugs and they go roly-poly hunting,” Soares told High Times.

“Grandma also happens to have a greenhouse full of weed plants in her backyard. She explains to the little boy that he can ‘look but not touch,’ and that as a child, his brain is still developing. He will have to wait for adulthood to get baked with Grandma,” Soares was quoted saying in the High Times report.

The book ends with the family having a barbecue in the backyard.

“And someone’s drinking a beer and somebody else has some wine. And Grandma is sitting downwind with the wind blowing in her hair and she’s smoking a joint,” says Soares.

Soares is now raising money on Facebook to self-publish the book.