Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
“Budtender” Michael Rose introduced himself to me at the LoDo Wellness Center in downtown Denver last week.
Don’t let the business name mislead you. This is not a place filled with treadmills and barbells, and Rose is not a fitness trainer. This is a retail store filled with recreational marijuana in many forms - the kind you smoke, the kind you nibble, the kind you rub on your body - all legally sanctioned for sale by the state of Colorado for use within the state.
It’s what the Denver TV anchors call a "pot shop" and the state calls a "dispensary."
And Rose’s title is a derivative of the word “bartender,” his counterpart in the world of serving people who want to, frankly, get high.
With his long hair tied in a ponytail and his brightly colored tie-dyed shirt with a giant kitten face on the front, Rose looks like the offspring of the late-1960s hippies, who were the cultural phenomenon of my college days.
He is easygoing, friendly and appears to be extremely knowledgeable about the many products sold here and the legal marijuana trade in general.
And he is kind to an aging, very clueless but curious Iowa tourist who displays rampant naivete about this legalized new industry - one that has focused the collective eyes of the nation on Colorado.
“This is like the gold rush,” he tells me. “Only we call it the green rush.”
Rose is a good salesman brim full of statistics.
He ticks off on his fingers the states that have joined Colorado in legalizing medical and/or recreational marijuana use and those that are decriminalizing it. He says Colorado is getting more tax money from weed than cigarettes and alcohol combined.
He says crime is down, possibly because people no longer need to deal with the unsafe and unregulated underground pot drug culture. He says weed taxes have already pumped much-needed millions into the state’s public school system.
And he estimates that half the people who enter his shop are from out of state.
From the street, this dispensary does not stand out. A single glass door etched with “LoDo Wellness Center” leads you to a lower-level, catacombslike space.
The large entrance room has a laid-back, meditative feel to it, with Persian rugs, a cluster of lounge chairs around a Buddha statue and some oversize Asian vases. There are also folding screens and huge fringed rope pulls similar to those at a Shinto shrine.
A very pleasant, well-dressed young woman checks IDs behind a wooden desk at one end. Near her is a large glass viewing window where you can see green lights illuminating rows of healthy-looking cannabis plants. We are told this is one of the few shops to grow marijuana on-site.
The recreational products are in a separate room with glass counters, where Rose and another employee answer questions and fill orders.
After explaining the various varieties of weed, prices and procedures, Rose moves to the “edibles” counter and offers us safety advice on consuming low-dose, pot-laced candy. At the “lotions” counter, he tells us that he uses a particular wrist balm that has greatly helped his own carpal tunnel problem.
Unlike some others, this store also has a locked room where the stronger medical marijuana products are kept. To shop there, you must have a doctor’s prescription and a special certification card issued by the state.
Although I am honestly ambivalent toward legalizing recreational marijuana, I’ve supported its medicinal use since 1977. That fall, I drove my mother to the Mayo Clinic for chemotherapy for her cancer. She bravely signed up for an experimental program in which patients were given large pills that were said to be “a derivative of hashish.”
Back then, many others in her chemo class suffered vomiting and other unpleasant side effects. She did not, and I became an instant believer. At that point, you supported anything that might spare Mom further suffering.
Rose, of course, is a proponent of Colorado’s headline-grabbing experiment. He moved here from Ohio, and this is his full-time job while he pursues a criminal justice degree from Colorado State University.
Did legal weed draw him to this place?
“No,” he says with a grin. “Snowboarding.”
I was happy to hear that.
My short visit here with old friends found us awestruck at the vistas in Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as the amazing alien-looking geological upheaval that formed the giant Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Here’s hoping marijuana won’t top the mountains as Colorado’s most prized offering.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: 'Budtenders' Give Tourists The Colorado Cannabis Story
Author: Dick Hakes
Contact: 319-339-7360
Photo Credit: Dick Hakes
Website: Press-Citizen
Don’t let the business name mislead you. This is not a place filled with treadmills and barbells, and Rose is not a fitness trainer. This is a retail store filled with recreational marijuana in many forms - the kind you smoke, the kind you nibble, the kind you rub on your body - all legally sanctioned for sale by the state of Colorado for use within the state.
It’s what the Denver TV anchors call a "pot shop" and the state calls a "dispensary."
And Rose’s title is a derivative of the word “bartender,” his counterpart in the world of serving people who want to, frankly, get high.
With his long hair tied in a ponytail and his brightly colored tie-dyed shirt with a giant kitten face on the front, Rose looks like the offspring of the late-1960s hippies, who were the cultural phenomenon of my college days.
He is easygoing, friendly and appears to be extremely knowledgeable about the many products sold here and the legal marijuana trade in general.
And he is kind to an aging, very clueless but curious Iowa tourist who displays rampant naivete about this legalized new industry - one that has focused the collective eyes of the nation on Colorado.
“This is like the gold rush,” he tells me. “Only we call it the green rush.”
Rose is a good salesman brim full of statistics.
He ticks off on his fingers the states that have joined Colorado in legalizing medical and/or recreational marijuana use and those that are decriminalizing it. He says Colorado is getting more tax money from weed than cigarettes and alcohol combined.
He says crime is down, possibly because people no longer need to deal with the unsafe and unregulated underground pot drug culture. He says weed taxes have already pumped much-needed millions into the state’s public school system.
And he estimates that half the people who enter his shop are from out of state.
From the street, this dispensary does not stand out. A single glass door etched with “LoDo Wellness Center” leads you to a lower-level, catacombslike space.
The large entrance room has a laid-back, meditative feel to it, with Persian rugs, a cluster of lounge chairs around a Buddha statue and some oversize Asian vases. There are also folding screens and huge fringed rope pulls similar to those at a Shinto shrine.
A very pleasant, well-dressed young woman checks IDs behind a wooden desk at one end. Near her is a large glass viewing window where you can see green lights illuminating rows of healthy-looking cannabis plants. We are told this is one of the few shops to grow marijuana on-site.
The recreational products are in a separate room with glass counters, where Rose and another employee answer questions and fill orders.
After explaining the various varieties of weed, prices and procedures, Rose moves to the “edibles” counter and offers us safety advice on consuming low-dose, pot-laced candy. At the “lotions” counter, he tells us that he uses a particular wrist balm that has greatly helped his own carpal tunnel problem.
Unlike some others, this store also has a locked room where the stronger medical marijuana products are kept. To shop there, you must have a doctor’s prescription and a special certification card issued by the state.
Although I am honestly ambivalent toward legalizing recreational marijuana, I’ve supported its medicinal use since 1977. That fall, I drove my mother to the Mayo Clinic for chemotherapy for her cancer. She bravely signed up for an experimental program in which patients were given large pills that were said to be “a derivative of hashish.”
Back then, many others in her chemo class suffered vomiting and other unpleasant side effects. She did not, and I became an instant believer. At that point, you supported anything that might spare Mom further suffering.
Rose, of course, is a proponent of Colorado’s headline-grabbing experiment. He moved here from Ohio, and this is his full-time job while he pursues a criminal justice degree from Colorado State University.
Did legal weed draw him to this place?
“No,” he says with a grin. “Snowboarding.”
I was happy to hear that.
My short visit here with old friends found us awestruck at the vistas in Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as the amazing alien-looking geological upheaval that formed the giant Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Here’s hoping marijuana won’t top the mountains as Colorado’s most prized offering.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: 'Budtenders' Give Tourists The Colorado Cannabis Story
Author: Dick Hakes
Contact: 319-339-7360
Photo Credit: Dick Hakes
Website: Press-Citizen
