where one could purchase both Grateful Dead teddy bear T-shirts and the substances necessary to make those shirts seem cool.
Do they even grow weed that strong?
I look forward to visiting one of these places, in my home state, some day. Yes, cannabis has been branded as countercultural, due to its illegality. And that will fade somewhat as it becomes yet another herb one can legally purchase, a la St. John’s Wart and other medicinal herbs. If that’s what it takes to stop wasting money and lives as happens under the current prohibition regime, great, gimme some of that uncool legal cannabis.
The other thing I’ve noticed, especially in Denver, is that the inside of the store is always a lot nicer than the outside. Most of them are also located in parts of town that would make most folks drive an extra couple of miles per hour.
I’m still waiting for a shop to open in a nice, new building in a nice part of town. That’s when we’ll know that legal weed has truly reached the mainstream…
There’s the start of the next great pot song.
This is all probably old hat to those of you who live in states with medical marijuana laws.
Really?
No snack/pizza shop in the lobby?
I guess critics are right – pot does sap one’s initiative…
They need synergy!
I don’t know. But it occurred to me while writing that some of the stuff I found surreal and amazing could be perfectly normal if you’ve been purchasing medical marijuana for years.
That building used to have one of the best coffee shops in Boulder.
just need to travel backwards in time for the synergy - the building once was a dunkin donuts, then a coffee shop (as mentioned by Ratdog) after that…
Yep. I lost my favorite coffeeshop in Ned to the same thing. And warehouse space here is hard to come by - with the mandate that a certain percentage of product be grown in-county, finding a physical location for our hackerspace was a significant problem.
I hope one day that pot becomes legal in California, and uncool enough so that pot smokers at concerts can be made to go to the smoking area to partake. I have no problem with others smoking, but I don’t find second-hand pot smoke any more acceptable than second-hand tobacco smoke.
Um… I don’t think perceived “coolness” of a counter-cultural act should in principle play any role in a decision regarding drug use. I know a lot of people come from this angle but to me it’s one of the worst reasons to be taking a mind-altering substance of any kind.
If somebody decides to drop pot because now it’s commercial and mainstream, good riddance. They shouldn’t have been smoking it in the first place.
Yeah, pretty much. When I got my card in California about a year ago due to neuropathic pain from Morton’s neuroma, walking into the dispensary felt like a 70s-era Russian refugee walking into an American grocery store. It was almost overwhelming.
Thirty, forty different strains to choose from. A wide variety of concentrates and extracts. Edibles in wide variety, some looking almost bake-sale homemade, but others like straight-off-the-grocery-shelf commercial products.
Plus really useful stuff like topicals that can relieve pain (useful for my neuropathic pain, and a godsend for my arthritis, since I can’t take NSAIDs) without making you high. And CBD-rich or CBD-only meds that can act as a powerful anti-inflammatory, also without making you high.
They’ve been Doing Science To It, with fascinating results.
(Don’t get me wrong - I like getting high sometimes - but I also love having pain relief that actually WORKS (a rare enough thing with neuropathic pain) even when I DON’T want to be high.)
Maggie I believe you and I had very similar weekends. I was also in CO and also vistited a recreational dispensary, in Denver. I enjoy exercising my rights, responsibly, and so do they. I observed no noticeable difference in the feel of Denver from the change in law, other than the news that the state is looking forward to 98 million in new tax revenue in the first year, which is 40% more than they had estimated.
So I assume the long term social impact will involve better roads and schools. Just terrible I tell ya’
Right now all of the pot dealers have to deal in cash only, because banks will not give them accounts. Although the Executive branch recently declared it legal to bank with pot dealers in states where this is legal, the banks are still not following through, fearing rebuttal with federal drug/finance laws. Because of this, you won’t be likely to find this cash-only business leasing space in a nice part of town. Who is going to lease space to a business with no credit, who pays rent in cash, who may suddenly get raided and go out of business during the next presidential administration? I expect eventually you’ll see them pop up in nicer parts of town, when they get the financial ability to buy the nicer real-estate with cash-on-hand.
legal weed hurts dealers who can’t afford a store. support your homies, not the bourgeoisie!
Here in LA, the medical dispensaries tend toward the low-rent districts, but there are some very nice shops in some quite respectable upscale shopping areas, as well.
The proliferation of dispensaries pretty much saved the low-rent commercial storefront real-estate sector here during the recent economic downturn…
Terrapin’s website http://www.terrapincarestation.com is much more entertaining than it seems their physical space is. The menu page is filled with highly readable specimens of serious connoisseurship. “Church,” for example, sounds like quite the journey: “The high starts off fairly stony, with a strong body buzz, that slowly climbs up your spine and into your head and ends on a very cerebral, heady note.”
Amen to that. If you’re only smoking pot because it’s cool, you’re doing it wrong.
