Listed: Lucia Pagliarone on Plants, Passion… and Prison.

 

There are few people in the world who are known by their first name only. Most of them are strong and outspoken women - Cleopatra, Kamala, Diana, Adele… In Guernsey, particularly in wellness circles, when you mention Lucia, everyone knows who you’re talking about. A strong and powerful woman in her own right who has spent her life healing, learning from her mistakes and reaching for the moon, often in the public eye thanks to her innate need to stand up for the vulnerable around her. But there are vulnerabilities within her that she rarely shares. 

Many of us know her as the one that does cacao ceremonies. Or as the one who went to prison for selling cannabis during lockdown, a decision that split the island in two and fired up social media like never before. They say well-behaved women rarely make history. And neither do they make a difference.

We asked Lucia to tell us her whole story, from childhood to today, how she really feels about cannabis, how it really felt to hear her sentence in court, how she is coping since coming out and what hopes she has for the future. And in her own inimitable style, she didn’t hold back. 

This is a long one. Strap in.

 Lucia Pagliarone is Listed.

 

Alternative From The Start

From a really young age, I was always into alternative stuff. I was brought up with a mum who had her own stuff. She was sent to the Jersey Children's Home and obviously had been through a lot, which led to her own discovery of spirituality, mainly through different churches growing up. I've got a lot of compassion and a lot of love for my mom and the journey that she's been on, but the rebel in me didn't quite connect to the church stuff. Witchcraft, paganism and the alternative was what actually drew me in. 

At the tender age of 11, I did my ESB (English Speaking Board) on witchcraft and got a distinction. I remember the three judges just looking at me. Like they were interested, but also slightly concerned (haha!) that this young girl was so passionate and interested in this stuff! And it's evolved for me since then - the idea of what “witchcraft” actually is, but I guess it's plant medicine. It’s the alternative - crystals, energy, the moon…

 

‘Mum’ is My Biggest Identity

 I became a mum very young. I was a mum at the tender age of 16. Literally just 16 - my waters broke when my birthday cake came out! I had a horrific birth experience where both myself and my son nearly died. That was hugely traumatic for me. And at the time, I never got to deal with it  - being so young, having an emergency c-section and then having a lot of PTSD and postnatal depression afterwards. I had to grow up very quickly. Mum has been my biggest identity for over 21 years now.

From the start, I wanted to prove something about single moms I guess. I wanted to prove that I could do better. That I could work in finance and I didn't need to sign on, to struggle, to get social housing… I didn't want that kind of stereotype. You know? What everybody expected me to do because I was a young mum, so I kind of really pushed myself to go into private renting. I worked in finance for 10 years until 2013. I did it all, but to be honest I was in a lot of emotional pain - due to many things in my life - so towards the end of that I started retraining and learning about healing.

 

Slipping Into A Functional Addiction

 After having some surgery when I was about 18, I was on strong painkillers and I then slowly slipped into an opioid addiction, which helped to numb a lot of the stuff I was feeling. I wasn’t really aware that I was a functional addict - or even what that was. From what I've learned about addiction, it isn't about what happens outside of you. It’s what happens inside of you and for me it was just that. There were things that I'd never told anybody, that I'd never spoken about. I felt so alone. Substances helped me to cope with that. Most people with addictions are doing the same. They're numbing and finding a way to get through. This is why I don't believe that we should be holding so much judgment about people that are just trying to survive. We’re all addicted to something whether we admit it or not.

An Awakening: My First Taste of Healing 

Along with a couple of my friends, I'd started to go and see this energy healer/medium. I was a little bit skeptical at first to be honest. I was interested as a kid in this stuff, but the conditioned adult side of me now was like a lot of people thinking “This is probably a load of nonsense”. But I was still curious, so I thought I’d give it a go and oh my goodness I could not believe what happened for me in that first session. I felt so connected to myself, to something else. She talked to me about things that it was completely impossible for somebody to know. I'd never even written any of this stuff down on paper. There was no way this person could have known all the stuff she was telling me that was coming up from working on my energy. One of the things she also said to me was “You should be doing this work. You have a gift and this is work that you really should consider.” That sparked this little light in me.

 Not long after that I slowly started to do more and more of this kind of healing and engage in lots of other different things. ‘Okay, I'm going to try this family constellations workshop’ ‘I'm going to look into self-care / go for a massage/ try a yoga session’. It really opened me up. In 2014 I started doing small one-to-ones and working with people - and everything just grew from there.

 

Bringing Cacao to Guernsey

 I went to my first cacao ceremony in 2014 with Rebecca Shaman, one of my amazing teachers. Rebecca came here to Guernsey. A friend had given me her ticket because she couldn't attend and I found myself there wondering what on earth I was doing. Then Rebecca and I really connected. We were so similar, so we went for lunch and talked about our individual journeys, our love for plant medicine, our cannabis activism and our love for Mother Earth. We were just so aligned and it clicked that cacao would really complement the work I was doing. I'm a reiki master and I love that work but at the time there was something missing for me. I realised it was a deep connection to, and gratitude for, Mother Earth, the seasons, the plants and the moon cycle all working in harmony to bring us together as a community. 

Later, in 2017, I went to Rebecca's first ever cacaoista training programme in Ibiza. I spent a week intensely learning everything about cacao and how to hold space. It was a really transformative and self-healing journey that changed my life. I came back from Ibiza with my 500 grams of cacao ready to work. It was a very new thing for Guernsey. I integrated it into my one-to-one practice, created cacao therapy and launched a brand - Healing Hands - and website for all of my services. I realised that this could help people go a lot deeper with themselves a lot quicker, to get that ego out the way, to get them out of their heads and connect to their heart and bodies. I'm proud to have created this cacao movement on Guernsey. And you know what? I will take the credit for that because I do have to take that self love for myself and know that I made it accessible and created this ripple effect in the community. It's amazing to see that it's taken off and so many people connect to it. Cacao is a huge part of my life and my work. It helped me to really dig deep and understand more about myself. I believe it's exactly what the planet needs right now in these kind of really wavy times of many changes and challenges.

Overcoming Addiction with the Power of Plants

Alongside all of my other healing work and cacao therapy, I have learned a lot from Dr Gabor Maté, another of my greatest teachers, who I trained with. I’m obsessed with all of his work and books. His Compassionate Inquiry therapy focuses on exploring the mind-body connection and teaches us how to explore our relationships with ourselves and others. I came to realise that my addiction was more than what I believed it was - it wasn't this chemical hook beyond my control. I could be in control of it. I realised it had a lot to do with my lack of self-worth and self-love. I recognised that I was a huge people pleaser, wanting to be the good girl that couldn't say no, as most girls are taught to do growing up, so I was doing a lot for the benefit of others and not looking after myself. The mental hurdle was harder to break than the physical one.

 When I finally overcame my opiate addiction, it was with the help of cannabis. Cannabis has always been part of my life from my teenage years. I've always found it to be a great tool for processing thoughts and feelings, and to help to regulate the nervous system. Yes, to help dissociate at times, because dissociation is also self-care in balance - to give your mind a break.

Coming off opiates can be a pretty intense process. I went to Amsterdam in 2015 for a long weekend and stopped taking them within four days, relying on cannabis to regulate my body. This just reaffirmed to me the power of this amazing plant. I'd always known it and I'd always felt it. But my connection with this plant was really conflicting due to the treatment of it in the eyes of the law. It's still something that I think many of us who really believe in its healing powers have to work through because we've been brought up in fear of it.

Finding My Voice And Speaking Up For Others

 Once I had found my voice and overcome my own addiction, I soon found myself standing up for others and being a voice for the most vulnerable in our community. I realised that fighting injustice and outdated perceptions of addiction is just a part of who I am. We can't continue to treat people the way we do for substances. We need to be more intelligent about it. I wanted to challenge and educate the system because we've got to do something different.

 So a huge part of my activism has been running the Guernsey Drug Strategy campaign with the aim to change the way we look at and treat addiction starting from the top. Some politicians were on my side and joined the fight. Others needed more convincing.

 

Cannabis and Conviction: What really happened.

 At the end of December 2019 I met Mike Clark, whose wife has a degenerative disorder. He was growing cannabis for his wife and had been for a good couple of years before I met him. He did initially supply me with my own for personal use. But then Covid hit in 2020 and the world changed. He had loads spare that he didn't know what to do with. And I was the local cannabis activist. I had all these people saying to me, “Lucia, what are we going to do? Where can we get our medicine from?” Bear in mind, there was no access to medicinal cannabis legally then. It was coming… but it didn't come in until later that year (after I got into trouble), so people were crying out for help. 

 We seem to have forgotten what lockdown was like. It's like a phase in time that everyone just put a lid on and we're acting like people weren't in fear, like people weren't in chaos, like people weren’t in turmoil. People were scared. I connected with many people who felt like that, who were not ok. People who were depressed, who were severely anxious, who were having suicidal thoughts. People that had severe insomnia, people with MS, people with Parkinson's. I had a couple of people with cancer. Someone with a brain tumour. These were people with health issues that had many years of previous experience with cannabis and they were begging me for help. What could I do?

 

When Activism Became Action

 I'm not the sort of person who could just be like “Oh it's not my problem. You know? I've got mine. I know that there's loads available, but I'm not going to get involved.” I just wasn't in that place, I guess. It was my conscience. I wouldn't have slept well knowing that there were people suffering and I was doing nothing. So I agreed. I agreed to help. But just during the lockdowns and that was it. And I made that very clear.

 My activism until that point had involved me standing outside the court with signs saying ‘Cannabis is Medicine’, and presenting politicians with facts and scientific evidence on not only the history of the criminalisation of cannabis in America and how that had been pushed through based on what we now know was lies, but also how now that was being reversed for a legitimate reason in those same places in the world that started this. The reason being that it didn’t need to be illegal - and that it in fact could be used to help a lot of people. I had had conversations with politicians and they saw the truth, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t do a lot, because of the current narrative, because of the relationship with the UK, because of the controls currently in place. I was validated, but yet frustrated. Especially when covid rules and restrictions were able to come into place so quickly based on so much less science and evidence.

 So I agreed. I made that choice. I'd been supplying people for about five months in 2020 when Mike's house got raided because someone smelt his cannabis. Then it was a ripple effect. They knew Mike and I were connected. Other people got in trouble through me and so on. Unfortunately, that’s what happens. It’s obviously not nice for anybody who becomes collateral damage from upholding an outdated law.

 

“I May Have Gone To Prison, But I'm No Criminal”

By the time our court case happened on the summer solstice of 2022, medicinal use of cannabis had been in place in Guernsey for almost two years. So we were obviously optimistic. Surely, the courts were going to see sense here, with this huge change in perception and a thousand people with access to medicinal cannabis on the island now. 

Sadly, that didn't make any difference. There was zero compassion from the court. I felt like I’d never seen a court so brutal, so black and white, so judgmental. Our justice system has lost a lot of respect over the years from the way it holds itself. I truly believe that if they want to gain respect from the community and they want to gain a level of control and order, then they are going to have to reform their practices, starting with adding a level of empathy and compassion into the work they are doing. 

I was sentenced to 3 years, 3 months. There was no need for me to go to prison for the “crime” that I committed. I don’t call myself a criminal. I may have gone to prison, but I'm no criminal. I don't believe I'm a bad person. I don't believe that I should have been sent to prison and away from my children. Who did I harm? We didn't harm anybody. We helped them. We had hundreds of character references in court saying how we had helped and how we even saved lives. 

I know the police knew that I had made it very clear that I would only help during lockdown, because they used to comment on it in my interviews. But that was never mentioned in court. They very much made a big show of it. It never was a big enterprise. It never was this big thing, but they wanted to blow it up out of proportion to be that way because it was me. Because I was the loud mouth woman activist that needed to be knocked down a few pegs, so my involvement was made out to be something far greater than it ever really was. It happens with these systems - let’s make an example out of women with voices, out of people that can get a following and get the community involved.

Life in Guernsey Prison

I served 13 months in Guernsey Prison. I've never been in such an alien environment to me. It was like sensory deprivation; clinical, a lack of nature, a lack of connection. I would say actually it was many backward steps for me. I lived such a healthy lifestyle and going into prison was one of the unhealthiest environments I've ever been in. And now having experienced it, I do also think our prison system needs reform and more support is needed in order to truly be able to rehabilitate those in there so that they can heal and turn their lives around when they come out. At the moment, it feels like a forgotten service and a forgotten people in a forgotten system that nobody wants to talk about. But that’s a whole other discussion to have alongside justice reform! 

However, I was so supported. I had some beautiful people that I would never have expected that held space for me, that wrote to me, that were there for me. I loved that the prison was inundated with post when I was there. I was so grateful for everybody that sent me cards, that kept me going with their letters, their love, their little notes. That worked. It kept me feeling alive. It kept me sane. It reminded me of who I was and that I was a good person, not just this criminal or prisoner that deserved to be in there. I replied to them all, which made work for the prison staff.

 

The Knock-On Effect On My Family

I have three children; Leo, my now 21 year old, and Gio & Flo, my twins who were just 3 and a half years old when I was sent away. They have been through so much. We were allowed visits four times a week for 45 minutes in some awful, busy visiting hall that was complete chaos with all family visits happening at the same time. It wasn't a nurturing loving healthy environment. Once a month, we were allowed visits alone in what they called ‘the cabin’ - not even alone really as I was being watched by a prison guard again. It was so hard on them having their mother taken away. I had to listen to them scream and cry after every visit as I walked away. Every single time. It even upset the prison guards. That still haunts me, if I’m honest. My partner did an amazing job, don’t get me wrong. They were so lucky to have him and I’m so grateful for all he did at that time - and continues to do - but science, biology… common sense knows that no child should be separated from their mother.

It's taken us, and is still taking us, a long time to heal that. Even now, being away for three nights hosting retreats causes great stress for my children. It’s horrific. I have to explain to them every time I'm going anywhere that mummy will be back. That mummy is here. “I’m here. Look! I'm safe.” We video call so they see that mummy's doing her work. “I'm helping people to feel good and to feel better and it's good for mummy”. From the work I do, I know the body keeps the score. They may not remember it in their brains, but their bodies can still hold that abandonment. Luckily, I've got the tools that will help my children heal. But what we've got to ask ourselves is, was that really necessary?

 

Getting Out And Starting Over

When I got out of prison on the 21st of July 2023, I felt like I was in a fish bowl. I never knew if I would ever feel like myself again, if I'd feel normal, if I would connect, if I would do the work that I loved anymore. I'd felt like I completely shed my whole skin and my whole self. I knew there was an essence of me somewhere, but I wasn't sure who I was or where I was going.

I do forgive those who sentenced me and those who hurt me, upset me, betrayed me. Holding in feelings like that can cause a lot of sickness, not only physical but spiritual and emotional. That’s why I've also forgiven myself for what I did, especially when it affected others. We are always the last ones we forgive. It’s important to forgive and let go.

 

On The Legalisation of Cannabis 

I think because of this evolution in public opinion and treatment of cannabis, there are a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people think that the cannabis on the street is a different substance to cannabis from the pharmacy. A lot of people have this idea that all medicinal cannabis is different, that it’s much safer. It's the same stuff. Yes, there’s a regulatory process to go through to be certified for prescriptions, but that doesn't necessarily make the quality any better. 

 The cannabis Mike grew was some of the highest quality I've ever seen. Certainly far better than any of the medicinal cannabis I've encountered so far. I think that's such a shame, but this is part of the process and the journey for the medical cannabis industry. 

I'm still on license of the prison, so I'm still classed as a criminal. I am still going to have this criminal record for drug trafficking and supplying sick people with this medicine in lockdown. It's crazy to think that this still goes on. It’s ok for big corporations to sell this plant back to the community but it is still not okay for the community to do it themselves. In fact, they are punished for it. Hopefully one day, they will trust small growers to grow and as a community, we can just go back to purchasing it from them and they can pay tax on it like a proper business. I believe that's how it should be. 

 

Faith In The Future

 I had this real vision when I was in prison to host retreats to bring women together. I’d journal about it, paint about it, picture it. There was all this doubt obviously - I wasn't sure I was good enough and I didn't know if I'd be able to find my way back to who I was. I didn't think I'd do it. After a summer with my family, I was still hesitant but I pushed myself to post a little reel on Instagram for a January retreat. I was encouraged by this beautiful circle of women that held a ceremony for me to help me heal when I got out. Within 48 hours, it had sold out with 25 women.

That restored not only my hope for others, but also the light in myself. People still believe in you. People still see you, Lucia. It was daunting but I was just so grateful and excited. It propelled me. I set up practice slowly again starting with holding one-to-one sessions in my beautiful space at home. Since then I've met so many new clients alongside old ones that shockingly didn't even go and see anybody else whilst I was gone! It's so beautiful to know that you know some of those people just trust me. I've also hosted multiple retreats since. 

I'm grateful that I can say that I have now done this work for 10 years. I'm a shamanic energy woman, a cacaoista, a plant medicine woman. I’m a reiki master. I’m still a social justice activist. I’m continuing my training in compassionate inquiry work with Dr Gabor Maté. I'm so proud to have a thriving practice now holding one-to-one space (with or without plant medicines!) helping people to heal the body as a whole, which includes lifestyle and nutrition habits. I'm here to empower people to connect to the essence of who they are, to remind them of who they are. That they are loved. That they have a purpose. That they belong.

 

On The Magic of Guernsey

I truly believe that Guernsey is the health hub of the planet. I believe that people will come here to rest, to heal, to be, because there is a pool of healing magnetic energy to Guernsey that really draws people here. Even when they leave, people return and say “I can’t tell you why I'm back. I don't know what's drawn me back here, but there's just something about it.” 

It's true. Beyond all the drama and politics and all that happens, the core of who we are as an island community is just this beautiful, healing, loving space.

This island is my home. I was born here and I adore this home. At one point it didn't feel like home anymore. I wasn't sure I even wanted to be here anymore.

I'm not in any way perfect. I'm a human being like everybody else with hurt, with pain, with flaws, with a shadow. But to be able to come back to that community and to trust and love again makes me so grateful. 

And even after everything that's happened, I'm so grateful to be home.

 

You can find out more about Lucia and Healing Hands at healinghands.gg or follow her on Instagram.