Sharon Letts, Writer/Producer,
Secret Garden Productions
Thankfully, within the cannabis industry, there are many helpful and caring women who help each other through the obstacles – even those in our own minds as the voice in our head can be our worst critic!
Describe yourself and what you do.
I’m a features writer, television producer, photographer, and California cannabis patient.
What inspired you to start your company and when and how did you get started?
I first smoked weed in 1975, when I was 16 years old, in a gas station bathroom on the way to high school. School was never a strong point. I’d been failing my classes and was always regarded as not being very bright.
After a series of tests during elementary school, my mother was told I would always have to work harder than most – just to be average. Not very inspiring for a young girl. I used to cry over my homework.
The day I smoked that first joint was the first day I had clarity and could focus on my school work in class.
It was the first time my mind didn’t wander. There was an assignment to write one Haiku poem. I knocked it off in 10 minutes and was first published as a poet at 19.
I’ve never written anything without being medicated since – not for television, in-house at newspapers, and now magazines. It’s my Ritalin and always has been. It clears my head. If I’m writing and start to trail, I take a few hits and am immediately able to get back to work. Cannabis makes me a productive person.
What is your vision and mission for your Canna business?
I was in mainstream media working as a field and segment producer. Nine years ago, I was working on documentary and magazine shows in Los Angeles, when I was brought up to Humboldt County to produce a news show. While working in media in the Cannabis Capitol of the World, I presented with Lobular Carcinoma (breast cancer/mass, not tumor) and was given the strong oil made using the Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) recipe. This put the cancer into remission as well as did away with 10 prescription medications and numerous supplements for myriad symptoms – from thyroid disease, menopause, chronic pain, and more.
I’ve been writing about cannabis as medicine ever since for many magazines and publications around the world. My series of essays, Educated Stoner, is now becoming a book and was just translated into Spanish for La Dosis, a cannabis newspaper published out of Mexico City.
I’m also developing intelligent magazine and documentary shows that focus on cannabis as medicine for television. My two fictional series that are based on fact, Cannaopolis and Humboldt Stories, are launching as eBooks soon. I’ll be shopping them around for a TV or film deal, as well.
What is your Superpower?
Prayer, cannabis, and my mom watching over. She passed of lung cancer from secondhand smoke in 1999. I talk out loud to her on a regular basis. I feel she’s with me. Knowing this helps me continue my good work in the face of persecution and much criticism.
What has been your greatest obstacle in this industry or with your business to date – and how have you overcome it – or are you still working on tackling it?
Writers are traditionally underpaid, even in television. The cannabis industry does not pay its writers a living wage. It’s been an ongoing struggle to make ends meet while continuing to tell the stories of healing. I’m overcoming it by working on other projects – namely developing intelligent television shows on cannabis as medicine, and working on a few book projects.
Thankfully, within the cannabis industry, there are many helpful and caring women who help each other through the obstacles – even in our own minds – as the voice in our head can be our worst critic!
What is your vision for women in this industry? What would you like women to know about entering the Cannabis industry?
I’d tell anyone coming into this, or any other industry, to put your blinders on and do good work. Women are innately nurturing and most are coming to the table as covert medicine makers and healers.
Legalization means more healing, no matter what rhetoric is out there, and women are taking the lead in stovetop apothecary within this industry.
Network and help others, and it will come back to you – that’s the law of Karma, and I believe it’s real. The women’s movement within the industry has proven that when we help each other we prosper. Strength in numbers has never meant so much.
her canna life: high-minded women 
Very nice
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