Did Frida Kahlo Use Marijuana?

UPDATE: According to a 2024 article in Forbes magazine, "To ease the chronic and unrelenting pain she suffered...Kahlo often turned to topical remedies made from the cannabis plant. This information comes first-hand from Kahlo’s great-grandnieces who, during a ten-day-long meeting last summer with Marisela Nuño, bestowed their blessing on a soon-to-debut cannabis brand."

Nuño is the founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Hierba Buena wellness company, which created the Kahlo-inspired cannabis brand. The brand name Alas Pa′ Volar ("Wings to Fly") comes from a phrase inscribed by the iconic artist on one of her final paintings ("Pies pa' que los quiero si tengo alas pa' volar / Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?"). 

Itzcuintli Dog with Me (detail)

“They will say I smoked cigarettes and marijuana, cursed hoarse as a crow in all my languages, and loved morphine and Demerol and tequila and pulque, women and men."

–Kate Braverman, The Incantation of Frida K.

I have been for years trying to track down any reference to Frida Kahlo using marijuana. The closest I have is a mention (via Errol Flynn) that Kahlo's husband Diego Rivera used it, and shared it with others.

Judy Chicago in her book Frida Kahlo: Face to Face says that the cigarette Kahlo holds in a holder in her 1938 painting Itzcuintli Dog with Me is a marijuana one.*

Elsewhere it’s assumed it’s a tobacco cigarette Kahlo holds in her paintings (e.g. Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, 1932; Me and My Parrots, 1941). She was often photographed holding a cigarette, even in her wedding portrait.