The Business of Marketing Weed
February 14th, 2007
When I was in San Francisco last month, I came across this interesting sign outside a medical marijuana shop not far from City Hall. I didn’t really think about it much, other than the initial thought that it’s something I wouldn’t see at home, but apparently hocking medical marjuana is big business in California—so says the recent article, The Great California Weed Rush, from Rolling Stone Magazine.
A doctor’s note is the gateway to the wonderful world of pot clubs, which in the new lingo are called “dispensaries.” In California—unlike the eleven other states with medical-cannabis laws—there’s some vague legal protection for Amsterdam-style shops selling medical marijuana. Usually named something like “Compassionate Caregivers,” “Earth Healers” or, less obscurely, “Kush Mart,” these stores are like dying and going to stoner heaven. They look like old-timey apothecaries, with glass cases of prescription bottles with twenty to thirty different kinds of bud, nearly all of exceptionally high quality, ranging from $35 an eighth to $100 for OG Kush. Any self-respecting dispensary owner also sells hash, kief, jellies, infusions, cones, clones, pot lollipops (”Hydropops”), pot candy bars, pot peanut butter, pot ice cream and at least a half-dozen flavors of pot sodas—sometimes sold out of a vending machine. One store owner told me excitedly that when Nevada OKs dispensaries, he’s opening a club on the Vegas Strip. We were talking in a parking lot, and when he drove away he forgot a can of soda on the roof of his car.
February 14th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Argh, figures. There’s so many damn stoners in my school. I’m sorry if your views on marijuana are different from mine, but, damn, I can’t stand it one bit. All smoke burns my eyes, and gives me a serious headache. My idiot friends are stoners and their families are stoners. At my friends’ house, it was his birthday, and he and all his friends brough as much weed as humanly possible. His parents were there with him. All getting high. All offering me some telling me I’m missing out. Meanwhile my ears are tearing, my cheeks red, I’m coughing. They thought I was crying and laughed at me. It was fine though, since I’m passing all my classes, meanwhile, other than having a nice house, they’re fairly poor, my friend is failing all his classes, and his girlfriend’s IQ is below 90.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Wow, tanner, you need to pick better “friends”. Their behavior has nothing to do with pot.
It’s really too bad that you have such adverse reaction to smoke. Do you avoid people when they are barbecuing, or gathering around a campfire? I am truly sorry, because those times are wonderful. You are really missing out.
Why did you hang around your “friends” at the party instead of leaving or going outside if you knew this would be your reaction to the smoke, and keep hanging around when it was so bad your “ears are tearing”? I can almost understand your point, though, since I don’t smoke cigarettes and most of my friends do. But I leave when it bothers me. I don’t think they’re “idiots” because I feel differently than they.
The biggest pot head I know (my girlfriend’s little brother) is going to Johns-Hopkins Medical school on scholarship. He’s an accomplished herpetologist with a number of published articles in peer reviewed publications who has kept a 4.3 GPA for 3 years. He smokes the highest potency weed I’ve ever seen, every day.
I guess what really matters, unless you’re just being judgmental, is the person’s personality. Try to remember that when looking for new “idiot friends”.
September 10th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I was surfing the internet Monday afternoon during my break, and found your blog by searching MSN for cannabis weed. This is a topic I have great interest in, and follow it closely. I liked your insight on The Business of Marketing Weed very much, and it made for good reading. Keep up the good work…