The Canna Curious Podcast: Conversations on Cannabis, Wellness & Women’s Health – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode is a little more personal than usual.

Today, I’m sitting down with my daughter, Ruby and we’re having a conversation I’ve been quietly avoiding for a while.

Because while I spend my life educating people about the plant…
Ruby had an experience that changed her relationship with it completely.

We talk about:

• what it’s like growing up with a parent in this space
• the stigma that still exists (especially in younger years)
• her first experiences with cannabis
• and the moment everything shifted after a difficult “greening” experience

But this isn’t just about one night.

It’s about what came after the anxiety, the fear of it happening again, and how that feeling can linger long after the plant has left your system.

We also explore:

• why edibles can hit differently (and sometimes unexpectedly)
• the importance of dose, timing, and environment
• how CBD can be used as a harm reduction tool
• and what honest, open conversations about drugs actually look like in real life

This episode isn’t here to convince you of anything.

It’s here to show the nuance that the plant isn’t one-size-fits-all, and that education, safety, and self-awareness matter more than anything else.

If you’ve ever had an experience that didn’t feel right…or you’re navigating this with your kids, your friends, or even yourself this conversation is for you.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Growing up around cannabis: stigma, secrecy, and shifting perspectives
• First experiences with the plant (and expectations vs reality)
• What “greening out” actually feels like
• How one experience can lead to ongoing anxiety
• The difference between THC and CBD (in real-life terms)
• Why edibles require a completely different approach
• Harm reduction: what we wish more people were taught
• The gap between school education and real-world drug use
• Navigating this as both a parent and a young adult

A NOTE FROM KYLA

This one stretched me.

It’s one thing to talk about the benefits of the plant it’s another to sit across from your daughter and hear how it impacted her in a way you didn’t expect.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need it.

You can find more conversations like this at Canna Curious — where we explore the plant with curiosity, not assumption.

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this episode of Canna Curious, Kyla sits down with Grace Ker to explore her deeply personal journey with endometriosis and fibromyalgia,  a story that began at just 13 years old and unfolded into years of chronic pain, medical intervention, and self-advocacy. 

Grace shares what it was like to:

• Be dismissed in early medical appointments
• Navigate multiple treatments, including hormonal therapies and surgery
• Enter medical menopause as a teenager
• Experience chronic, debilitating pain that conventional treatments couldn’t resolve
• Later develop fibromyalgia following burnout and physical stress

The conversation also explores how alternative approaches  including Chinese medicine and plant-based therapies  played a role in symptom management, and how Grace learned to trust her intuition in a system that often didn’t listen. 

This episode is as much about emotional resilience as it is about physical health — touching on identity loss, grief, and what it means to rebuild your life when your body changes.

Key Topics

• Early onset endometriosis and symptom dismissal
• Chronic pain and the limits of conventional treatment
• Medical menopause in adolescence
• Fibromyalgia onset and full-body pain
• Opioids vs alternative approaches
• The role of the nervous system in pain perception
• Plant-based medicine and symptom regulation
• Self-advocacy in healthcare
• Grief, identity, and chronic illness
• The importance of education and body literacy

🌿 Resources & Links

• Grace Ker on Instagram: @spencergreen
• Recommended Chinese Medicine Practitioner: Richard Best, Chinese Medicine House of Natural Health Hendra
• Support the podcast: Buy me a coffee!

From Kyla

This episode really stayed with me.

There’s something about hearing a story like Grace’s that reminds you how many women are navigating pain quietly… and how often they’re told it’s normal.

It’s not.

And conversations like this are how we start changing that.

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this episode of Canna Curious, Kyla is joined by her close friend Sandrine for a deeply personal and emotional conversation about their friend Alethea (Leath) — who has been incarcerated for cannabis-related charges for just over a year.

This is not a legal analysis or a political debate. It’s a human conversation about friendship, shock, grief, love, anger, and the quiet resilience required when someone you love is caught in a system most of us never expect to encounter.

Leath cannot speak freely on the podcast right now, but when she is released later this year, she will be invited on to the podcast to share her story in her own words.

Until then, this episode holds space for her, and for all the people left on the outside trying to make sense of the inside.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Who Alethea is beyond her sentence — her heart, warmth, and devotion to community
• The shock of finding out a close friend is in prison
• How little most of us understand the justice system until we’re inside it
• What contact with someone in prison actually looks like (calls, visits, letters, costs)
• The emotional toll of limited access and constant uncertainty
• The strange mix of powerlessness, guilt, and love felt by friends on the outside
• Self-censorship, stigma, and why people struggle to talk about incarceration
• The realities of prison healthcare, communication, and overcrowding
• Learning to live inside constraints you didn’t choose
• Holding hope for release, parole, and life on the other side

A note to listeners

This conversation may be emotional to listen to. We speak candidly about incarceration, systemic injustice, and the personal impact of these systems on real people. Listener discretion is advised.

We’ve been careful not to share details that could compromise Alethea or anyone else. This episode is shared with love, respect, and care.

Want to support Alethea?

If you feel called, Alethea loves receiving letters - they bring her enormous joy and help her feel connected to the outside world.

📬 Mailing details:
Alethea’s public mailing address and prisoner number are listed below 

Alethea Wallace

Numimbah Correctional Centre

Private Mail Bag 1 

Nerang QLD 4211

(Please keep letters simple: no stickers, metallic ink, or extras - plain paper and pen are best.)

If you’d like to send a message of support but aren’t sure where to start, reach out to Kyla via socials and she’ll help guide you.

You can find Sandrine @marquisedesark

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this episode, ’m unpacking why I’ve started to push back on the idea of “responsible use” — at least the way it’s so often applied to women.

Because when we really look at it, “responsible” rarely means neutral or supportive.It usually means self-monitoring, self-correcting, and self-blaming — layered on top of bodies that are already expected to manage pain, emotion, cycles, stress, and capacity without much support.

This conversation isn’t about encouraging recklessness.
 It’s about questioning why women are so often asked to carry extra moral weight when it comes to their bodies and why cannabis has become another place where we’re expected to prove we’re doing it properly.

In this episode, I explore:

• How “responsibility” has become a gendered expectation
• Why women are taught caution while men are given permission to experiment
• The emotional cost of constant self-surveillance
• How self-monitoring disconnects us from pleasure, rest, and trust
• Where this messaging comes from — medicine, regulation, and wellness culture
• The difference between compliance and agency
• Why I’m more interested in discernment than rules

This is a quieter but firmer episode.
 Less about advice.
 More about power, agency, and what it means to be in relationship with your body without supervision.

If this episode feels uncomfortable, that’s okay.
And if it feels relieving — you’re not alone.

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

Do I Need a T-Break?

Tolerance breaks are usually framed like a punishment.
Like you’ve done something wrong.
Like you need to reset, detox, or start again.

But for many women, that framing doesn’t fit real life - or real bodies.

In this episode, Kyla takes a slower, more body-led look at tolerance breaks and what they’re actually for. This isn’t about abstinence or discipline. It’s about understanding when a break is helpful, when it’s not, and how to approach it without destabilising your nervous system — especially if you’re navigating perimenopause, pain, sleep disruption, anxiety, or chronic stress.

In this episode, we cover:

• What cannabis tolerance actually is (and what it isn’t)
• Why tolerance isn’t failure — it’s feedback from the body
• Signs your system may be asking for space
• How pain, trauma, and nervous system load change the T-break conversation
• Why stopping THC suddenly can feel awful for some people
• Different ways to take a tolerance break — from full breaks to gentler resets
• Whether CBD has a place during a T-break (and when it helps vs. when it doesn’t)
• What a successful T-break actually looks like — beyond white-knuckling

This episode draws on both clinical research and lived experience to offer a more compassionate, realistic approach to tolerance one that prioritises regulation, safety, and relationship over rigid rules.

A gentle resource 

If this episode sparked the thought “I know I need a break, but I don’t know how to do it without falling apart”, Kyla has created a 21-day tolerance break guide you can download it here

Support the show

If you’d like to support the podcast, you can buy Kyla a coffee here No pressure - it simply helps keep these conversations going.

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

Women, Hormones & Cannabis: Why Your Body Changes How the Plant Feels.

In this episode, we explore why so many women notice that cannabis feels different depending on where they are in their cycle, throughout perimenopause, or during periods of stress and hormonal change.

We unpack what’s actually happening in the body, why this experience is common (and normal), and how women can work with their changing physiology instead of blaming themselves or assuming something has gone wrong.

This episode builds on last week’s conversation about the endocannabinoid system and brings the focus specifically to women, hormones, and lived experience.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why cannabis can work beautifully one month and feel overwhelming the next
• How the endocannabinoid system interacts with estrogen and progesterone
• Why midlife women notice these changes more clearly
• The difference between microdosing as restriction versus microdosing as body literacy
• Why timing and nervous system state matter more than strain names
• Practical ways women can adjust their approach during hormonally sensitive times

Key ideas discussed

• The endocannabinoid system plays a central role in regulating mood, pain, sleep, inflammation, and stress
• Estrogen has been shown to influence cannabinoid receptor sensitivity, particularly CB1 receptors
• Hormonal fluctuation, rather than hormone loss, is a major factor in why experiences change during perimenopause
• Women often experience stronger subjective effects from THC at lower doses compared to men
• Cannabis tends to amplify the existing state of the nervous system rather than override it
• Learning to work with context, timing, and subtle dosing can make cannabis feel more supportive and less destabilising

Support the show
Canna Curious is produced independently. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can Buy me a coffee

Share this episode
If this conversation might help someone you love — a friend, a partner, a patient  feel free to pass it on.

Thank you for listening, and for being part of this community.

Research and further reading

Cannabis, estrogen, and the endocannabinoid system

The Endocannabinoid System and Sex Steroid Hormone Signalling
 A comprehensive review exploring how estrogen and progesterone interact with endocannabinoid signalling pathways.
 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3863507/

Sex Differences and the Endocannabinoid System
 A review outlining biological sex differences in cannabinoid metabolism, receptor expression, and subjective effects.
 

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this episode of the Canna Curious Podcast, Kyla slows things right down and returns to the foundations.

Before conversations about strain names, dosing, or delivery methods  before stigma, shame, or opinion  this episode asks a simpler question:

What is actually happening inside your body when you take cannabis?

This episode is for patients.

For women who turn to this plant not to escape their lives - but to cope with pain, stress, hormonal change, burnout, grief, or nervous system overload.

At the centre of this conversation is the endocannabinoid system (ECS)  a regulatory system that exists in all of us, whether we ever take cannabis or not.

In this episode, Kyla explores:

• What the endocannabinoid system is - and why it’s not a “weed system,” but a core biological regulator
• How the ECS was identified in the 1990s through cannabinoid research by scientists including Ally Howlett and Raphael Mechoulam
• The three key components of the ECS: receptors, endocannabinoids, and enzymes
• The roles of CB1 and CB2 receptors, and how THC and CBD interact with them differently
• Why your body makes its own cannabinoids — and even passes them through breast milk
• Why relief from cannabis looks different for everyone, and why variability is expected - not failure
• How hormones, stress, nervous system state, and life stage (including perimenopause) influence response
• The difference between regulation and escape, and why many women use cannabis to stay present  not numb
• Why dosing can feel unpredictable, and why curiosity works better than rigid rules
• How one-size-fits-all advice often creates shame and what a body-literate approach offers instead

Support the show
Canna Curious is produced independently. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can Buy me a coffee

Resources & Further Reading

Understanding the Endocannabinoid System

These sources support the explanation of the endocannabinoid system as a regulatory system involved in balance, pain, mood, sleep, inflammation, and stress:

• Di Marzo V, Piscitelli F. (2015). The endocannabinoid system and its modulation by phytocannabinoids.Neurotherapeutics, 12(4), 692–698.
  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13311-015-0376-6
• Lu HC, Mackie K. (2016). An introduction to the endogenous cannabinoid system. Biological Psychiatry, 79(7), 516–525.
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322315002127
• Pertwee RG. (2015).

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

As the year draws to a close, Kyla pauses - not to summarise, but to sit inside what this season of listening has actually revealed.

Recorded from Melbourne, in a softer and more honest state than usual, this solo episode reflects on thirty-three conversations about women’s health, relief, regulation, and the quiet ways women learn to manage their bodies inside imperfect systems.

At the centre of the episode is a question Kyla has been carrying since the very beginning of the podcast:

What actually happens when women stop whispering about medicine?

This is not an episode about trends, tips, or solutions.

It’s about:

• why women whisper in the first place
• how shame still shapes the way relief is accessed and talked about
• what Kyla has noticed listening to women across diagnoses, ages, and lives

Throughout the episode, Kyla speaks candidly about:

• whispering as a learned survival strategy
• and the steadiness she witnessed when women were given language, curiosity, and trust

Rather than positioning the plant as a fix, this episode explores what cannabis use revealed:
 the gaps in care, the lack of education, and the unmet needs women have been navigating for years.

This conversation is for anyone who has:

• softened their language to be taken seriously
• questioned whether their relief was “allowed”
• carried shame alongside something that helped
• or felt like they had to work it out on their own

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

What does a good medicinal cannabis clinic actually look like in Australia - and how do you spot the ones that should make you pause?

This episode was sparked by a moment many of us have had lately: seeing cannabis clinic advertising out in the wild that feels… off. 

Kyla shares a story about walking down the street with her 11-year-old when they spotted a very obvious (and very questionable) clinic poster - which opened a bigger conversation about regulation, ethics, patient care, and how clinics should actually be operating.

Together, Kyla and Jess unpack what’s going wrong in the current clinic landscape, why patients are feeling frustrated and disempowered, and what you are absolutely allowed to ask for as a patient.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why medicinal cannabis clinics are not allowed to advertise the way many currently are - and why that matters for stigma, regulation, and long-term access
• The biggest red flags to watch for when choosing a clinic
• What patient-centred care actually looks like (and what it doesn’t)
• Vertical integration, profit margins, and why some clinics push certain products
• Your legal right to access your own scripts and choose your pharmacy
• Why informed patients should be welcomed — not shut down — for doing their research
• The growing frustration around discontinued products and limited prescribing
• Why minor cannabinoids like CBG and THCV deserve more attention (especially for women)
• How the system is heading toward a collision — and what needs to change next

Clinics Kyla trusts and recommends:

PlantMed with Dr John Teh - a genuinely integrative, whole-person approach https://plantmed.net.au/

Mode Health with Dr Matty Moore - collaborative care, tele-health, and strong clinical ethics https://www.modehealthcare.com.au/

Kyla recommends these clinics based on her personal experience as a patient. There is no paid partnership or financial incentive involved.

Key takeaways:

• You are allowed to ask questions - and a good clinic expects you to
• You should never feel rushed, dismissed, or funnelled into one product pathway
• If something feels off, it probably is
• The future of cannabis care isn’t stronger  it’s smarter, more nuanced, and more patient-led

This episode is for patients, parents, clinicians, and anyone trying to navigate medicinal cannabis in Australia without getting burned along the way.

Resources mentioned:

TGA advertising guidelines for medicinal cannabis

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this deeply honest conversation, Kyla sits down with Shaye Topaz a mum, insomniac, and long-time cannabis consumer  to explore what happens when the plant that helped you cope becomes something you rely on.

Shay shares her 12-year relationship with THC, from rolling joints at 18 for sleep, to mothering through stress, heartbreak, and survival… all the way to the moment she realised she was dependent, not addicted, and decided it was time for a reset.

This episode moves through insomnia, nervous system overwhelm, motherhood, emotional regulation, and the spiritual side of cannabis including the comfort, companionship, and “being held” feeling so many women relate to.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why cannabis is such a powerful tool for sleep, stress, and emotional soothing
• How motherhood, overwhelm and loneliness influence cannabis use
• What it’s like to quit after more than a decade of nightly THC
• The emotional and physical symptoms of a tolerance break
• Appetite, metabolism, cortisol spikes, and night waking during withdrawal
• Using CBD, magnesium, adaptogens and supplements to support the nervous system
• Breaking the ritual: shifting from smoking to tinctures
• The spiritual and relational experience of cannabis as a “holder”
• How to know when you’re ready to take a break — and why readiness matters
• Creating new rituals, boundaries, and habits during a cannabis reset

About Shaye

Shaye is a mother of two navigating single parenthood, chronic insomnia, emotional healing, and a long-term relationship with cannabis. Her story reflects the reality for many women who use THC for sleep, coping, and nervous system support. Her honesty and introspection make this a powerful conversation for anyone reconsidering their relationship with the plant. 

You can find Shaye @shayetopaz

Resources & Links

• Kyla’s 21-Day T-Break Guide — a step-by-step journal for anyone wanting to explore their relationship with THC
• Dr Jeffrey Hergenrather’s work on cannabis use in pregnancy
• Research from Jamaica on cannabis, pregnancy and maternal outcomes

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Production: Sovereign Creator • https://sovereigncreator.io

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.