Meet Elly Novelo

I’m Elly Novelo, the Manager at Kush Life Smoketique & Tattoos in Downtown Las Vegas. I’m twenty-five years old and I was diagnosed with psoriasis at the age of eight, as well as psoriatic arthritis.  I’ve undergone numerous treatments in the last seventeen years- everything from pills, topicals, injectables and phototherapy. None of the options prescribed to me ever work, instead the topicals made my skin drier, the pills left me with mood swings (as they warned they would) the injections landed me in the ER, and phototherapy was simply frying my skin and sucking all the energy out of me. All of these treatments were only working on masking my conditions.

Growing up, everyone just thought I was unfortunate to have dry skin, the dandruff was mistaken for a dry scalp, and the depression and anxiety attributed to a personality flaw. In reality, it was the beginning of a misunderstood and poorly treated journey for me.

Psoriatic arthritis means living with constant inflammation and stiffness in all my joints. It has affected the way my skin looks, and sometimes, when I have a flare up, I not only end up with pain, but with a foggy head. Throughout the last five years, I’ve been exploring my own self-care through cannabis. I have proved to so many people that natural remedies do work, that cannabis does work. I smoke cannabis to help my chronic pain and it helps enormously. Topicals made with marijuana have cleared up my psoriatic skin discolorations, scabs, and dry patches incredibly. In the past I was constantly itchy, I would scratch my skin until it would bleed.

I myself have witnessed firsthand the magic of cannabis. It has helped me deal with the life long disease in a pain-free way. I started making THC and CBD lotions for myself and rapidly saw a change in the inflammation on my joints, and the way my skin looks, which eventually motivated me to start my own line, Smooch’s Cure. Later I started helping my mother and grandmother, who finally accepted marijuana as a medicine instead of a drug (as much of society sees it) after seeing the curing effects it has had on me.

My relationship with cannabis is smoking it daily whether it’s Flower, Vape Oils or Concentrates in my Hippy Trips Vaporizer along with THC/CBD capsules I make myself. I use my hygiene products daily, which all have THC or CBD as an ingredient; soaps- deodorant, shampoo, body lotion, etc. After I moisturize my body and face with infused organic coconut oil, I use hand lotion, Chapstick, and even my makeup primer, all infused with THC or CBD, because even make up makes me flare-up. I also indulge in CBD/THC drinks such as water, ice teas, and more which calm down my inflammation. Other drinks, of any kind, can cause an allergic reaction or flare-up. I also add CBD to my food making my relationship with what I’m feeding my body healthier and more beneficial.

I have been a cannabis advocate since the age of thirteen trying to spread my testimony to the world, state to state and even going International to a few other countries. I accept every opportunity presented to me as a result of my hard work and networking, even when being in the background and shadows of the cannabis community. We work together in an atmosphere to heal one another, instead of making it a political thing.

My long term goal is to keep informing others on how to manage and cure their skin conditions caused by psoriasis or any other chronic illness.  I am expanding my platforms and working towards becoming an official spokesperson for this worldwide issue that no one really pays much attention to. People say “oh, it’s just dry skin.”  NO! Psoriasis is much more than that. I will keep pushing and helping those without knowledge until cannabis is removed from Schedule 1 in the United States, so cannabis can be more available to the 7.5 million Americans suffering everyday.

Once I got off those pharmaceutical drugs, I started doing much better. I want to build a platform to reach the 125 million people with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis across the world.