Top 11 Things to Avoid Saying in a Dispensary
As budtenders, we understand that we are much more comfortable being around and talking about cannabis than the vast majority of the general public. However, we here some phrases that we shouldn't, or at least should hear less than we do. There are some things were just hear way too much, and then there are things that are downright disrespectful, rude, and potentially illegal. Either way, avoid these following phrases when you're in a dispensary.
1. "I've never been in one of these places before."
Okay, I understand that you've never been in a dispensary before, and you aren't familiar with our terminology, but referring to any establishment as "one of these places" makes it sound like that place is seedy, grubby, and generally not a desirable place to be, which is grossly unfair. It would also be like saying the same thing about a coffee shop or a department store. No matter how you mean it, it sounds judgmental and disrespectful, so please find a different way to phrase your excitement over being in a dispensary for the first time. It can even be as simple as just saying "This is my first time here" or "I've never been in your store before. Can you show me around?"
2. "I don't know what I'm doing."
Yes you do. You came in here to buy, or at least look at, weed. And that's perfectly fine. You may be overwhelmed, not know where to start, or have a lot of questions, but you still know what you're doing. Odd are, you've bought weed before, just likely not in a store. Selling our product out in the open allows us the freedom to talk about the differences between different strains, edibles vs smoking, and all of the other issues I've touched on in other posts plus many others. It allows me to answer any and all of the questions that you want to ask, but I don't know how to help you when all you say is, "I don't know what I'm doing." Help me help you.
3. "So, how do I get this back home?"
You don't. It's a federal offense to fly (or drive, or take a train, or a boat, or parasail, etc) over states lines with cannabis in any form whatsoever. No matter what the legal status of cannabis is in Denver or Seattle or wherever you are flying to, this is still a federal offense as cannabis is still federally illegal and you could face very serious consequences if you get caught. Is it really worth the risk? If it means that much to you, write to your congress-person in your state, join your local NORML chapter, or hell, move to Colorado/Oregon/Washington/DC/Alaska! They're all pretty damn cool places, even before the legal weed.
4. "Oh I smoke all the time at home, so I'm just gonna eat this whole edible, right?"
You know what? If you're a total asshat in my store to me or one of my budtenders, I might just let that happen (so don't be a total asshat). Odds are you're looking at an edible that contains 50-100 mg of THC, which is a lot. In general, think of a gram of bud as containing about 100 mg, but your smoking tolerance is not the same thing as your edibles tolerance. The two can be TOTALLY separate, and until you figure out your personal threshold, we recommend you start with about 10 mg, unless you want to be horribly, uncomfortably high for 12 hours. Ask your budtender what an appropriate starting dose would be for you, and listen to what they tell you. In addition, if you are not from high altitude (Denver sits at 5280 ft and the rest of Colorado pretty much climbs from there), your brain is getting 25% less oxygen than its used to while you're here. That means that everything will go to your head faster than it would at home. Here, you have a lower tolerance. Don't get egotistical about it. It's not personal, and you don't want to eat to much just to show off and then really regret it later, do you?
5. "I'm like a kid in a candy store."
Too much. I just hear this one way, way too much. We all do. We get it; this is super exciting for you. It still is for us too. And, yes, we do carry different kinds of infused candies, but really this phrase has got to be retired. If I never hear it again, I would die happy. Unfortunately for me, I will most likely hear it again about 10 times before I close my store in 4.5 hours."
6. "You know, I can get this much bud for half price down the street."
Yeah, and I can get a coat for way less at Walmart than I can at Nordstrom's. As with in any industry, you pay for what you get. If you smoke something any feel your saliva thicken a bit, and your glands swell up, that means your weed hasn't been flushed during the last 3 weeks of its growing cycle is still full of chemicals. Ew. I know that my weed has been grown using incredibly clean products, and has been fully flushed. I know it doesn't have any bugs, mildew, rot, or other problems. And believe it or not, these are all things I have personally seen in dispensary jars all over Colorado, which means it happens everywhere. If you want shitty, gross weed that will get you half as high as mine will, then by all means, go down the street and pay half the price. No skin off my back.
7. "You know, it wasn't like this in my day."
It wasn't in mine either, and I'm in my mid-20s. And, it still isn't like this today where you live. And we just opened recreational stores less than a year ago. We know what it was like before, which is why we fought so hard to get this legalized, and will continue fighting in 46 more states until we have federal legalization. Would you like to join us? Because this War on Drugs is far from over, and we all know it. And we know how lucky we are out here, and we don't take it for granted. We hope you don't either.
8. "Do you have any Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, or Thai Stick?"
First of all, those strains are from the 60s and 70s, which are basically great, great, great grandparents of the strains we have today. You will find traces of those genetics in many strains today, and you might be able to find the true strain in some dispensary somewhere, but it'll be hard. Secondly, strains are different today. We have many botanists and geneticists who have ben breeding and cross breeding strains for years, decades, to achieve very specific effects. Thirdly, the growing conditions we are using are very different from back in the day. Before legalization, cannabis was grown outside in fields with almost no nutrients, and was typically dried and cured by burrying it. This turned it brown or grey, and it was typically full of seeds and contained much less THC than strains today. We are now able to control almost every aspect of the growing process to optimize our results and product much more potent levels of THC as a result. Lastly, strain names don't always mean what you think they do. Sometimes people will grow seeds without knowing what they are and name them whatever they want, or make their best guess. So the genetics aren't always correct. In addition, like twins, seeds from one plant may contain slight variations in the genetics, which create slightly different effects from one phonetype to the next. Also, growing conditions strong effect how each plant grows. So even if you have two clones with the exact same genetics, and you know what those genetics are, if you grow the plants in vastly different environments they will come out very different. So the Panama Red you are thinking of was grown very differently than how we grow, and may not even be the same genetic makeup, so even if we have it, it likely won't be the same smoke that you remember.
The "best" is going to vary drastically from person to person. Someone struggling with anxiety will want a very different strain than someone coping with ADHD. Some people want something that will help them sleep while others want something to help increase creativity. I need to know what kind of effects you would like, or what you would like to avoid, in order for me to direct you toward what you would like the best. But, really, there's no such thing as our "best" product. They all just do slightly different things.
10. "I had a bad experience with _____ once so I won't ever try it again."
When I was 9, the first time I ever rode a horse I got bucked off and fell on my neck. Luckily I wasn't badly hurt, but I was very shaken and refused to get on a horse for another year. When I finally did, I cried the whole time because I was so scared. 6 years later, I won my first horse show championship. Let's skip ahead to last year when I ate my first edible. I had a lollipop, which I figured was a single serving because who would make a candy like a lollipop, that you can't cut into smaller pieces, with more than one serving in it?! Nope. Wrong. It had about 45mg in it, which was about 4x the amount I needed. I was horribly, uncomfortably high for about 9 hours until I went to sleep. And I wasn't in a situation where it was a good idea for me to be that high. But I made it through unscathed. I was just high, and by the next day I was back to normal. It took me several months to try an edible again, and it turned out that I needed less than half (about 15mg) of what I had previously consumed. Oops! Lesson learned. I now love edibles and use them frequently. I'm so glad that I gave them another chance and didn't just give into fear after having one bad experience. This is just another example of the old adage: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. One bad experience does not mean that edibles are a bad idea for you. It just means that you're figuring out how to use them correctly for you.
11. "Oh God, I would never use any of this!"
Please don't be so blatantly judgemental in my store. I don't walk into a clothing store and say loudly, "Ugh! Could you imagine wearing any of this?!" Of course I don't, because it's rude, and it's rude when you do the same thing in my store. I understand that there is still very much a stigma against cannabis, but my store and hundreds like it are trying to overcome that stigma, and you're not helping. You also sounds like an ignorant bitch when you walk into my store for the first time and immediately start insulting and judging me, my product, and the other customers who are shopping. Rude. Stop it.
At the end of the day, I will keep hearing these things on a very regular basis, but if even one person is made aware of their phrasing in a dispensary, and changes how they speak and act while shopping in one, then this post is a success. I'd really rather it reach more than one person, but one would make it worthwhile.
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