Fran Drescher Gets Frank About Cannabis And Why It's Important To Live A Healthy Life
After being fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, a cosmetics saleswoman becomes the nanny to the three children of a rich English widower. That was the story in 1993 when Fran Drescher went from comedic actress of the 80's to household name a decade later as the effervescent lead actor in the television sitcom The Nanny.
"The gift that keeps on giving," is how Drescher described her show to a crowd of us gathered in lush Portland, Oregon to hear her speak for the first time at a cannabis conference. Her uniquely startling-then-endearing voice and heavy New York accent drawing the audience into nostalgia.
From The Nanny to cannabis? How's that possible?
I had the opportunity to interview Drescher prior to the Cannabis Science Conference (CSC), where she was selected to speak as a longtime advocate and voice for change in the health and wellness space. "Fran Drescher has promoted alternative, holistic approaches, such as medicinal Cannabis through her organization, Cancer Schmancer," commented Joshua Crossney, president, CEO, and founder at CSC Events, LLC.
Like so many people who become truly enlightened by the weed's powers out of need, Drescher had health issues bring her attention to the plant. Few know she struggled with her weight and experiences during her time on The Nanny, only later to battle uterine cancer.
Today, having defeated uterine cancer and adopting a firm belief in healthy, medically insightful living, Drescher is telling her story. She's got good data to back-up the growing popularity of alternative medicine, as well. The global alternative & complementary medicine market was valued at $40.32 billion in 2015.
This growth is systemic, Drescher explained. "Because if you have a problem with your breast and they [doctors] are just looking at your breasts, they're not asking you if you're working eight hours a day in an office with fluorescent lighting. They're not asking you if you're putting your cell phone in your Bra. They're not asking you if your bra is made of toxic synthetic fibers that are off-gassing. There's a lot that they don't know and don't ask."
Drescher shared with me her analogy. "If you can look at an apple tree and notice all the apples are grown but are deformed or rotten or you know, they're just, something's wrong with all those apples, are you going to treat each individual apple, or are you going to try and figure out what's wrong with the tree at the root?," she asked. "And uh, and that's what we don't do with our own bodies with Western medicine."
Drescher is all about getting back to basics in life, and not buying into all the expert opinions. For example, if you're going to eat a grazing animal, she stressed: "that animal better be grazing on healthy soil with a rich microbiome because it's the soil that they ingest."
"We don't get enough earth in our diet," Drescher believes. In so doing, we're not serving ourselves well and are perpetuating something that should be unconscionable in the human experience. "I speak on a lot of different issues and particularly how it relates to our adults and try to wake up and shake up people who have been systematically programmatically numbed out and dumbed down to believe that our instincts aren't good enough and we need some research or the FDA to tell us what's good for us."
Greed is believed to root of much of our shielded knowledge and exposure to cannabis, according to Drescher. Big business at its core. "We've been told we don't need to eat cannabinoid and uh, so, you know, "I think that everything old is new again and I think it's so we can challenge what we're told during the industrial revolution, and really start to question whether it's the truth or whether it was motivated by greed."
That goes for marijuana, as well. "There's so much that we don't know, and that's true with cannabis," Drescher told me from experience. Her father asked his neurologist about taking cannabis. Drescher recollected, "He went from having that expressionless look that Parkinson's patients often get where it's kind of a dull life, to a positive reaction within seconds upon using cannabis. His whole face became animated, his voice became strong, his eyes opened up, and my dad was back to being himself."
Fran Drescher Talks Cannabis & Health at the Cannabis Science Conference
Cannabis advocacy
This was Drescher's first keynote at a cannabis conference, and by all accounts, not her last. "We were really excited to introduce Fran to the cannabis community at our show and her journey with cancer and personal use of medicinal cannabis really resonated with our audience," Crossney said retrospectively. "People walked away empowered and excited, and I think we'll be seeing more of her."
This year, Drescher's very own health awareness event, the exclusive "Master Class Health Summit," will feature one of the most educated cannabis advocates in the world, Harvard-educated Dr. Uma Dhanabalan. It takes place on October 23rd, 2018 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Los Angeles Music Center.
"I would encourage and support and put my name and face to a product or even just as a consumer on the ones that are being grown, you know, the old school way of organic in, in good, healthy, rich soil...the old fashioned way," she described. "That's going to be a happy plant."
A happy plant, indeed.
Thanks for your time and inspiration, Fran. We're a community eager to help and reciprocate and share your mantra about cannabis: "It's not a religion. It's science, and it works."
And as for The Nanny?
The sitcom is 25 years old this year and there's even some talk of a revival. “We’re talking about it,” Drescher admitted. “Peter [Marc Jacobson] and I are talking about it.”
