- 3 minutes ago
The Sisters of the Valley farm is a one-acre plot wedged in Californiaâs sprawling, agriculture-rich Central Valley, about 10 miles outside of the city of Mercedâs limits. On first glance, it looks a lot like the other farms in the area, those that grow almonds, carrots, blueberries, and other wholesome crops. A narrow, worn-out asphalt road sandwiched between two enormous almond groves leads to an idyllic plot; thereâs a garage-turned-greenhouse and two light blue ranch houses: one where the farmers live and eat, and one known as âthe abbeyâ that serves as the base of business operations.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We are anarchist activist sisters.
00:03Our goal is to have weed nuns in every city and town across the planet.
00:10Hi, I'm Jackie.
00:12This is the story of how I spent a week with weed nuns in the middle of California,
00:16and I only accepted 30% of the joints that were offered to me.
00:21I'm not an over-the-top weed enthusiast or anything,
00:24but I love meeting badass people committed to living life on their own terms.
00:28That's why I'm on my way to meet a woman known as Sister Kate.
00:35Sister Kate is the charismatic founder of Sisters of the Valley,
00:39a women-led business that crafts medicine out of cannabis.
00:43She started it in 2014, and by 2016 she was making $60,000 each month.
00:49Thing is, cannabis commerce is technically illegal in Merced County.
00:54Police cruise around and rip plants by the ton.
00:57We have to walk a very, very fine, clean line here.
01:00Pay every cent of taxes, no cash sales,
01:03and I know that if we would give them a reason they would shut us down.
01:08Sister Kate is the most fascinating human being I've ever met in my entire life.
01:11She is such a kind-hearted person, but at the same time kind of a gangster a little bit.
01:16She and her cannabis crusading activist sisters aren't quote-unquote real nuns.
01:22And they don't claim to be.
01:24We are not at all patterned after Catholic nuns or the Catholic Church,
01:29or affiliated in any way with a man-made or contemporary religion.
01:33We've patterned ourselves after the Beguines.
01:35The Beguines came before the first Catholic nun.
01:39They worked together.
01:40They prayed together.
01:41They dressed alike to identify their enclave.
01:43And they were hemp farmers.
01:45Just take what you need out of your purse and lock it up.
01:48It doesn't exactly complement your outfit.
01:50Sister Kate, Sister Cass, and Sister Freya are in Merced to pick up payment from their first wholesale client,
01:57a head shop downtown.
02:00So what am I going to owe?
02:02You're going to end up owing $120.
02:03$120.
02:05Even though Sisters of the Valley makes medicine out of cannabis,
02:08the cannabis they grow is non-psychoactive.
02:11So the weed that they're growing isn't going to get you high.
02:14It's not high in THC.
02:16But what it does have is CBD, the aspirin-like chemical compound that treats pain.
02:22And this should be everything that you asked for.
02:24All right, we can go buy some white blouses.
02:29Desiree, what about this one for making medicine?
02:31Oh, yeah.
02:32The ones where we splash and throw away.
02:36Sister Kate was born Christine Musing.
02:38Have a good day.
02:39Thank you. Have a nice day.
02:41Originally from Wisconsin, she lived for eight years in Amsterdam while working as a business consultant.
02:47And needless to say, she doesn't really fit in here.
02:50It's not her scene.
02:51Well, you have to understand I worked in London, Stockholm, and in Denmark.
02:56And so I think that it's about as ugly and as crude as you can imagine.
03:03It's unfinished to me.
03:04The whole place is unfinished.
03:07But not everybody feels this way about Merced, California.
03:11I was born and raised here on a dairy.
03:13And I've seen this town grow up.
03:15Like anywhere else we've got our problems.
03:18But we're a town of good people.
03:22It's always been kind of run down, a boring place to be, and a very poverty-stricken place to be.
03:29As a kid, I didn't know that there was anything else.
03:32If you've never been to the big breadbasket middle of California before, just know that it is strikingly different than
03:40the state's northern and southern parts.
03:41This is not the California with the beaches and the tech stuff.
03:47This is a place built on agriculture, where 25% of the population lives in poverty.
03:54Violent gang activity here revolves around prostitution and drugs way less chill than weed.
03:59Law enforcement is reportedly overwhelmed, underpaid, and facing high turnover.
04:04Education rates are like way behind state averages, and there's just nothing for kids to do.
04:10That turns bored kids into criminals.
04:13Anybody who's smart teaches their children, keep your head down, don't talk to anybody here, go to school and get
04:20out.
04:20This is not a nice place.
04:23Cannabis commerce is changing that.
04:26Legalizing cannabis commerce would mean economic opportunity and hope for generations living in poverty and incarceration here in the Central
04:34Valley.
04:35California legalized medicinal marijuana quite some time ago, but there are still tons of local restrictions that have made it
04:42impossible for a cannabis industry to really thrive here.
04:45Plus, there's still plenty of people in jail for minor weed-related charges.
04:49On November 8, 2016, the people of California changed that.
04:54Sort of.
04:56Proposition 64 amends the state criminal code to allow adults 21 and over to possess a personal amount of marijuana
05:04and to grow up to six mature plants at home.
05:07But this bill leaves a lot out.
05:09Despite widespread availability and growing acceptability, California residents still have to fight to frame marijuana as a medicine and a
05:17cash crop.
05:18It's not like we all wake up one morning and go, eh, nothing wrong with marijuana, let's make it legal.
05:24And it happens, in my opinion, at a grassroots level.
05:27It doesn't happen in the halls of Congress.
05:29It doesn't happen in the halls of city government or county government.
05:33It happens on the street level.
05:35It's really more a war between an over-controlling, abusive, pharmaceutical and medical environment that's got our whole government rigged
05:45into it, the FDA and so forth.
05:47So, for us, it's an activist protest.
05:50We don't take pills.
05:51And this is our day-to-day medicine.
05:54I'm not a follower of the movement, per se, but I do believe in civil liberties.
05:58I think that they should be free to live whatever life they choose to live.
06:01And that's why I feel so good about being out here.
06:04Anne, come on in and have a seat over next to Sister Freya.
06:09We'll start with a little prayer.
06:12And I brought some sage over, and I think I have a lighter.
06:15Okay, Mother God has put a blessing on these hands that work the medicine today.
06:19Make these women keep connected with their ancient ancestors and with the medicine-making work that they do together.
06:25Let them heal and carry the healing and the power of this plant-based medicine on their mission to the
06:31people.
06:32Amen.
06:33I brought all the women together to show them how to trim.
06:36You can see I'm trying not to cut on the actual bud, but around the bud, but get all these
06:42sticks and all the hairs.
06:45And when we're done, this is what is considered dispensary quality.
06:49That's what we want, because when we take it in there, if it needs more trimming, the price drops.
06:54Most of these women have not been through a harvest, and we've got a significant CBD crop drying in our
07:02shop that needs to come in.
07:05Women have taken the brunt of all poverty in all countries.
07:09Anywhere you see poverty, women are suffering more from it than men.
07:12This order is about making honorable jobs for women.
07:16Our Holy Trinity is spiritualism, servitude, and activism.
07:22The servitude is our medicine-making, and the activism is to change the laws so that they're more equitable for
07:28everyone.
07:29Sister Kate leads a revolving cast of workers that has grown steadily since 2014.
07:35This is Sister Anne.
07:36Can you tell me about how you started working here?
07:40Well, I was in Los Angeles, and I was just tired of the city.
07:47And the crazy life in there where you cannot really sleep because the helicopters and the sirens from the fire
07:55workers, the police, and it's just no peaceful sound of the birds like right now.
08:07And, well, I came across Sister Kate on the internet, and I liked the fact that she was working with
08:14medical marijuana.
08:16And I was impressed by the commentaries of the customers saying they were healed by the medicines.
08:24And I sent her a message.
08:26I came to visit, and I liked it.
08:28So I decided to move.
08:31It's fun.
08:32I like it.
08:33It's fun.
08:35What have you learned about the plant while you've been here?
08:38It's like a very intelligent plant that is totally connected with us, who can heal us better than our Creator,
08:49God and Mother Nature.
08:53She knows the recipe.
09:08Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, why, ow, ow.
09:16We'll up the concentrate, we'll double the concentrate.
09:20Okay.
09:21So that went from four ounces to eight ounces.
09:23And then these are the two strains that I think we should use for now.
09:27Just for our first batch, and then I've got Sister Claire working on my calculator so I can do, so
09:33I can start to mix in some of these higher ones.
09:37This is up your bud, so three ounces should be good.
09:40And then we're just going to up the concentrate, right?
09:41Yes.
09:42And we're doubling the concentrate.
09:43It's sort of an experimental batch to see what happens.
09:46Magic.
09:48Intuition magic.
09:49One of the Sister's most popular products is the salve.
09:52Sister Kate gave me a jar, and it is, in fact, amazing.
09:56Here's how they make it.
09:57They melt a ton of coconut oil in crockpots.
10:00They have eight.
10:01We'll let that do its thing and be back in a second.
10:04All this weed.
10:05Remember this weed?
10:06It has been dried, cured, and placed in this refrigerator.
10:10Sister Freya grinds it, measures it out, and stirs it in the oil along with essential oils like lavender and
10:16calendula.
10:17Then they package it up, let it solidify, and sell it online.
10:21They've got customers all over the world.
10:23Our customers are Republicans, Democrats, tall people, short people.
10:29Suffering is very democratic.
10:31Sister Anne and her seven-year-old son have been waiting weeks to move into their new apartment.
10:37The apartment manager is reluctant to rent to Sister Anne because she works with cannabis.
10:42I know it's difficult because you're a mom of teenagers and you don't want them to get into something that
10:47would disrupt them for sports and for what you want your kids to grow to.
10:54I absolutely understand how you feel and you don't have to worry because I have a son and I want
10:59the same for him.
11:00Thank you. Have a nice day. Bye-bye.
11:06She's like, oh, you work with the Sisters of the Valley.
11:10And she's like, I don't like people that smoke weed, you know.
11:17And she's like, I don't like weed.
11:19Sister Kate had to get involved to secure Anne's housing.
11:22At this point, she's used to convincing people that her workers aren't up to anything fishy and she has plenty
11:28of documentation to prove it.
11:30I also wanted to let you know that the precedent has already been set in courts in California.
11:35The landlord cannot be responsible.
11:37You don't have to worry about it with Sister Anne because she doesn't smoke anyway.
11:40She just came here to work in the business.
11:42My point is we wouldn't dream of putting you at risk.
11:45And if you ever look at our website, which is sistersofthevalley.org, you can see that we ship our products
11:51all around the world.
11:52And we would not be able to do that.
11:54We use the post office and we use regular banking systems.
11:57And I will provide the report from the Sheriff's Department as well as the permits that I do have if
12:03that will satisfy you.
12:06Okay.
12:08Okay, then she's going to be bringing those to you this afternoon.
12:16Sister Anne's struggle is just one example of how weed is still vilified and misunderstood by many.
12:23And it just doesn't make any sense to me.
12:26Long before Jesus Christ was even a dude, people have been using cannabis to treat many, many ailments.
12:32Including addiction recovery, anxiety, chronic pain, seizures.
12:37I could go on.
12:38But this should serve to prove that it is medicine.
12:42And that's what Sister Kate is really out to convince people of.
12:45We're sort of asking the whole world, all the women, to participate in just growing the non-psychoactive cannabis.
12:52And daring the law to shut us down.
12:55We all come from the goddess and to her we shall return like a drop of rain flowing to the
13:08ocean.
13:10Mother Gaia, bless the people that work the land.
13:14Restore them now.
13:16Give them rest and peace as they've all worked very, very hard to make this happen.
13:20To bring the crop in.
13:22And to toil over the plants in a sacred manner.
13:24And to follow the principles of the sisterhood.
13:29It's not easy being an outsider in a small town.
13:32And it's certainly not easy to organize for social change and then turn that into legislation.
13:38But it's worth it.
13:40Sister Kate is changing the way that people think about cannabis.
13:43And I couldn't be more high.
13:46I mean, proud.