Vermont Business Magazine Heady Vermont has launchedUnhidden: A Curious Cannabis Podcast. As the global wave of cannabis legalization gains momentum, and transforms the lives of enthusiasts, explorers, healers, and entrepreneurs - not to mention veterans, pets, and CBD-loving Grandmothers - host Kathryn Blume will explore the search for success, health, pleasure, and justice in an increasingly green - and slightly sticky - world.
“For the last two years, Heady Vermont has worked to foster positive dialogue about all things cannabis,” says Blume. “We’ve been educating both lawmakers and the public about the need for full legalization, and dismantling decades of fear and misinformation about this ancient, and extremely beneficial plant. Now,” she says, “as legalization gains momentum both in the United States and around the world, cannabis, and cannabis users, are literally coming out of the closet. We have an incredible opportunity to do a deeper dive into all the ways cannabis is affecting the culture, transforming the economy, and changing the lives of people everywhere.”
Blume, Heady Vermont’s Production and Events Manager, is no stranger to the world of audio broadcast. “When I was growing up, my mother spent years as the Public Affairs Director at KBOO - a little public radio station in Portland, Oregon. Because KBOO was tiny, and very community oriented, they let me be on the air - and do my own programming - from the time I was about 9 all the way until I graduated from high school.”
As part of a college internship at Friends Of The Earth in Seattle, Blume launched Earth On The Air, an environmental and social justice radio show. “We started out as a five-minute summary of local news.” says Blume. “But in a few years, it expanded into an award-winning half-hour magazine format, broadcast on the Pacifica Radio Network.”
Blume is also an actor, writer, environmental activist, solo performer, and Co-Founder of the Lysistrata Project, the first worldwide theatrical event for peace. She has toured her critically acclaimed one-woman shows about Lysistrata Project and fighting climate change to over 50 cities in the US, Canada, and Europe, receiving an Austin Critics Table Award nomination and an Outstanding Activist Award from the Vermont Environmental Action Conference.
“Having a theatrical background, I tend to think of podcasts as little performance pieces. There’s so much flexibility in an audio format, we can adapt the structure of the narrative to meet the needs of the individual stories we’re trying to tell. Right now,” she adds, “Cannabis is our current culture’s It Girl. But instead of being a momentary fad, we’re really talking about an ancient plant which can genuinely help us heal both ourselves and the world. What story could be more compelling than that?”
The first episode of Unhidden, about the Heady Vermont staff traveling to Montreal for the first day of Canadian legalization is approximately 45 minutes long, and available at SoundCloud, iTunes, and on the Heady Vermont website. New episodes will be available on a monthly basis.
In addition to Unhidden, the Heady Vermont audio stream on iTunes and SoundCloud features shorter interviews with cannabis newsmakers.
Our December episode of Unhidden will feature clips from participants in the Story Booth we'll have at the holiday edition of the the CBD Hemp Farmers Market on Saturday, December 8 at Contois Auditorium in Burlington.
Source:BURLINGTON, VT –Heady Vermont11.19.2018