Central Florida ‘Cannamoms’ say using marijuana makes them better parents

By Meredith McDonough

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    CENTRAL FLORIDA (WESH) — In 2016, Floridians voted on legalizing medical marijuana. The amendment passed, and while its legal for medicinal purposes, recreational marijuana remains illegal.

At the time, a group of mothers known as “cannamoms” advocated for that legalization. Today, they continue their fight to erase the stigma of mothers who use marijuana to help parent.

WESH 2’s Meredith McDonough spoke with mothers in this movement.

“I use cannabis to tune in, not to tune out, but to actually become more emotionally available to my kids,” said Danielle Simone Brand.

“So once my family started seeing how relaxed I was, how more present I was, how happier that was, how I was able to maneuver my day, they stopped coming after what I was doing,” said cannamom Jaygoda.

These are moms who admit that using marijuana makes them better parents.

They refer to themselves as cannamoms. It’s a term you may not have heard of, but their budding movement has been in motion for several years. It all started with mothers advocating for use of medical marijuana for their children with disabilities.

Local doctor Joseph Rosado is certified by the Department of Health to recommend medical cannabis and has been an advocate for cannamoms.

“It was designed for moms and dads, parents that, all of a sudden, found themselves in a situation where they have special needs children that need it, the use of medical cannabis,” said Rosado.

For both mothers, Jaygoda and Danielle, their stories seem to resonate with so many.

There are Facebook groups, Instagram pages, and podcasts all dedicated to cannamoms.

Danielle Brand has become an author on the matter, writing a book about her journey using marijuana.

“A big thing was it gave me back sleep. And I was really sleep deprived for quite a while as a mom of two young kids. It is truly a wellness tool, dose-dependent, product dependent, you know, not at all just a one size fits all kind of thing. But with cannabis literacy, with some education, there are all kinds of ways that moms can do this,” said Brand.

For Jaygoda, her son, Kayden, was nonverbal for his first five years. Cannabis helped with her anxiety and patience.

“So early on in his childhood, I was always on the go. But I just needed to take a minute. And it wasn’t until when I started smoking, I started calming down. I took a minute, I was able to see the beauty in his life rather than seeing it as, ‘Oh, he’s on the spectrum,” said Jaygoda.

We met up with a mother and daughter here in Central Florida, Catherine, and her mom, Molly Fulghom.

Catherine was diagnosed as a baby with epilepsy and ataxic cerebral palsy, causing seizures and tremors.

“She was my first child. So, I really had no milestones to compare things to. She crawled until she was four years old. She used a walker when she started to walk,” Fulghom said.

When medical marijuana became available in Florida, Catherine’s physician recommended it, but now she uses CBD products. Molly got on board and uses them too.

“CBD allows me to shut down that hamster wheel to not have that worry to basically have a feeling of – if it happens, it happens, and we know what to do. I love to tell people it allows me to go to bed happier about the person and the mom and the wife that I was that day because I responded to things in a more controlled way in a less overwhelmed, frantic way,” said Fulghom.

CBD is a chemical found in marijuana; it does not contain THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that produces a high. It’s important to note marijuana is still classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule I substance, meaning it has a high potential for abuse.

“Being of that higher level of classification definitely gives it a larger warning to users of this, including mothers who are taking care of young children, or even fathers as well,” said Emergency Medicine Physician Dr. Rajiv Bahl.

The cannamoms say their priorities are taking care of their health, their families and changing the stigma for mothers who use marijuana.

“If you see that it’s working for me, and it’s helping me, then it’s best to look at it in that perspective, rather than what society has seen what is negative or positive,” said Jaygoda.

“There’s a sense that mothers who consume cannabis are irresponsible somehow, or it will make them lazy or tuned out from their kids. That is absolutely the opposite of what I have found. And you know, in my community of canamoms, we are caring concern involves parents, we are using cannabis to feel better for ourselves to be well so that we can parent to our best.” said Brand.

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