Cheryl Shuman at Israel's Tikun Olam Medicinal Marijuana Facility Pic: Cheryl Shuman

Cheryl Shuman is not your average business mogul.

Spending twenty-five years as the head of Starry Eyes, Cheryl Shuman, 'Optician to the Stars', worked with the likes of A-list celebrities and cultural icons during the eighties, including Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Steven Tyler, and hundreds of others.

After reaching revenues of $22 million within a mere three years, Starry Eyes inevitably led to Shuman's conquering of Hollywood, appearing on the Today Show, Access Hollywood, & Entertainment Tonight.

After decades of successful and efficacious media coverage, Shuman would make the headlines again in 2006 when she was diagnosed with cancer. It was this diagnosis that would ultimately change the face of both her professional career, and, notably, the medicinal marijuana reform movement, though it is worth mentioning that she had begun advocating its use ten years prior.

In the seven years since that fateful day where she learned of her ovarian cancer, Cheryl Shuman has been able to make a lasting impact on American contemporary culture, and not just through the sunglasses Arnold Schwarzenegger wears in Terminator 2. After joining Kush Magazine as Director of Media & Public Relations, Shuman played an active role in skyrocketing their revenue stream from $150,000 to $6.5 million in 18 months.





And, as the infamous 'Martha Stewart of Marijuana', Shuman has lectured, spoken out, started an exclusive non-profit cannabis club for members of 'high society' (pun, I assume, intended) and continues to advocate immensely on the subject, becoming an unlikely spokeswoman for a movement that continues to spread across North America: legalizing, and providing easier access to medicinal marijuana.

Since she began her campaign to promote cannabis use medicinally, Shuman's appeared on CNN, stating that there is a "negative stereotype assigned to the cannabis consumer," ABC's Katie Couric Show, NBC News, TMZ, Huffington Post, Dr. Phil and several others; there's also been reports strongly suggesting a possible reality series in the mix.

She's also managing a $100 million funding facility to invest in the cannabis sector. As a brand ambassador to HempMedsPX, a corporate portfolio company of Medical Marijuana Inc., Shuman continues to discuss and defend medicinal cannabis as a legitimate and helpful substance for patients of many ailments.





"We support those parents of children with health issues that could benefit from medical cannabis use," Shuman, the 2013 Activist of the Year at Seattle Hempfest, once said. "The fact that families are willingly uprooting from their homes to move to states where medical cannabis is legal, just to give their children a fighting chance, is heartbreaking. To make matters even more difficult, medical cannabis families live with the constant threat of prosecution and, in many states, have to worry about having their children taken away by Child Protective Services."

Unlike the stereotypes that have surrounded stoners since the Cheech & Chong days, Shuman looks to show people all over the world that you don't have to be a liberal, hippie yahoo to enjoy cannabis, and that if its medicinal benefits are plentiful, then why deprive people of it when it could help them?

According to Shuman, who's Jewish, the days of relating marijuana to only celebrities, rappers, and struggling artists working out of their mother's basements are over; further more, she hopes to display that you can indeed consume pot, and at the same time, be a fully functioning member of society, in the corporate world, and at home.

Shalom Life had a chance to speak to Shuman on how pot's made her a better mom, the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club, and on her path in becoming a serious player in the American marijuana revolution.

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