VOA新闻杂志2023--Mexican 'Nuns' Grow Cannabis

Mexican 'Nuns¹' Grow Cannabis

Beneath each full moon, a group of women in religious clothing surround a fire near a village in central Mexico.

They breathe in deeply from a joint² and blow clouds of marijuana smoke out toward the fire.

Despite their religious clothing, the women are not religious. They are part of an international group founded in 2014 called Sisters of the Valley. The group has promised to spread its ideas about the healing powers of the drug marijuana.

The group also launched a successful small business in the United States, where about twenty states have legalized recreational marijuana use. It sells products made from cannabis, the plant from which marijuana comes.

The Sisters of the Valley business made over $500,000 last year.

But in Mexico, a drug war has hurt the country, and Christianity is built into society. The group says its image of marijuana-smoking nuns is like an act of rebellion³, the women say.

The sisters often post on social media, mainly Instagram. The pictures show them caring for cannabis crops, leading workshops, and attending cannabis-related events.

Their business makes around $10,000 each year, small compared to their partners in the U.S.

The five women are careful to hide possible personal and workplace identifiers in the images they post. They do business out of a building with a false storefront.

Cannabis production is a legal gray area in Mexico. Much of the activity remains⁴ tied to criminal organizations, called cartels. The women say they worry that both police and crime groups could threaten them.

On a recent weekend, reporters from Reuters news agency visited.

One of the nuns, who uses the name "Sister Bernardet" online, said "The Sisterhood is in a totally different context⁵ here in Mexico – because of how religious the country is and because of the plant's ties to cartels."

She asked Reuters to not report her real name as she feared attack or punishment if her identity is discovered. In her main job as a homeopathic caregiver, she prescribes marijuana to her patients with cancer, joint pain and sleep problems.

"We want to take the plant back from the" drug dealers⁶, she said.

The Sisters have borrowed some ideas from the Beguines, a religious movement that existed for a few hundred years starting in the 1100s. The group, made up of single women, devoted⁷ itself to spirituality, scholarship and providing aid to the needy⁸. It was not officially connected to any religion.

The Sisters worldwide say they wear religious clothing called habits to demonstrate uniformity and show respect for the plant.

With the help of Alehli Paz, a chemist and marijuana researcher working with the group, the Sisters in Mexico grow a small crop.

They grow the plants in old paint containers and place them in lines between four walls on a rooftop.

Later, the Sisters move the larger plants to private gardens.

Their work is limited to weekends, when they care for the plants and produce cannabis goods.

The women visit other groups in the expanding cannabis community in Mexico City pushing for full legalization. The women also give workshops that touch on everything from how to make products like cannabis infusions⁹ to the chemistry behind the plant.

Business possibilities aside, the women argue that the fight against drugs in Latin America has been a failure, leading to violence and mass imprisonment¹⁰.

The Sisters of the Valley founder¹¹ in Mexico calls herself "Sister Camilla" online. She would not give her real name to Reuters. She said she grew up in a religious family. She left home at 16 partly because of her mother's strong religious ideas, she said. When she started Sisters of the Valley Mexico, their relationship became even more difficult.

"It was hard for her to accept," she said about her mother. "She had certain ideas, heavily shaped by religion."

But today, after long talks about the plant and the legalization movement, her mother helps with the group's operations, she said.

Words in This Story

joint – n. informal - a marijuana cigarette

marijuana – n. the dried leaves and flowers of the hemp¹² plant that are smoked as a drug

cannabis – n. a drug such as marijuana or hashish that comes from the hemp plant

context – n. the conditions that exist where and when something happens

homeopathic – adj. describes a system of alternative medicine

1 nuns   

n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句

2 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

3 rebellion   

n.造反，叛乱，反抗

参考例句：

• The next year they rose up in rebellion.第二年他们就揭竿起义了。
• The new government quickly suppressed the rebellion.新政府迅速把叛乱镇压下去。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 context   

n.背景，环境，上下文，语境

参考例句：

• You can always tell the meaning of a word from its context.你常可以从上下文中猜出词义来。
• This sentence does not seem to connect with the context.这个句子似乎与上下文脱节。

6 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

7 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

8 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。

9 infusions   

n.沏或泡成的浸液（如茶等）( infusion的名词复数 )；注入，注入物

参考例句：

• Intravenous infusions are also used to administer medications. 静脉输液也可作为一种给药方法。 来自辞典例句
• INTERPRETATION: GKI infusions significantly reduced plasma glucose concentrations and blood pressure. 结论：静脉滴注GKI显著降低血压和血糖浓度。 来自互联网

10 imprisonment   

n.关押，监禁，坐牢

参考例句：

• His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment.他的判决由死刑减为无期徒刑。
• He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for committing bigamy.他因为犯重婚罪被判入狱一年。

11 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

12 hemp   

n.大麻；纤维

参考例句：

• The early Chinese built suspension bridges of hemp rope.古代的中国人建造过麻绳悬索桥。
• The blanket was woven from hemp and embroidered with wool.毯子是由亚麻编织，羊毛镶边的。