“I’ve spent the better part of my life standing up for issues that were important to me,” said actress, comedian, singer, writer, and entrepreneur Whoopi Goldberg in an OpEd about cannabis she wrote in 2018. Her latest cause, she explained, was helping women gain easy access to the therapeutic qualities of the marijuana plant.

This is a wellbeing issue, Goldberg argued, marking the difference between sheer recreation and actual medicinal need; between smoking weed in an old-fashioned joint format and consuming cannabis in ways that are not detrimental to one’s lungs. This comprehension and latter distinction were crucial to the award-winning performer’s decision to get into the cannabis industry, starting a business focused on women’s comfort, and especially on treating menstrual aches.

“I asked a friend in the cannabis industry if anyone was doing marijuana for menstrual cramps; and when he said no, I knew someone had to – and that it may as well be us,” Goldberg told me during a recent conversation. “We started working on a business plan and looking for product developers, which led us to Maya [Elisabeth].”

– Read the entire article at Forbes.