Tiffany Haddish: ‘If Men Had Period Pain, Weed Would Already Be Legal’
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in May 2024. Some time references have been adjusted for clarity.
“Endometriosis made me want to jump off a building,” Tiffany Haddish admits candidly, revealing the extent of her chronic pain. For Haddish, cannabis has been a vital tool for coping with the relentless agony she faces during her menstrual cycle. Her voice carries real gravitas as she describes how smoking marijuana helps relieve the physical pain she has suffered for years. “When I discovered the actual power of marijuana and how it can help relieve that inflammation, bring that pain down… It has helped me so much,” she explains. “I went to Panama and learned about the different things that cannabis can do and how you can use it. I like mixing it [cannabis leaves] with coconut water and making tea out of the flower.”
Haddish isn’t a stranger to cannabis. She first tried it at 18 but found herself overwhelmed with laughter and discomfort. “I didn’t like that. I couldn’t stop laughing. So I was like, ‘I’m not messing with this,’” she voices.
She returned to the herb later, in her early twenties, while navigating emotional turmoil. “I had a choice between some weed and some other drug. And I chose the weed because I felt like that was a card, versus the other thing that was sitting on the table there,” she says. From that moment on, marijuana has played a significant role in her life, evolving from an occasional escape to a reliable source of relief during her most painful times. “It made me feel relaxed. It took away a lot of my emotional pain. At first, it was like an occasional thing. Then, as I experienced endometriosis pain, especially during my cycles, during my period, I would smoke weed basically for a week straight while I was bleeding. And that changed the game for me. I was able to function. I wasn’t like crying and super emotional all the time,” she adds.
The comedian has long been outspoken about the ways in which cannabis has positively impacted her life. She’s not shy about the medical benefits, recounting how cannabis has helped her manage pain and improve her overall well-being.
Cannabis And Endometriosis
The use of cannabis to manage endometriosis has garnered interest in recent years, with research offering promising insights into its efficacy. A study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada surveyed Australian women with surgically confirmed endometriosis, revealing that 13% of them turned to cannabis as a self-management strategy for symptom relief. The study showed that cannabis was particularly effective in reducing pain, with a self-reported effectiveness score of 7.6 out of 10, and 56% of women who used cannabis were able to reduce their reliance on pharmaceutical medications by at least half. Participants also reported improvements in sleep, nausea and vomiting, with few adverse effects observed.
Studies published through 2023 have further investigated the potential of cannabis in treating endometriosis-related pain and its associated symptoms. A review published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine analyzed …