Episode 505: Breaking the Cannabis Stigma in the Elder Generation - Liz Lights Up

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is Robin Swann with Cannabis Health Radio, and as always, we are here to speak for the trees. And today I am with a beautiful elder, Liz Lights Up, and I met her actually on another podcast, and she really just kind of touched my heart in the way that she's an advocate for seniors. Oh. She's been out here using her voice and making things better and educating people who are a little bit older dying from reefer madness, not really 100% sure on how cannabis really is truly a medicine. So I wanted to bring her on the show and just visit with her so she can demystify some things for all of our elder listeners. How you doing, Liz?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm really excited to talk about my mission.

Yeah, I, exactly. So tell me, like, I just wanna know all about you. When did this mission of yours start? What got you excited about cannabis and what are you up to now?

I started when I was 16 in high school, like everybody else. But back in those days, we had corncob pipes. Um, and, um, you know, I, I smoked until I really spent a lot.

Well, I mean, back in those days, it was really illegal too. So like when you were 16 years old, prohibition was— so where, where are you from and what was it like navigating that early prohibition?

Well, I'm from New Jersey. I'm 67. Um, I am a retired nurse. I had, I was in marketing for many years. I got back into cannabis in 2018 when I had a real bad back and I was able to get a medical card. It was either that or pain medication, which was hell no. And, uh, that's how I got back into it. And that's how—

So, I mean, how did you start using it? Were you just smoking it up or were you rubbing it on your body using oil? And what was it like navigating the climate of, you know, the cannabis space without dispensaries?

Now or then?

Then.

Oh, let me tell you, delivery is so much better now. Um, um. The way it worked back then, you know, we'd call our contact and, you know, we'd have some kind of code name. For us it was, hey, have you seen Gumby this week? That's

funny.

And then, you know, we'd get together, go stop by, and our hookup would take the weed out of his pants, hand it to you, You paid them, and they weren't Ziploc bags back then. They were— you had to lick the flap. Sanitary we were not.

No. Where that flower came from, you know, probably Mexico, right? Like, those are about—

It didn't even matter where it came from, you know? And, and you— these were even before names, let alone— so, um, yeah. And then after you paid them and you got your weed, you had to smoke some with them.

Oh, oh, that was the tax. That was the back tax.

That was the etiquette. That was, that was the delivery etiquette.

Okay.

So it's so much better now, you know, and more sanitary.

Yeah.

That's what we did. We got high. That's all we did. You know, it wasn't about anything at that time until I had some dental work and I came home and I smoked and my pain was gone.

Was that like the aha moment, like beyond just the sex?

Yeah. And my husband thought I was crazy. He's like, yeah, you're just high. I'm like, yeah, I am.

And look, my mouth don't hurt.

Yeah. You know, so that's, that's how it all, all began. And I, I kept smoking until I had my kids.

So you stopped smoking when you became a mom?

Yeah. Uh, after my second child.

So, and then, and then how did you, like, your kids grew up and then your back hurt and you were like, let me get me some of that Shiva. Like, what happened? How did you, how did you end up as an advocate for seniors?

Um, you know, over the years, you know, um, at parties, somebody'd have a bud here and there, but nothing. And then, like I said, in 2018, I had a very bad back. I have no disc between my L5 and S1. But I have a bone spur that's pressing on my sciatic nerve, so I haven't felt my top of my left foot in years. So I went through this medical emergency, found all this out, and it's like, you can take painkillers. And I'm like, no, it's just not going to happen. And then I did a little research, got, um, got my medical card. I'm in New Jersey, and at the time you had to, you know, you had to bring like A stack of medical records. You had to take a class. And the class at the time, because it was like 2018, there wasn't much around. So the class consisted of, okay, there are 3 strains. It's sativa, hybrid, and indica. And we're just learning how to do it in vapes, in cartridges. That was it. Or you could get a Pax.

A Pax? What is that?

One of those dry herb vapes.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And those were your options. And then you would make an appointment with the dispensary and they'd sit and talk with you. They'd ask you your symptoms. It was wonderful.

Yeah, that part sounds really nice. Like, unfortunately that part did not parlay into legal cannabis.

Yes. And, uh, it really needs to.

Yeah,

you know, I, I went to my medical dispensary, blah blah blah, and then recreational became legal, and, and it was like, it was like stepping into the Twilight Zone.

Because?

Because back in the day, we could MacGyver anything into a smokable device.

Soda cans, that sister, right? Alcohol cans, toilet paper rolls.

Oh yeah. I mean, the possibilities were endless. And now you've got apps that are heating up weed that's really not weed, but it's kind of liquidy, oily. What the hell is going on?

Oh yeah. What is all this? The introduction of concentrates to the market, correct? Yeah.

You know, and the edibles and it was very overwhelming. And not only that, you're still trying to navigate the stigma of reefer madness. So what really got me started was looking at advertising. There was no advertising directed at seniors, nothing. And going in and talking to budtenders, asking questions like, And then they talk about terpenes. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So that's what started this journey. And my real big, my soapbox was, you show me an ad with 3 grandmas sitting around the table smoking a bong and sharing an Entenmann's, and that's an ad I can get behind.

So are you creating those ads now? It's like, are you hanging out with grandmas and Entenmann's and some coffee?

Well, not Entenmann's because they never replied to my email, but I did get— shocking, I know, right?

Shame on them.

Like, what were they thinking? But I did get a company called Schnick Snacks.

Oh, that's Snickers Snacks.

Snickers Snacks. And they're very good edibles. They really are. Rice Krispie treats and, you know, things like that, chocolate, their own kind of Nutella. And so I reached out to the owner and he's more than happy to supply me, you know, a table full of, uh—

Oh, I love that. I love that. That's something I really love about the cannabis industry, how like the authentic people in it are very giving with the products. You know, it's a good way to know if you're—

Yeah, it's an entirely different world. I come from the corporate world. You know, I was a nurse.

That's a very interesting thing that you said there. You come from the corporate world, you're now navigating through the cannabis world as an advocate. Can you, like, it's not business as usual over here in the cannabis space. Oh my God. No. Can you kind of expand upon that a little bit, how corporations don't survive in the cannabis space?

The first thing, which was a hard pill to swallow, it, it was, um, emails never get returned in 24 hours. You're lucky

if

you get your

phone,

you know, and, and you're lucky if you get one in 24 days, you know. But that's, that's who we are. And, and I learned very quickly, like, if you can imagine being in an airport, okay, and you know how they have those walkways, the, the electric walkways?

Yeah.

And one side is the corporate American people and one side is the weed people. And on the corporate side, everybody's all, mm, and, you know—

Buttoned up.

Their polo shirts, and they're on their phones, and they're not communicating. And then over here, you have the stoners. Everybody's hanging out. Everybody's BSing. There's butterflies flying around. Somebody's having a sesh. It's such a different world, and it's so inclusive. And everybody has each other's backs for the most part. I mean, there are bad actors. Of course, you're going to have that in any industry. But for the most part, it's an incredible world. And I am so grateful I found it. I feel like I found my tribe. I really do. This is where I belong. And seniors are the biggest and the fastest growing demographic in the industry.

So how did you— what made you like— I mean, I understand all of that, but how did you navigate from like, wow, this is great. I'm loving my coffee and Danish. and my cannabis to like how I'm gonna help, how do I get this message out to other people in my demograph? Because you're in a, an interesting demograph cuz you're, you're baby boomers, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of really conservatism, but there's also Vietnam, there's also the sexual revolution, there's also women's lib. I mean, there's a lot that happened for your generation of women. Y'all ushered in so much for us.

Uh-huh. Yeah, we did. And it's just talking to people, you know, and listening. And that's a big part of it. You listen to understand. You don't listen to reply. And that's a huge difference.

Yeah.

And in talking to people, talking to bartenders, and finding out how necessary this was and how overlooked we as seniors are, And how much we don't know and how much the industry doesn't know about us.

Yeah.

You know, so I've spent a lot of time talking to dispensaries, talking to grow facilities, talking to different brands.

Are they responsive to your conversations? And they're like, wow, we're leaving money on the table with these old folks. We better go help out their arthritis and glaucoma.

Yeah, exactly.

So something that I deal with in my practice is youngsters, like we'll call 'em 40, 50, you know, 30-year-old people, like, you know, those guys, they want their parents who are suffering from lots of issues to benefit from the healing properties of cannabis, but their parents are not into it. Do you have anything like to share? Because that's a very, you know, I always tell people it's the old, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, and you can never force anybody to do anything. Do you have any wisdom or insight on, on that, how to share with parents?

You can one, join my site and learn all about cannabis, you know.

And your site is lizlightsup.com, so you can send— they can send their parents there.

Yeah, or school, skool.com/lizlightsup.

Love that.

That is an actual free website for, uh, seniors and anybody who is really interested in learning. Starting from the very basics. And I do product reviews and things like that. But the most important thing, the very most important thing is education on both sides of the fence. Like I said, education leads to awareness, awareness leads to advocacy, and advocacy leads to destigmatization. And that is half of the problem with the seniors. One, they don't know what the hell is going on because it's, it's crazy out there. And, and then you have your reefer madness and they're, you know, it's hard for them to get past it. It's still hard. Like, you know, you're still coming to terms with, with not having to drive with weed down your pants. It's a real thing, you know.

It's a real thing. And then like we were visiting before we started the show about what's going on in Texas. So it's more fear-producing, you know, it's more fear-producing. But, and then so like the school, S-K-O-L?

S-K-O-O-L.

O-O-L. Okay. Dot com backslash LizLightsUp.com.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're going to put this in the notes for everyone who's curious. You'll be able to find her that way. But so this is a way that you could bring you and your parents to the conversation. And what do you find with seniors as the most— like, what's the thing that just makes them go, not for me?

Misinformed. I'll give you a perfect example. I think it was— I think it was Colorado. Don't quote me on it. But when one of the states became recreational, And everything started coming out and edibles. Their emergency room visits tripled with seniors. Their senior, uh, tripled because nobody educated them before giving, handing them a bag of gummies. Okay.

And once you have one bad experience, you're not going to come back. You're never going to come back. Yeah.

And you know, that's shame on the industry. It really is.

Well, like you said in the beginning, I don't think that the industry thought that there would be a marketplace for seniors. I think that they, you know, when the industry went recreational, it was really funded by the porn industry. And, you know, they weren't, so it was all about hot girls, scantily clad, and, uh, you know, the still is THC that you can actually muster. And I, I think that, you know, seniors need to know that they don't need to have high THC. Exactly. That there's a lot of benefit in the other 100+ cannabinoids, and THCA is very helpful and doesn't have any psychotropic experience. So do you share with them, like, have you noticed that seniors prefer gummies over topicals? Or, you know, I see you got your little vape pen there. Is that like, is that something—

Oh, and this is, I quit smoking and this is nicotine. I quit smoking I want to say 14 years ago.

And so now you're hitting a nic vape, a nicotine vape. Gosh darn, Liz, I thought you were hitting a cannabis vape. I mean, what are you doing here with some nicotine? Trade that out for you. Yes. I mean, everyone wants to see Grandma hit a, you know, like a,

a bong,

a Granddaddy Purple. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Everyone wants to see Grandma hit a bong for sure.

But I find that most seniors are old school and like joints, not even blunts.

For real. I'd say that's 100% true.

Yeah. Not even blunts.

Yeah. No, just joints. I think it's because your demographic, especially, you know, they are the ones that really brought cannabis culture to the forefront.

Yes.

I mean, anti-war and cannabis were the They were together.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And when we say drugs, people often think of cocaine and heroin and all the opiates and all the good drugs. But for a very big part of this culture, most of the '70s was just weed. It wasn't until much later, like '79, '80—

Yeah, the '80s.

That cocaine and those drugs came into the conversation.

Yeah.

Up until then it was just cannabis.

Yeah. And you know, you just got your weed.

Mm-hmm. So would you suggest that a bunch of grandmas get together and start like a knitting, like a, you know, like a knitting circle with a little bit of cannabis? Like what's a great way to start? Oh, that'd be great. Who's never used cannabis, who's very curious about this conversation, you know, and they're, they're gonna go to their local dispensary and they're gonna give Something a shot, do you think they should start with a topical, a concentrate, an edible? Like, where do you think the best— I mean, I know that it's very individual, but when you're encouraging people to experiment, where do you, where do you start them at? Just overall.

Overall, low, as low as you can get, and slow. Whether it's a topical, whether it's, uh, an ingestible. You know, you have to start slow. You have to learn how to use it. You don't want a bad experience. I'd rather you have no experience than a bad experience. But, um, whatever is your choice, depending on what your, what your end goal is, what is your goal to get from the marijuana? Is it to sleep at night? You know, is it, is it to relieve pain? Is it anxiety? Is it you need to eat more? So, you know, all of that plays into everything. And, and these are questions that budtenders need to ask.

You know, this is what the industry— Do budtenders have any requirements for education? Because I know they always want tips, but are they educated at all?

By the brands? Yeah. Which doesn't make them unbiased.

Exactly. Because they're being, they're paid advertisement for specific brands. So in your experience of, of using cannabis as medicine, have you felt a difference between using something that's really high in CBD and something that's really high in THC? And do you, which one, which cannabinoid profile do you lean towards?

I'm very big on CBG.

Yeah. That's the queen of the cannabinoids. First up. First up and out of the gate.

Yeah. CBG is, is my thing.

And you like it because why do you like that? Pain relief. Exactly.

Pain relief. And I like, uh, caryophyllene, which I'm probably not saying right, but that's just the way I say it.

Uh, the terpene? Talking about the terpene?

Yeah, the terpene caryophyllene, because it is, it's good with, for me, for the anti-inflammation. But I learned something recently that caryophyllene does not play well with THC. So if you have a high caryophyllene and a high THC, you're not getting your best effect. You, it'll look tasty.

Well, what's happening when you do that, then this is, I was just having a conversation with a scientist about this. So we only have so many receptors and they can only receive so many things at one time, right? So when carafylline and THC have a very similar objective inside of our body, it's just like turmeric and THC don't play together because they use the same receptor point. So they, they crash against each other and then you just piss them out.

Yeah. Nobody wins.

Nobody. You just, nothing happens for you.

Yeah. Yeah. And a big thing, you know, that I, I tell I tell seniors, I'm like, don't listen to THC. Don't pay attention to that. And it, sometimes it's hard because when you're trying to explain the cannabinoids and the terpenes, they're like, you can see their eyes going in circles.

Right, right, right.

So, you know, I try and keep it very simple. Um, I have a nice list on, on my website of the terpenes, kept it very easy to understand. And, um, You know, it's one of many modules that I have. I even have a module of 420 and 710 explained.

Oh, that's great. I know nobody knows what 710 is. Like, they're lost on that.

Yeah.

Even me, who's been in the industry my entire life, I just learned about it 2 years ago. And it's just basically the oil holiday, and it's only because 7 and 1 and 0 Upside down, upside down oil. So it's not a real thing, you know, don't be feeling like you're missing out on something. It's a marketing thing. Yeah, exactly. Explain concentrates and help people with— Yeah.

And you know, like they need to understand what they're missing out on or what, like we never heard of 420 in the '70s. We smoked pot every day or, you know, when it was available, you know, so every day was like 420, I suppose. You know, we just, we didn't, it, it, we just smoked. We just smoked. We got high.

So since you've been smoking for decades, you know, I know that you've noticed the weed has changed. The flower is not the same. It's so much stronger and so much like they're, I, I personally feel like they're destroying the plant by breeding out all of the undertones and the lower cannabinoids and pushing THC. Like, I'm, I'm not pleased about that. So as an elder, I think that, I don't think most people need 37% THC.

Oh God, no.

But when we give it, like, you know, something that I think people also don't really know is that the older you get, the less you need. So when I'm treating a child, I'm gonna be giving that child so much, so much more cannabinoids than I am somebody who's in their 80s because they're, they've build up as they go along. And this is where THC can, like a bad experience, like you mentioned, is a bummer.

Yeah. And, and that's, you know, and it's a shame because people can be helped so much and one bad experience, they'll never get that opportunity because they're not going to do it.

Yeah. They're not going to do it again. And that's why people like you, that's why we wanted to have you on Cannabis Health Radio because you

want

people to know that, you know, this is something that I hear in my practice a lot, people who want their parents to use cannabis if they're going through life-threatening illness, if they have arthritis, and you know, there's that fear about it. So people can find you, uh, tell us again all the places that people can find you and engage in your education and just your beautifulness because you have such a great personality and you're so willing. You'll, you'll visit with anyone who reaches out. Am I correct about that?

Absolutely. And I will talk to anybody who wants to talk. I love to talk.

And don't you go, don't you go live on YouTube too? Don't you have a YouTube station where you're often sharing your information?

Yeah, that's, yeah, I do product reviews. I do dispensary reviews. I'm going to be starting to do, well, I started to do dispensary pop-ups and I'm going to, you know, do that and then do 55+ communities and assisted living.

I love that.

Yep. But lizlightsup.com is my website. On my social, I'm Liz Lights Up. And school.com/lizlightsup.

And that's where I met you, was at school.com, right? That's the— that's where I think you and I met. We were on—

No, we had the It was the, the podcast, the Sativa Cross.

Okay.

Yes.

All right. That's another great one where you can find Liz on a regular basis, right? You're a returning guest there a lot.

Yeah.

I'd like to encourage all of you out there in podcast land, all of you who have elderly parents, or you yourself are, you know, in the more advanced wisdom years of life, If cannabis is something that you're curious about, you want more education, you wanna like just sit with your granny and have a nice cup of tea and a chat or an Entenmann's and some coffee and a joint, then please, Liz Lights Up is a great place to stop. She's such a beautiful soul. I can't say it enough. And her generosity of the knowledge that she's dropping is really incredible. So is there anything that you'd like to say to these folks before we say thank you for your time, Liz? Oh, thank you.

Just learn education, because the more you know, the, the better consumer you will be if you choose that this is the path you want to go down.

And once you're educated, this is the path that you will want to go down.

100%.

I guarantee it for sure.

Yep.

You know, Liz, you like me speak for the trees. Uh, we are part of the Lorax Thank you, family. So all of you out there in podcast land who are listening to this, remember folks that your currency for this podcast to continue is to like, share, and comment, because who's gonna find Liz if y'all don't get out there and share the gospel of cannabis and preach the good word of cannabinoids? So we are counting on you to share this information going forward. Thank everybody for their time, your are such a great gift. Liz is just a demonstration of the kind of beautiful people that show up in the cannabis realm.

Thank you. I am so humbled. I really am. That is so sweet. Thank you so much. And thank you for doing what you're doing. It's very important work and we need to get the message out.

Oh, all right. So everyone like, share, and comment. Do what Grammy says. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Cannabis Health Radio. We hope today's conversation has reminded you that healing is possible and that you are not alone. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with someone who may benefit. Every story shared helps bring the good medicine of cannabis to more people. For more episodes, educational resources, and community, visit cannabishealthradio.com and consider joining our Patreon family, where you'll connect with like-minded individuals As well as help support our work. Until next time, stay informed, stay curious, and keep advocating for yourself. I'm Reverend Dr. Robin Swan. Thanks for listening.