Wellness
Local Podcaster Sara Payan Is Educating the World About Cannabis
Sara Payan (Photo by Jen Skog)For local podcast host and creator Sara Payan, cannabis was a game changer and lifesaver during her battle with stage 3 colon cancer. It also wound up being a great topic to spark deeper conversations about life, death and everything in between.
“I was not feeling well and suffering from cyclical vomiting and cramping. I had a colonoscopy and they found a tumor the size of a lemon,” says Payan, the current vice chair of the California Cannabis Advisory Committee. “A friend had a medical marijuana card and gave me a few grams to try, and it really helped my symptoms.”
Payan got her own card and used marijuana to get through a resectioning of her colon and 12 rounds of chemo. “I used it in lieu of pain medications like opioids and for things like nausea and getting me eating again,” she says, adding that side effects of opioids can be deadly for someone with her condition. Having the card really opened up another world for her. “I was like ohhh, ‘You mean, I can get weed and not get in trouble for it?’ I was like a kid in a candy store the first time I went in.”
Payan would end up working for a dispensary called The Apothecarium while she got her master’s but her previous work in civil rights and education was always on her mind. It wasn’t long before she was developing training and professional development programs for the other employees there and teaching public classes as the dispensary’s director of education and public education officer. She was also the co-chair of the San Francisco Cannabis State Legalization Task Force to help pass Prop. 64, which legalized marijuana in California in 2016.
All the while, people were telling her she should take her experience and insights and incorporate them into a podcast, and six years ago she finally did, launching the award-winning Planted With Sara Payan. Guests have included David Crosby, Barbara Lee, Jim Belushi, Rick Steves, Jesse Ventura, Little Steven Van Zandt, Peter Coyote, Montel Williams and others.
She says one poignant interview was with David Crosby right before he died. “Croz and I got really deep into a conversation about the fact that he knew that he didn’t have a whole lot longer to live and he had so much more music to give. He was starting to be able to play guitar again and he said he was afraid of death,” says Payan, who talked about her own near-death cancer experiences with the rock star and told him that for her it was a calm and peaceful moment. “It was really heartbreaking hearing that conversation again after he passed; it really ripped me up.”
Payan says that the celebrity interviews help draw in listeners who might want to later check out episodes that focus more on the cannabis industry — but like with any good conversation, no topic is off limits. “People who I interview on the show, a lot of times they’ll say it’s like catching up with an old friend over coffee. And that makes me really happy.”
