Editor’s Note: Welcome to our newest bi-weekly column, High Folks: the cannabis-infused version of Humans of New York, in which we take an intimate look at people’s relationships with our most beloved plant. The connection between humans and cannabis is primal, dynamic, and profound. But it’s something that’s increasingly overlooked in the new age of weed. So in an effort to combat the superficiality of cannabis in the social media-age, High Times is proud to present to you a collection of work that highlights one of life’s most beautiful gifts: connection.
It’s New Year’s Eve at an undisclosed location in the heart of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. La Kia “Illuzions O’Grandeur” Gooch emanates jubilant energy as she rolls around in her wheelchair. She spent the days leading up to Dec. 31 prepping for her second annual New Years Eve gala with her fiancée, Danielle Timmons.
As the hostess of a five-course cannabis-infused dinner, the muscular dystrophy patient and cannabis advocate just finished concocting CBD-infused champagne. A few bites of the first course (an infused spiced butternut squash crab bisque) combined with the medicated bubbly had Gooch on her feet. She was ready to ring in 2019 with some of her closest friends—and me.
For me, eating a cannabis-infused dinner prepared by a private chef is unfamiliar, yet intriguing. But for La Kia, a self-proclaimed “healthcare snob,” this type of self-care is necessary for her wellbeing. And self-care, she explains, has been central to her wellness since symptoms of her disease came on after a tough day at band camp decades ago.
In the summer of 1989, 13-year-old Gooch was getting ready to start as a freshman at Wilmington High in Wilmington, Delaware, when she began experiencing symptoms of muscular dystrophy. There was little the doctors …
Read More
Author: Lyneisha Watson / High Times
