Recreational Marijuana Blog | The Greenery

Posted on October 21, 2017 - 9:00 am

Infused Flower, Marijuana, Caviar, Marijuana Caviar, Moonrocks, Marijuana Moonrocks, Hash, Hash Factory The Greenery Hash Factory

People get pretty pretentious when it comes to fish eggs. Think about it: the only true “caviar” comes from the critically endangered beluga sturgeon—a monstrous fish that swam alongside dinosaurs—and it sells for $290 an ounce. It’s salty and black and usually enjoyed by people who wear suits and snobby expressions, like James Bond. I’ve only eaten it a couple times, and I didn’t understand the hype; it didn’t taste any better than the fish eggs you get at sushi restaurants for a fraction of the price. But that sushi stuff is just called “roe,” and to some people, that matters, I guess. And to these people, it’s annoying when the rest of us refer to garden-variety roe as “caviar,” but really, we only do so because it’s a crap-ton easier than saying “salt-cured fish eggs that come from a species outside the acipenseridae family of fish.” Know what I mean?

And in a way, it’s ironic, because just as “caviar” has become a blanket-term for fish eggs, so too has it become a blanket-term for infused cannabis flower. But then again, people get pretty pretentious when it comes to pot as well. Technically, the only true caviar marijuana is made by soaking a bud of Grape God in Grape Rhino hash oil, and then coating it with Grape Rhino kief. If a different flower, oil, or kief is used, the end product is just an unnamed variety of “infused flower.” But the confusion doesn’t stop there: instead of “caviar,” some people (usually from the west coast) use the term “moon rocks,” or they think that moon rocks are buds coated with cannabis wax. But that’s not accurate either—true moon rocks are made by soaking buds of Girl Scout Cookies in an oil made from the same strain, before coating it in more GSC kief. So, thanks to all the vagaries and confusion, the three terms have become somewhat synonymous, and frankly, here at The Greenery, we don’t have a problem with that: “moon rocks” is just the Californian way of saying “caviar,” which is just the Coloradan way of saying “infused flower.” At the end of the day, none of it matters because caviar marijuana is ludicrously awesome and it gets you high as hell, so who cares what it’s called?

Anyway, at The Greenery, we’ve always sold caviar, and our customers love it so much that we’ve started making it ourselves. For our first batch, we used Dark Star flower from our own grow, but instead of dipping it in hash oil that’d been thinned with alcohol like most places use, we painstakingly painted each bud (yes, with an actual paintbrush) with pure hash oil that’s just as thick and golden as the gooey-goodness in Winnie the Pooh’s honeypot. And then we battered each sticky bud in our own kief, just like fried chicken, before letting it dry. The result was wonderful: our caviar came in at over 55% THC, which is mind-blowing, but the best part was the texture. Most caviar is oversaturated with oil, and when you try to grind it, it clogs up your grinder and makes a hot mess. But our caviar crumbles perfectly and it’s easy to handle or roll into joints: it’s the perfect trifecta of potency, and just a little bit goes a long way. The high is quick and potent, the flavor is rich and decadent, and the best part is that you don’t need to be James Bond to afford it: before tax, our caviar sells for only $25 per gram, or $20 for a one-gram, pre-rolled joint, and we always have plenty in stock.

So please, come into our dispensary at 208 Parker Avenue and come see this stuff. Come ask one of our budtenders to show you a sample or let you smell it, and we swear that you’ll understand the hype (unlike with those snobby fish eggs), because We’re Your Best Buds!

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on October 14, 2017 - 9:00 am

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Savanna Bristol
Assistant Compliance Manager & Flower Purchaser

About your Best Bud:

Savanna Bristol is a wee bit clumsy; running into things is a hobby of hers. Actually, I’ve seen her come close to death three times in a single shift. And she definitely needs to stay away from sharp objects. The last time we worked together, she got a metal splinter stuck in her finger (you know, “somehow”), and then when she walked by the couch, it “bit her leg” and she started bleeding. And her affliction goes beyond the workplace as well: this one time, Savanna decided to stand on top of Baker’s Bridge, and it didn’t go too well. Her friend didn’t want to jump, so Savanna may, or may not, have pushed him off. And then when she jumped after, she landed in a sitting position, and it broke her back—two of her vertebrae went “poof,” as she says it, but Savanna still looks back with a laugh when she tells the story.

However, her clumsiness doesn’t matter because Savanna has brains—she’s our assistant compliance manager, and it’s her job to steer our dispensary through all the weird, esoteric little regulations the state throws at us. She checks potency profiles and child-resistant packaging and font sizes, and she dedicates 100% of her attention to making sure we’re compliant (maybe that’s why she’s so clumsy). But here’s the rest of her story:

Q: When did you start working for The Greenery?
Savanna: “March of 2016.”

Q: What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Savanna: “I love dabbing—it’s one hit, one high. And right now, I love the rosin we’re making. Seriously. The flavor is awesome, and the high is perfect!”

Q: What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Savanna: “I love tubing the river or paddle-boarding the lake with my dog.”

Q: Tell us about your pet.
Savanna: “Nala is a seventy-five-pound Pitbull, but she’s a baby. She just has too much love to give.”

Q: Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Savanna: “Whichever one suits my mood, but it’s usually Die Antwoord or Disney music… I love Disney music.”

Q: What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Savanna: “I love my coworkers and my customers. It doesn’t matter who you are; when you come into The Greenery, you’re in a good mood.”

Well, that’s Savanna. In a way, she’s our dispensary diva. She likes things her way, and if she doesn’t get it, she’s likely to throw a big bag of pot at your face (and fall down in the process). But frankly, there’s nothing wrong with her way, because she knows this industry inside and out, and it’s due to her efforts that we run a completely compliant dispensary. And she has good taste in pot, which is important—Savanna’s second duty is to order all the flower on our menu, and thanks to her, we’re able to offer ten premium strains of boutique flower to Durango each and every day. For her steadfast dedication to compliance, and for keeping our shelves stocked, The Greenery is in Savanna’s debt, and because of that, she is Your Best Bud for October! Thank you, Savanna!

420 Friendly in Durango, Colorado

Posted on October 7, 2017 - 9:00 am

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Just about everybody knows that “420” has something to do with pot, and just about everybody knows that “420 friendly” has something to do with businesses that support recreational marijuana use. But do you know where “420” comes from?

As it turns out, some kids in California coined the term, but I didn’t know that when I was a college freshman. At the time, I lived in Eugene, Oregon. My balcony overlooked Pine Street, and I remember watching from my lawn chair as all the other college kids went to class, exercised on the streets, did all the things college kids were supposed to do. I remember the taste of that west coast weed, I remember the deep bass bleeding from our living room speakers, and I remember laughing with my friends as we smoked our way into oblivion at 4:20 on some random afternoon.

Eugene is a verdant place, where the heat is ripe and everybody looks like they belong in an outdoors magazine. It’s a liberal college town, one so quintessential that you’ve seen it in movies, and pot was just a part of life. We got high every day at 4:20 because that’s what you were supposed to do. We had our rituals, we used alarm clocks. But we thought “420” was the call-code cops used to radio in a charge for marijuana possession. It made sense: when Snoop Dog said “187 on an undercover cop,” he meant murder; the band 311 chose their name because “311” is the call-code for indecent exposure; “420” obviously had something to do with cops and smoking pot (which is why it was so cool). But I was young and clueless—sometimes, clichés really do fit best—and I didn’t know the truth:

Back in 1971, there was group of Californian kids who called themselves the “Waldos,” and San Rafael was their hood. They were athletic teenaged boys and best friends. I’m sure they wore sweatbands in their shaggy hair, and striped socks pulled all the way up to their knees—I’m sure their music was loud, and I’m sure the ‘66 Impala they drove around town still felt modern and new.

One day, one of the Waldos heard about a military man who lived in the Point Reyes Forest. He was shipping out somewhere, leaving his post on the peninsula, and he wouldn’t be around to guard his pot-patch, growing somewhere out in the forest. One of the Waldos even had a treasure map. So, they made a plan: every day after school and track, they’d meet at 4:20 by a Louis Pasteur statue next to the wall behind which they usually got stoned (incidentally, this wall put the “wall” in “Waldos”). They’d start smoking immediately, and then they’d drive out into the Point Reyes Forest. They’d get out of that ‘66 Impala and they’d roam the loamy forest floor, hunting through the dappled sunlight for a hidden glen of unguarded pot plants. They never found what they were looking for, even after two weeks’ worth of searching, but they did find a form of immortality, because the Waldos created something that’ll live on forever.

The rest of the story is easy-cheesy: one of the Waldos had a loose connection to one of the Grateful Dead, and “420” found a carrier, just like the common cold. And it spread through the Waldos’ school, like things do. The virgin-minded freshmen watched with awe as the Waldos got high behind their wall, and after each graduating class, the Waldos lived on, reincarnated in a younger troop. After time, those two weeks’ worth of raiding into the Point Reyes Forest were forgotten, but the time to get high wasn’t: school still ended at the same time, so did track practice, and that statue of Pasture still stood watch over the new kids, doing his best to keep their minds from curdling. The original Waldos grew up and moved and had children of their own, and the origin story behind 420 was diluted with myth and by geography until it found me sitting on that balcony in Eugene, smoking my way into oblivion, convinced in totality that my alarm was going off because of a police call-code.

Anyway, seventeen years later, businesses have started adopting “420 friendly” as a lowkey way to advertise that they’re cool with pot; it provides for their customers an appreciated level of discretion. And at least five times a day, someone will come in and ask me if I know of any 420-friendly places in town. First and foremost, I tell these customers that per Colorado state law, marijuana can only be smoked on private property with the property owner’s permission. Quite a few of the local hotels that have smoking rooms will allow you to smoke marijuana in their rooms, but here’s the important part: always ask first. I know it might seem a bit counterintuitive to ask someone at the front desk if it’s okay to get high in your room, but trust me, these people are used to the question, so there’s no point in being timid (after all, it’s legal now). And if you’re staying in a hotel that doesn’t allow in-room smoking, just ask if you can use their designated smoking area—the same principal applies, and if you get permission, everything is peachy on the legal front.

And there are a few other businesses in town with outdoor seating that don’t mind too much if you get high on their property, especially if you’re using something discrete, like a marijuana vape pen (again, always ask). But if you’re still leery on the legality, please feel free to come into The Greenery and ask one of our knowledgeable budtenders about the regulations; after all, The Greenery is the friendliest 420-friendly place in town. We’ll tell you when and where you can smoke, and we’ll do our best to make sure your 4:20 is comfortable and legal, because We’re Your Best Buds, and that’s what we do.

Kief Brick

Posted on September 30, 2017 - 9:00 am

Thirty years ago, my father had a poster hanging on the inside of his closet door: it said, “a puff of kief in the morning makes a man as strong as a hundred camels in the courtyard.” The poster was warped and creased with age, the font was straight out of the sixties, and a tall hookah was pictured on the left with smoke wafting from the bowl at its crown. And as a child, I had no idea what it meant. I assumed it had something to do with drugs, because those are the things you “puff,” but I ruled that out quickly because my father didn’t do drugs; he loved his polo shirts and his hard-to-read books and his government job. However, the years passed, and I finally figured out that the poster was indeed a relic from my father’s hippy youth. But I still didn’t know what “kief” was.

Fast forward to my freshman year: a guy named Drew gave me a homemade kief box as a gift. As a side note, they call them “pollen boxes” now because kief is still illegal in most backwoods states, but that’s irrelevant. Anyway, when Drew gave me the box, I opened it and looked inside. There was a fine screen in the bottom with another compartment below it. I asked Drew what the hell a “kief box” was, and after giving me an incredulous look, he told me to keep my weed in the box and shake it gently from time to time—Drew told me that the “kief” would fall through the screen into the compartment below, and that I could take it out and smoke it.

So, I did exactly what Drew suggested. And after an eighth or three of that good west coast weed, I’d collected a decent dusting of kief in the bottom of my box. I took it out, sprinkled it on top of a bowl loaded in my bong, and I smoked it. I sat back in my dorm room and I waited for the strength of one-hundred camels; I waited for the superpowers promised by my father’s poster. They never came, of course, but at least I figured out the riddle to that poster (by the way, Google says it’s worth $1000 now), and at least I discovered kief.

Kief is an Arabic word meaning “pleasure” or “intoxication,” which, if you think about them, are two pretty damn synonymous words to start with, so it makes sense that the Arabs would use only the one word. But the kief I’m talking about is something you smoke: it’s a naturally-made marijuana concentrate formed from the dried trichomes found on cannabis flower. And frankly, kief is one of my all-time favorite ways to get high. But it’s always been difficult to find, just like all the good stuff in life, because most kief is homemade and so good that most people won’t share it. However, that’s an annoyance from the past because The Greenery Hash Factory has started manufacturing and selling old-school kief right here in Durango, Colorado.

We make it simply and naturally—we put premium, boutique flower in our dry-sift machine (using a 150-micron filter), and we let friction do the work. The flower tumbles around for a while and all the wonderful kief falls into a collection bin below (it’s like that little wooden kief box of mine, but on steroids). We take out the powdery kief and compress it into a brick with a pneumatic jack, and then we cut it up into grams of “kief brick” that we sell for $30 before tax at our local dispensary. The batch I smoked just before writing this (yeah, that’s right) was made from Indiana Bubblegum flower, and the numbers are incredible: the THC came in at 44.9%, and the CBG came in at 3.1%. At this point, especially if you’re a regular reader of marijuana blogs, you’re probably bored to tears when it comes to information on cannabinoids like THC and CBD because it’s ubiquitous, however, CBG is an up-and-coming cannabinoid you should pay attention to—this odd little chemical is actually the parent of both THC and CBD, it’s thought to have anti-inflammatory properties, and it might even be a neuro-protectant (smoking high-CBG concentrates might actually protect your brain, despite what your mother told you).

However, just like I said in last week’s post, the numbers don’t matter much, nor does the science—it’s the experience that counts: our kief is incredible, and I’m pretty sure this is the stuff Tinkerbell sprinkled on the Lost Boys to make them fly. And smoking kief is like eating the frosting first and leaving the cake behind, because you’re smoking the trichomes without the sticks and stems you’re used to. It’s flavorful and rich, and the smoke expands in your lungs, like a genie trying to get out of his claustrophobic lamp. The high is complex and long-lasting, with warm body notes and a cerebral giddiness that seems way too intense for something that costs only thirty bucks per gram.

But it’s the flavor that’s remarkable.

All the terpenes for which marijuana is famous are found in the trichomes—these terpenes are what give marijuana its smell and taste, and when you’re smoking pure trichomes, the flavor is multiplied exponentially. You can taste all the fruit and citrus and pine notes as if they were highlighted by a big marker, and all the subtle nuances that were hinted at before in plain flower stand out in kief like the stars they truly are. And this stuff smells exactly like it tastes: pungent, like intoxicating potpourri.

Actually, you just need to see it for yourself. You need to smell this stuff in person. You need to smoke it and sit back, and experience if it’ll make you feel stronger than one-hundred camels in the courtyard. So please, come in to The Greenery and ask one of our budtenders to show you our kief; this stuff is just as good as it sounds, and we’ll share it too, because that’s what Your Best Buds are for.

Moroccan Hash in Durango

Posted on September 23, 2017 - 9:00 am

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The Berbers are a people of ancient Arab stock—they’ve lived in the mountainous Rif region of Morocco for as long as records have been kept. Their eyes and hair are deep brown, their traditions are exotic, and they paint their houses and streets blue to mirror the sky, to be reminded always of a god living above. And they make hashish, just as they always have, because it’s a part of Moroccan life.

In the Rif, the soil is red and rich, and the air smells salty because the Mediterranean Sea starts where the mountains end. And hidden in the highlands are terraced hills covered with flowering marijuana. The Berber men tend their crop until it’s time to harvest, and then they reap their fields the way their fathers taught them to. The harvested marijuana is set aside to cure for a month, and then the flower is trimmed from the stalk. The green bud is ground gently, and then placed on a silk drum—the silk acts as a filter: the pollen falls through while the plant matter stays trapped on the surface. The Berber men cover the flower with a tarp, and then start beating on it rhythmically with bamboo canes; they call this “making music.” When the hash-song is done, the men uncover the beaten flower and throw it away. They take the silk head from the drum and look inside; the brittle trichomes that filtered through the silk sit in the drum’s bottom. Light brown, pungent, intoxicating.

The men press the powdery hash by hand, heating and kneading it gently, and they smile as their Moroccan hash darkens. They roll it into balls, keeping the best for themselves, and then they send their hash out into the world; these Berber men make half the world’s supply. But oddly enough, marijuana is illegal in Morocco. Lenience is given to the Berber tribes because it’s easier than policing them, but once their hash leaves the mountains like snowmelt flowing downhill, it loses its protection. It’s coveted and fought over just like anything else that makes you feel good, and it’s always been ridiculously hard to come by in the States. I’ve only had authentic Moroccan hash twice in my life—I could tell by the tribal stamp pressed into the bricks I bought—and I didn’t want to think too much about how I got what I got, because most of this hash is smuggled out of Morocco in a very… personal way. But each time I smoked it, I loved the feeling Moroccan Hash gave me, and after each time I ran out, my smile turned upside-down.

But that’s over: now, The Greenery Hash Factory is making their own Moroccan Hash, and we’re selling it at The Greenery for thirty-five bucks a gram. And the craziest part is that the stuff we’re making is better than the stuff I’ve smoked before; maybe we should call it “Durangan Hash” and smuggle it into Morocco so they can see what they’ve been doing wrong for centuries. For one, we use the best marijuana in Colorado to make our hash—our cannabis is grown in a controlled environment with living soil by a badass Master Grower, not out in the wind and rain of a Moroccan mountainside (and we don’t have to worry about goats eating our pot, which is nice).

Secondly, we use modern technology to make our “music”; quality control is much easier to achieve when you’re using a dry-sift machine instead of bamboo canes. And when you do everything scientifically, from using an exact heat to caramelize the hash to testing the hash in a modern laboratory, you end up with a superior product. Our most recent batch of Moroccan Hash is simply awesome: we made it from Skunk #1 flower, and the THC came in at 65%, the CBD came in at 1.3%, and the CBN came in at 2.3%. Today, when most marijuana concentrates are made using a chemical extraction process, these numbers are exciting because we did it the old-school way, naturally.

But in the end, it’s the experience that counts, not the numbers or the three-letter-acronyms, and I swear to you that to smoke our hash is to know perfection. The flavor is deep and musky, like a velvety dark chocolate or a fragrant black tea. The high is focused and intense, with profound relaxation and a centered calm. It’s the high I’ve been looking for through the years since I held those tribal-stamped bricks of the real deal, but taken to another level in the hands of our hash craftsmen. So, come in to our dispensary and ask one of our affable budtenders to show you what I’m talking about; you can smell it and see it for yourself. From now on, we’re offering this Moroccan Hash to Durango and our neighbors because it’s just better than what has been offered before—that’s what you’ve come to expect from Your Best Buds, and that’s what you’ll get if you try our house-made Moroccan Hash.

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on September 16, 2017 - 9:00 am

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Mike Michon
Cultivation Manager

It came up casually in my conversation with Mike that he’s seen Phish in concert fifty-two times. He said it like it was no big deal, nothing out of the ordinary. But it is, and I stopped him halfway into a new subject so we could talk about it:

Me: “Dear god man, seriously? Fifty-two times?”
Mike: “Yeah, some people think it’s strange.”
Me: “Actually, that’s pretty badass.”
Mike: “Yes! There’re so many people out there who aren’t passionate about anything. You need something like that in life, whether it’s mountain biking or model trains or Phish.”
Me: “… I like model trains. Especially the tiny ones.”
Mike: “Damnit. Now I want a train.”

Mr. Michon is The Greenery’s Senior Cultivation Manager; he’s our Master Grower. He spends his days about five minutes out of town tending our grow with a level of skill that borders on wizardry. And that’s not something I’m writing just to promote the weed we grow and sell; Mike’s pot is sublime. His Pakistani Chitral Kush is so good it made me want to get a “PCK” lower-back tattoo—Mike’s Indiana Bubblegum is so good it made me regret the tattoo I wanted to get because “IB” is the only pot for me.

Anyway, I sat down with Mike over the weekend and conducted one of the most entertaining interviews to date. However, I had to redact about ninety percent of what follows because Mike pulled the “off-the-record” card no fewer than twelve times (and for pretty good reason). Here’s the G-rated version:

Q: When did you start working for The Greenery?
Mike: “June 9^th, 2016.”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Mike: “Joints. And Grape Ape is my favorite strain.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Mike: “Snowboarding.”

Q: Tell us about your pet.
Mike: “Walfredo is a border collie named after a Phish song.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Mike: “Grateful Dead Radio. It’s channel twenty-three on Sirius XM, but I hate Sirius XM. I’m only listening to it because of the free introductory subscription that came with my new truck. But yeah… I love The Grateful Dead.”

Q: What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Mike: “I like plants better than people. And real jobs are a shame.”

Mike gave that last answer with a smile. I laughed. But below the hilarity lives a truth—I can’t imagine how peaceful it must be to work with those plants all day, to care for them and feed them as you walk slowly through the verdure, calmed as you go by the intoxicating perfume all around. Mike is lucky to have such a station in life, but we’re just as lucky to have him on our side, because Mike is the type of person who doesn’t suffer from a dearth of passions—he isn’t “one of those people.” He loves his dog and his Phish, he loves his east coast hockey and his deep-dish pizza, and he loves growing marijuana. He takes these things seriously, and because he grows for us, we reap the benefits: thanks to Mike, The Greenery sells the best marijuana in Durango, Colorado. And that, my friends, is why Mike Michon is your Best Bud for September. Thank you, sir!

Marijuana Edible Serving Size

Posted on September 9, 2017 - 9:00 am

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“I ate way too many edibles this one time,” said every stoner, ever. For real. Everyone I know who enjoys the occasional edible has a similar horror story—one they look back on with an embarrassed shake of the head—because eating one milligram too many is an easy thing to do. So, as a stopgap, I’m going to share my story with you, and then I’ll tell you how to avoid the same mistake. Here it is:

I have my medical card, so I have to be especially careful—The Greenery is a recreational-only dispensary, so our edibles are limited to ten milligrams of THC per serving, but the medical shops around town don’t live under the same restrictions: I’ve seen them sell one-hundred-milligram brownies that’re small enough to eat in one bite, and that’s just scary, when you think about it (but I’ll get to that in a second).

Before I hired on here, I shopped at a medical place downtown. The sour gummies they sold were my favorite. Each gummy was ten milligrams, and two of them would put me exactly where I needed to be. But this one time (see?), the company that made my favorite sour gummies doubled their per-piece dosage. Nobody told me. And I’d just made it through an especially trying week, so I decided to have three gummies instead of two, because, you know… dumb. Anyway, as soon as the flavor faded from my mouth after gummy-number-three, something on the package caught my eye. I read on. And then the “oh shit” bubble appeared over my head as I realized I’d just eaten sixty milligrams instead of a hearty thirty. I got a glass of water and hunkered down with my afghan. Crazy things were coming…

I’m going to take a break here and tell you what you’re supposed to do if you eat too many edibles: stay hydrated, and remind yourself that the world isn’t ending. Pot isn’t anything like alcohol or narcotics, and for an adult, it impossible to overdose, even on edibles. All you need to do is find a safe place, drink water, and weather the storm, because nothing about marijuana is permanent. Anyway, let’s get back to it…

My story doesn’t end like a few of the good ones I’ve heard: I didn’t end up marooned in a tree or lost topless at a music festival. But I did end up on my bed, small and bundled as I fought the panic with the fetal position. I’m not going to minimize the feeling just because I’m a proponent of selling edibles to people; it’s my job to be honest with you and that’s what I’m going to do.

That night, it felt like my brain was interdimensional.

The world around me shrank and expanded, and I lost communication with my extremities somewhere along the way—there were dizzying thoughts and tumbling worries, and I just wanted it to end. Of course, I eventually passed out after an hour that was amusing only in retrospect, and the next morning, everything was right as rain. I didn’t even have a marijuana hangover, because they don’t exist. But I’ll tell you here and now that taking sixty milligrams of edible marijuana is something I’ll never do again.

But really, that doesn’t do you any good because everyone is different when it comes to edibles. We all have different metabolisms. So, while sixty milligrams might be a Hunter S. Thompson novel for me, the same dosage might not do a damn thing for you: everyone must find their own dosage. The trick is to take it slowly and not be reckless (you know, pretty much the way you’re supposed to live life), because if you do it right, an edible high is a wonderful, warm thing that you’ll want to relive over and over. So, I recommend that you start by taking a single serving, or less, and then gauge the effects. As I mentioned, at recreational shops in Colorado, everything tops out at ten milligrams per serving and one-hundred milligrams per package, so the “single serving” you should start with is ten milligrams. I rarely repeat myself or use bold typeface, but this occasion warrants a break from tradition.

Secondly, after you eat those ten milligrams, wait a solid hour before even thinking about eating more. That boldness was justified, too. For most people, it takes an entire hour before edibles start affecting the brain, and it takes two hours before you feel the full effect; the last thing you want to do is get impatient and toss more kindling into the fire. And after an hour, if the effect isn’t strong enough, remember that THC is lipid-soluble. If you’re not feeling anything, eat a handful of peanuts or half an avocado; the healthy fat will get down there and help the pot do its magic; it’s a symbiotic trick that’ll save you from an experience like mine.

Third, if you’re small like my wife, I’d recommend taking it a step further and halving that “single serving.” At The Greenery, we sell quite a few edibles that come in five milligram servings—like Highly Edible Pucks or Mountain High Sweet Pieces or Dixie Mints—and if you have a low THC tolerance, this might be the place to start.

And lastly, don’t feel like you need to remember all of this, and please don’t let it scare you away from a good time. Edible marijuana is the greatest invention since marijuana-infused sliced bread (learn how to bake it here), and all you need to do is be responsible when you experiment. As to remembering it all, at The Greenery, every single one of our budtenders knows what you just read—if you have questions, come in and ask them. If you buy edibles, and you’re interested, we’ll even throw into your bag a cheat-sheet that talks that talks about dosages and times so you don’t have to take notes. That’s the least we can do, because we’re Your Best Buds, and we want you to have a safe, enjoyable, edible time.

Marijuana Side Effects

Posted on September 2, 2017 - 9:00 am

Prescription drug commercials are the best. They’re always filmed in subdued slow-motion with an ethereal, gauzy quality, kind of like a soap opera. There’re always plenty of pretty people frolicking around with toothy smiles. And there’s always a calming, hypnotic voice in the background listing off the side effects that come from traditional pharmaceuticals. I usually start laughing during this part of the commercial, but my family always looks at me like I’m a little daft; I guess they’ve become desensitized to the insanity on TV. But if you think about it, these commercials really are morbidly hilarious, so my laughter is perfectly apropos.

A few years back, there was a commercial for a drug designed to combat restless leg syndrome, and one of the side effects was “biting off your tongue.” I guess that in rare cases, this perfectly legal drug would cause people to have unexpected seizures wherein they’d bite of their own tongues. Isn’t that insane? Imagine for a moment some fool walking into a doctor’s office to pick up a script for his twitching legs just to end up biting off his tongue. Are you laughing? No? Well, maybe my family has a valid reason to look at me askance for my giggles, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that in modern times, you can turn on the television, stumble across a pleasant-seeming commercial, and listen to a calm, feminine voice tell you that you might “bite off your tongue” if you buy what she’s selling.

And it gets worse. Lately, since there are so many ways to die thanks to what you buy at the pharmacy, that calm voice has simplified things: more often than not, if you listen close enough, you’ll hear it say that one of the side effects is “death,” plain and simple. Hell, one of the side effects associated with most of the anti-depressants out there is “suicide,” but that doesn’t stop the commercials from playing right in the middle of my nightly news. It’s lunacy: you can buy pills that’ll kill you or make you bite off your tongue, but the innocuous plant we sell at The Greenery is still illegal in most of this hypocritical country—there’re are still people in places like Florida who’re serving life sentences for marijuana possession, while pharmaceutical reps are earning six-figure-salaries for selling pills that’ll make you kill yourself if you take them for depression. It’s asinine, because do you know what won’t kill you? Marijuana.

However, there are a few negative side effects associated with cannabis. Yes, I’m a budtender and a staff writer for a dispensary, but I’m not one of those stoners who’ll tell you that marijuana is a completely harmless drug, and it’s my job to be honest and educational in these posts. So, I’ve decided to list and discuss the three known negative side effects of marijuana—afterward, please feel free to juxtapose marijuana’s darker side against “biting off your tongue” or “death” to see if you’d still rather pop those pills. Here we go…

Xerostomia: it’s just a fancy way of saying dry-mouth. Yes, it’s true, sometimes smoking pot will give you cottonmouth. And if you let it persist, it can cause bad breath or gingiva (gum) irritation. But it’s easy to fix—just drink water or invest in some Biotene. And guess what: after drinking that water, you’ll still have your tongue, so I’d say we’re doing okay so far.
Paranoia or Anxiety: these two feelings are usually associated with Sativa strains, but if you smoke anything with a high THC percentage, you’re sure to start looking over your shoulder eventually. It happens to the best of us. But these feelings aren’t permanent—they go away as soon as the high starts to fade—and they aren’t nearly as bad as “death,” so we’re still in the clear.
Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome: this is a new one—the first official case was reported about nine years ago, and the syndrome wasn’t validated until 2009. Before I go on, I just want to tell you that I’ve been smoking for quite some time and I’ve known quite a few smokers; I talk to people every day who smoke weed because I’m a budtender, and I’ve never met anyone who suffers from this side effect. Basically, it’s possible to develop CHS after fifteen to twenty years’ worth of chronic marijuana use, and once you get it, your stomach gets upset every time you smoke pot. The nausea can be alleviated temporarily by a hot shower or bath, but the only permanent fix is to stop smoking marijuana (if you’ve been smoking chronically for twenty years, it might be time for a break anyway). And once you stop smoking, the symptoms of CHS go away immediately, and there isn’t any lasting damage.

And that’s it; I’d say we’re three-for-three regarding marijuana-related side effects that’re better than what you get from pharmaceuticals. Actually, I know for a fact that pot beats pills because I meet someone every day (quite literally) who comes into our dispensary looking to escape their prescriptions. These people have suffered for years under heavy doses of opioids or synthetic “medicine,” and they’re sick of it. They tell me how much their lives suck, or if they’ve already switched over to pot, they tell me how much better their lives have become. I get to help these people; it’s one of the best parts of my job. And with each and every one of them, I discuss the potential side effects of marijuana, just like I’ve done in this post, because it’s important to know what you’re getting in to. So, please, if you still have any questions or doubts about how pot might hurt you after reading this article, just call us at (970) 403-3710 or walk into our dispensary at 208 Parker Avenue and corner one of our budtenders. Ask us all your questions about marijuana’s side effects, and we’ll take the time to answer honestly. We’re Your Best Buds, and that’s what we do.

Children and Marijuana

Posted on August 26, 2017 - 9:00 am

You can pick your platitude—oil and water, family and business, drinking and texting—because they all work: children and marijuana don’t mix. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience: I was one of those not-so-good children who started smoking way too early, and I have a precocious teen who smells a little suspicious from time to time. She’ll walk in our door after a night out and start being super nice, which for a teen, is a dead giveaway that something is amiss (the red eyes and copious amounts of perfume round out the trifecta of obviously-stoned-minor). Of course, I tell her that smoking pot at such a young age isn’t the best of ideas, and of course, she always comes back with the classic teenaged rejoinder: “dad, you smoke, and you work in a dispensary, so you’re a hypocrite.” But am I? Am I failing to practice what I preach, as my daughter would have you believe, or am I making a prudent parenting choice by yelling “hell no” every time my daughter thinks it’s okay to ask her parent who works in this industry for marijuana? Well, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell her, and let you decide. And if you’re a parent, please take notes because this information might come in handy.

The first issue to consider is addiction. Most professionals in my situation will tell you that marijuana isn’t addictive, and to an extent, this is true because all the studies out there show that the human body doesn’t become chemically dependent on cannabis, even after long-term use. As a side note, did you know that it’s actually possible to die from alcohol addiction withdrawals? Crazy, right? Anyway, while marijuana might not be chemically addictive (like every other recreational drug known to man), I will admit that it’s possible to become emotionally addicted to pot. For the record, it’s also possible to become emotionally addicted to donuts, and diabetes will kill you, so I’d still argue that pot is safe for adults.

The National Institute for Drug Abuse calls an emotional addiction to weed “marijuana use disorder,” and as a parent, it’s important to know that teens who start smoking at a young age are four to seven times more likely to develop this condition. The reason for this is simple: the frontal lobe of a child’s brain (the place where decisions happen) isn’t fully developed. If a child makes a decision, like using marijuana as a coping mechanism, and the decision turns out to feel beneficial, the choice becomes validated mentally and the teen becomes more likely to make the same decision over and over again. The teen will start to rely on marijuana as a crutch because it worked out the first time—this same thing can happen with alcohol and sex and all the other things we try to steer our children away from. That’s why it’s important to have an adult’s maturity and life experience before smoking pot: we know what’s responsible and right, just as we know what’s just a temporary fix, like getting high.

The health risks associated with marijuana use also need to be considered. The truth is that we just don’t know what happens to children when they smoke because it hasn’t been studied sufficiently. True, we know for a fact that medical marijuana offers a much better alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals when it comes to treating seizures, the pain and appetite loss associated with cancer, and many other illnesses that befall the young, but we really don’t know what stems from chronic recreational marijuana use by children. The experts say it might interfere with cognitive development or that it might lead to a lower IQ, but only time will tell. And that’s why it’s important to arm yourself with something better than “I’m a grownup and it’s legal for me, and you’re a kid who will get in trouble, so that’s why I can smoke and you cannot.” Teens will rebel against such a line with all the angst in their arsenal, and it’s important to tell them the truth: children who use marijuana might become dependent or underdeveloped mentally, and they don’t have the maturity needed to make good decisions about repetitive marijuana use because their brains aren’t as developed as an adult’s. Saying something like this to your child will shut them right up because no amount of teenaged attitude will defeat facts and logic, and there’s no way they’ll be able to call you a hypocrite.

At The Greenery, we take this issue very, very seriously. We’re stewards of this industry, and quite a few of us are parents; we don’t want our kids smoking pot just like we don’t want your kids smoking pot. We card everyone who walks through our door, and if the ID doesn’t prove that someone is twenty-one-years old, we kick that someone out our door with quickness. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t support an adult’s right to smoke marijuana openly if they have children. That’s why we provide for parents in our dispensary educational pamphlets on how to talk to your teen about marijuana, that’s why we write blogs like this one, and that’s why we’ll take the time with any customer who asks to talk about being responsible with marijuana around children. Doing so is completely possible. We recommend that adults keep their marijuana locked away from their children, just like a responsible parent would do with alcohol and firearms. And believe it or not, there’re products on the market designed to help you get it done. There’re lockable, odor-proof stashboxes out there like this one—hell, there’re even safes out there like this one that’re designed specifically for keeping marijuana edibles in the refrigerator. All the tools you’ll need to be a responsible, marijuana-smoking parent are out there; you just need to look, and you just need to ask. So please, do exactly that. Come in to The Greenery and pick up one of the pamphlets I mentioned, or ask one of our budtenders about ways to keep your marijuana use discrete. We’ll give you the tools and advice you need, because that’s what Your Best Buds are for.

What’s it like to get high?

Posted on August 19, 2017 - 9:00 am

marijuana, pre-roll, edible, high, pot, marijuana deals

Three people have asked me this question before I sold them marijuana. It’s a strange feeling—knowing that you’re selling pot to someone who’s only heard stories about the high—and it’s an honor to answer it. But in a way, it’s a nebulous concept, one that seems ineffable once you try to put it into words, and I had to pause mentally each time someone looked at me across the counter and asked this question.

The first gentleman who asked me what it was like to get high practiced an Orthodox faith. He was kind and paternal. He’d already spent a few years in his eighties and he was in a wheelchair, resplendent in his tailored suit. He had sharp eyes and hair so white it was translucent; he sat in his chair and looked up at me and asked if the marijuana I sold would make him hallucinate. He’d tried every prescription drug on the market, searching legally for something to alleviate the pain associated with the neuropathy that’d already cost him a leg, and he was desperate. He’d never taken any sort of recreational drug because it was forbidden: no alcohol no nicotine no marijuana. And he didn’t know what to expect—he was afraid that he might see flying animals or go mad, just as the early propaganda predicted. I took my time and described the sensation, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The second gentleman who asked me what it was like to get high hadn’t seen many cities. Quite literally, he drove straight to our dispensary from a compound in Utah. This man was kind too, but his clothes were simple and unadorned. His hair was the color of dried clay and his demeanor was unassuming. He didn’t suffer from pain, but he was tired of living someone else’s life. Marijuana had been forbidden to this second gentleman as well, as had coffee and profanity, and he’d decided to just jump right in and smoke something salacious after thirty-five years of abstinence. But first, he wanted to know what it was like; he wanted to be sure that the marijuana myths he’d heard wouldn’t turn true after the first puff.

The third person who asked me what it was like to get high needed a translator; we used her adult grandson. He was a patient man, one who’d been smoking for years, and he held his grandmother’s hand as she walked in. She was an archetype: she wore a permanent smile and a floral print dress with large glasses nestled into her curled, grey hair. She walked around timidly, as if the wares we sold might leap out and thwart over sixty years’ worth of resolve, but she warmed up to me almost immediately. We talked through her grandson because my Spanish es no bueno, and her biggest fear was that she’d become instantly addicted; she wanted to be assured that there was a road back from the marijuana gummies I was showing her. And she wanted to know what it was like to get high.

Well… it’s wonderful. It’s pretty much exactly what Goldilocks was looking for: not too hard, not too soft, not too debilitating and not too ineffectual. After the smoke comes in and goes out, the tension disappears. Muscles relax that you didn’t know were strained, and you smile involuntarily. Your whole body, your very soul, heaves a sigh of relief, comfort, happiness. The world starts to look bright and beautiful and you see the good you’d overlooked just a moment ago. The clothes you’re wearing start to feel like pajamas, the music you hear starts to sound symphonic, and the food you eat starts to taste like the wonderment you’d find in Wonka’s chocolate factory. It feels like you’re standing in a ray of mana that’s raining down from above just for you, and as you bathe in it, life’s worries fade to the insignificant things they truly are; the pain dwindles.

And it isn’t addictive. This has been proven scientifically time and time again. The negative side effects are laughable: xerostomia (dry-mouth), an increased appetite (bring it on), and occasional anxiety (there is such a thing as too much of a good thing). In fact, and I tell this to worried customers all the time, marijuana is the second safest recreational drug out there. I’m sure you’ve read all the articles out there like this one, but just in case you haven’t, the super-smart people over at The Global Drug Survey have crunched all the numbers and compiled all the data (like emergency room visits), and they’ve ranked the nine most popular recreational drugs as per the danger associated with each one. Magical Mushrooms are the least dangerous, marijuana is a close second, and alcohol (you know, that socially accepted stuff) comes close to beating out meth as the worst stuff out there. Figures.

Frankly, I’m not sure why someone wouldn’t try marijuana—life needs to be lived—and when first-timers fall into my lap, I do my duty. I tell them the truth, and I describe what it’s like to get high honestly, sans flying animals and madness, and I make sure they leave our dispensary with the comfort that comes from making the right decision. As a budtender at The Greenery, that’s my job, and as one of Your Best Buds, it’s my pleasure.

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