My First Visit to a Dispensary
The first and second times I tried cannabis did not end well. I was in my 20’s and consumed the same amount as those seasoned partakers around me. Delicious brownies? Sure, I’ll have one! Which turned to extreme anxiety with a side of paranoia, the inability to move from the couch, and a lovely few rounds of vomiting.
25 years later and I’m ready to do it again! Maybe a little differently this time. I’ve been turned on to the myriad benefits of plant medicine, and am so very excited to see how our relationship with healing plants evolves. It’s hella fun to watch the next generation jumping full-force in up to their eyeballs in plants, nature, healing, and all things modern hippie.
I don’t think I’m just focused on a small subset of the population – this is actually happening on a large scale, right? I guess it’s hard to know what the general population is up to when you skew your social feeds to what you want to see more of.
So after trying to microdose with less-than-fascinating results, I still wanted to tackle my anxiety in a natural way. I’d read about microdosing cannabis and decided to give it a whirl. Finding some proved to be much easier than psilocybin; as simple as looking up the closest dispensary.
The one I initially wanted to visit looked warm and fuzzy, with some cute decor and a welcoming website. I am an obsessive researcher, and I wanted to find the least-intimidating dispensary for my maiden voyage. I had envisioned myself in so many scenarios inside the dispensary, and none were pretty.
One was me slamming the door open and announcing my arrival a la Cruella Deville. The next was being laughed out of the joint by 25 year olds. I also envisioned small huddles of people in grey outfits passing a blunt and leering at me. The most realistic imagining was of walking into a silent clinical setting where everyone could hear me talking about my nagging anxiety.
What prompted me to finally and actually get my ass inside of a dispensary was the Buspirone my doctor prescribed me. As she was running through the anti-anxiety med options, I was half wondering why primary care doctors are allowed to just prescribe any sort of pill for psychiatric conditions, and why psychiatrists are so hard to get appointments with, and why we don’t have universal healthcare that includes therapists and psychiatrists, and then I was thinking about how I may as well go pick up this prescription just to have on hand.
After I picked up my meds (any excuse for a trip to Target, am I right ladies and gay gents?) I was a little disgusted with myself that I so easily chose the manmade pills with warnings such as:
- Central nervous system (CNS): Abnormal dreams, ataxia, confusion, dizziness, drowsiness, excitement, headache, nervousness, numbness, outbursts of anger, paresthesia
- Ophthalmic: Blurred vision
- Otic: Tinnitus
- Cardiovascular: Chest pain
- Respiratory: Nasal congestion
- Dermatologic: Diaphoresis, skin rash
- Gastrointestinal: Diarrhea, nausea, sore throat
- Neuromuscular and skeletal: Musculoskeletal pain, tremor, weakness
- Hepatic: isolated cases of serum enzyme elevations without jaundice
and:
Patients should receive a warning about the possibility of CNS depression. In addition, clinicians should inform patients of the rare potential for akathisia (likely due to central dopamine antagonism) and serotonin syndrome. Postmarketing surveillance reports cases of somnambulism (sleepwalking) associated with buspirone. However, altered neurobiology due to psychiatric disorders should also be considered. QT prolongation has also been reported in patients with preexisting cardiac disorders. source
NO THANK YOU
A quick Google led me to Zen Leaf Dsipensary in Aurora. I drove straight there, popped out of my car, and walked through the front doors before I could overthink. I was surprised to actually smell weed – were people smoking somewhere? I did hate that the outside windows were wrapped so you couldn’t see inside at all. Is this supposed to protect the privacy of the heathens within?
There was an inner lobby with 3 youngsters behind a tall counter, and I practically yelled that I needed SO MUCH HELP because I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t know what to choose and had never been to a dispensary before and I nearly knocked them over with my desperately awkward energy.
The counter dude was gracious enough to give me a polite laugh and tell me they would take great care of me inside, and I felt a little thrill to see what awaited me. After procuring my license, I entered the actual dispensary which was really disappointing. They could have at least staged a few shady dealer-looking guys around and littered the floor with syringes.
But it was actually akin to going to the bank. I guess the vibe they were going for is hyper-minimal, clean, no-nonsense. That’s the overall feeling I got, and I didn’t particularly feel like I enjoyed the whole experience. It just felt very ‘transactional’.
I was surprised at how many people were there on a random, super-rainy Wednesday afternoon. There was a steady line of people – mostly men – the whole time. Everyone just seemed chill standing within the ropes waiting their turn, and I wished I could people-watch a little more, but it was my turn at the counter right away.
I worked with a young woman who was I suppose nice, maybe closer to tolerant of my ignorance. I didn’t get the impression she particularly enjoyed her job, and there was really no interest there in educating me or helping me beyond quickly finding a product I might want to try.
She seemed perfectly adequate at showing me some options on her tablet and then retrieving them from the back room, but I was craving more. Dipping my toes into this particular world of psychoactive substances obviously was a little nerve-wracking. I wanted to be paired with someone who would educate me a bit, answer any nagging questions, and be adept at getting me started.
My budtender defaulted to scrolling through options on the screen, which I could have done at home. She seemed either unsure of their products, uninterested in connecting with humans, or maybe she was just getting through the day. I ended up buying 2 packs of stupid-looking gummies that were equal parts THC and CBD at 50mg of each, of which I just ate half of one of these:
Since I like to design in my head new ways that businesses can exist, I redesigned my dispensary experience.
Think Target meets Anthropologie meets your local farm-to-table small restaurant. While Target is gianthuge, they (mostly) manage to do customer service spectacularly. They know how to keep you in the store and are famous for inspiring people to happily buy 3 times as much as we need. Anthropologie is hip and gorgeous, and many people I know want their lives to basically be how it feels inside of an Anthropologie store. Local small farm-to-table restaurants are made of love. Their founders celebrate food and drink, and know their ingredients intimately. They hire and train their employees well, which ends up scoring them more tip money, I’m sure.
The dispensary doesn’t need to be huge, but there was so much wasted space in this one. People are herded through the door and fed through a roped-off maze where we are spat put to whichever teller is available next. I want a cozier space with some thought to the design. Looking at the images of it online, I now see that there are products to look at on the wall, but I didn’t notice them at all what with the specific directing in and out of the store.
Maybe throw a few couches or tables and chairs around, or have more merch to buy, maybe a human or 2 milling about to answer questions or just chat with people. The counter was PACKED with budtenders, and there was no lightness or fun to the entire vibe.
I’m inspired to make a little mood board for the dispensary I will never open but am having fantasies about. Here:
image credits where listed: Figure Ground Architecture, Hotel Âme, Bondi Wash, Dezeen.com, ElevateJane.com
Still fairly minimal, but nice little touches of more products and character here and there. I like the idea of a local shop, where you can go hang out for a bit and learn, discuss, connect. Maybe even a little more color and softness than what I came up with.
