Colorado Archives | Page 15 of 16 | The Grand Junction Greenery

Posted on September 16, 2017 - 9:00 am

The Greenery Grow, marijuana grow, cannabis, cultivation, Indiana Bubblegum, Pakistani Chitral Kush, Durango weed

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!

Indica vs. Sativa

Posted on July 22, 2017 - 9:00 am

There’re over four-thousand different strains of marijuana growing across the globe, sprouting like the wondrous weeds they are, but each of them falls into one of two categories: Indica or Sativa. Of course, most strains have been crossbred so many times that it’s difficult to tell which is which, and just about everything out there is a hybrid thanks to the incestuous way plants get together and make more plants—after decades of desultory pollination, there’s no longer a definite line in the sand between the two categories, and that can make things difficult when you’re chasing the effects that come from one side or the other.

But at The Greenery, we’re here to help. We know the lineage of each strain we sell and we’ve smoked all of them. We can tell you which bud will make you sleepy, which bud will perk you up, just like that Cheshire cat could tell Alice which side would make her bigger, which side would make her small. But before we get into specific strains, we should discuss the two, overarching categories so you have a jumping off place; we’ll start with Sativa.

You probably drew a Sativa leaf on your notebook back in high school. Yes, all pot leaves have the same number of fronds and they’re instantly recognizable thanks to the jagged edges, but Sativa leaves are a little different than their fatter Indica cousins. They’re light green and thin and they spread out perfectly to form the symbol we use for all marijuana. And the plant itself is special too. It can grow into a veritable tree, standing over two-stories high if you let it, but most varieties top-out at around ten feet.

Sativa is a day-time pot. The high is energetic and creative, and it’ll give you a bright haze that’s perfect for summer days, happy times. These cerebral strains live in your head and pollinate your thoughts with creativity, they make you giggle and go out, connect with what’s important. Sativa strains should remind you of tie-died T-shirts and road trips and the highlife we’ve been trying to recapture from the hippie days our parents reminisce about. And from a medical standpoint, these strains can battle back pain and headaches and depression, and for some, they can even act as an appetite suppressor, thereby destroying the “munchies” stereotype you see in cliché pot movies. However, I’d be lax if I didn’t tell you about Sativa’s darker side, so I’ll be honest about the possible negative side effects: with one puff too many, these strains are more likely to bring with them anxiety and paranoia. But you know what? Given that traditional pharmaceuticals and other recreational drugs (like booze) can kill you, I’d say a little anxiety is worth it (there’s no such thing as a pot writer who doesn’t toss in a caveat like that, so please forgive me).

Now, on to Indica—these varieties are famous for their dark green, broad leaves, and a musky scent. The plants themselves are short and squat, usually topping out at about six feet, and they’re originally from India and the Middle East (ergo, the name). Indica is a nighttime pot, perfect for good movies and comfortable blankets thanks to the body-high these strains bring with them. This strain should remind you of relaxed, fragrant evenings and smiling camels and that odd sitar music that makes sand dunes so exotic. Medicinally speaking, Indica strains can help with appetite stimulation and insomnia and anxiety relief. But one puff too many can put you down, and lethargy or insatiable munchies are the worst you can expect. It’s a cheesy one-liner, but all you need to remember is that “Indica will put you in-da-couch.” It’s the down to Sativa’s up, the mellow yin to Sativa’s energetic yang. And it’s wonderful.

Personally, before I started working in a dispensary, I used to think that Indica was the way to go, and that Sativa wasn’t for me. And now, I meet people who think the same way (or visa-versa) every day. They’ll come in and say something like “I hate Sativa because it makes me paranoid,” and they’ll ignore completely any of our Sativa-dominant hybrids. For the record, I don’t judge these people because my tastes used to run parallel to theirs. But now I’ve learned a few things, and I share them with as many customers as possible. At The Greenery, we always have at least ten, top-shelf strains available for purchase—five are Indica-dominant, and five are Sativa-dominant. You can see them here on our menu.

However, it’s the “dominant” in the description you need to pay attention to, because like I said, there’s really no such thing as a pure Indica or a pure Sativa anymore because just about everything out there has been mixed with everything else. But you know what? This is a good thing. Now, if you ask the right people (like us), you can find a perfect 50/50 hybrid that’ll give you both the head high that comes from Sativa and the body high that comes from Indica. If you come in and ask us, we can show you 70/30 strains that lean closer to the Sativa side of the spectrum—these can give you creativity and relaxation at the same time which can be sublimely mind-blowing. Or we can point you towards a 70/30 Indica-leaning strain that’ll bring with it deep body relaxation and a touch of the giggles. Isn’t that awesome?

Seriously, here at The Greenery, we can do that for you, and we won’t lead you astray as you bounce back and forth in the Indica vs. Sativa battle. Come in and tell us the specific high you’re looking for, and we’ll give you options. We’ll let you smell them and buy them at a fair price, and we’ll pay attention to your feedback. That’s how it should be, and that’s how it is with Your Best Buds.

Indica vs Sativa, Sativa vs Indica, Indica dominant, Platinum OG Bud, Platinum OG — The Greenery menu description for an Indica-dominant strain.

Marijuana Sales Tax

Posted on July 13, 2017 - 8:00 am

Easter Island is a dark place. It’s an atoll sheltered by isolation deep within the Pacific Ocean, and it’s hard to hear the lessons that island screams because it’s too far away—leagues of surf and time have quieted the prescient warning. Think about it: when you first read the words “Easter Island,” you pictured one of those gigantic stone heads and scoffed at the notion that something so comical could come from a “dark place,” so you probably don’t believe me; you probably don’t know that those gigantic stone heads are the only remnants of a once proud culture that committed suicide with greed.

As a side note, yes, this is a blog about marijuana taxation, and yes, I promise to get to that in a second, but first, we need to go back a little bit (just bear with me because I promise it’ll all make sense in the end). So, here we go…

The Moai

The Rapa Nui were fierce voyagers. They made their clothing from palm fronds, their skin was covered with black tattoos. They lived off the ocean and first made landfall on the shores of Easter Island around thirteen-hundred years ago. Back then, the island was a paradise. It was tall and safe, with sheltering cliffs that broke incoming storms—egg-laying birds had made a rookery out of those cliffs, and the flocks were thick enough to feed all the Rapa Nui. The high-rolling hills of Easter Island were forested with budding fruit trees, the valleys were verdant and rich with fresh water. And the island lizards were so majestic that rainbows shot out of their asses every morning at sunrise… That last sentence wasn’t one-hundred percent accurate, but you get the point: the Rapa Nui had found a home better than the sea, so there they stayed.

But then one day, some dude carved one of those gigantic stone heads. And then some other dude on the other side of the island saw the gigantic stone head and decided to carve his own. This one was a little bit bigger, a little bit better. The carving started to spread. Things started to change. The Rapa Nui started felling their forests faster than the fronds could grow. Wood was needed for scaffolding and for the moving of larger and larger stones, and barren patches started to appear on the rolling hills of Easter Island like a metastasized cancer. The rookeries were picked clean, and if the biologists are to be believed, an entire species of cliff-dwelling seabird was eaten into extinction because the Rapa Nui were too busy carving gigantic stone heads to farm. The meat ran out and the forests disappeared and those island people who once lived on the sea turned to the caves. They dug into the hills, and in the end when things were at their worst, the Rapa Nui embraced cannibalism. The last man died one-thousand years after the first man landed, and all they left behind was a barren island covered with eight-hundred and eighty-seven gigantic stone heads called “The Moai.”

Greed did that; greed did all of that. And it’s not like our species has evolved that much in the three-hundred years that’ve passed since the Rapa Nui started eating each other; that same brand of insular capitalization is alive and well in our culture today. When we stumble upon something good, we milk it and milk it until there’s not much left to bleed dry, and then we move on to the next craze, the next thing to consume and use up. Today, right here right now in Durango, Colorado, we’re milking recreational marijuana by taxing the hell out of it.

For the record, I’m not saying that if we overtax marijuana we’ll turn to cannibalism like the Rapa Nui because that would be far too hyperbolic even for someone who smokes as much as I do. But I am saying that if we’re not responsible—if we don’t battle back the greed that defines our species—we’ll ruin something wonderful just as it’s starting to grow. And in that vein, the amount of sales tax that’s applied to recreational marijuana in this town is ludicrous. I’ll give you an example to prove my point. The total sales tax someone in Durango pays when he or she buys alcohol is 7.9%; three percent goes to the city, two percent goes to the county, and the remainder goes to the state. But when someone buys recreational marijuana in this town, he or she pays 20% in sales tax; three percent goes to the city, two percent goes to the county, and an exorbitant fifteen percent goes to the state of Colorado (and to make it more confusing, fifteen percent of that fifteen percent also comes back to Durango).

Doesn’t that seem somewhat unfair? I mean seriously, wouldn’t you think that the root cause behind drunk-driving fatalities should be taxed more than the reason this town is seeing such a boom in tourism? And to make it worse, “they” are considering a five percent increase in marijuana-related sales taxes in this town, thereby charging more than three times the rate levied against alcohol sales. The bump would all go to our city. It sucks, but you can read about it here in The Durango Herald if you’d like (a couple of your Best Buds from The Greenery were even interviewed).

To switch gears, I will admit that from the outside looking in, it probably seems like local marijuana dispensaries are making money hand over fist, and it probably seems like a good idea to tax the hell out of legal weed so this town can prosper. But unfortunately, statements like these are rife with ignorance. You see, marijuana dispensaries are taxed twice: we have to pay an extortionate amount of tax when we buy our pot wholesale, and then believe it or not, we have to pay anywhere from sixty to seventy percent in federal income tax after we sell our marijuana to the community (yes, you heard that right, the federal government doesn’t see anything wrong with taxing an industry that they refuse to legalize). At the end of the day, our profit margins are just as thin as they are in traditional retail industries, and we simply cannot afford another tax increase, especially since we’re still recovering from the one that just went into effect on July first.

The reason for this is that we simply cannot lower the retail prices on our quality marijuana and stay in business; we’d have to keep our base price constant and hope with crossed fingers that people would be willing to pay higher prices for legal weed. But would they? If this new tax is accepted and implemented, and top-shelf pot starts selling for around sixty-three dollars an eighth in this town, do you think people will still buy it legally, or do you think they’ll go back to “their guy” who sells the same bag of pot for fifty bucks on the street? Do you see what I mean? We’re taking too much; we’re chopping down too many trees. I know this tax sounds just a little bit bigger, a little bit better, but it’s just too much. It’s just another gigantic stone head when we already have plenty of Moai. It’s more than this small island of Durango can support, and our industry needs your help. So please, call our city representatives and county commissioners and tell them that we’re already paying enough; you can find city council contact information via this link and county commissioners contact info via this link. Or use our letter to mail your concern, Letter to County, City on Marijuana Tax. Or better yet, please attend the upcoming County Commissioner Meeting at 5:30pm on July 20th in the Board Room of the County Administration Building and the City Council meeting at 6:30pm on August 15^th in the Smith Chambers at City Hall and fight against this initiative because in the end, such a tax could limit your options when it comes to purchasing legal marijuana.

Thank you,

-The Greenery

LEARN MORE FACTS & DATA ON MARIJUANA TAXATION here Marijuana Tax Facts

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on July 12, 2017 - 7:18 pm

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Melissa Nichols
Vendor & Community Relations Manager

Some Navy Seals can hold their breath for seven minutes; they go through all sorts of ninja training to get to that point. But at The Greenery, we have a budtender who can hold her breath for seventy-two seconds; she discovered her talent while playing dead-man games in Mexico because you’re never too old to mess with foreign lifeguards.

Melissa Nichols is simply awesome. She’s an open book who loves what she does, and we love having her here, but being our Community Relations Manager wasn’t her first job; Mel used to be a professional naked person. She posed in the nude for a sculpting class two hours per day, three times a week, for six weeks (if you do the math, that’s thirty-six hours’ worth of nudity in front of strangers). And I’m sure that if you looked long and hard enough, you’d probably be able to find a miniature, sculpted, naked Melissa at a local garage sale (we hereby promise a $1 pre-roll joint to anyone who brings one in). But here’s the rest of her story.

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Melissa. “I was the first budtender on the payroll, and I was behind the counter when Wally (our first customer) gave us the twenty-dollar bill that’s hanging in the back office.”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Melissa. “I love water pipes, and Cheese is my all-time favorite strain.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Melissa. “I love snowboarding and hiking, but what I love most is connecting with the outdoors. I love taking time to myself outside and just breathing, looking at the life and nature around me, the bugs and plants, because it helps me connect with what’s important.”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Melissa. “Mr. Mac is a black cat, and Prince Hal is a cat colored like a cow. He’s a Holstein cat. And Tigger is our yellow lab. We got him too late to do anything about his name.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Melissa. “alt-J radio, or any of the Tiny Desk Concerts on NPR; they’re just awesome.”

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Melissa. “People are happy when they come into our store, and I get to make them happier. And I don’t have to censor myself when I’m working here, so I absolutely love it.”

And that’s Melissa. She’s the type of person who’s more comfortable barefoot—I’ve seen her afterhours, walking around in her colorful socks, making small foot-fists on the foamy pads behind our sales counter, and that says a lot about a person. She isn’t afraid to be who she is, and even though you might not believe it, she really is just as nice as she comes across when she asks for your ID. Melissa is a genuine and open person, and she’s worked diligently over the past two and a half years to make The Greenery Durango’s best dispensary. And that, my friends, is why Melissa Nichols is you Best Bud of the Month.

Cheers! The Greenery, Budtender, Durango

Marijuana Terpenes

Posted on July 8, 2017 - 9:00 am

My mom used to throw uppity wine parties when I was a child. She’d sit around with her friends and they’d spend more time sniffing their wine than drinking it, swirling it around in their oversized tasting glasses while they wore on their faces the serious expression of a wannabe connoisseur. They’d stick out their pinky fingers and raise their glasses, and then spout all sorts of pompous nonsense like “oh my, this one has a delightful tobacco finish,” or, “the nose on this one is reminiscent of figs on a warm summer’s day.” I’d stand against the wall shaking my head, doing everything I could to stop myself from shouting “it’s just alcoholic grape juice, you idiots!”

But then I got older and realized that there really is a marked difference between the white zinfandel sold in gas station coolers and the stuff sold in boutiques with labels inked entirely in French. Now I can appreciate the tannins and sulfites, or the lack thereof, and I don’t mind paying extra for the good stuff because that’s what life is about. And there’re plenty of parallels to be drawn between wine tasting and pot smoking because the taste matters—as it turns out, if you pay attention to the smell and flavor of your favorite flower, you can figure out exactly which type of high you can expect.

Distilled down to its essence, marijuana is a substance that we smoke to feel good and it’s possible to be too supercilious, saying all sorts of weird words like decarboxylation or cannabinoids just to sound smart, and I promise I won’t do that right now; the information I’m about to share with you is real, and we’re just now starting to understand it. Eventually, marijuana will be marketed by the specific effects each strain provides after the scientists figure it out definitively, but for now, a good deal of this is iffy around the edges. So, it goes without saying that the effects and smells listed below are subjective. Here we go…

“Terpenes” are hydrocarbons. They’re found in almost all green, leafy plants, and they serve as natural protection against mold and bugs and whatever else plants are afraid of. They’re the fancy little chemicals that make pot smell and taste the way it does, and they work in concert with other cannabinoids like THC and CBD to make you feel good when you smoke marijuana—the THC gets you high, but the terpenes effect how that high feels. Know what I mean? If THC is He-Man, a muscle-bound do-gooder who always saves the day, then the terpenes are Battle Cat, an unsung hero who helps the hero do what he needs to do. And each terpene does something different, something you can intentionally look for in your pot by taste and smell. Again, what follows is subjective, so you’ll need to fiddle around with this a little on your own to get the most out of this:

Pinene. This one is easy to remember because it smells like a pine tree, just like the name suggests. It might help with asthma relief or memory problems or inflammation.
B-Caryophyllene. This is a hard one to pronounce (and my spell-check hates it), but it smells like cloves or pepper, and it might help with digestive problems like ulcers or an upset stomach.
d-Limonene. This is another easy one because it smells like lemons, and it might help with immune system problems.
Terpinolene. This one will smell like flowers, and it’s an antioxidant with antibacterial effects and mood enhancement possibilities.
Linalool. This one will smell sweet and fruity, and it might help you with pain or anxiety of depression.
B-Ocimene. This one will smell like a woody orchard (I promise that’s as poetic as I’ll get) and research suggests it might be antifungal/antiviral.
B-Myrcene. This is the dank stuff, the musky perfection that permeates my favorite Indica strains, and it might bring with it relaxation and pain relief and respite from insomnia.

And there you have it; I’m sure you’ve already figured out how this list might help you: if you’re having stomach problems that you’d like to try to treat with marijuana, come into our store and walk up to the counter. Grab one of our sample jars and unscrew the lid, and smell one of our strains—look for something that smells like cloves or pepper and see if the B-Caryophyllene terpene does something for your belly. Or, if you’re in a bad mood, sniff around our samples looking for something that smells like flowers to cheer you up, buttercup. And so on and so forth. Let you nose be your guide, just like Toucan Sam used to tell us in his Fruit Loop commercials, and see where it leads you—it might bring you the relief you’ve been looking for. At the end of the day, that’s what matters, and that’s why we’ve decided to put this out there for you, because we’re your Best Buds.

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Medicinal Marijuana

Posted on July 1, 2017 - 9:00 am

The Greenery is a recreational-only marijuana dispensary. However, we offer a twenty-percent discount to medical patients (so long as you can show us a valid Colorado MMJ card), and we do so for good reason: for many people, marijuana really is effective.

Frankly, most people buy pot to get high, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When they walk through our doors, they’re looking for THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), plain and simple, because it’s the psychoactive compound in pot that can turn any frown upside-down. However, THC is just one of the cannabinoids found in flower—there’re least one-hundred and thirteen of them of them in marijuana—and as the THC percentage increases, the amount of the others decreases. The proverbial “they” still don’t know what most of the other cannabinoids do, but I’m sure it’s only good things, and if you shop only for a high THC percentage, you might be missing out on a few other benefits. Specifically, the higher the THC level climbs, the lower the CBD (Cannabidiol) and CBN (Cannabinol) levels fall. If you’re a medical marijuana patient, or if you’ve always wanted to try pot to see if it helps you, this is something you need to know.

CBD isn’t psychoactive (it won’t get you high), so most people don’t pay too much attention to it. However, the stuff is wonderful. It’s been called the compound that gives you “relaxation without intoxication,” and it brings with it a whole smattering of additional properties. I’ve read studies that show CBD may combat everything from PTSD to epileptic seizures, and from personal experience, I attest to CBD’s ability to fight my insomnia. Here at The Greenery, we always have a high CBD strain on the shelves, and our friendly budtenders can show you a wide variety of CBD-infused edibles or topicals if you’d rather not smoke flower to try CBD.

CBN won’t get you high either, but it looks to be just as promising as CBD. According to Steep Hill, “The consumption of 2.5mg to 5mg of CBN has the same level of sedation as a mild pharmaceutical sedative, with a relaxed body sensation similar to 5mg to 10mg of diazepam.” Isn’t that crazy? CBN is a non-psychoactive plant derivative with no known side effects, and it’s twice as effective as a nasty, old-school pharmaceutical. Secondly, you can buy CBN tablets from The Greenery for a fraction of the price you’d pay for an artificial chemical at the pharmacy. CBN has been shown to do all sorts of things, and if you’re looking for some alternative options, this compound is a great place to start.

Look, I know it’s possible that I just created for you more questions than I answered, and the breadth of alternative cannabis is far too wide to address a laconic post like this one. There’re plenty of online resources out there you can use to answer CBD and CBN related questions, but The Greenery is right here in Durango, and personally, I like talking to people instead of Google. So, come in and see your best buds. Ask us your questions about CBD and CBN, and we’ll show you all the available options, because that’s why we’re here. And as always, please remember that we cannot provide medical advice and recommend you consult with your healthcare provider before introducing any marijuana products into your regimen.

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Best Bud of the Month

Posted on June 17, 2017 - 10:00 am

Sam Redman

Inventory/Metrc (Marijuana Enforcement Tracking Reporting Compliance)/POS Manager

Sam Redman is The Greenery’s very own Renaissance man. He’s an intellectual—one who can wear a denim jacket and pull it off—and he’s done all the things the rest of us just want to do: he camped in the backwoods of France for five months on end; he traveled the world just to see what he could see; he’s the front-man of a badass funk and hip-hop fusion band, Diabolical Sound Platoon. And he’s a great guy to work with. He usually stays in the back, crunching numbers at his standing desk while a podcast plays in the background, but he runs to the register when the rush hits, and he serves our customers with an affable smile, an easy laugh. Sam helped build The Greenery, lending to our company culture his eloquence and attention to detail—he’s a cornerstone in our team, an all-around cool guy, and he’s your Best Bud of the month.

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Sam. “A month before we opened.”

According to a fellow budtender, “Sam is kind of a big deal,” because he’s been here from day-one. He strapped on a tool belt and put in the floor our customers walk on daily, and he’s been managing our ever-changing, quicksilver inventory ever since.

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Sam. “I don’t have one. I like all of it, from dabbing to vaporizing to smoking flower.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Sam. “Bouldering. It’s a concentrated, gymnastic way up the rock, with pads and chalk, but no ropes. It’s climbing rendered down to its essence. I love solving bouldering problems, and I’ve authored a few local first-ascents, like ‘Al Montana.’”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Sam. “Logan is a manly Maine Coon, but he isn’t named after Wolverine. He’s nineteen years old, and he got his name before Hugh Jackman was cool.”

It was early morning a few years ago, and Sam was sleeping when he heard his roommates screaming that “Logan had caught a bird.” Sam ran buck-naked into the living room to find Logan battling a bona fide turkey vulture with one of those wingspans you usually see only on The Discovery Channel. So Sam jumped into the fray and grabbed the monstrous bird while his roommates pointed and laughed, despite the fact that naked bird wrestling is a serious situation. Sam ran to the window with his prize and knocked out the bug screen while his foe fought with talons and screeching bird noises. Sam released the vulture into the air (no doubt in slow-motion, looking like a rugged falconer), and it took flight immediately without looking back. Logan was pissed for weeks, never truly forgiving Sam for his intervention, but that’s just the way cats are.

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Sam. “I like cold-wave and podcasts. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Neil DeGrasse Tyson.”

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Sam. “I love our customers, and the challenging aspect of controlling our extensive inventory.”

And there you have it. Frankly, this company is what it is in a large part thanks to Sam’s contributions. He’s a witty guy with a cunning repertoire of pickup lines, and he’s a knowledgeable budtender. The next time you come in, look for the guy in a jeans-jacket and say “hi.” Strike up a conversation about flat-earthers and tell Sam they might be on to something. He loves that kind of stuff…

Sam Redman, Budtender, The Greenery, Durango, CO, marijuana Sam solving some marijuana mutha-fucking mysteries at his post.

Legal Marijuana, and Homelessness

Posted on June 3, 2017 - 10:00 am

I’ve never met Joseph Kolb, or anybody else from Fox News for that matter, but I’d like to. I’m pretty good at explaining things to people, especially matters of simple logic, and Mr. Kolb needs a lesson of sorts. Recently, he wrote an article for Fox News titled “Legalized marijuana turns Colorado resort town into homeless magnet,” and once I realized I was reading a nationally syndicated column as opposed to a tabloid, my smile turned upside-down. You can read it here, if you’re interested, but I’ll sum it up for you: Kolb was talking about our town, Durango, Colorado, and for twenty-two paragraphs, he wrote nonsense ad nauseam. This myopic man seriously thinks that legalized marijuana is ruining our town by luring in the homeless, even though from an objective point of view, things look a little differently. Let me explain.

It’s a logical fallacy of the worst order to tie two things together without researching the connection. As an example, I stubbed my toe when I got out of bed this morning, and at the same time, the sun was popping up above the horizon. But when I told my wife about it, I didn’t say “honey, I stubbed my toe when the sun came up today, ergo, solar radiation is making me clumsy,” because such an assertion would be asinine gibberish.

Basically, Kolb took two unrelated facts and tied them together with no regard for journalistic integrity whatsoever. True, the legalization of recreational marijuana came to our town in 2014, and our homeless population started booming around the same time, but the two occurrences are unrelated. In 2014, the ACLU sent a letter to Durango’s city council wherein they threatened to sue if our local police kept enforcing our “anti-loitering” ordinance. According to the ACLU, it’s an infringement of free speech to stop homeless people from panhandling, because when they write “anything helps” on a piece of cardboard, they’re exercising a constitutional right… seems legit. Anyway, the cops stopped herding the homeless away from Main Avenue because the ACLU isn’t an organization to take lightly. The homeless people in this town took note, they told their friends, and the rest is self-explanatory.

Our town is beautiful. We have a narrow-gauge railroad straight out of antiquity; we have world-class skiing in the winter; we have an ever-adapting whitewater course on the Animas River that runs through this town like an artery. We have abundant camping spaces and temperate weather and affluent locals. We have bars and comfortable park benches and a generous homeless shelter. And most importantly, we have cops who won’t bother you if you want to dress in a sleeping bag and stand on Main Street with your hand out.

That’s why our homeless population is booming—it has nothing to do with legal pot, and people who think otherwise are subscribing to old-think. These are the same fools who watched “Reefer Madness” and took it as gospel—these are the same people who rallied against legalized marijuana, and now that they’ve lost, they’re grasping for straws and doing their damnedest to find an “I told you so” buried somewhere amongst all the positive results stemming from decriminalization. And as a professional in the marijuana industry, my frustration is palpable.

I sell pot for a living, and I can tell you from personal experience that our clients come from all walks of life. I’ve served giddy college seniors, bubbling about the fact that they just turned twenty-one. I’ve served sweet old ladies, smiling like my grandmother, who’re happy to get carded because octogenarians have forgotten what it feels like. I’ve served people who’re just as broke as I am, and I once served a man wearing a watch worth more than my education. These people hold down jobs and pay taxes and care for their families just like Americans are supposed to. And unfortunately, people like Kolb can’t see these things because they write about our town from far away, looking at us through a tinted telescope of assumption. They tie to legalized marijuana unfair and negative “facts” because people like Kolb harbor a personal prejudice against legal pot, and at times, it seems as if no amount of factual evidence can dilute their bias. It’s unfortunate, but I guess it’s just part of the game.

All I can do is tell you this: here at The Greenery, we know that legal marijuana is a good thing, and we take our jobs seriously. We have to—we’re stewards of an industry facing a good deal of ignorant skepticism. We run a clean and legal operation, and our attention to regulation compliance borders on the obsessive. And for as long as we’re around, we’ll do our best to educate our customers and our community vis-à-vis the truth about legal marijuana, so please, keep checking in, and as always, if you have any questions, call your Best Buds at (970) 403-3710. Thank you.

Discretion

Posted on May 20, 2017 - 3:12 pm

The Greenery checks age requirements in Colorado

Marijuana is perfectly legal for recreational use in Colorado, and frankly, it should be. Pot is a plant that grows out of the ground, and if you light it on fire and breathe in the smoke, it makes you feel good. For many, it’s a medicine—one that doesn’t bring with it the crippling side effects commonly associated with traditional pharmaceuticals—and medicine should be legal. It’s a simple truth, one that’s axiomatic to those of us who know the difference between right and wrong, and that’s why I support legalized marijuana; that’s why I’ve chosen to work in this industry.

However, I also understand that not everybody feels this way. Plenty of people still think that pot is a problem. They look at that plant and see a vice that needs to be eradicated, and they subscribe to the antiquated paradigm that kept marijuana illegal for decades. Some people fear change; that’s just the way it is. So, occasionally, discretion is necessary.

I’m one of the fortunate few who can be who I am both at work and in my personal life because my coworkers, friends, and family all have modern views regarding marijuana. In short, I don’t have to hide the fact that I smoke pot—hell, I’m pretty loud about it sometimes. But you might not have that luxury, and here at The Greenery, we understand, and we offer a level of discretion you won’t find at other dispensaries.

For one, we have a discreet location. We’re nestled in at 208 Parker Avenue, right behind Morehart Murphy. We’re close enough to be convenient, but far enough away to keep things comfortable. When you leave our shop, you won’t have to run that downtown gamut where it seems like you recognize everyone around you on the street. You won’t have to walk down a long alley carrying a bag full of marijuana back to your car parked on Main; you won’t have to feed a meter. We’re open early and we close late, and you can come and go with a level of privacy not offered elsewhere. But that’s not the most important part: here at The Greenery, we don’t track your purchases.

I’ll admit that I shopped around at other dispensaries before I worked at The Greenery. I was a creature of habit, and I didn’t stray far from my home when I went shopping, be it for groceries or marijuana; I usually stayed on the north-side of town for convenience. And it didn’t really bother me that the other dispensaries tracked my purchases (you know, because I’m “loud about it”), but in retrospect, the practice is a little sketchy.

I’m sure you’ve noticed it. Most dispensaries will swipe your ID when you walk in to make sure you’re twenty-one. One place even has a metal turnstile that opens only after you’ve swiped your card, in case you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to get carded by a robot. But guess what: every time your ID is swiped, the machine keeps a record of your visit. So here at the Greenery, we take the time to read your ID by hand. Granted, it might take us a little longer because we have to check diligently your picture and your birthdate and your card’s expiration date, but that’s something we do for you because it’s your business if you buy marijuana, and nobody else’s.

Secondly, we don’t track your purchases at the register. True, we have a loyalty program—an awesome one that I’ll tell you about in a different post—but we use punch cards instead of an electronic system. There’re other dispensaries here in Durango that keep track of every single purchase you make, and they do so via a computer database that’s just as vulnerable to hacking as all the other systems in this inescapable digital age. With the click of a mouse, anyone who cares to look can find a record of all the marijuana you’ve purchased, and considering the fact that federal laws haven’t yet caught up to our local ones, some people prefer the discretion offered here at The Durango Greenery.

So, come see us, your best buds. Come find a place in our parking lot and walk through our front door. Someone will check your ID with a smile and then give it back without recording your visit. We’ll sell so you some ridiculously good pot, and then you can go on your way, legally, rightfully, and discreetly. Cheers.

We’re Your Best Buds!

Marijuana Vape Pens

Posted on May 13, 2017 - 6:31 pm

Open Vape Marijuana, The Greenery, Durango

I’m old, or at least it feels that way when I walk into a marijuana dispensary. When I was a kid, pot was a plant you lit on fire, and that’s about it. We’d hear stories about exotic sounding hash or kief, but we could never get our hands on it, and “pot brownies” were a rare luxury. But now, I’m a budtender at The Greenery here in Durango, and things have changed dramatically.

It seems as if there’s no limit to the variety of ways one can consume marijuana—we sell every imaginable sort of edible, from caramel-coated lollypop to THC infused root beer, and we have on our shelves a veritable panoply of concentrates ranging from simple hash to carbon-dioxide-extracted live resin. And as a newcomer entering into this industry with not much more than the memories I brought from my misspent youth, it was all a little overwhelming the first time I stepped behind the counter; I can’t imagine what it might feel like to a first-time customer.

However, The Greenery is different from the other local dispensaries for one simple reason: our knowledgeable, friendly staff. As a new employee, I’ve been testing the depths of their collective knowledge with my incessant questions, and on a daily basis, our budtenders have been thoroughly impressive. These young men and women have been able to answer all my questions in a way that doesn’t leave me guessing, and I’ve seen them extend the same professional courtesy to every new customer who walks through our door. But just in case you haven’t yet visited our dispensary, I’d like to share one of my favorite new discoveries with you: the O.pen disposable vape pen.

As I alluded to earlier, until recently, I’ve only smoked flower or enjoyed the occasional edible; I’ve never ventured into the world of concentrates because I was a little ignorant. So, for my first experiment, I asked Clay (one of The Greenery’s friendly budtenders) about the easiest way a newbie such as myself could try hash oil. In case you’re just as ignorant as I was, “hash oil” is a concentrate made by extracting with carbon dioxide all the wonderful cannabinoids that live in marijuana plant matter (hash oil is most commonly enjoyed through a vaporizer similar to an e-cigarette).

Clay told me all of this and I’m sure my eyes glazed over a bit because he slowed down and started showing me all the options, the simplest of which was the O.pen disposable vape pen I mentioned earlier. Basically, the disposable vape pens we sell at The Greenery come preloaded with one-hundred milligrams of hash oil. Each one is about the size of a cigarette, and all you do is take the vape pen out of its child-resistant packaging and take a puff. It’s that simple. Each eight-second puff contains about two milligrams of THC, and each disposable pen contains roughly fifty puffs worth of concentrate; once it’s empty, you simply throw away the vape pen and move on with life. These pens are discrete and convenient and affordable; we sell three varieties (indica, sativa, and hybrid) for $25 each before tax.

Frankly, after I bought and tried my first vape pen, I felt like a fool for waiting so long. These things really are as convenient and discrete as they’re advertised to be, and the effect was perfect. My wife said the vapor smelled nothing like marijuana, but the high was one of the cleanest and quickest I’ve ever experienced. The only drawback I noticed was the fact that if I turned the pen upside-down, some of the oil leaked out of the mouthpiece, but Clay warned me about the possibility and I left The Greenery fully educated vis-à-vis the new product I was about to try. It was a perfect experience, one that was both easy and comfortable, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in branching out.

And that’s all I have for this post. Please, if you’re like me—a creature of habit who’s stuck to the same way of smoking for years—come down to The Greenery, even if it’s just to ask questions. We’d love to show you all the new things that’re coming on the market monthly, because we’re your best buds.

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Tag: Colorado

Best Bud of the Month

Indica vs. Sativa

Marijuana Sales Tax

Best Bud of the Month

Marijuana Terpenes

Medicinal Marijuana

Best Bud of the Month

Sam Redman

Legal Marijuana, and Homelessness

Discretion

Marijuana Vape Pens