Dear Pot Lawyer,
What do I need to know before I visit my first dispensary?
From the legal side, remember that you must be over 21. The dispensary is legally obligated to check your ID, but thanks to recent legislation, is no longer allowed to store your personal information. For everything else, I reached out to a master budtender. Emma Chasen was named Portland’s Best Budtender of 2016 and is now the Director of Education at the Sativa Science Club, where she focuses on budtender and consumer education. I asked Emma to share some of her expertise.
MERCURY: What are some of the most common mistakes new consumers make?
CHASEN: Going to a dispensary for the first time can be very intimidating, and therefore many consumers don’t even know where to start. Some will rely on terms they have heard, like indica and sativa, for example, to help them describe the effect they are looking for. Consumers should instead focus on describing the experience they are looking for with words like “relaxing,” “energizing,” or “mood elevating.” If the budtender knows their stuff, this will help ensure that the consumer gets the product that will deliver the experience that they are looking for. I also advocate for microdosing: Take half a hit of a joint, wait 10 minutes, see how it makes you feel before consuming more. Most negative experiences with cannabis can be attributed to overdosing.