Post: I Use Cannabis to Inspire Creativity in My Work. So What?

Illustration: Kim Salt Kim Myles is an HGTV host, interior and product designer, and hairstylist. For PS’s Radical Honesty issue, she discusses using cannabis while working. Read more radically honest stories here .

I met cannabis when I was 20. Had never done any drugs, was not a drinker. But I had my first experience with cannabis, and it was an instantaneous love affair. Love, love, love. And why I loved it was that I was instantly aware that I had been living 20 years with the low hum of constant anxiety. And when I consumed cannabis, that hum disappeared, and the quiet was deafening. I didn’t know that my nervous system could feel like that. Also, I was very much an insomniac and really struggled with insomnia. It didn’t matter what, but at 2:13 a.m., I was up. It’s horrifying. But guess what helps that? Cannabis.

For me, cannabis truly was life-changing.

For me, cannabis truly was life-changing. It changed who I was in the world, how I moved through the world. And the bonus track has been how exponentially it enhances my creative process. I would never give cannabis credit for my creative process, but it is a brilliant amplifier for me. I find that when I’m ideating — because I am a creative, I create things. In my interior design work, my home is my lab where I’m creating and living amongst my creations. For example, I have a set of patterns I created 15 years ago, and I’ve brought them out again. Just graphic patterns that could be wallpaper, could be anything else. If I have a little cannabis and then I’m ideating around that and walking around my home, which is my studio, and making connections — I call it cross-pollinating. I’m like a little bee and I just flit around and let things hit my eye and my brain.

I’m a sativa strain girl. I like uplifting, light, bright, creative, chatty. That’s what I want people to know: you can customize your dosage and your experience. It’s not all about being on the couch. I say […]

I Use Cannabis to Inspire Creativity in My Work. So What?