‘HOLY SMOKE’:
California’s self-ordained ‘weed nuns’, Sisters of the Valley, are on a mission to heal and empower women with their cannabis products. Recreational use of marijuana was legalised in California in November 2016, and this week Nevada followed suit.
NEVADA, the only state where both gambling and prostitution are legal, is adding recreational marijuana to its list of sanctioned indulgences for adults, with sales kicking off at more than dozen shops beginning on Saturday.
Over two dozen US states have legalised some form of marijuana for medical or recreational use, but it remains illegal at a federal level.
Authorised marijuana shops will be able to sell up to one ounce (28 grams) for recreational use by customers 21 years and older, said Stephanie Klapstein, spokesperson for the state Department of Taxation.
Public consumption of marijuana is prohibited and Nevada has enacted new regulations against edible forms of pot that could appeal to children, such as fruit-shaped candies infused with cannabis. Nevada is also imposing a 10% excise tax on pot sales in addition to the regular 4.6% state sales tax.
Nevada has yet to finalise the exact number of stores that regulators will approve. Sixty applications were submitted from across the state, according to Klapstein, whose department is overseeing the state’s pot market.
Only medical cannabis dispensaries, which became legal in the state in 2015, are eligible to apply for licences for recreational sales.
Many are expected to open in Las Vegas, Nevada’s largest city and gambling magnet.
“Tens of millions of visitors per year, from all over the US and around the world, will see first hand that regulating marijuana works,” said Mason Tvert, a spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that backed the November 2016 ballot measure.
Meanwhile the Sisters of the Valley, California’s self-ordained “weed nuns”, are on a mission to heal and empower women with their cannabis products.
California legalised recreational use of marijuana in November 2016.
Based near the town of Merced in the Central Valley, which produces over half of the fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States, the Sisters of the Valley grow and harvest their own cannabis plants.
The sisterhood stresses that its seven members, despite the moniker, do not belong to any order of the Catholic Church.
“We’re against religion, so we’re not a religion. We consider ourselves Beguine revivalists, and we reach back to pre-Christian practices,” said 58-year-old Sister Kate, whose real name is Christine Meeusen. She founded the sisterhood in 2014.
The group says its Holy Trinity is the marijuana plant, specifically hemp, a strain of marijuana that has very low levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in the plant.
Members turn the hemp into cannabis-based balms and ointments, which they say have the power to improve health and well-being.
She said the group had roughly $750 000 (almost R10 million) in sales last year, the most since it started selling products in January 2015.