byandlarge – Mata

Paul O’Donoghue

A love for community – Founder of Give and Toke

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Interview BEE MOHAMED

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

MARK ANTHONY SMITH, a glitch and ghost in the machine

Mark Smith grew up in Nelson Bay, New South Wales where the trawlers dried their fishing nets not far from the main harbour and the old wooden wharves. He spent a lot of his time down the coast and spending time sitting with the old Italian and Croatian fishermen listening to their stories, when he was growing up. Mark was a keen, surfer, fisher and diver and spent a lot of time growing up in the bush, until suffering from a debilitating injury in his mid 20s.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words BEE MOHAMED

Some thoughts from Mark, shared with Bee Mohamed at the end of 2024

What was my North Star Ursa Minor moment, some say cannabis comes from the Stars the Canis Major to be precise.

Cannabis has been a caring nurse, and a cruel mistress in my life. In 1997, I travelled to Europe and spent some time providing vapes before returning to Australia in 2000 with the hope of helping patients here.

Unfortunately I slipped in a kitchen, hit my head on a small step and crushed a vertebrae in my neck. I suffered a cervical vertebrae injury at the C3 level and this was debilitating.

A horrible injury to deal with and it took me 9yrs to get over with trigger point injections and nerve blocks, the final straw to try and relieve the constant pins and needles. I was prescribed a whole range of pain medications, which eventually forced me to go cold turkey from the Lyrica, Orphenadrine and Endones.

Cannabis helped me through my withdrawals and I started gaining some quality of life. Without this plant, I would have gone to a dark place and I was losing grip of life. After tapering off my pain medications, I was ready to make a return to the workforce.

In 2013, I returned to the cannabis industry. While my injury left me with horrible nerve pain, I wanted to continue to make an impact and make a difference in the lives of patients who could benefit from this plant too.

I decided I was well enough to travel and had managed to re-enter the work force. I was sitting in a cafe near the Stradbroke ferry having breakfast when a little girl came up and looked at me with a glazed eye and pulled my breakfast off the table.

At that moment I judged this little girl and looked at her parents with a fierce look of, control your child, as she proceeded to have an epileptic fit in front of me on the ground. Thousands of thoughts ran through my mind of the judgement I had just given and the hopelessness of not knowing what to do in that instant.

As the parents ran to her, I disappeared into the commotion, feeling horrible for how in my mind I had just judged this little angel.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

I am Mark Anthony Smith, the eldest of seven children, a glitch and ghost in the machine. Having been brought up to put myself last and to fight for the betterment of the tribe, I have struggled with life in a big wild world where being selfish is the norm. I’m an idealist and that won’t change.

In 2015, I held the first therapeutic research licence in The Hunter Valley with Rangi Faulder, only to have the Federal Government hinder our efforts. When the Office of Drug Control was created, we lobbied the government to uphold the special access scheme when they tried to take it away from cannabis patients. There still remains little effort by the Federal Government for a compassionate scheme.

In 2017, I worked for an Italian company to create their first CBD cultivation in Castel Vecchio Abruzzo. I planted the first 3000 seeds of cbd in Greece at a farm in Nea Makri only to have the police come and spray them.

In Asia, I worked with the Malaysian Government and managed to get a stay of execution from Mahathir’s government for a cannabis criminal, and had the first import licence for seed until the change of government.

I also worked in Thailand for two years, and was the first western speaker in the Thai parliament. We worked to make it legal, inviting Californians and Canadians to be usurped for the capitalist rewards and not the benefit to people, many of the original activists being betrayed by the Government.

I have seen many of the original people fighting for everyone’s access, defeated to create change. I have seen the destruction to family units because access to cannabis is expensive and difficult. I have witnessed children taken from parents because they wanted to use cannabis as a safe alternative medicine. I have seen parents dying of cancer not being able to continue to afford their oils.

What is my North Star, you ask? It is to focus on the core purpose of what brought me to this industry. We need to find a way to provide medicine for the most vulnerable communities. We need to create a new access pathway so that children and those who need the medicine the most, are able to benefit from the plant. Home grown must be decriminalised.

We need to find a way to be compassionate again. We must do better in this industry and find a way to ensure that the plant is available to children and vulnerable people who need it the most.

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

A Love Story: Interview with TOM ARKELL

Tom Arkell is a psychopharmacologist whose research explores how drugs affect the brain and human behaviour. Tom has worked in Australia, the US and the Netherlands on studies exploring the effects of alcohol, cannabis and MDMA. Tom now leads a program of research that aims to better understand how medical cannabis impacts driving, cognition, and quality of life. He holds a BA (Psychology/Philsophy) and a PhD (Medicine) from the University of Sydney. In this intimate interview, Tom shares his emotions and vulnerabilities for his wife, Gabi.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Interview BEE MOHAMED
Words TOM ARKELL

I am Tom and I am sharing my story of how love entered my life on a MS word document. This is also the first time that I have ever expressed publicly about my wife that other people are going to read.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

Interview with Bee Mohamed on June 3 2025

How did you meet your wife, and what memories do you have of the first time you met?

For a bit of context, I met Gabi in Buenos Aires on New Year’s Eve in 2011. They don’t know how to make pizza there, but the choripan is great and the statues are pink.

I remember that t-shirt, I remember that smile, I remember the sound of her voice, I remember her hair, I remember walking by her side, I remember thinking ok wow! I like this girl, qué hermosa.

She even held my beer for me when I had to pee and I couldn’t believe she was still there when I came back. That night in my mind is a finely woven tapestry.

It’s colourful but monochromatic, lysergic, surreal but visceral, and you have to squint to see some of the details.

How did you feel after you met her?

I don’t even know how to describe how I was feeling the next day. Elated? Was that a dream?

Like huh what the fuck just happened? Yeah, maybe that. They don’t call me eloquent for nothing. I mean we met for a night, skyped for a year, and then I was eating tacos with her in Brooklyn. We might have smoked a couple of doobers too.

How did this connection and falling in love with Gabi change your life?

Love is a winding path that has brought me immense joy, a lightness of being, revealed my weaknesses but also providing a sense of calmness in a world that can at times feel turbulent and difficult to make sense of.

Describe how the relationship has been and what the relationship means to you.

We’ve since travelled the seven seas (mainly via the air), from New to York to Rome to Tokyo and home. We’ve had so much fun, and so many adventures, and so many bowls of noodles!

Sometimes more than I think I deserve. I count my blessings when I think back over the time we have had together thus far.

Of course, it hasn’t all been easy. We’ve had our challenges, we’ve had some problems, and I know we will have plenty more. What relationship doesn’t? Even roses need pruning.

It’s funny how sometimes you think you’ve got it all figured out, and then yet again you realise you know absolutely fuck all, and you have so much more still to learn. It’s humbling if nothing else.

We’ve now been best friends for 13 years and I know we always will be. There is little more I am sure of in this world. What I see in the future is more adventure, more late-night meals, more being responsibly irresponsible, more being wrong, learning to listen better, and learning to understand more. I don’t expect everything to go to plan, but I promise to be your best advocate, and your number one fan.

I’ve learned from you how to be more tolerant, how to get better at speaking about what’s going on in my head, how to worry less (at least a little bit less), how to be more present, and how to not take things too seriously. These are truly great gifts to have received.

We often say that we started as best friends, and I would add that everything else is a bonus.

With lots of love from me to you, Gabi.

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

BEE MOHAMED unveils how her inner compass guided her purpose

Bee has spent over 10 years in health policy, both in public and private sectors. In 2014, Bee Mohamed was the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of ScriptWise, a not for profit organisation dedicated to prevent the harms associated with prescription medication dependency and/or overdose. She placed this issue on the national health agenda, alongside families and individuals who have been personally affected. In the last 6 years, she has been in the medicinal cannabis industry, advocating to address systemic barriers that patients face in accessing their medicines. She is passionate about better drug policy reforms. Currently, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Laws and is an Ambassador for Harm Reduction Australia.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words BEE MOHAMED

From a young age, I knew my purpose in this world was to help others.

I was born and raised in Singapore, where arbitrary and unlawful execution (by death penalty) for drug-related offences continues. We learnt of the punitive drug laws in primary school, where drug use and/possession would mean you either end up in jail or dead.

I knew from a young age that this was inhumane, but of course my community was shocked by my opinions due to popular beliefs in Singapore that drug use or possession should be prosecuted.

My parents would agree that from a young age, I questioned everything – from the religion I was brought up with, cultural traditions and political systems. There was no doubt that I was always the ‘black sheep,’ non-conformist and odd one out. It was no surprise that I consumed cannabis as soon as I left Singapore, as an act of rebellion of course.

I migrated to Australia when I was 19, determined to make an impact in this world. I was always drawn to learning and reading about challenges facing the world – genocide, human trafficking, child soldiers, and the list goes on.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

Bee Mohamed, April 2025:

From a young age, I knew my purpose in this world was to help others.

I knew from a young age that this was inhumane, but of course my community was shocked by my opinions due to popular beliefs in Singapore that drug use or possession should be prosecuted.

I wanted to be an international human rights lawyer. I volunteered in impoverished areas in Jakarta and taught English in Vietnam for children with HIV. I think we learn empathy naturally when we travel and encounter people in the real world.

When I arrived in Australia, I worked with asylum seekers who were detained on Christmas Island where I helped newly arrived refugees from war torn Sudan. It didn’t take me long to realise that injustice existed in our own backyard.

Injustice exists in our healthcare system and I ended up in policy work, focusing on health. It was when it took me almost 6 months to advocate for a medical transfer for a Tamil asylum seeker who arrived with an amputated leg that I then realised my passion was better rights and sovereignty within the healthcare system.

I spent my first few years as a graduate in the walls of Parliament House in Canberra when the Gillard Government brought in the National Disability Insurance Scheme in 2012. I worked as a Policy Officer and gathered stories of those who will be impacted by the scheme.

During this time, I was diagnosed with PCOS and suffered from debilitating pelvic pain. As I grew up without pharmaceuticals, cannabis became my medicine of choice as my time in the health space got me intrigued with ‘alternative medicine.’

My life has always been about activism and the biggest milestone was in 2018, when I advocated to the Federal Health Minister, and all State Health Ministers to address the devastating deaths from prescription drug misuse and overdoses.

I witnessed the rising number of deaths caused by prescription drugs. Coroners reports on my desk every week, highlighting polypharmacy that eventually led to overdose fatalities. Families writing to us after losing a family member to a prescription drug overdose. This experience showed me the current practices within the Australian healthcare system and led me to believe that the system was failing in critical ways.

In September 2019, I started in the medicinal cannabis industry after being approached by Canopy Growth Australia to work in their Government Relations team. Once again, the injustice within the healthcare system was evident.

Patients were not able to access a medicine that gave them a quality of life. Affordability was a huge barrier, and continues to be. Legally, patients are not able to drive while on their medications and at times, subject to the discriminatory workplace drug testing. We need to do so much more and this inspired me to start Mata, where I hope through the power of these stories, we are able to create change within the healthcare system, through sovereignty and vitality.

Purpose feels good, because it is not really about you. I believe it is about how we can be of service to others and the importance of speaking up against any injustice when we see it.

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

DAVID HEILPERN shares his unique story

PROFESSOR David Heilpern is currently the Dean of Law at Southern Cross University, former magistrate, writer, lawyer, husband, grandfather. In 1998, Heilpern was one of the youngest Magistrates in New South Wales and he has been an advocate of prison and drug law reform.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words DAVID HEILPERN

When I started practicing law, I built up a steady client base of cannabis growers and users, and keenly felt the injustice of imprisoning people for the weed. Many magistrates locked people up in those days, even for first offence possession charges, while letting drink drivers and ‘wife bashers’ off with warning after warning.

I was seething at the hypocrisy, but largely silent – kids, security, fear of alienating the bench and my peers. But then I went to Auschwitz. I cannot overemphasise the impact this had on me, seeing the photos of my murdered relatives, the containers of teeth/hair/skin. I realised that evil is likely triumph if good people remain silent, and when I returned I committed to myself that I would speak up, and as a lawyer on the north coast of NSW, hippyland, there was really only one obvious cause.

I enveloped myself in the drug law reform movement, helping to kick off the first MardiGrass, running test cases, writing articles and books. I morphed from private practice into academia, and developed an extremely popular unit – the first of its kind in Australia, still titled “Drugs Crime and the Law”. We started a law school at Southern Cross University with an emphasis on personal and environmental justice. The cannabis movement directed tons of cash into the frontline radical environmentalist movement, and hence the connection between drugs and forest blockades. I encouraged this pairing in my activism, teaching and ongoing legal practice.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

MICHAEL BALDERSTONE, the original activist

Michael Balderstone was formerly a stockbroker, currently the President of the Hemp Embassy, Legalise Cannabis Australia party and the unofficial Mayor of Nimbin, a small but significant town to the cannabis movement. For the last 30 years, Michael has been the public face of the Northern Rivers Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) movement. He is a self-proclaimed hippie and the original advocate for all things cannabis in Australia.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words MICHEAL BALDERSTONE
Interview BEE MOHAMED

Bee Mohamed: From a spiritual perspective, how has cannabis helped you find truth in your life?

I think I am fortunate in many ways as I did not discover cannabis until I was 25 and that day had a profound effect on me. It was in Kandahar and a local Afghani invited me to smoke with him. I was smoking tabac anyway so inhaling was easy. I was in an orange groove and everything became liquid.

Different brightly coloured energies flowed up and down the tree trunks from the earth like each had its own multi lane highway. It was a mind blowing experience. Everything was connected, and awesomely beautiful.

That was my first wake up to there is a lot more to life than meets the eye! In a way, this was the ‘start’ of everything and I wanted more. I loved how the smoke emptied my mind and opened up intuitive doorways to the Truth.

A few months prior I had left my job in London with a stockbroker in a search for “whether there was a God or was it a dog eat dog world”. I’d been helping the rich get richer in my job but on the way to London from Australia, I’d stop over in Bangkok and had a glimpse of what we call third world living. Inequality amongst people is clearly the cause of so much angst and I needed to know if it was by chance or not.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 25 May 2024

Bee Mohamed: From a spiritual perspective, how has cannabis helped you find truth in your life?

Michael Balderstone: I think I am fortunate in many ways as I did not discover cannabis until I was 25 and that day had a profound effect on me. It was in Kandahar and a local Afghani invited me to smoke with him. I was smoking tabac, so inhaling was easy. I was in an orange groove and everything became liquid.

Different brightly coloured energies flowed up and down the tree trunks from the earth like each had its own multi lane highway. It was a mind blowing experience. Everything was connected, and awesomely beautiful.

That was my first wake up to there is a lot more to life than meets the eye! In a way, this was the ‘start’ of everything and I wanted more. I loved how the smoke emptied my mind and opened up intuitive doorways to the Truth.

A few months prior I had left my job in London with a stockbroker in a search for “whether there was a God or was it a dog eat dog world”. I’d been helping the rich get richer in my job but on the way to London from Australia, I’d stop over in Bangkok and had a glimpse of what we call third world living. Inequality amongst people is clearly the cause of so much angst and I needed to know if it was by chance or not.

BM: How did cannabis change your life?

MB: That smoke in Kandahar remains a turning point. I did not know it then but I had what we now diagnose as ‘PTSD.’ I had not shed a tear since I was ten years old and sent to boarding school.

It is very hard to put into words the relief I had from smoking cannabis. My mind was freed somehow, and with it my body relaxed. I used to get debilitating migraines, vomiting and hiding in the dark searching for silence. Virtually never again and that’s fifty years ago now, except a few times when I had stopped taking cannabis.

From then on cannabis was my friend on the spiritual journey. Now people call it medicine but I understand why temples were built for the plant in the past and in Jesus’s day it was called Gods gift. If something takes your pain away and makes you feel good is it medical or spiritual? Remembering the words good and god come from the same root gad, same as gather and together!

Somehow, in emptying my mind, cannabis sweeps an invisible veil aside and the Truth becomes obvious. I can also liken it to looking into a muddy stirred up pool, but after the smoke the mud settles and I can see clearly to the bottom.

Easy to understand why the CIA used cannabis as a truth drug back in the sixties, but also easy to see why they stopped after people got the giggles and munchies. Does it set free the child inside us?!

BM: Do you believe that cannabis can help people question the narrative by which we are supposed to live our lives?

MB: Cannabis is manure for our imagination. I’ve read in old Indian texts the advice to solve any problem is to get some ganja and go into the forest on your own, smoke it and think. It made me question everything.

Once I had a glimpse of the truth all my programming was in trouble! Excellent. How else can we change the direction humanity is going in, we must question everything and critically the consequences of our actions.

The hippie revolution which questioned everything was inspired by pot and LSD which laid bare the disasters we were headed for unless we change our ways.

BM: Nimbin is the heart of Australia’s cannabis culture and in a way, laid the bricks for the current industry. What truthful opinions do you have of where the industry is?

MB: Nimbin is the original heart of the alternative back to the Earth movement and cannabis is the sacred herb of that culture for many. The plant has shown us the Truth of how we are living and how we could live.

To live in harmony with each other and the Earth is the dream.

However, capitalism and the competition over who can make the most money is still ruling most people’s lives as I see it. We all need money in this system but it’s become equated with success. Like who dies with the most wins, right?! Wrong.

Who finds happiness is the real winner, I think.

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

Journalist and story teller, HELEN KAPALOS’S journey into cannabis

One of Australia’s most respected broadcasters, Helen Kapalos is an award-winning independent filmmaker, whose 2015 breakthrough feature film ‘A Life of its Own – ‘The Truth about Medical Marijuana’ was distributed globally by streaming service Netflix and continues to be broadcast as an educational documentary on medicinal cannabis across the world. During her career, Helen has championed better social policy outcomes for one of Australia's largest not for profits and continues to design and deliver media awareness courses for the Australian Defence Force in her role as a Media Specialty Associate at Melbourne Business School. She has led numerous state and federal submissions representing marginalised members of the Victorian community in Multifaith Policy, Family Violence and Multiculturalism. Helen remains deeply committed to providing better outcomes for medicinal cannabis patients, with her advocacy reaching the highest levels of government.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words HELEN KAPALOS
Interview BEE MOHAMED

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

BEE MOHAMED: In creating “A Life of Its Own – The Truth of Marijuana,” what was a powerful truth you discovered during the making of this documentary?

HELEN KAPALOS: That the truth finds us, and that being in our truth can commit us to higher journeys, as I discovered was the case for me with making ‘A Life of its Own – the Truth about Medical Marijuana’.

It all began when I was working on a program called ‘Sunday Night’, for the Seven Network, specialising in long form feature storytelling. I was assigned a story about a young man using cannabis to help treat the symptoms from his chemotherapy, for stage four bowel cancer. He was only 24, and he was really doing it tough – also using cannabis oil to directly treat his cancer. I had never heard of that before and quickly realised there was more to this. I could also see the courage it took him to speak his truth. He was a shy kid, modest and not a fan of the media or publicity and suddenly here he was in the centre of a story that magnetised so many influential change makers around him.

It was here that I witnessed the powerful pulling force of storytelling and how his eloquence and innocence invited so many others in to tell their own truth. Suddenly ordinary mums and dads, and people from all tiers of society added their voices. It was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever witnessed in my journalism career. People were explaining how they were being forced to source illegal cannabis to treat chronic conditions, such as intractable epilepsy, when all other medical avenues had failed.

The truth was that cannabis could be a potent healing agent and that more people needed to know and less people needed to feel shame about that. I felt the weight of responsibility to tell the story in its entirety and to reach as many people as possible. We were already experiencing very high engagement levels when the story aired, which allowed me to keep extending the investigation and airing more stories. That is, until the reality of commercial and ratings-driven TV came into the picture.

After running the second feature story, profiling a young Victorian family using cannabis oil to treat their young boy for a chronic condition, that family’s home was raided by police. The medicine was confiscated and it was devastating for the parents and I have to say for me as well. The news bosses were delighted as it made for great viewing, but I knew this raid took place as a direct result of me telling their story, which had a catastrophic outcome when the medicine was taken away by law enforcement officers. It was a painful turn of events that forced me to confront a glaring conundrum – that this style of journalism did not align with my values.

So, unquestionably the governing force that motivated me to make this documentary was embarking on my own truth. I had to go back to the start and ask myself why. Why did you become a journalist? The answer was simple: to tell the truth – to empower others to tell their truth, and for that truth to help us make better sense of the world we live in.

BM: What does truth and speaking the truth mean to you?

HK: Speaking the truth is sometimes easy, but most often, tough. Although I am a pretty direct person, I do not like upsetting people. I like pleasing them, which of course, means setting boundaries is a big theme in my life. At its worst, speaking the truth can alienate and divide, and at best, it is the ultimate act of emancipation,

In my case it unshackled me from a career that was threatening to erode my values and stepping away from that, and into this new world, where I had no idea what was next, or how I would get on in the world, was an unscripted adventure. Losing control of everything I had known – the safe life, the safe job, the steady income, the comfortable world I had settled into, meant I had to form a different relationship with the world.

It is where I came to realise the next truth in life; that we have a lot less control than we think, and that missteps, sidesteps, falling down and getting up again are non-negotiable truths, not just for me, but for everyone. Some people might like to think of these u-turns in binary terms like success and failure.

However, I learned that speaking my truth was the passport to a fulfilling life, and that it would sometimes invoke painful consequences along the way, and that’s how it had to be. What was seen (for me, this new freedom to create my own destiny) could not be unseen.

BM: What was the hardest truth you had to accept in your journey within this industry?

HK: I think the hardest truth is one that remains prescient for many of us; that not everyone’s actions reflect their mission truthfully, despite the story they tell. It’s easy to go off course when there is a commercial reality involved, I get that. So truth has to be the anchor. A lot of industry players have been beguiled by the early and rapid success of the market – which questionably is not capturing or reaching the segment of market it was intended for, in this case middle Australia. The stats tell us a different story.

I thought the whole purpose of legalising medicinal cannabis was to provide a fundamental human right to community; to inform patients about every available healthcare option and choice in their personal treatment journey. To exercise this truth, involves educating lawmakers, the medical profession and the public, who deserve to know and understand the credible research and science behind plant medicine.

That’s a herculean task when you consider the biggest elephant in the room remains stigma.

BM: How do you feel we can transform this industry through a lens of truth?

HK: I love that you asked this question, because I think the answer is simple. Just stay in your truth. In business terms, it means staying true to your company’s purpose, which should not amount to corporate speak on a website, or words that form the tagline of a brand.

Sometimes it is really tough to stay centred in all the noise, when it appears others are running off with the spoils, but the universe can and does accommodate all of us. What’s infinitely more satisfying than ‘owning’ a huge slice of the market through nefarious means, is being part of an organisation that is guided by ethical leadership and visionary ideals that embraces communities everywhere.

We have to remember this is still a pretty new industry and it needs good actors and model citizens at the forefront. The clearest person wins.

Contributors

Antonella Morelli

Practising photographer based in Byron Bay

Bee Mohamed

Founder of Mata and natural medicines advocate

KYLA De CLIFFORD speaks her truth

Kyla's journey spans continents and careers, with brand management in Dubai and Doha before returning to Australia in 2015 and transitioning to entrepreneurship, she founded a fragrance business and ventured into property development. A shoulder injury in 2016 and a family member being diagnosed with cancer introduced her to the world of CBD, sparking a deep dive into wellness and advocacy for natural medicines, especially for women in perimenopause and menopause. Today, Kyla empowers women to articulate their identities using a toolkit of wellness that includes cannabis. As a solo mother to three children, she gracefully balances family life with her voracious reading habit and passion for cannabis, meditation and nature.

Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words KYLA DE CLIFFORD
Interview BEE MOHAMED

I’ve been a medicinal cannabis patient now for over three years. I use medicinal cannabis for chronic pain, adenomyosis, perimenopause and anxiety. My journey as a patient began after I had a shoulder injury that affected my quality of life and I was prescribed opioids over a prolonged period of time.

The opioids were making me both physically and mentally unwell, so I kept asking for my doctor to taper me off them. However, he gave me no alternatives and continued prescribing the medications. I remember saying to him, “I feel like the painkillers are mapping a path to my brain and they told me “No, no Kyla, we have seen your scans, you definitely need these medications to manage your pain.

My father passed away as I was trying to manage my chronic pain and soon after, my mother got diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. It was a devastating time for me and during this period, I walked away from a marriage of eighteen years.

Things were very difficult during this time and it was not easy to stick to my truth for the type of treatment that worked for me. I have always been interested in natural products, both my Nanna and Grandad have shown me a more natural way to heal, but cannabis in my limited knowledge previously, was only used recreationally. It made me super sleepy so I never thought it would give me relief for pain.

Then one day someone told me to try CBD for my pain. I did just that and realised that my anxiety was also taking a back seat. I realised that there was more to the plant than I realised. The plant has helped me reconnect with myself, my values and who I am. From this, I became deeply passionate about educating women on medicinal cannabis, particularly those going through perimenopause and cancer.

In trying to assist my Mum and her diagnosis, I realised how much more needs to be done in ensuring that medicinal cannabis becomes a valid form of treatment for many others. The journey she has had made me realise how little we know about the plant and that the stigma is very real, even till this day.

My core values are family, community, honesty, integrity, service, creativity and connection. I hold a strong connection to nature, the beach and the mountain anywhere that is green and lush. This experience made me more determined to educate people about the plant and to create community around the plant. To encourage other women to take what they have learned and share it with other women.

Interview with Bee Mohamed, 20 February 2024

BEE MOHAMED: As a patient, what is the one hard truth about the medicinal cannabis industry that you’d like to share with our community?

KYLA DE CLIFFORD: A large proportion of the people who are making our medicine are men, many of whom have never tried the plant themselves. They do not understand the plant. They do not understand why women need the plant. I think it’s important to try the plant and to listen to the stories from the people (particularly women) who have walked this path before us.

BM: How do you feel we can address this truth, and transform this industry?

KDC: By talking about it. By sharing our stories and our common connections to help the patients and by focusing on bringing in more women and inclusivity in this industry. We also should (at a very minimum) ensure the clinical trials surrounding cannabis have women represented. We need to be actively recruiting women to the industry.

We can also bridge the gap between the traditional healers who have used this plant for thousands of years and the pharmaceutical industry blending the knowledge of traditional medicine with science. This alone would transform the industry.

BM: What was the hardest truth of life that you had to accept?

KDC: The hardest truth I had to accept was that the world around me wasn’t what I had understood for most of my life.

BM: What is a spiritual truth that helped your journey in life?

KDC: Self-love is transformative and handing over to a power greater than ourselves can help us heal some of the damage that the past brings. Forgiveness is key to letting go.