Depending on how old you are, you might know Ricki Lake from her role as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray (1988), as the host of the daytime talk show Ricki Lake (1993-2004), or maybe as a Dancing With the Stars celeb contestant (2011). But along with film director Abby Epstein, she’s also a documentary film maker, having produced The Business of Being Born, an eye-opening look at the birth industry, as well as Breastmilk, about the obstacles moms face when trying to breastfeed their babies.
Lake and Epstein’s latest doc is Weed the People, which follows five kids with paediatric cancer as their families experiment with cannabis oil (along with traditional cancer therapies) as a treatment or even cure. Today’s Parent recently spoke to the pair about what they hoped to achieve with the movie. In the past you’ve made films centred around women?s health. What got you interested in kids and cannabis"
RICKI: The credit and blame goes to my beloved husband, Christian Evans, who passed away. He was interested in cannabis for his own healing. He had physical chronic pain and emotional stuff and he found cannabis was a relief for him. At the same time, his grandfather was dying of bone cancer so he was looking to help him, and then there was also a sick little girl who came into our lives via Dancing With The Stars. So it was a trifecta of factors that made us want information about CBD and what it could do, especially for sick kids. That was the bir...