pot Archives | Page 4 of 5 | The Grand Junction Greenery

Posted on November 4, 2017 - 9:00 am

I was a teenager the first time I saw a marijuana plant. It was a sickly thing, growing stunted and slightly brown in an Alaskan basement, but it was still wonderful.

My friend had modified his chest-of-drawers. He’d taken the fronts off each drawer, and then he’d nailed them back onto the front of his bureau. And then he’d hinged the entire front face of his chest-of-drawers so it would open, like some sort of secret enclave. He’d drilled a hole in the back and wired it for electricity, and then he’d lined the inside with tinfoil to make it reflective. A single grow light had been hung in the top, and a fan was attached right below it. In the dark of night, glowing light escaped from the cracks in my friend’s modified bureau and the whole thing hummed with the fan’s white noise—my friend’s chest-of-drawers looked and sounded haunted, as if a porthole to another dimension were contained inside instead of a growing plant. It was downright Narnian.

And it really was mystical the first time I saw my friend’s contraption. He took me down into his basement—we told his parents we were doing homework—and he stood in front of his chest-of-drawers with a wide smile, looking like a gameshow host about to do a big reveal. He unlatched the front of his bureau and then he swung it open while singing out a single note, as if what he was showing me were holy: the inside of my friend’s invention was gleaming golden with a little green plant right in the middle, and it blew my mind. My friend was MacGyver! How the hell had he figured out a way to grow marijuana in his parent’s house without them noticing? How’d they overlooked the fact that my friend had stopped putting away his clothes because he’d turned his chest-of-drawers into a grow room? I was dumfounded, and twenty years later, I still shake my head in awe when I think back to that moment.

But the first time I saw a growing pot plant was nothing like the most recent time: our head grower gave me a tour of The Greenery’s Grow, and the experience was so striking that I simply had to write about it. For the record, marijuana is a weed, plain and simple. If you walked by a ditch and threw in a few pot seeds like a cooler version of Johnny Appleseed, they’d eventually sprout and grow into flowering marijuana. But ditch-weed is a far cry from the flower that a master grower can produce, and the product that comes from our grow is simply the best in town because our cultivation team takes the art seriously:

Before walking into our facility, Mike had me step into a shallow rubber tray containing a mild solution of bleach and water. And before walking further, I had to step on a huge mat of sticky paper (kind of like flypaper for humans) to remove all the unwanted particulates from the outside world that might’ve hitched a ride on my shoes. Once inside, it felt like I was standing in a laboratory. There were professionally labeled metallic tents everywhere, looking like they came straight from NASA. There was a huge bottle of CO2 secured to the outside of the building; it pumped in regimented amounts of the gas pot-plants like to eat. There was a maze of custom air conditioning ductwork webbing across the ceiling; there were light-emitting ceramic lights humming above the plants like artificial suns; there were professionally constructed trellises around the plants and mounted fans to give the plants healthy stress. And the plants themselves were beautiful: huge colas of crystalline flower bowing their stems with weight, perfuming the air with an intoxicating smell. Everything was perfect, and the amount of thought and effort and science that went into our grow facility made me proud to be a part of this company, if I’m being honest, because this sort of thing matters. And I’ll tell you why.

Every so often, someone will come into our dispensary looking for a specific strain, and last Friday, one such man came in looking for True Berry. No kidding, he said it was the “best strain for meditative flute playing.” I smiled, told the man he was in luck, and then I let him smell a sample of our Greenery-grown True Berry. And as soon as I did, I could see via his expression that that he’d found something unexpected. His eyes got wide and he looked up, saying with his face that this was the best pot he’d ever smelled. So, I told him all about it, and I told him about our grow. I told him how we use living soil instead of hydroponics, and I told him that we use predatorial bugs instead of insecticides. I told him that we grow it in small batches, just like distilling fine whiskey, and I told him that he wouldn’t find a better True Berry flower anywhere else in the world. And because of the effort put in by our growers, I wasn’t lying.

So please, if you’d like to experience what it’s like to smoke something grown with true skill in a real grow facility (or if you’re looking for the best meditative-flute-playing marijuana in the world), just check out our menu to see if we’re selling Greenery-grown True Berry. And then come in so one of our budtenders can show you exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll see that we really do have the best pot in town, and you’ll see why we say We’re Your Best Buds!

Colorado Marijuana Laws

Posted on October 28, 2017 - 9:00 am

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Every so often, after I’ve sold someone marijuana in our dispensary and handed over his or her order, he or she will look at me as if they’ve been left holding the bag (quite literally). He or she will hold their pot like it might bite, and then he or she will confess: “Um… this is my first time buying marijuana legally… what’re the rules?”

Honestly, I’ve had to assure customers in the past that they wouldn’t be arrested as soon as they left—as if our store were nothing more than a trap rigged by the man—and I understand; one hundred years’ worth of nonsensical marijuana laws are bound to make the first-time shopper a little nervous. So, when I encounter the “now what?” type of question, I always do my best to assuage the fears associated with purchasing marijuana, and I give those first-time shoppers a little legal lecture that goes something like this:

“Here at The Greenery, we always staple your bag shut with the receipt on the outside—as soon as we do this, your purchase becomes a ‘closed container,’ and so long as you keep it that way and out of the driver’s reach, you’re good-to-go regarding traffic stops.” At this point, I usually staple the bag for emphasis, and then I continue…

“And it’s perfectly legal to possess the amount I’ve sold you. But in case you were wondering, in Colorado, you can legally possess a maximum of either one ounce of marijuana flower, eight-hundred milligrams of edibles, eight grams of concentrate, or any combination thereof that does not exceed the ‘marijuana equivalency rules.’ For example, you’re allowed to have on your person a half-ounce of flower, two grams of concentrate, and two-hundred milligrams of edibles. But you don’t need to worry about that when you shop here because we will never sell you more in a single transaction than you’re allowed to possess.” This is usually when my fearful first-timer will start to relax…

“Also, you must be 21 or over with a valid ID proving as much to purchase or possess marijuana, but you already knew that because I carded you when you walked in the door. And it’s important to remember that it’s a felony to give or sell marijuana to a minor.”

For the record, this is one of the longstanding marijuana laws that I agree with wholeheartedly. I have a teenaged daughter, and another one who isn’t far behind, so I have strong opinions when it comes to children and marijuana. And just like with alcohol, kids will walk around “tapping shoulders,” as they call it, asking grownups to go to the dispensary for them. It’s important for first-timers and regulars alike to know that saying “yes” is a federal offence, and at The Greenery, we simply will not sell to a customer who we suspect might’ve had his or her shoulder tapped. Anyway, moving on…

“When it comes to driving, it’s important to remember that it’s illegal for a driver or passenger to consume or use marijuana in a vehicle, and just like with alcohol, it’s illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana. The legal limit is five nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood, and it’s very easy to get to this limit, so please don’t smoke and drive.”

At this point, the first-timer is usually completely at ease, but they might have a follow up question or two, like, “well, if I can’t smoke in my car, where can I smoke?”

“Well,” I say, “it’s illegal to consume marijuana in public. You’re only allowed to smoke or consume marijuana on private property with the property owner’s permission. If you’re staying at a hotel, just ask someone at the front desk if it’s okay, because plenty of the establishments in Durango are 420 friendly.”

And that’s about it. I’ll ask if there are any other questions, I’ll answer them if there are, and then the first-timer and I will part ways, usually with a handshake. Today, I simply wanted to be proactive and write about Colorado’s marijuana rules and regulations because you might be a potential first-timer, and this is stuff you need to know. But if it’s still a little foggy, just check out Good to Know for more information. Or, if you’d prefer, just stop by our dispensary; we have flyers in our store you can take for free that sum up everything you just read. And as always, please don’t ever be afraid to come in and ask one of our affable budtenders about the rules and regulations. We’ll make sure your first-timer frown turns upside-down, because We’re Your Best Buds, and that’s what we do.

Caviar Marijuana

Posted on October 21, 2017 - 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on October 14, 2017 - 9:00 am

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Savanna Bristol
Assistant Compliance Manager & Flower Purchaser

About your Best Bud:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

420 Friendly in Durango, Colorado

Posted on October 7, 2017 - 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kief Brick

Posted on September 30, 2017 - 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it’s the flavor that’s remarkable.

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

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

Marijuana Edible Serving Size

Posted on September 9, 2017 - 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

That night, it felt like my brain was interdimensional.

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

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

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

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

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

What’s it like to get high?

Posted on August 19, 2017 - 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on August 12, 2017 - 9:00 am

Budtender, Dispensary, Dispensary deals, budtender

Libby Lunda
Retail Floor Manager

Libby used to sit by a stream in Wisconsin to smoke with her friends. They’d buy quarter ounces for fifty bucks, and the stuff was just as horrid as you’d imagine: brown brick-weed that had just as many seeds and stems as it did flower. They’d load their bowls and winnow out the seeds, and then toss them in the river, watching them float away to somewhere unseen. Libby would imagine her seeds riding the rapids and then landing to sprout on an island—it was a magical garden of sorts, a place where marijuana was legal and accepted. But that place didn’t exist in Wisconsin, so when Libby grew up and had a child of her own, she moved her family to Durango, because if you think about it, this is where her seeds have come to grow; this place is the island she imagined. And now, Libby Lunda is your Best Bud of the month.

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Libby. “I just celebrated my two-year anniversary!”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Libby. “I love bongs, and Sour Diesel is the best strain of all time.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Libby. “Gardening and growing. I love to stand back when it’s all done and look at the aftermath. The work is worth it when you see what you’ve created.”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Libby. “King is an XL Bully, and he’s a little shit. He’s a puppy trapped in a beast’s body.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Libby. “Top hits, or anything modern.”
(For the record, as one of Libby’s coworkers, I can tell you that when the door is shut at the end of the day, she puts on old-school rap and turns it up. Don’t be fooled by that “top hits” nonsense; Libby is a straight-up gangster.)

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Libby. “I love our customers. I love getting to know the regulars and helping the tourists who are just as excited about legal marijuana as I am.”

Libby is the sort of person who combats the budtender stereotype. She isn’t in this industry because she sees it as a novelty or because she’s some stoner who’s looking for an employee discount. She’s here because she knows this industry has a future, and she’s the type of young professional who plans on capitalizing on the unique opportunity that has sprouted downstream from Wisconsin. And she really does love her customers as much as she says. I’ve seen her perk up in the middle of a bad day just to dedicate all of her attention to someone who’s just looking for some relief. Libby is a compassionate budtender who cares genuinely for each and every one of The Greenery’s customers, and because of that, she is definitely your Best Bud of the month for August. Thank you Libby!

The Greenery Hits a Theme Song

Posted on August 5, 2017 - 9:00 am

The Greenery, dispensary deals, marijuana, pot shop

Darth Vader is cool only because he has theme music. Granted, the lightsaber helps a little bit, as does his freaky ability to choke fools from a distance, but if it wasn’t for the sonorous, tonal music that follows Vader wherever he goes, he’d be average at best. All the other aliens in that far, far away galaxy wouldn’t even notice when he walked in the room, despite his awkward breathing, and there’s no way he could pull off that goth cape without his theme song. It’s sad, but true.

That’s why I’ve always wanted theme music. Sometimes, when I’m especially high, my brain obliges. I’ll be walking from point “A” to point “B,” and something groovy will start playing in my head. My walk will morph into a strut, and I’ll start humming “Stayin’ Alive” by The Bee Gees. The world around me will slow down and start to sparkle, and I’ll bob my head to the rhythm. And if that were to ever happen in the real-world, I’d know that I’ve arrived, because anybody who’s anybody has theme music.

Think about it. When the President of the United States steps up to the podium, he’s accompanied by brazen fanfare—an entire orchestra announces his arrival with pomp and circumstance. When Stephan Colbert steps on stage, his audience knows it thanks to his Late Show theme song. Hell, a couple years ago at The Oscars, Tom Hanks got pissed-off because the band played the Forest Gump song when he walked on stage instead of the song from whatever movie he starred in that week; Tom Hanks is so famous he has multiple theme songs. That’s just crazy. But now, The Greenery is catching up to his level, because we have a theme song too—put that in your box of chocolates, Mr. Gump.

Dexter Davis is a student at Arkansas State, an artist who goes by ICEberg Slim, and he sent us his song a few weeks back. It’s called “The Greenery,” and really, it’s just a happy coincidence; the song has nothing in common with our dispensary save for its title, and Slim has never walked through our door. But theme songs don’t just fall from the sky every day, so for this blog, at least, we’re coopting Slim’s song as our own. And the song is alright. It sounds like the type of music Shaft would wake-and-bake to—warm and scratchy, vinyl straight from the turntable, it’s an old-school stoner jam.

Listen to it here, and then come in to tell us what you think. Feel free to walk through our door humming your own personal theme song, because your best buds won’t judge you. We know exactly what it’s like having a theme song, thanks to Dexter Davis, and just like Darth Vader, The Greenery has arrived.