Marijuana Strains Archives | The Grand Junction Greenery

Vaping Marijuana Flower

Posted on December 21, 2019 - 9:00 am

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Vaping Marijuana Flower

So… I owe you an apology. I’ve been writing these blogs for two years, and I thought I’d covered all the basics, but I’ve never written a thing about vaporizing dry marijuana flower, which means I’ve failed you. Oops. But hey, there’s no time like the present for reconciliation, so let’s do this…

I loved that book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury when I was a kid, and I’ll admit that I read it twice before my dad told me what the title meant: burning books was a central theme to Bradbury’s novel, and paper ignites at exactly 451 degrees Fahrenheit, so the title was clever. And if you think about it, paper is made from plant material, just like marijuana, so the two share relatively similar ignition points.

Now, the reason this is important is that when you burn marijuana, what you’re inhaling is smoke, but when you vaporize it at a temperature lower than 451 degrees, you’re actually boiling the oil within the plant and then inhaling the “steam” instead of smoke because the plant matter never ignites. It’s a much smoother experience, and the flavor that comes from the gently vaporized terpenes within the cannabis plant is simply superb. For real, it’s an entirely different experience that highlights each strain’s different taste in a way that you’d never achieve with flame. So, if you haven’t tried it, I’d recommend doing so immediately.

As I type this, we don’t have any “dry herb vaporizers” in stock here at our Durango dispensary, but we’re looking for one to offer. That being said, we don’t like to compete with the head shops in town because we work so closely together, so you’ll always be able to find a better selection of vaporizers elsewhere, and even if we did, the prices online for vaporizers will always be lower than you’ll find in a mountain town like Durango. See how honest I am? But regardless of where you get it, the first thing you’ll need to vaporize marijuana is a marijuana vaporizer (duh), and I’d recommend getting something nice because quality matters when it comes to something like this.

So, to help you in your shopping, I’ll show you a few of my favorites. For one, you’ll need to decide if you want a portable vaporizer or a larger “at-home” device. The portable ones are nice for obvious reasons (they fit in your pocket), but the larger ones that sit on coffee tables are much better because they vaporize the flower more fully, and you can get much larger vapor clouds; it’s exactly like the difference between a vape pen and a full-blown dab rig. In that vein, there’s really only one at-home vaporizer I’d recommend, and it was the first on the market, so it’s well vetted. All you need to do is google “volcano vaporizer” to find one because they’re sold everywhere, but you should expect to pay north of $600 for a complete setup (remember, quality matters). What you do with one of these devices, basically, is put a little flower on top of the volcano. The device vaporizes the flower right in front of you, and then it fills a large bag with all the good stuff. You then remove the bag and breathe in and out of it—doing so lets you take the same hit over and over, and then when you’re done, you blow the vapor out. It’s wonderful.

But if you’re looking for a portable option (or looking to avoid spending more than $600 to try something new), there are plenty awesome hand-held options on the market, and I’ll tell you about two of them. The most affordable of the two is the Eden from Lynx (that you can see HERE). Frankly, this is the only flower vape under $100 that I’d trust because you start to sacrifice flavor if you go any lower. Now, on the other end of the spectrum is the Pax 3 (click HERE). We used to sell these in our shop, and we might do so again, because there’s simply no better hand-held option on the market. A new Pax 3 will run you a little over $250, but you can also use it to vape concentrates, which is convenient. To use hand-held devices, it’s important to grind finely your flower, and then you pack it into a small chamber. Then all you do with your device is turn it on, wait for the preheat to complete (this is when the chamber heats up to a temperature that’ll boil the oil within the cannabis), and then inhale. Easy cheesy.

All that being said, we haven’t even gotten to the part that most flower vapers consider to be the best: AVB, or “already vaped bud.” As I’m sure you’ve figured out, since vaporizing your flower doesn’t burn it, quite a bit of the plant material is left over after you’ve vaporized it because all you’ve done is remove most of the oil from the flower. So, if you remove all the ABV flower from your device, you can use it for other things.

For one, if you were paying attention, you’ll remember that I said you removed “most” of the oil from the flower while vaping it. There’s still a bit left, no matter how good your vaporizer is, so you can take that AVB and smoke it like regular flower. It won’t taste that great, and it won’t get you that high, but at times, it’s better than nothing. But what most people do with the AVB is cook with it. Again, whatever you cook won’t get you as high as cooking with fresh flower, but it still works, and cooking with pot is fun. I wrote an entire blog on the subject that you can read HERE back when I thought I’d covered all the basics. Lastly, you can always make a salve or lotion out of your AVB if you know how to do such things, or throw the AVB into your compost heap.

There! I’ve addressed my failure to tell you all about vaping dry cannabis flower, and it only took me two years to get it done; please except my apology. And just as one more tip, most flower vapes have temperature settings that go well above 450 degrees, so remember not to go north of that mark. Doing so will burn your bud just like smoking it, and if that’s what you want to do, use a pipe. They’re much cheaper. And lastly, the most important thing you’ll need besides the vaporizer is the cannabis flower to put inside it (again, duh). If you’ve read these blogs before or if you’ve come into our Durango dispensary, you already know that The Greenery has the best flower in town. So come see us at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Durango, because when it comes to all things cannabis, We’re Your Best Buds!

The Difference Between Hemp and Marijuana

Posted on July 20, 2019 - 9:00 am

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You know those bumbling bugs that look just like big mosquitos? Did you just say something like, “yes, those are mosquito eaters”? Well, that’s not what they are; they’re called Crane Flies.

Think about it. If you’ve ever seen a Crane Fly, it was most likely running into a door or a window nonstop like an uncoordinated idiot. And if you’ve ever tried to kill a mosquito, you know those things are pretty much winged ninjas. So, how would a gangly bug like the so-called “mosquito eater” ever catch and eat a mosquito? Well, they can’t, and they don’t, because they’re vegetarians, but people just go on believing that the Crane Fly is a mosquito eater even though logically, it doesn’t make any sense. The reason for this is that since the Crane Fly looks like the lovechild of a mosquito and a bird, they were called “mosquito hawks” back in the day, and since hawks are predatory, people started thinking that mosquito hawks ate mosquitos. But to this day, I cannot understand why the myth persists given that we all have the combined total of human knowledge in our pockets thanks to smartphones. Seriously, if you still don’t believe me, just google “crane fly,” imagine me saying “I told you so,” and then come back to finish reading this.

Anyway, the reason I told you all of that is that there’s another myth out there that could be easily dispelled if people used the encyclopedias in their pockets. Believe it or not, there’s no real difference between hemp and marijuana (or ruderalis, for that matter), because both are the exact same species of plant, Cannabis sativa. If you’re a skeptic who’d like a second opinion, go ask the UDSA via THIS link, because those people know what they’re talking about. Granted, a hemp plant and a marijuana plant look like different plants, but humans have always placed way too much import on looks, which are nothing more than phenotypical differences.

A good way to get a grip on this would be to take a look at humans. For instance, a native African looks a lot different than a Chinese native, but those physical differences are only skin-deep, and they’re governed by a freakishly small amount of our DNA. Underneath it all, that native from Africa and that native from China are the same species because they have the same number of chromosomes, despite the phenotypical differences, and cannabis plants are the same way: they evolved in different parts of the world, so they ended up looking slightly different over time thanks to natural selection.

Alright… I’m going to plow through a whole bunch of science stuff as quickly as I can because it’s boring, and I doubt you went to a dispensary’s website to be bored, so let’s do this: There is only one bona fide species of cannabis (Cannabis sativa, like I said), but there are a bunch of putative sub-species beneath it with colloquial names such as Marijuana, Sativa, Indica, and Ruderalis. There’s a good article on all of this that you can read HERE that goes much more into depth, but I’m just going to skim the surface. Anyway, Cannabis sativa, or hemp, existed in many places millions of years ago just like most plants, but differing environmental stressors most likely caused to it evolve in funny ways. The Indica variety (which evolved in India, thus the name) turned into a short, squat bush with thick, dark-green fan leaves, as where the Sativa version, which evolved in Eurasia, started to grow much taller with thin, bright-green fan leaves. So, of course, when all the early botanists encountered these plants, they gave them a variety of “scientific” names not knowing that the differences were only skin-deep. And the same can be said for ruderalis, which is just another “sub species” of Cannabis sativa that earned its ruderal nomenclature because it’s a hearty plant that can grow just about anywhere.

Now, if you’re a cannabis nerd, here’s the interesting part: cannabis hasn’t always produced THC or CBD—it’s thought that a virus attacked the hemp population millions of years ago and caused a genetic mutation, possibly as a defense mechanism via a colonization of the plant’s genome, which led to the production of psychoactive cannabinoids in cannabis. Crazy, right? You can read the peer-reviewed study from The University of Toronto HERE.

And of course, it stands to reason that these viruses were more virulent in different areas, so the amount of THC or CBD that was produced differed from region to region. And then humans came along, we figured out that THC could get you high, and we started the not-so-natural selection process of breeding cannabis for high THC output. The cannabis in nature stayed low vis-à-vis cannabinoid content, and then all the differing categories started looking much different (and doing different things), so today, most people assume that they’re all different species, just like most people think that Crane Flies eat mosquitos. Boom. Full circle.

Anyway, all you really need to know is that the difference between hemp and marijuana is nothing more than a human classification, and not something to which nature pays attention. Today, in the cannabis industry, we call cannabis plants “hemp” if they produce less than 0.3% THC by dry weight, and any plant that produces more is called marijuana. That’s the short answer to this blog’s title, even though I was longwinded getting here. And the other thing you need to know is that at The Greenery, we take the time to educate you with posts like this one instead of trying to get you in and out just so we can make money by getting you high. We want you to know the truth behind our favorite plant, and we take pride in the education we give each and every time you visit our Durango dispensary, because We’re Your Best Buds!

How to Hide the Smell of Marijuana

Posted on June 1, 2019 - 9:00 am

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Marijuana stinks. Well, to me, it smells like paradise, but you know what I mean. And it’s one of those smells that most of us are born loving, like bacon or coffee, so in a way, it’s sacrilegious to cover it up. But I get it. Your living situation might not let you blow smoke wherever you want, and at least one person a day comes into our Durango dispensary to ask about ways to mask cannabis’s funk, so this week, I decided to write about it.

First off, please don’t do that dumb thing where you light a ton of incense and shove a towel under the door; you might as well also put a sign on the door that says, “I’m totally smoking pot in here.” I mean, the towel/incense route might get you by occasionally, but it’s not a long-term fix. So, as my first tip, don’t smoke in a box like your bedroom. Go outside. Sit on the roof. Open the window and stick your head out. If you want to throw the towel into the mix, do it, but ventilation and fresh air are the keys.

As my next tip, if lighting a plant on fire and standing in the smoke is too stinky for you, try an edible because there’s obviously no fire involved, or a vape pen. With a cannabis vaporizer pen, the ceramic atomizer (or wick system) inside essentially boils the THC oil, so a vapor is created as opposed to smoke. Vapors don’t cling or linger like smoke, so the minimal smell that exists doesn’t linger. For real, when it comes to “smoking,” there’s nothing more discrete than vaping.

That being said, let’s say you’re dead-set on smoking flower and avoiding the smell; you need to make a “sploof.” Step one: take a cardboard tube (like an empty toilet paper or paper towel tube) and fill it full of dryer sheets. In a pinch, you can spray perfume on toilet paper and use it to stuff the tube. Next, take a single dryer sheet and cover one end of the tube, and tape it in place (or secure it to the tube with a hair tie). Now all you have to do is take a hit and blow it through the tube (please blow through the end that isn’t covered with a dryer sheet). The smoke will travel through all the dryer sheets inside your sploof and the scent will be filtered out. These things work exceedingly well. In fact, they also sell commercial sploofs like the Smoke Buddy that use replaceable charcoal filters to eliminate smells, and that beats a bunch of burning incense any day.

But what about hiding the smell of unsmoked flower? Is that the question you really wanted me to answer? The only reason I ask is that quite a few of our customers come in here looking for “smell-proof bags,” which isn’t something we sell. I’d image that at least one of the people who’ve asked me was looking for a smell-proof bag so they could ship their pot home or bring it on the plane, but please, DON’T DO THIS. They’ll find it, and it’s illegal. For one, dogs can smell anything, and there’s no such thing as a smell-proof bag that’s also x-ray proof, so you simply shouldn’t risk it. Ever. However, if you have a roommate who sniffs around your room like a bloodhound looking for your stash when you’re gone, or if you’re unlucky enough to still live with your parents after turning 21, you might have a legitimate reason to hide the smell of your fresh flower, so I’ll talk about it.

The trendiest way to do this is with a Skunk Bag, which is a “smell-proof” backpack or small bag with built-in charcoal filtration devices. But the problem with these things is that they all have a branded skunk emblem embroidered on the bag, and if you’re trying to hide your pot from a roommate that knows about skunk bags, that little emblem will make your stash obvious. So, instead of spending tons of money online for a smell-proof bag, just use a mason jar. They’re cheap, you probably have a few in your kitchen right now, and glass is always the best thing in which to store your pot. Just keep it out of the sun (and away from prying eyes), and your pot will stay fresh and not stink all at the same time.

Lastly, please remember that we become desensitized to smells pretty quickly. Just about every customer who walks into our dispensary compliments how fragrant our store is, but it always takes me a second to figure out what they’re talking about—if you spend eight hours in a room full of pot, you stop smelling the pot. So, if you get high in a room and sit there for a while, it’ll stop smelling to you, but anyone who walks in will know exactly what you’ve been doing. Keep it ventilated, use a sploof, and keep your pot in a sealed mason jar; you’ll be good to go. Or, if you’re like me and you like to keep the smell loud and proud, come see us at 208 Parker Avenue and take a sniff of what we have to offer (so long as you’re over 21 with a valid I.D.) because We’re Your Best Buds!

Dry Marijuana

Posted on March 30, 2019 - 9:00 am

When people complain about how dry all the pot in Colorado is, I wonder to myself if the same people complain about food that tastes too good or about weekends that last too long. Let me explain…

At sea level, where most people grew up, cannabis stays moist long after it’s harvested; that’s why most of us remember sticky pot from our youths. So, at sea level, if you got some bone-dry pot, there was a good chance it’d been sitting around for a while, and that’s why most people equate dry pot with old pot (which is bad pot). However, Colorado is just about the antithesis of “sea level,” and thanks to our altitude, pot dries out quickly. It’s an elevation thing, not a quality or age thing, but it’s difficult to change opinions once they’ve formed—that’s why this week, I wanted to talk about Colorado’s dryer-than-everywhere-else marijuana to set the record straight.

So, let me reiterate: the only thing wrong with dry marijuana is that it might be old if you find it somewhere that’s close to sea level like California, but if you find dry marijuana in Colorado, it’s because you’re more than a mile above the sea, and here, plants dry out quickly. That’s just the way it is. But here’s the important part: dry pot is actually a good thing because it weighs less, so you get more. If you were to buy an eighth (3.5 grams) of dry marijuana and set it next to an eighth of moist marijuana that weighed the same, the dry eighth would look much larger thanks to less water weight (as an aside, I apologize for already using the word “moist” twice in this blog, but it’s a necessary evil). Do you see what I’m getting at? If you can get over that old-school paradigm of “dry pot = old pot,” you’ll realize that you’re actually getting more for your buck when you buy dry pot because you get more marijuana and less water. Ask yourself this: do you want to smoke water, or do you want to smoke cannabis? Exactly.

Alright… after reading that, I’m sure you thought something like, “well yeah, but how do I know if the dry marijuana I buy in your Durango dispensary isn’t just old pot you’re trying to blame on Colorado’s elevation?” Well, good question, but I’ve got an answer for you: we wouldn’t do that. Ever. We both purchase and grow our cannabis in small batches to ensure freshness, and we keep our flower sealed tightly before we bring it onto the floor.

But there’s a second reason I wanted to write this blog, and it deals with one of the most common questions I get: “how do you rehydrate dry pot?” (this is important to a few smokers because hydrated pot burns a bit more slowly). Well, the way most people do this is by sealing a fresh piece of bread in with their flower. The moisture from the bread will rehydrate the flower and make it sticky just like you remember. That being said, please don’t do this. For one, your pot will taste a bit like bread, and two, if there’s even the slightest amount of mold on your bread, it can spread to your weed, and smoking mold isn’t good for you. So, instead, try a two-way humidity control pack.

In our Durango dispensary, we use Boveda packs, which you can read about by clicking THIS link. I’d recommend using the 62% version, but basically, a “two-way” pack works in two ways (duh). If your pot gets too dry, these packs will add moisture, but if the moisture gets too high, these packs will take it back out for that perfect balance. So, if you seal a 62% Boveda pack in with your flower, you’ll keep all your flower at the perfect moistness (is that four times using the word?) for as long as the pack keeps working, which is a long time. That way, if you buy a dry eighth which is good because you get more pot, you can take it home, rehydrate it with your Boveda pack (which won’t make it mold or taste like bread), and you’ll get the best of both worlds: you’ll get more flower weight because you bought it dry, but the Boveda will make your flower sticky just like you remember from your sea-level childhood.

But as always, if you have questions, it’s always best to give us a call at (970) 403-3710 or come see us (with your valid I.D. proving that you’re 21or over) at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Bodo park. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about rehydrating your marijuana if you want it to be sticky and burn slow like you remember. And we’ll prove to you that our marijuana is fresh (and the best in town), because We’re Your Best Buds!

Different Marijuana Strains

Posted on February 2, 2019 - 9:00 am

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Please keep an open mind when I tell you this: it’s very important to stop thinking that you really like a specific strain just because you “tried it this one time” and really liked it. And it’s also important to stop thinking that you don’t like a strain because you didn’t like it that “one time.” Trust me.

I can’t tell you how many times it’s happened to me. A customer will walk in and ask something like, “what’s your best sativa strain right now?” I’ll say something like, “the White Widow is wonderful,” to which this hypothetical customer will respond, “oh, no thank you; I tried some White Widow once and it was horrible.” This is when I take a deep breath and explain that not all White Widows are created equally, but what I really want to do is say this:

Imagine two White Widow seeds siting on a table. A monkey walks up to the table and takes home one of the seeds; he grows it in a ditch and waters it with barbecue sauce. The other seed is taken home by a scientist. He grows it professionally in his lab under specifically engineered lights while controlling the CO2 in the air to increase photosynthesis. Now, if you were to wait until both plants were mature, and then set them side-by-side, they’d look nothing alike. If you smoked a little of each, they’d neither taste nor smell anything alike (the monkey’s pot would remind you of brisket). And the high that came from each plant would differ greatly.

Do you see what I’m getting at? We’re the scientists in this situation. It doesn’t mean that you won’t like our White Widow just because you didn’t like the White Widow you got from a monkey elsewhere. After all, way back when, growers named the strains they bred simply to keep track of them, and because it was cool. But now, those names have morphed into brands, and as such, people think they know what to expect from a certain strain. Nothing could be further from the truth, so as a PSA, I’d like to tell you this: when it comes to cannabis strains, the name isn’t nearly as important as most people think. What matters is who grew the plant, and how they did it.

This is especially important for you strain-chasers out there because, for an example, there are about three Durango dispensaries selling Gorilla Glue #4 right now, but you’ll pay different prices per gram at each place. This is frustrating because shoppers will chase the lowest price thinking that all strains of Gorilla Glue #4 are the same because they share a name, which is simply false. Think about it this way: Pabst Blue Ribbon is a lager, and you can buy a thirty-pack for about $17. Samuel Adams’ Utopias is also a lager, but it costs $150 for a single bottle. Not all lagers are equal in price or quality in the same way that not all Gorilla Glue #4 strains are equal. And a few months ago, I wrote a blog on how to identify high-quality cannabis (you can read it HERE), but this week, I wanted to give you a few pointers on how to tell if the pot you’re about to smoke es no bueno. So, watch out for these three things:

1.) “PM,” or “powdery mildew.” PM looks exactly like it sounds (a white powder), and to the untrained eye, PM can look like trichomes, which are the white crystals you want on your pot. True, the state requires all flower to be tested for microbials before a batch of bud can be sold recreationally, but you’ll still find PM on recreational bud, especially if you’re buying the cheap stuff. The reason for this is that after the flower passes its microbial test, and after it’s sent to a dispensary, it can sit there for months which gives trace amounts of PM time to grow. Disclaimer: THIS NEVER HAPPENS AT THE GREENERY! We take the small-batch approach with our growing and ordering, so our flower always sells out while it’s fresh. You’re welcome.

2.) Aphids. I’m not joking: I’ve seen recreational flower sold in Colorado that’s crawling with bugs. So, look at your pot—if it’s moving, it’s no good. The state also requires that all recreational flower be tested for residual pesticides, so I guess some people might be passing that test by simply letting the bugs have free-range. Gross.

3.) Brown Leaves. When the green on flower is replaced by brown, it means one of three things happened: either the pot was burned by the fertilizers, or the grow lights, or the flower wasn’t cured properly. For the record, brown pot won’t hurt you, but if you see brown edges on the flower, it’s a likely sign that the terpene or THC content is lower than it should be. So, again, if you’re hunting around for some Gorilla Glue #4, try paying attention to the color more so than the price; it’s just good advice. I’ve written blog after blog about The Greenery Grow, but just as a reminder, you should click HERE to learn about why you’ll never have to check our flower for any of these three detractors.

The last reason you shouldn’t get stuck on a single strain because you liked it “that one time” is availability. Thanks to rampant crossbreeding, there are well over 4,000 strains of marijuana available recreationally in Colorado. So, if you were to walk into a dispensary looking for a particular strain, the chances of actually finding it are one in four thousand—statistically speaking, you have the same chances of finding your strain as you would flipping a quarter twelve times and having it land on heads each time. That doesn’t happen very often.

So, instead of walking into a shop and then turning away when they don’t have the strain you’re looking for, ask for something similar. In our Durango dispensary, we train our budtenders on how to look up a strain and its reported effects; they can also figure out your favorite strain’s lineage. We make our budtenders smoke every strain we offer (it’s a rough life) so they can become familiar with what we sell, and I promise that each budtender you’ll meet here can find you a strain that’s similar to (or better than) the strain you’re looking for. So, if you’re stuck in a rut with a favorite strain, or if you want to find the absolute best representation of your favorite strain, come see us at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Bodo Park (please bring your valid I.D. proving that you’re over 21). We’ll help you find what you’re looking for and we’ll explain why quality matters more than price or a name, because We’re Your Best Buds!

Connoisseur Cannabis

Posted on December 15, 2018 - 9:00 am

Lately, I’ve noticed a shift. About a year ago, most shoppers would come in and ask for my “cheapest” cannabis, but now, people are requesting the “best.” I know this change is occurring, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because people bought from illegal dealers less than half a decade ago, and back then, you got what you got, and price was the only variable. But now that there’s a wide variety of legal cannabis, maybe people are slowly starting to lean towards quality over price. Or maybe it’s because legal cannabis has made it so a new, affluent demographic of shopper is buying weed. Or better yet, maybe the consumer base is being educated by a legal cannabis industry, and they’re starting to figure out that you get what you pay for when it comes to pot, just like you do with everything else. I’m not sure. Either way, the cannabis culture is changing into something that values quality over the “let’s get high off something cheap” paradigm that ruled the world back when pot was sold in plastic bags on street corners.

And I can prove it—if you’re an uber pot-nerd and you’d like to read something proving that trends are changing, you can read a bona fide study HERE that was commissioned by the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division to chart the changes in consumer purchasing trends. It shows exactly how the 302 metric tons (holy crap!) of cannabis that were sold in 2017 were allocated between flower and edibles and concentrates and whatnot. Granted, the study doesn’t delve into why the trends are changing, but it proves that they are.

But if you think about it, the “why” doesn’t really matter, and as an integral part of the legal cannabis community here in Colorado, it’s The Greenery’s job to take note of what consumers want and then provide it; that’s what we do. And this week, I wanted to write a post for all you connoisseurs out there and tell you about three top-end products that we’re selling for people with discerning tastes. Let’s get started…

1.) FSE Cartridges from Green Dot Labs.

Simply put, these are incredible. “FSE” stands for “full-spectrum extract,” which means that anything and everything you’ll find in the plant has made its way into these cartridges. Each of these carts is filled with 500mg of the purest, terpene-rich FSE on the market. Green Dot Labs uses in-house genetics for their carts (meaning they grow custom varietals to make the best concentrates) to provide Sativa, Indica, and Hybrid options. I never recommend this product for newbies because it gets you very high, but if you’re a connoisseur, this cartridge is for you because there honestly isn’t a better one on the planet.

2.) Boutique Flower from The Greenery Grow.

We really do grow the best pot in Durango. I’ve written about it before (for more, click HERE) because we’re so proud of our cultivation facility, but it’s all worth saying twice. We use good bugs to kill the bad bugs instead of using caustic pesticides; we pump CO2 particulates onto the fanleaves to increase photosynthesis; we use light-emitting ceramic bulbs that are better than the sun. We do everything possible to grow the highest-quality cannabis to ever grace this mountain town, so if you’re a connoisseur, it’s pointless to shop elsewhere.

3.) Artisanal Chocolate Truffles from Coda Signature.

Coda’s head chocolatier, Lauren Gockley, is one of the ten best in the nation, and I’m not just talking about chocolatiers who make cannabis edibles. This is one of those rare occasions wherein one of the best names in the culinary world decided to play her hand in the cannabis industry, and we’ve all won as a result. Coda’s chocolate can hold its own right alongside the best confections out there and it gets you high, which is a definite win-win. And the hand-painted truffles from Coda (which come in flavors like tiramisu, earl grey, passion fruit, and burnt caramel) are firmly in the connoisseur lane because they’re made from ethically-sourced chocolate, pure CO2 cannabis oil, and unrivaled artistry.

There you go. If you’re one of the discerning customers out there who values quality over thrift, you really should come into our Durango dispensary—we’re selling the best of the best, because if you’re a connoisseur, We’re Your Best Buds too!

CBD Oil in Durango

Posted on October 6, 2018 - 9:00 am

Without exaggeration, about thirty people come in every day and ask, “do you have any CBD oil?” Of course, when I get this question, I always say, “yes, we do; are you looking for smokable or edible oil?” This question is usually answered with a blank look because most people don’t know the difference, and if you think about it, it’s my fault. I’ve been writing about cannabis laws and history because it’s such a hot topic right now, but my choice to do so has left those of you looking for CBD oil in the lurch, so this week, I’m going to make up for it and tell you everything you need to know about the CBD oil we sell in our Durango dispensary.

However, before we get started, I need to include two caveats: I’m not a doctor, and neither is anyone who works at The Greenery. We aren’t qualified to give medical advice, and all I can do is share my personal experience with the products I’m about to discuss, or the experience many of our customers have had. It’s always advisable to consult your physician before using CBD (or THC, for that matter) to treat a medical issue, so please keep that in mind. And for the second disclaimer, even though we’re talking about CBD products, everything we sell in this dispensary contains a small amount of THC, so even though many of these products might not get you “high,” they can show up on a drug test. Now, let’s get started:

There are two forms of CBD oil: smokable, and edible. It’s easy to decide which form will work best for you depending on the effects you wish to feel. For example, if you’re looking for a product that can bring with it quick effect, try smoking your CBD Oil. The effects of smokable products kick in almost immediately, as where an edible can take up to two hours to take effect. However, if you’re looking for lasting effects, try an edible. Like I said, edibles take a while to kick in, but once they do, they can last for between four and six hours.

Now that we have that covered, let’s get into the four different ways you can get your CBD here at The Greenery (the last two will be the “oils” I get asked about daily).

1.) Flower. That’s right, you can buy actual marijuana that’s high in CBD. We usually have two strains available (CBD Mango Haze for the Sativa lovers, and Raspberry Glue for those of you who prefer Indica-dominant strains). And we sell Toast as well, which is a brand that produces pre-rolls that look like cigarettes—each “slice” contains a little more than a half-gram of high CBD flower, and quite a few people love these things. Flower is the purest way to get your CBD because the bud is unprocessed, but there will always be a slight high because this type of flower contains THC as well, and smoking bud isn’t as discrete as the other CBD options.

2.) Edibles. We have peach gummies that deliver 20mg CBD and 2mg THC per serving, and this is a perfect option for those of you who want to take regular servings of CBD with a lasting effect. And we have dark cherry chocolate bars that’ll deliver 25mg CBD and 2.5mg THC for you chocolate-lovers out there. We also sell Ripple Relief, which is a tasteless, odorless, instantly-dissolvable powder you can add to any drink which will give you 10mg CBD and 0.5mg THC per serving—this product is simple, consistent, and as discrete as they come. For a low serving of CBD, we offer Stillwater CBD Gummies in a Honey Lavender flavor with 5mg CBD and 0.25mg of THC per serving and a Green Tea Mango flavor with 2.5mg of each CBD and THC per serving.

3.) Tinctures. This is the “edible oil” most people are looking for, but the term is somewhat misleading because this product isn’t an oil—it’s a tincture that’s infused with oil that you put under your tongue. And the longer you hold it under your tongue before swallowing, the sooner a tincture might take effect (that’s because it’s absorbed intravenously while it’s under your tongue). We have a wide assortment of tinctures, but this week, I’m going to tell you only about the Lucky Turtle Restore Tincture. Each bottle has over 600mg CBD and only 9mg THC, so each serving (dropper-full) will deliver roughly 17mg CBD and 0.25mg THC, so you get all the goodness of CBD without the buzz of THC. We sell this tincture in either Lemon or Watermelon, and there isn’t a better cannabis tincture on the market in my opinion.

4.) Vape Oil. And this is the “smokable oil” I promised to tell you about, the kind you’ll want to try if you’re looking for an immediate effect. Granted, we have about twenty different forms of vaporizable oil from five different producers, but I’m going to focus on two since this is a post about CBD: the CBD oil from Sweet, and the CBD Distillate from Evolab. Both products come in low per the THC percentage (between 8% and 16%), so there’s still a slight high, but both products come in very high per the CBD (between 55% and 65%). If you do the math, that’s well over 500mg of CBD per gram, and numbers like that are going to be hard to beat. We sell this stuff in one-gram syringes or pre-loaded vape cartridges, so we have it all covered.

And that’s that! For further reading, you can learn about CBD and the entourage effect HERE, and you can learn about the endocannabinoid system HERE if you’re interested in how all of this works. But if you’re not into reading, please call us and ask questions. Anyone who answers the phone here has been educated in CBD and the products that contain it, and there’s nothing wrong with giving us a shout before you come in at (970) 403-3710. Of course, talking to someone in person is always better than calling or reading because we’ll let you see and hold all the CBD products we sell at our Durango dispensary if you’re the visual-learner type. So, come see us at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Bodo Park if you’re over twenty-one with a valid I.D., and we’ll answer all your questions face-to-face, because We’re Your Best Buds!

Dispensary FAQs

Posted on August 11, 2018 - 9:00 am

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As a budtender, I’ve heard them all: Is marijuana instantly addictive? Will this stuff make me see flying animals? Would you please mail some of that marijuana sex spray to me here in South Africa? For real, I’ve answered all these questions, and I tried my best to do so with a straight face. And somewhere along the line, it made me realize that I’m a professional question answerer—all day every day, I field questions from people who are trying to learn about this industry, so this week, I figured I’d answer a few of the most commonly asked questions preemptively. Here we go…

1.) What’s the difference between Indica and Sativa?

Well, I wrote an entire blog about it that you can read HERE, but basically, the Indica strains are famous for relaxation, and the Sativa strains are known for stimulation. The indicas evolved in India (thus the name), and the plants are short and bushy, as where the sativas (that originated in Africa) are tall with thin fronds. Just remember “indica, in-da-couch,” and “viva Sativa!”

2.) What’s your most potent edible?

On the recreational side of things in Colorado, edibles are capped at 100mg THC per package, and 10mg THC per serving, so they’re all equally potent. However, we do sell a few edibles that come in 5mg servings for people with a lower tolerance.

3.) How much am I allowed to buy?

Each adult can buy one ounce of flower, or 800mg worth of edibles, or 8g of concentrates. And yes, there is an equivalency chart to follow. Basically, you’re allowed to purchase eight eighths, and one eighth is equal to one gram of concentrate or a 100mg edible. So, hypothetically, you could buy four eighths, two grams of concentrate, and two 100mg edibles, and that would be your maximum.

4.) Do you sell any CBD-only products?

Nope. Those are available online, but they’re derived from hemp, and everything we sell is derived from cannabis (they’re completely different animals). However, we do sell a few products that are “mostly” CBD, such as our Lucky Turtle Tincture that contains 500mg CBD and only 10mg THC: each serving will give you roughly 14mg CBD and 0.25mg THC, which isn’t enough to get you “high.” Just so you know, the proverbial “they” have figured out that CBD can be more effective if it’s accompanied by a little THC thanks to the “entourage effect,” and I wrote an entire blog you can read HERE if you’d like to learn more.

5.) Do you have anything on sale?

Almost always! We have rotating deals throughout the week (for instance, I’m writing this on a Wednesday, and today, all our concentrates are 15% off). For a complete list of our daily deals, click HERE.

6.) I’m from out-of-state and I don’t have a medical card; can I still buy from you?

Yes. We’re a recreational-only dispensary (but we offer a 20% discount to customers who have a valid Colorado-issued medical card), and all you need to show us when you shop here is a valid, government-issued I.D. with a picture proving that you’re twenty-one or over.

7.) What’s the difference between a smokable and an edible high?

The stuff you smoke hits you almost instantly as where an edible can take up to two hours to hit you completely. The biggest mistake people make is eating more after twenty minutes or so because they aren’t feeling anything, and then boom, it all hits you. Please go slow and don’t do this: once you eat it, you cannot un-eat it, and an over-the-top edible experience is something you want to avoid. Trust me… Lastly, a smokable high lasts about an hour and a half, but an edible high can last for up to six hours, which is why caution is so important.

8.) Where can I smoke?

This is the tricky one. To consume any sort of marijuana, you must be on private property with the property owner’s permission. That’s what makes things tricky for tourists. However, plenty of the local hotels allow you to consume cannabis in designated areas—all you need to do is ask, and I promise they hear the question multiple times a day. And yes, I wrote an entire blog about this too, and you can read it HERE.

9.) Where are you located and what are your hours?

We’re at 208 Parker Avenue in Bodo Park right behind the GMC dealership. Simply call us if you need directions. We’re open from 9am to 9:30pm on weekdays, we’re open from 10am to 9:30pm on Saturdays, and from 10am to 7pm on Sundays. We’re closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day, and we have shortened hours on a few other holidays, but you can click HERE for a map and all sorts of other info.

10.) Is marijuana instantly addictive, will it make me see flying animals, and can you mail it to me here in Africa?

No…

That’s it! Of course, if I didn’t answer one of your questions, there’s nothing wrong with calling us to ask: (970) 403-3710. And there’s definitely nothing wrong with coming into our Durango dispensary to ask us in person because we’re all professional question-answerers, and We’re Your Best Buds!

Total THC

Posted on July 28, 2018 - 9:00 am

Occasionally, I’ll write one of these blogs, Faith will post it, and then I’ll realize I forgot something important. It’s frustrating. And it happened a few weeks ago when I told you how to tell the good from the bad when it comes to flower (for a refresher, click HERE) because I didn’t say anything about THC percentages… sorry about that.

I used to be a THC snob. Whenever I shopped for flower, the numbers were the first thing I looked at; smell and appearance took a back seat to potency. But those were ignorant days and working in a dispensary has changed my outlook. About a year ago, Sloane suggested that I try some Deep Chunk and I scoffed at the suggestion because the flower barely broke the fifteen-percent mark per THC. Sloane looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “don’t be a THC snob,” so I took her advice, and it was the right thing to do. The high from that flower was complex and perfect, and it was difficult for me to trust THC percentages from that point forward.

The reason is simple: there are well over one-hundred cannabinoids in cannabis, and THC is just one of them. So, the higher the THC percentage climbs, the lower everything else falls. But that’s something I’ve written about before, and now, things have become even more complicated because the scientists have gotten involved.

You see, flower has a very low level of active THC; most of the THC in bud is actually THCa (the acid form of the cannabinoid). When you burn flower, the THCa is decarboxylated by the heat and it turns into THC, which gets you high. Get it? THC needs to be activated by heat to make you feel good (that’s why it doesn’t do anything if you eat a handful of flower). And about a month ago, the scientists thought that THCa converted over evenly into THC. So, hypothetically, if a strain of flower had a 28% THCa percentage, it was thought to give you 28% THC after you smoked it, but that’s not the case.

Now, only .877 of the THCa turns into THC once it’s decarboxylated. So now, when we have a strain of flower that tests at that hypothetical mark of 28% THCa, it’ll be labeled as containing “24.5% Total THC.” Isn’t that confusing? And the reason I’m writing this for you is that this new conversion formula doesn’t apply only to flower—it’s also used to determine the potency of concentrates, and as such, it’s something I get asked about every day as a budtender.

For instance, we’re selling some Zero Gravity shatter right now that contains 799mg of THCa, and a couple months ago, it would’ve been labeled as providing 79.9% THC. But now, after the new conversion, the label says “70.3% total THC.” See what I mean? The percentage for the flower example I gave you really didn’t change that much due to the new equation, but the percentage on the shatter dropped by nearly ten percent. And at least once a day, I encounter an irritated customer who wants to know why our “concentrates are so much weaker than they used to be.”

That’s the frustrating part. At least once a day because it really does look like our Durango dispensary has started selling less-potent concentrates, when really, all we’re doing is using a new mandated formula to figure out total THC.

But you don’t need to worry about that because you’re reading this. And you really don’t need to worry about that because you know We’re Your Best Buds, and if you bring your valid I.D. proving that you’re twenty-one or over into our dispensary at 208 Parker Avenue, one of our knowledgeable budtenders will show you the new labeling requirements and prove that our concentrates are just as potent as they used to be. That’s the type of service and information you get when you come to The Greenery (it’s what makes us different), and frankly, you shouldn’t expect anything less.

Blunts in Durango

Posted on July 23, 2018 - 6:40 pm

Blunts were special things when I was younger because they combined two things I wasn’t supposed to have: marijuana and tobacco. My friends and I would buy one of those nasty Swisher Sweets with a honey-dipped tip, break it open to scrape out all the brown stuff, and then we’d fill it with way too much pot. We’d light it and smoke it with exaggerated nonchalance, kind of like we were godfathers in an old-school gangster movie. The smoke was harsh and the high was too intense, but those were ridiculous days.

When I moved to Colorado, long before landing this dream job, I got in one of those nostalgic moods that make old people famous, and I started shopping around for dispensaries that sell blunts. I didn’t find any. As it turns out, it’s illegal to sell both tobacco and cannabis in the same place (even though you can sell alcohol and tobacco in one place, which makes no sense whatsoever). So, I gave up, because I was way too old to buy a Swisher Sweet and act like a godfather.

But then a few weeks ago, someone from District 8 called us to tell us about a promotion he was running to help the foodbank right here in Durango during the 416 Fire; he committed to donating one food item for every pack of blunts that we sold. That was super cool, but wait… how’d he manage to get around that nonsensical “tobacco and cannabis aren’t allowed to be sold in the same place” rule?

Hemp.

District 8 has figured out a way to cure hemp paper until it’s brown and musky, just like a tobacco wrap. They dip their hemp blunts in honey for that sweet tip blunt-lovers remember from the Swisher Sweet days, and District 8 nailed it. Each pack of blunts contains two half-gram hemp cones that’re filled with 100% pesticide-free flower. And District 8 always uses strain-specific bud, not trim. Their blunts are nicotine-free but you still get that tobacco taste, each one is the perfect size for one or two people, so nothing is wasted, and these things smell amazing, like a humidor filled with cannabis.

However, there’s an issue: Durango seems to love these things. As I’m writing this, we only have four packs left, but we’ll hopefully have more for you by the time you read this if everything goes well. So, if you’re a fan of blunts, or if you’ve never tried one and you’d like something a bit more robust than a traditional pre-roll, bring your valid I.D. proving that you’re twenty-one or over to Your Best Buds at 208 Parker Avenue and we’ll hook you up!

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Category Archives: Marijuana Strains

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Vaping Marijuana Flower

The Difference Between Hemp and Marijuana

How to Hide the Smell of Marijuana

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Different Marijuana Strains

Connoisseur Cannabis

CBD Oil in Durango

Dispensary FAQs

Total THC

Blunts in Durango