Ten Reasons Dispensaries are Better than going to a Dealer

1)  No Shady Scenes.

We’ve all been there, a 7/11 parking lot late at night where every Slurpee-buying shopper looks like an undercover cop. You just parked your buddy’s car near an apartment downtown where all the neighbors know why you’re walking towards that particular door. Or worse, a friend of a friend who just got out of jail has some killer stuff that will make the whole-cross town drive worth it. You name it; we all have a variety of reasons why we will go the extra mile to procure the best stuff possible, sometimes even when the risks are higher than you are.

Now, my closest dispensary is eight blocks away, (a small industrial trailer where they may only have seven to twelve different varieties of WEED) but I go to the old reliable, my mainstay downtown on Geary (Funny story; I was coming home Tuesday with three clones in a odorless paper-bag. There were two other dudes on the bus who were also clutching paper grocery bags. They’re all-knowing nods and smiles made me feel like we were in the same book club together.)

Going to a Dispensary is incredibly safe compared to my almost forty years of scoring on the street.

2)  Choice.

At my mainstay (Yo, yo, yo... D-Tree boyz) they have about twenty to thirty varieties each of Indicas, Sativas and now, the very popular Hybrids, for all the baby bears out there that need something in the middle, stacked like good friends next to each other in five gallon mayonnaise jars in a glass cabinet/counter.

Some days the choices are overwhelming. I am more apt to ask one of my Bud-tenders what they like. If some of the guys I’ve got to know over the years are working behind the counter like Kimo or Mikey the Great, I just asked them to set me up with what they like and I’ve never gone wrong.

Going to a dealer, if you don’t like what they have or turn down their product, it hurts they’re feelings. At the Dispensary, they could care less. There’s another person behind you that will take the WEED you said ‘No’ to.

3)  No reason to stock up.

Before I had my card, if I my stash was getting low, below half ounce, I have to start to make calls to ensure I had product for the future. It was always a process of never running out. Many times I bought WEED when I didn’t need it or particularly needed to have it, but the idea of running out or worse- not being able to get any WEED because the town was dry or my Man was out of town, would be unacceptable for me.

 The whole deal about instant gratification is getting it when you want it.

With a Dispensary, I sometimes smoke less, really, because I know the pot store is going to be there tomorrow. There’s no rush, man. It’s all cool. One doesn’t need to maintain a bulging inventory unless one likes to have a lot of different shit around the crib to smoke.

Total transparency-Dispensaries are a lot like going to the grocery store. You go in with a budget, but if you’re stoned and have the munchies, you spend more than you’d planned to. Same thing with the Dispensaries- You go in for a Q.T. but the Trainwreck is off the rails and the Dragon’s Breath is out of this world. It’s easy to spend another hundo without trying. And, mark my words, you don’t want to go in there sober...You spend less when you’re already high. Sober, you feel like a Make-A-Wish kid walking into Disneyland. That first time walking into a Dispensary, there’s nothing like it.

4)  You don’t have to buy there.

After getting my MM card, I Googled the pot shop locations and made maps for day trips in an effort to explore all the Magic Kingdoms waiting for this new patient. After checking out the third or fourth place I went to, I slowly realized that I didn’t have to score from every place I entered. If a dispensary’s WEED wasn’t up to my standards or they was just something funky about the place that I didn’t like, (hello south of Market) I can leave.

The great thing about having a MM card, if you don’t like the customer service or any other thing that directs you to one enterprise over another- why someone prefers Whole Foods over Trader Joe’s for example, exist in the Pot world too. Competition makes for a buyer’s market. One of the Pot Shops here in town has coined the phrase of the ‘Home of the 4-gram eighths,’ as a marketing tool to compete with the other guys. For half a gram, I don’t know, but for some people...

Speaking of other guys—growing up., this one guy in the Middle-west I once bought from, sold what he called his exotics, the good stuff, in bags that weighed 5-grams, but he sold them as quarter-ouncers. Why, because he could.

5)  You can get exactly what you want.

I made the mistake for my first few months of getting the strongest WEED available. I’d walk in and ask one of the boys for their most potent strain of Indy. The real dick-in-the road, polio-inducing, Snoop-Dogg crippling WEED that was guaranteed to hurt. Then I’d spend the rest of the day on the floor.

Now if I need some speedy stuff to write with or some night time stuff that makes John Stewart funnier but still understandable, I know what to ask for, or as I said, I let my Bud-Tender make a recommendation. You don’t take antibiotics when you need a sleeping pill, do you? One shouldn’t take an Indica when a nice Sativa or Hybrid is what you actually need. Its 2010, it time for this stuff to make sense.

6)  Hash, edibles and Clones, Oh my!

Dispensaries have more than Marijuana. While I am not a fan of the modern hash I see, I prefer your old school surfboards of Afghani or Lebanese, oppose to this water-based bubble hash, it is great to have the choice.

I did go through an intense edible period at first though. A small little fun fact, pot brownies and the like are as fattening as their non-magic brothers and sisters. I started to put on some weight after getting my card and couldn’t figure it out until I realized I was doing my new faves, pot caramels and toffee almost daily. A word to the wise and over-weight out there, those little candies can sneak up on you a couple of different ways.

As I stated above, I planted some clones. I’ve gone country. I’ll let you know as the crop progresses.

7)  If you Love WEED...

It’s Friday, a big weekend is coming up. In fact, it is a holiday weekend with Monday being day-off for those that have to leave the house. You’re in line at your favorite Dispensary, and the line is long (seven deep). Everyone wants to score their shit and get on with their lives. Then that moment happens, a feeling of tranquility falls over the Dispensary as the patients realize the uniqueness of the local and what is transpiring in front of us. We’re all buying WEED legally in a place that is authorized to legally sell it. It just doesn’t get any better than this and we all know it.

8)  The WEED is so outrageously good.

Durbin Poison, GDP, those stoopid Kushes I complain about but still buy, Skunks, Diesels, and everyday there seems to be a new strain discovered or genetically altered, that really, the shit is too good to turn down. Some days, it is very hard to say no. Luckily I don’t have the cash to go nuts. Just enough to go crazy.

And there are thirty dispensaries in my town competing for potheads with the lure of great pot and all kinds of organically-grown WEED.  

I’ve actually had to ask for pot that isn’t so strong. What we call at home, ‘For the ladies...’

9)  There are a lot of them...

Like my friends who do tours of the Wine Country in Napa and Sonoma, I could also tour the dispensaries of Northern California, excuse me, did I say Northern California? I meant the Bay Area. With so many dispensaries in Berkeley, Oakland, and others throughout the East Bay, there is a world out there still undiscovered for the Cannabis explorer. But then I’d have to leave the house.

10)                       It just makes sense.

The difference in going to a Dispensary opposed to going over to strangers or friend’s house for pot is almost like the difference between shopping at an Airport kiosk or small corner market for groceries instead of going to Food World. The smaller the place, the less choice you have at, ironically, a higher price. With the advent of dispensaries, the price of WEED hasn’t dropped dramatically for the consumers on this side of the counter. (It is a different story for growers.)

One of the reasons WEED may become legal this November is because the world hasn’t fallen apart with the openings of dispensaries. Crime hasn’t taken over neighborhoods and life has gone on.

For adults to have the ability of going into a safe, secure environment to pursue their own form of happiness, makes perfect sense in a perfect libertarian sort of way.

For me, after risking my life more than once in order to get high, sad but true, Dispensaries only make sense. The time has come to grow up, tax us if you must, but give us access to what we’ve been buying in the dark of night from strangers for years on our own.

What is it, 43 million Americans smoke pot either regularly or just at parties or when they come over to my house. Let’s not play games anymore. Open your doors and let the Black Market in. We’ll all be the better for it.