When I first started laboring here, this place had the look & know of a pharmacy.
At that time the pot laws were undoubtedly restrictive in this state.
In order to have legal access to medical cannabis, a guy first had to get a written recommendation from their primary care physician. Once that was acquired it had to be taken to a government office for approval. There was a long, difficult vetting process that took multiple weeks, which meant that only the oldest & sickest people ever qualified for medical cannabis. There were some afternoons that our cannabis shop would only have 2 or more than two shoppers in a afternoon. Times sure have changed! Now recreational cannabis use is legal, which means anyone over the age of 21 with a state issued ID can come to the store & buy weed. In the old afternoons most of our task was filing paperwork, & logging the medical cannabis Rx permits the state issued to shoppers… Currently the store has dozens of shoppers a afternoon, & occasionally there is a long line of shoppers waiting in front of the cannabis dispensary when the people I was with and I open! Although I stay stressed all afternoon long, I prefer it that way. I get to meet so multiple interesting people & spend the entire shift discussing the pros & cons of different cannabis strains. The cannabis dispensary no longer feels appreciate a pharmacy, it seems appreciate a cool place to hang out. I appreciate our task as a budtender more than ever, & have even started pondering the system of opening our own cannabis dispensary a single afternoon.