Sophia Massad by Anna Ervin Herbage Magazine
If you have yet to tune into the locally produced Play It Loud series by award-winning independent filmmaker Adam Hampton, it’s time to indulge. Play It Loud is sponsored by our friends at Grand Casino and was the topic of discussion between my boss and I when the name Sophia Massad came up. Sophia is one of the most recent artists to join the series, but I had been seeing her name pop up long before this interview was released. You see, when I first started working for Herbage, I was eager to make more friends in the cannabis industry. So, like any millennial would do, I turned to Instagram. It was hard to scroll past Sophia’s colorful, sparkly images that came up under geotag Oklahoma City. I loved the way she was breaking stigmas about the use of medicinal cannabis by, well, glamourizing it. Looking at her content, you might never imagine that Sophia, like so many of us, has a history of health issues. The focus of her brand lies not on her disabilities, but rather the capabilities that using cannabis has given back to her. This inspired me, and I think that was apparent to my boss. It was only a matter of time before he worked his magic and I found myself sitting across from @the_dope_soph herself. I was a little nervous. Sophia has not only worked tirelessly to create a sound that she is proud of, but also uses her music and her platform to educate and inspire the public about the benefits of cannabis. And she does it with so much fire. I decided to be upfront about how intimidating this meeting was for me, and boy am I glad I did. After bonding over our mutual enemy, anxiety (and laughing at our own fears), we dove right into one of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time. I couldn’t possibly include every little thing we touched on (I’m not kidding when I say I had to cut over 11,000 words from this story), but I did my best to focus on the topics that highlight the most colorful pieces of Sophia’s journey. I hope that by the time you finish reading this, you’ll see the same shining light that initially inspired me to seek out her story. Anna: So, I really wanted to talk about your journey with cannabis, and why you are so passionate about using your platform to break the stigma. Sophia: Well, I was the queen of ‘weed is terrible, and nobody should ever have it. It will ruin your life and then you’ll do heroin.’ After I got my card, I realized that it literally is medicine. I really fell in love with like the fact that it can help you; it got rid of my anxiety, I was able to sleep, and creatively it sparked so much in me. It helped me get over a lot of social anxiety. Because I was homeschooled, I never learned how to interact with people, but when I started smoking it was like, ‘I’m just going to be myself. Fuck it. I’m going to do whatever I want.’ I don’t know if you’ve watched my Play It Loud interview, but now that I’ve said ‘I have Tourette Syndrome, and I’m also a normal person.’ And that I tried to kill myself, and I’m also a normal person. I just love the idea of normal people coming out, and saying ‘Hey, this is what I’ve done, now everybody knows that life is…’ I don’t knowAnna: I get what you’re saying. You’re not just breaking stigmas about cannabis use. You’re breaking stigmas about mental health and wellness. Sophia: I’m trying to. I just, so much want people to say, ‘I will stop taking this prescription medicine, because now I have gummies every morning.’ That’s how I feel because I was taking Ibuprofen all the time before cannabis. I was just always in pain. When I first applied for my card I had just gotten in a car accident where I rear ended someone.
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photo by Austin Edwards
