As a freelance cannabis writer, I get to do some pretty cool things. Seeing amazing places and meeting incredible people are a regular occurrence. I wasn’t always a writer. I used to be stuck in kitchens and on job sites all the time. 12 hour work days with an hour each way in traffic was the norm. One day, I took a blind leap of faith leaving all of that behind me, not looking back. The ride since that day has been one bumpy, fun-filled, adrenaline packed adventure!
I turned a hobby and passion into my livelihood. After 20+ years as a cook/construction worker, I found I had become a freelance writer. I lived in Wisconsin when I first started out. Not long after I started freelance writing, I purchased a camper pulled the kids out of schools and started homeschooling, and we hit the road for adventure. Freelance writing led me to Colorado.
Colorado is the Centennial state. It received its name because it became an official state in 1876, the 100th year anniversary of America. More specifically my journey has lead me to the mile high city. I’m talking about good old Denver Colorado. The first dispensary I visited was the Medicine Man.
It was like a glorious day for cannabis in my book! The walls were lined with varieties of all sorts. They were packaged in little baggies, medium size baggies, and great big old baggies! There were concentrates such as shatter, wax, and CO2 oils. There were edibles of all sorts too! Candy bars, sodas, in chewy gummy treats of all sorts. It made me wonder if this was what Willy Wonka felt like?
In Colorado, you have a variety of cannabis like Chemdawg, Death Star, Gorilla Glue, Girl Scout Cookies, OG Kush, Pre-Bubba OG, Lemon Haze, and dozens of others. Packaging is very simple and plain. All cannabis is put into exit bags before leaving the store.
Travel over to the West Coast, and it changes a little bit. The selection of concentrates in Oregon was not as wide as that found in Colorado. However, the cannabis strains found in Oregon to me were completely different than what I was used to. Mystique, 9lb Hammer, Diablo, and Orange Alien Cookies were some of the strains that were new to me. Oregon had a different vibe. More than any place I’ve ever visited people were into organics.
There were health food stores, and organic everything’s everywhere. Even the pets there ate organic food. I think a dog there gave me the stink-eye for offering him a french fry. When I was in Oregon, I met a lady who was homeless. She came up to me and said I spray paint turds gold. She wasn’t kidding she though she made life a little bit better going around spray-painting turds golden. If you’re ever in Eugene Oregon and happen to see a golden turd, I’d leave it alone.
Washington State was another experience. You are only allowed to make one purchase a day there. That meant no going to the damn dispensary and just buying a joint. You better get as much as you can or what you need at least to get you through the day. The strains were similar to what you would find in Oregon. I found some amazing BC God Bud while in Washington State. The extracts were available in a multitude of varieties.
The one thing that stood out to me with Washington State over Oregon and Colorado was packaging. Washington state gets my vote for the most colorful and wild packaging that I’ve seen yet. So far I’ve purchased cannabis in all three states. I look forward to visiting California to see what their packaging is like and experience the California cannabis culture first hand. Have you visited multiple recreational cannabis states? If so, what were the differences that you saw?
Vegas. We were impressed having lived thru our WA changes to cannabis access. WA rules left us jaded and broken again. In Vegas the concentrates were strong but void of the full terpene profile we are used to with our WA varieties. Very impressed with the Vegas style.