Carolina Fortuna Applauds Passion For The Plant in Argentina
Carolina is driven to succeed in her life. From working in the spirits industry to being inspired by good health (no meat), and of course, there’s the plant in the form of “plant medicine”… You cannot keep from being inspired by her enthused passion for the plant… And we can consider ourselves extremely lucky that she found her path to the plant. Why? Because the world of medicinal cannabis doesn’t revolve around only the USA. She is determined to succeed with medical cannabis as her métier. With Carolina, and yes, she’s from South America. Argentina, to be exact, was a place that was pretty
stigmatized by even the mere mention of the plant for decades.
It’s sad, really, that the government stifled the medicinal qualities of cannabis. It’s kind of like our nation: stigmatized.
I consider myself lucky to have met Carolina, not in person, but through the magic of the Internet.
Cheers!
Please enjoy her Q&A. I did. Thank you. WB
Waren Bobrow: Please tell me about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you live now? What is your job?
Carolina Fortuna: My name is Carolina Fortuna, and I am from the city of Buenos Aires. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood bordering the city and the province. This neighborhood, “República de Mataderos,” led me to see a different reality. Children look in the garbage to eat, and people live in the street.
As a child, it shocked me at first, with a lot of anger, to see other children suffering for not meeting their basic needs. A little later, when I was about ten years old, I started collecting garbage. It was a game for me, and I could get quick money. I started collecting glass bottles, then continued with aluminum cans and cardboard. My family encouraged me to keep doing it, this was the first job I had. Years later, something awakened in me. It was an awareness about waste and collection, which I expanded to include the urban collection of certain medicinal plants found in the streets.
I live in Buenos Aires now, having recently arrived from an 11-month-long trip to Mexico and the United States. I moved to a studio that is a bit small to accommodate all my laboratory equipment, but it is only temporary and cozy. I work as a culinary consultant, creating conceptual menus for bars and restaurants and developing conceptual menus for private and mass events. I have my own brand of tea, I am a teacher giving classes on the use of plants in cocktails, and I recently launched my website: www.carofortuna.com, where I host courses and information necessary to get started in this fabulous world.
WB: I have seen your writings on the Internet about cannabis philosophy. Who inspired you to be philosophical and intrigued about the plant?
CF: Being philosophical about the plant inspired me to try the plant itself. I tried it when I was 16 years old. In my neighborhood, as a child, there was only one version of marijuana that came compact in a small box with a bad smell and many seeds.
When I had the honor to see, smell, and touch a cannabis plant growing in a friend’s backyard in direct soil, I swear my life changed. I understood many things thanks to cannabis. It is a plant that regulates anxiety and stressful moments. My work occupies several fields of action, and many times, I feel stuck with work. At the end of the day, a good weed connects me with my center, that beautiful place that we all have inside and that, sometimes, in everyday life, is difficult to access.
WB: Is cannabis legal where you live? Is hemp legal? Who is a leader in this field? When did you first try cannabis?
CF: The great historical failure of cannabis in Argentina was thanks to a mother of an autistic child who went to jail for growing cannabis to produce the oil her son needed. She got a writ of amparo to let her grow, and the organization Mama Cultiva was formed. From then on, everything went uphill. In Argentina, a medical cannabis law was passed in 2020, it was a historic event. I was at work, and I got the news because I was watching what was going on in Congress. We have a very good medical cannabis law because it is a law that promotes self-cultivation, this law states that each patient can have at home up to 9 flowering plants and an indefinite number of plants in the process of vegetation.
To be able to cultivate, you must access a permit that is granted by specialized doctors who enter you into the program called REPROCANN. I have been registered there since it came out. They give you an identification, and then you can access to cultivate and transport even by plane up to 40 grams of cannabis in the internal flights of the country. The current conflict is due to the change of government. This new president wanted to audit absolutely all the measures of the previous government, so now we are almost 200,000 medical cannabis users with our registration expired or about to expire. Many others are waiting for approval because, at this moment, this new governmental administration has slowed all the procedures.
Hemp is not legal in Argentina, although there is a HEMP MUSEUM where I was able to attend talks and events where they serve excellent hemp flour cookies. It is very difficult to choose a single leader in the cannabis area because there are many people who give their lives to the plant. I would say that it is very interesting to talk with Celeste Pallavicini (@cpallavinici,) who is a Neuroscientist and CONICET researcher who brings to the table some ideas about the future of medicinal therapies with entheogens that are really focused on a better possible future. I also find the PORRO podcast (@podcastporro) on Spotify very interesting. It is made by @los_cocos_dtw, who has his cannabis NGO @donmarcelinoyloscocos. This podcast talks about different aspects of cannabis and hemp in a relaxed way and with an excellent musical accompaniment to listen to it smoking one and learn about the history, medicinal properties, and uses of this plant that does so much good to humanity.
WB: Do you have a favorite food or restaurant that you like when you drink cannabis? What is the relationship between terpenes and food?
CF: I like to accompany a flower with some mate. In Argentina, we drink a lot of mate; it is a non-psychoactive herb that contains caffeine and various medicinal properties. For lunchtime lately, my favorite recipe is some oatmeal cookies that I am making frequently with two bananas, cups of oatmeal, two eggs, two tablespoons of peanut butter, raisins, and seeds. They are ready in the oven in 5 minutes and healthy, which goes perfectly with all my exercise and yoga routine that I have been doing for a few years now.
It is difficult to find a restaurant where I can smoke because smoking is not really allowed in public spaces, but I like to go on Thursdays to Lado V, a vegan restaurant where sometimes my friend Flor Bocona sings. Also, in 7 Vidas, there is a hamburger proposal with terpenes that I didn’t try because I haven’t consumed animals for 5 years.
The relationship of terpenes with food is ancestral, but biotechnology has allowed us to isolate these components to enhance the flavors. I developed some cocktails with terpenes for the last Expo Cannabis Argentina at the fair complex La Rural. The public’s acceptance was amazing, especially considering that the cocktails had no alcohol and no psychoactive effects.
One cocktail I made had a decoction of pineapple skins, and its juice was mixed with a vegan strawberry ice cream with terpenes from the Blackberry Kush plant of the Argentine and Spanish brand CannaCream. This cocktail received the name LOW STRESS, referring to a technique of L.S.T. cultivation that tries to change the direction of the branches of the plant with some tutors so that it grows healthier, gets better light, and enhances its growth.
WB: What is your passion?
CF: I am passionate about life and about communicating novelties that improve people’s quality of life. I started with cocktails when I was 18 years old, and from the beginning, I mixed with unusual ingredients such as Bach flowers and mother tinctures. Along the way, I came across the tea plant and many native plants from South America, which inspired me to generate a consciousness focused on the sustainability of the ingredients. My passion has several areas: medicinal plants, native plants of my region, conscious living in relation to food, writing as a poet and teacher (I am finishing my book to be published in 2025), and communication with several years in radio broadcasting this style of cocktails, and undoubtedly teaching. Teaching is something I am very good at, and I consider myself very creative when it comes to transferring information. I also like to create events and different proposals. Currently, I would say that my passion is to connect with my most faithful version by being authentic all the time and loyal to my vision; in this way, life is easier because the same passion is guiding me toward projects that resonate with my mission that has to do with spreading the power of plants to create a life in connection with nature.
Follow Carolina online: www.carofortuna.com
Feature photo credit: Ryan Gageby
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