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THE END
Shining a Light
A trained pharmacist and chemist, Dr. Lola Ohonba understands the challenges that people with disabilities face and the relief cannabis can provide.
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TEXT DOUG SCHNITZSPAHN
SHARE YOUR STORY Has cannabis helped you heal? Show us, tell us, and tag us on Instagram. @sensimagazine Growing up in the crowded, vibrant metropolis of Lagos, Nigeria, Dr. Lola Ohonba suff ered from a disability that limited the movement in her leg. She found relief in traditional plant medicine, and even though she headed to the U.S. to study Western medicine and chemistry—and then launch an über-successful career in pharmacy—she never forgot what she had learned at home. Her knowledge of both traditional healing and science spurred her to forge off on her own and found WCI Health with the mission of teaching dispensaries, practitioners, and other interested parties how to safely and eff ectively use cannabis, psychedelics, and other plants as medicine. “I am very passionate about decriminalizing this plant, and I use my platform to talk about that,” she says. “I am a practicing clinical pharmacist. A lot of my colleagues think I’m crazy, risking my license, talking publicly about cannabis. Well, I’m proud of what I’m doing. This is necessary. When clinicians like me come out and put a face to this plant, it helps move the work a little bit forward.”
To that end, Dr. O, as she is known, has become a prominent voice in the eff ort to de-stigmatize plant medicine as a public speaker as well as the author of the bestselling book A Pharmacist’s Guide to Cannabis: Perspectives of a Non-conformist Clinician and the host of the podcast Let’s Talk Plant Medicine: Cannabis, Psychedelics, and Pharmaceutics. Through it all she draws on her experience living with a disability to fi nd compassion and solutions for others who face physical challenges and seek relief.
“I have a physical disability,” she says. “I know what we go through, the stress that we go through to get medicine, to get things done. So I want to shine a light on that aspect of what I do and what we can get done.”
