Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
Springfield - A lot of customers who come in to Potco look over the shop's selection of fertilizers, grow lamps, indoor growing tents and other supplies, and ask for advice growing tomatoes.
Owner Dave Mech and manager Justin Diaz both know no one is really asking about tomatoes.
"It's time for people to stop winking," said Mech, an attorney. "Too many people are not getting their medicine."
He has a bad back and has treated his discomfort with medical marijuana in the past. He currently does not have a medical marijuana card, and instead uses cannabidiol, or CBD - an extract of hemp that lacks marijuana's psychoactive properties - to treat his inflammation.
"My goal is to get as many people off opioids as possible," Mech said.
His goal is also to grow Potco, which he opened this spring in a former pawn shop at 522 Sumner Ave., into a sort of big box store for the cannabis industry: "Costco for marijuana," he said.
He rents space to Dr. William Cristo Jr. and Community Health Clinics. Cristo can evaluate patients for a medical marijuana designation at an office inside Potco, Mech said.
Mech said he hopes people will soon feel comfortable shopping there as medical marijuana gains more social and legal acceptance and states including Massachusetts consider making recreational marijuana legal. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is pushing to place a measure on the state ballot in November that could lead to legal availability of recreational marijuana in this state.
"Then we'll be able to talk more openly with people," Mech said.
He'd also be able to sell cannabis itself, he hopes. Mech said he'd like very much to to apply for a license to sell if the ballot initiative passes.
"Who wouldn't?" he said.
But even without a license to sell, a successful referendum would drive customers to his business. "There would be a lot more people looking to grow, and they wouldn't need the card," Mech said.
He'd also consider becoming a dispensary of medical marijuana. But he's not actively pursuing the effort at this time.
"Eventually in the future someday. I've been looking to do a dispensary," he said. "I'm just focusing on the store."
As it stands now, Potco is a gardening store, albeit one with a name that is a pretty obvious double entendre.
He sells a line of fertilizers called Neptune's Harvest, which is manufactured in Gloucester by Ocean Crest Seafoods Inc. using waste from the fish industry.
"It's a multi-use fertilizer. You can put it on your lawn," Mech said.
Diaz is adept at showing people around, explaining the pros and cons of a grow-tent - the demonstrators on display have tomato plants - or creating a grow room with reflective plastic lining. They sell lights, pumps, pots and plastic trays he says can be used to grow anything hydroponically.
But then, the store's mascot is a mossy, ghillie-suited plantlike character called Potsquatch. Mech said if the tax preparer down the street can have a dancing Statue of Liberty, he can have Potsquatch.
The rules around how Mech can do business are simple, he said. If someone comes in with a state authorization for medical marijuana, he and Diaz will talk to them about growing it.
State regulations permit medical marijuana patients to apply for a hardship designation that would allow them, or their caregivers, to grow their own supply. But the state says all growing must be done in an enclosed area.
Mech said even using a greenhouse could be tricky because the grower would have to secure the plants well enough to prevent pilferage.
If customers don't have the authorization, conversations are more general and more geared to growing anything indoors.
Potco does sell CBD, an oil made from industrial hemp plants that has medicinal properties. The store's website says CBD fights inflammation, pain, psychosis and spasms without the lethargy, difficulty in speaking or intoxication caused by THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana but which has been bred out of industrial hemp.
CBD is legal in Massachusetts, said Scott Zoback, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: 'It's Time People Stop Winking,' Says Owner Of Potco, The Self-Styled 'Costco For Marijuana'
Author: Jim Kinney
Contact: Mass Live
Photo Credit: Dave Roback
Website: Mass Live
Owner Dave Mech and manager Justin Diaz both know no one is really asking about tomatoes.
"It's time for people to stop winking," said Mech, an attorney. "Too many people are not getting their medicine."
He has a bad back and has treated his discomfort with medical marijuana in the past. He currently does not have a medical marijuana card, and instead uses cannabidiol, or CBD - an extract of hemp that lacks marijuana's psychoactive properties - to treat his inflammation.
"My goal is to get as many people off opioids as possible," Mech said.
His goal is also to grow Potco, which he opened this spring in a former pawn shop at 522 Sumner Ave., into a sort of big box store for the cannabis industry: "Costco for marijuana," he said.
He rents space to Dr. William Cristo Jr. and Community Health Clinics. Cristo can evaluate patients for a medical marijuana designation at an office inside Potco, Mech said.
Mech said he hopes people will soon feel comfortable shopping there as medical marijuana gains more social and legal acceptance and states including Massachusetts consider making recreational marijuana legal. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is pushing to place a measure on the state ballot in November that could lead to legal availability of recreational marijuana in this state.
"Then we'll be able to talk more openly with people," Mech said.
He'd also be able to sell cannabis itself, he hopes. Mech said he'd like very much to to apply for a license to sell if the ballot initiative passes.
"Who wouldn't?" he said.
But even without a license to sell, a successful referendum would drive customers to his business. "There would be a lot more people looking to grow, and they wouldn't need the card," Mech said.
He'd also consider becoming a dispensary of medical marijuana. But he's not actively pursuing the effort at this time.
"Eventually in the future someday. I've been looking to do a dispensary," he said. "I'm just focusing on the store."
As it stands now, Potco is a gardening store, albeit one with a name that is a pretty obvious double entendre.
He sells a line of fertilizers called Neptune's Harvest, which is manufactured in Gloucester by Ocean Crest Seafoods Inc. using waste from the fish industry.
"It's a multi-use fertilizer. You can put it on your lawn," Mech said.
Diaz is adept at showing people around, explaining the pros and cons of a grow-tent - the demonstrators on display have tomato plants - or creating a grow room with reflective plastic lining. They sell lights, pumps, pots and plastic trays he says can be used to grow anything hydroponically.
But then, the store's mascot is a mossy, ghillie-suited plantlike character called Potsquatch. Mech said if the tax preparer down the street can have a dancing Statue of Liberty, he can have Potsquatch.
The rules around how Mech can do business are simple, he said. If someone comes in with a state authorization for medical marijuana, he and Diaz will talk to them about growing it.
State regulations permit medical marijuana patients to apply for a hardship designation that would allow them, or their caregivers, to grow their own supply. But the state says all growing must be done in an enclosed area.
Mech said even using a greenhouse could be tricky because the grower would have to secure the plants well enough to prevent pilferage.
If customers don't have the authorization, conversations are more general and more geared to growing anything indoors.
Potco does sell CBD, an oil made from industrial hemp plants that has medicinal properties. The store's website says CBD fights inflammation, pain, psychosis and spasms without the lethargy, difficulty in speaking or intoxication caused by THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana but which has been bred out of industrial hemp.
CBD is legal in Massachusetts, said Scott Zoback, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: 'It's Time People Stop Winking,' Says Owner Of Potco, The Self-Styled 'Costco For Marijuana'
Author: Jim Kinney
Contact: Mass Live
Photo Credit: Dave Roback
Website: Mass Live
