BY KAREN BOSSICK
Amada Reiman believes in putting the power of plants in the hands of people. She’s launching her new Personal Plants brand at the 2021 Sun Valley Wellness Festival and Conference June 25-28 to show people how to cultivate their own therapeutic plants—“from seed to self-reliance.”
“With personal plants, we’re not selling people a product. We’re selling people a concept—self-sufficiency around medicine,” said Reiman, who aims to be the Martha Stewart of the grow-your-own-microdosing movement.
Reiman founded Personal Plants in 2020, which shows people how to make such things as CBD-infused bath salts for pain relief, to shepherd the home production of medicine plants, including cannabis.
At the Wellness Festival she will join Blair Brown, COO of Poplar, in teaching people to make an elderberry tincture, an adaptogenic mushroom honey and a CBD infused mocktail. She will also participate in a panel discussion on CBD and demonstrate her Personal Plants brand at a booth in the Exposition area.
Reiman’s interest in plants as medicine began in 2002 after she was diagnosed with arthritis that crippled her toe joints in her 20s. Pain made it difficult for her to walk any length of time, limiting her ability to do daily activities.
But she didn’t want to begin relying on pharmaceutical drugs at such a young age.
“I decided I needed to find an alternative that was not going to have bad side effects,” said Reiman, now 45.
It turned out that Reiman had just moved from Chicago to California where she was ushered into a world where cannabis was accepted. She tried various ways to use cannabis to address her own pain. And, as a social worker, she started researching how people interact with the cannabis plant.
After receiving her PhD from the University of California-Berkeley, she became director of Research and Patient Services at Berkeley Patients Group. She began to work with the Drug Policy Alliance to make cannabis more acceptable. She became the first chairwoman of the Medical Cannabis Commission for the City of Berkeley and she taught classes on drug use and policy at the University of California-Berkeley.
She also is on the board of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, Cannabis Doing Good, the California Cannabis Tourism Association and The Initiative—the first incubator-accelerator for women-owned cannabis businesses.
Eventually she turned her research into an online platform to help people learn to cultivate their own “medicine.”
“I know others are interested in using plant medicine as an alternative. I wanted to create an opportunity for the average person to grow their own, just as I do,” she said. “Whether you’re talking about cannabis, calendula, chamomile—they’re all part of the plant kingdom.”
Reiman uses a variety of different cannabis applications, depending on what her needs are.
If her toes are swollen and inflamed, she’ll apply a topical cream. For six to seven hours of sustained pain relief, she may take an edible product.
“This provides more long-lasting relief compared to smoking, which only gets you 20 minutes of relief. But, if you’re experiencing spasms, inhaling is the fastest way to get results,” she said.
Hemp, which can legally be grown in most states, is a drought-friendly plant that does not need a lot of water, Reiman said. It improves the condition of the soil it’s planted in because it exorcises heavy metals and toxins from the soil.
Most states allow CBD derived from cannabis for medical purpose. Three states—Idaho, Kansas and Indiana—prohibit it.
But Idaho recently ruled that CBD from the hemp plant is legal. The amount of THC contained in the plant must be .3 percent or less.
“Just like the self-sufficiency that comes with our ability to grow our own food, it’s important to have the knowledge of how to grow and process our own medicine at home,” said Reiman.
WHERE TO LEARN ABOUT PLANT-BASED MEDICINE AT THE SUN VALLEY WELLNESS FESTIVAL:
Dr. Amanda Reiman will join Blair Lauren Brown, who has ties to Sun Valley, in a cooking demonstration called “Bring Plant Based Wellness Home!” from 11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Sunday, June 27, at the Sun Valley Culinary Institute.
She will have a Personal Plants booth at the Experience Park Friday through Sunday, June 25-27, in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park behind the Limelight Hotel. The Experience Park is open to the public free of charge.
And she’ll be part of a panel discussion, “CBD: Separating Fact From Fiction and What It Can Do for You,” from 2 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, June 26, at the InSight Stage.
Passes for both in-person attendance and Virtual SVWFC Experience options are available at www.sunvalleywellness.org. Passholders will have access to all online content through July 31, 2021.
Individual tickets for speaker presentations at The Argyros or Sun Valley Culinary Institute will be offered if space is available. Those interested in the opportunity to purchase an individual ticket should arrive at the venue 30 minutes ahead of the scheduled presentation and have cash available to purchase an individual ticket if one becomes available. Cost is $60 for evening keynote speaker ticket and $20 for a daytime speaker ticket.