Susan Soares strolled around the lush garden at her East Long Beach home\u2013an electric fly swatter in one hand, an iced coffee in the other\u2013proudly showing off her flourishing summer crops: bright red strawberries, tomatoes and watermelons sprouting from vines and roses in bloom, beautiful but all of overshadowed by several large, painstakingly maintained cannabis plants.<\/p>\n
Soares, a grandmother and cannabis rights activist, has always had a green thumb. But her botanic aspirations were not always focused on marijuana, a plant that dismantled and rebuilt her life after she turned to it to cure two years of injury-induced migraines.<\/p>\n
At age 33, Soares was a single mother, a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a staunch anti-drug advocate, when her pain pushed her to cannabis. Now, after being shunned from her community and with decades as a cannabis advocate, Soares has combined her love of gardening and her polarizing experiences with cannabis into a new children\u2019s book, \u201cWhat\u2019s Growing in Grandma\u2019s Garden\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n The book, illustrated by Swiss artist Gustav Davies, tells the story of a boy who loves to work with his grandma in her garden. One of grandma\u2019s favorite plants is cannabis. Together they tend to the garden as grandma explains why he can\u2019t touch or use the plant until he\u2019s grown up.<\/p>\n The story is based on her life, Soares explained as she showed off the pages of her book. As parents, her children are very open with her grandkids about cannabis, so much so, that the kids call the plants \u201cgrandma\u2019s medicine,\u201d Soares shared with a grin.<\/p>\n