A Woman’s Guide to Cannabis: Using Marijuana to Feel Better, Look Better, Sleep Better–and Get High Like a Lady

Nikki Furrer

Workman (DECEMBER) Softcover $16.95 (224pp) 978-1-5235-0200-4

Aimed at demystifying cannabis for new users, Nikki Furrer’s A Woman’s Guide to Cannabis promises beauty, well-being, and better health through regular cannabis use and offers advice for those willing to self-experiment.

A cannabis activist and advocate, Furrer’s personal stance is to experiment with cannabis now and reap the purported advantages while science and legislation catch up. Stressing that cannabis is natural medicine and therefore wholesome, beneficial, and benign, Furrer firmly believes everyone could benefit from a small, daily, preventative dose.

The guide mixes general information with legislation, and recreational uses with purported medicinal ones. There’s a scientific survey of cannabinoids and cannabis’s legal status in the US, but there’s also a tutorial about dispensary etiquette, a guide on how to host your own cannabis party, indices of specific cannabis strains and modes of administration, and a DIY section filled with recipes for edibles and topicals.

Although profuse, the guide’s facts walk a fine line between technical truths and speculative extrapolation. While Furrer admits there’s ambiguity and complexity around cannabis’s legal usage, potential positive outcomes are highlighted while variables, drawbacks, and limitations are minimized. Often, this framing seems optimistic at best and potentially misleading at worst.

Often, the guide reads like a sales pitch, ostensibly aimed at women. But if there’s something particular about getting high “like a lady,” it isn’t made clear beyond the packaging and a fascination with the body as a self-improvement project.

Speaking with a convert’s enthusiasm, Furrer extols cannabis’s magical properties, giving it the glossy magazine treatment. The guide’s exuberant cheerleading presents cannabis less as menace, more as medicine.