We Need to Talk About the Weed Nuns

“When congress declared pizza a vegetable, I declared myself a nun.”

- Sister Kate when talking about her advocacy work while dressing up as a nun. 

In 2017, I watched a Cut Production video on YouTube and it had Aubrey Plaza smoking with weed nuns. Yes — weed nuns. I immediately started doing research into this organization and found out that they are called the Sisters of the Valley and they actually dress up as nuns, but their organization specialized in selling CBD medicines and using cannabis for healing purposes. I was 16 at the time so I didn’t have much knowledge about cannabis and their medicinal purposes but after speaking with two Sisters and the founder/director of the organization, Sister Kate, I know now that we need Weed Nuns everywhere. I talked to Sister Kate over Zoom this month about her life and her reasoning for creating the Weed Nuns. 

Sisters of the Valley is an activist organization that also produces and sells hand-made CBD products that ship all over the world. Their goal and mission is to bridge the connection back between Mother Earth and her people through herbal medicine and healing. Their main farm currently resides in Merced, California.

CBD or cannabidiol medicine is a non-psychoactive substance that can be used to treat anxieties, stress or any internal or external pain—psychoactive meaning it won’t get you high. They’re called the Weed Nuns because of the umbrella term of “cannabis” that CBD falls under, along with THC, which is a psychoactive substance. 

Before finding Sisters of the Valley, Sister Kate had a tough life. 

Sister Kate had her own consulting company and made thousands of dollars until her ex-husband left her penniless with three middle schoolers. She fought really hard for custody of her children and ended up going between jobs from cable to the internet and even moving between countries, where she originally lived in the Netherlands briefly before moving back to America, where she also lived in Kentucky and Georgia before she settled down in California. 

“Being dirt poor, I had to take drastic measures. So I reached for this business, and I didn't know anything about it. But I ended up growing a business where there's about eight of us that work on this farm full time a one-acre farm, and we make and sell about a million dollars a year of products,” she said. 

Sister Kate is an activist for the decriminalization of marijuana and putting more research into using cannabis as a medicine. From my conversation with her, I could tell she was passionate about a variety of topics. From her own sisters and daughter, Megan, she is “a force to be reckoned with,” quoting her fellow sister, Sister Sophia. 

“Our goal is to make the cannabis local. We believe that cannabis and hemp to be healing or to do its job is for the people.”

A previous member of the Catholic church, Sister Kate quickly recognized the horrors and mistreatment by the church and was disgusted about the impact and influence of patriarchal churches in America. She then talked about her opinions on discounting religion in America.

“Because to be a religion in America, and probably in most countries, you have to be in the business of selling words. If a monastery is selling wine, they're selling wine, because they set up a different business. That's not a religion, religions are not allowed, by their definition, to add any real value to the planet, in my opinion,” said Sister Kate. 

Her reasoning for hiring women to her enclave is because if women owned businesses, the world would be a better place. When I spoke to her, she felt very strongly about ensuring that women take over the business world and I was astounded. She hires men as brothers to work on the farms and the women work and pray over and do all the packaging and finances. While her workers can choose whatever they want to work with on the farm, she often reiterates that “the men are at the will of the women.” 

When pizza was declared a vegetable by Congress in 2011, Sister Kate pronounced herself as an activist nun, who went around to protests as a nun who protected the rights of women and the unprotected. She doesn’t associate her organization with a religion since, by America’s standards, she is not a religion. Instead, her order follows the medieval order of the Beguine Women, an ancient order pre-Christianity that was stationed in every major castle in Europe to heal their rulers. Overshadowed by apothecaries and their methods of putting leeches for healing and other inhumane processes, the Beguine Order slowly died out and their healing properties weren’t needed. This later led to the emergence of Big Pharma companies and medicines and the lesser need for utilizing cannabis and other herbs as a medicine. 

“Today we have to stand back and watch the doctors put chemo and radiation in our brothers and sisters when we know we have medicine in our pocket. [The Beguines] had to stand back when they had medicine in their pocket. They created the first organized nurses in Europe and in the castles of Europe. And they believed in women owning property and they were scholars of religion and would not affiliate with any one religion. And that's why they're extinct,” said Sister Kate. 

Since their influence was so strong among other weed activists, they have started building other enclaves around the nation and even in the world. Sister Kate and her fellow sisters hope to have enclaves everywhere, from California to Brazil.

“Our goal is to make the cannabis local. We believe that cannabis and hemp to be healing or to do its job is for the people. It's like honey, local is best. So [for example] instead of us shipping and burning fossil fuels to get products from California to the Germans, we want German men growing and German women making the medicine and then working together in a timeline or dance and harvest time,” said Sister Kate. 

Like other nuns, they take vows. But their vows are servitude to the people through the work they do, obedience to the cycles of the moon, living simply, activism, chastity (privatizing their sexualities), and ecology—or SOLACE. 

Since they do dress like nuns but are not a religion and they are activists for cannabis, they have received a lot of criticism from not only members of the Catholic church, but also anti-cannabis believers, even around their own town. Sister Kate told me about a Catholic priest from Michigan threatening to shut them down because Sister Kate responded to one of his members that if he had to ask her if being gay was a sin, “he was going to the wrong church.” The sheriff in her own town has tried to get her shut down by trying to find loopholes within the legalization bill of marijuana by trying to tackle against the amount of acres of plants she has and how much she produces. The thing about their products is that they are mostly CBD, most not containing any THC. 

Even though there are so many stigmas of weed, there isn’t enough research to defend its legitimacy. There are many benefits of weed. I talked to one of the other sisters of the enclave, Sister Quinn, about the clients she had that had serious health issues who use their CBD salves and medicines to heal them. She told me about a melanoma patient that would’ve needed intensive surgery to remove the melanoma. When the client applied the oils and salves, the melanoma was reduced to such a small size that the doctors questioned the products that they were using. She also told me about a client that had seizures almost every day and when she was paired with their double strength CBD oil, her seizures went down to zero and has been stable for the last six months. 

After speaking with Sister Kate, along with other sisters of the enclave and getting to know more about her, along with watching videos and doing my research, I believe that we should have weed nuns everywhere because not only are they activist in other social issues in the nation, but they also empower women through a thriving business that could help millions in the world.