XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.republicans, sac.politics
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
From:
slime@nytimes.com
Ben Emerson had never tried cannabis edibles before his birthday
in April. He was raised in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church,
which he left five years ago, and marijuana was “this thing that
I had never really even thought that I was allowed to do,” he
said.
“And then I’m like, ‘Wait, I can actually make up my own mind
about this.’”
For his first foray, Mr. Emerson, 38, chose strawberry-flavored
gummies, which he ordered online and picked up curbside at a
dispensary near his home in Portland, Ore. “I’m not super-
interested in smoking anything,” he said. “But as soon as I
decided I wanted to try cannabis, I wanted to try something
edible.”
Anxious times (say, a global pandemic) call for palliatives,
like meditation, exercise or, in some cases, weed. More than a
dozen states declared cannabis stores and medical marijuana
dispensaries essential businesses, along with pharmacies and
grocery stores, as the coronavirus sent millions of Americans
home, with or without jobs.
Since March, the cannabis industry has seen an influx of new
customers: Eaze, an online cannabis retailer, told The
Associated Press that first-time purchases of cannabis were up
more than 50 percent in early March. And as fear of inhaled
products has risen — spurred partly by studies of “vaping
illness” and exacerbated by respiratory risks associated with
the coronavirus — many consumers have opted to enjoy cannabis in
edible form.
When the Apothecarium, an upscale dispensary with locations in
California and Nevada, moved from in-store retail to curbside
pickup in March, Cali Manzello, the general manager of its San
Francisco flagship, noticed a change in the size of orders.
“One of the first orders that printed out from the pickup
machine said 25 packages of this gummy on it,” she said. “And we
all kind of giggled. We were like, ‘Ooh boy, here it goes. It’s
starting.’”
“It did not stop,” Ms. Manzello continued. “People were
ordering, you know, up to the legal limit, which can be up to 80
edibles in some cases.” Ms. Manzello said that the company’s
edible sales are up 16 percent, while vape sales have fallen by
19 percent.
“Edibles every year have been taking up a bigger slice of the
pie,” said Alex Levine, an owner and joint C.E.O. of Green
Dragon, a dispensary that operates 15 locations in Colorado.
“Right before corona hit, edibles were basically at 20 percent
of our sales. That was a huge increase over the past couple of
years.”
Vince Ning, the founder and C.E.O. of Nabis, a wholesale
cannabis distributor in California, said that, as a possible
result of “health-conscious” consumerism, his company has also
seen an increase in sales of edibles.
“I think cannabis in general is a pretty recession-proof good,”
Mr. Ning said. “Much like alcohol,” whose sales also skyrocketed
as people prepared to be holed up at home indefinitely.
Chris Beals, the C.E.O. of Weedmaps, an online directory for
dispensaries, said that according to company data, overall sales
of edibles in March were double those in February. He said it
could be a result of increased cannabis consumption among
habitual users but also “new consumers coming in, who were
working from home, dealing with the stresses of Covid.”
In the close quarters of quarantine, being stuck with roommates
or family for an extended period of time, consumers may not want
to smoke or vape. “When people are working at home or they’re
around children or family, edibles are just more discreet,” Mr.
Beals said.
Lauren Gockley, a classically trained chocolatier, is the
director of edibles at Coda Signature, whose product line
includes truffles and “fruit notes” (fancy weed gummies). She
said consumers may be turning to edibles during the pandemic for
other social reasons, including community.
“With the pandemic, there’s not that same sharing of cannabis
the way there used to be,” she said. “There’s the phrase ‘puff,
puff, pass,’ and now it’s ‘puff, puff, don’t pass.’”
“Passing around a tin of gummies is going to be much more
acceptable than passing around a joint or a vape pen,” she added.
In April, Mr. Levine said that Green Dragon saw sales of edibles
dip. He chalked that up to customers buying flowers, the
smokable part of the plant (commonly called “bud”), which they
could use to make their own edibles.
“People didn’t know how long this was going to last. ‘Is
cannabis going to be unavailable for months?’ So people bought
flowers,” Mr. Levine said. “Flower is always the best value.
It’s like buying the raw ingredients, if you will. It’s always
cheaper to buy the flour and stuff to make cookies than buying
the prepared cookies.”
Tee Franklin, a comic book writer and novelist in New Jersey,
makes edibles at home and often uses cannabis oil in her
cooking. “Oh, baby, I make everything,” she said. “Every single
thing you can think of, I have made within reason.”
That includes “an entire soul food dinner,” which she cooked for
herself and her 80-year-old mother: ribs with homemade cannabis-
infused barbecue sauce, mac and cheese made with cannabis
butter, and baked beans and collard greens cooked with cannabis
sugar.
Ms. Franklin, who is in her mid-40s, received a medical
marijuana card (another item in high demand these days) in
December, after seven years of living with a disability caused
by a car accident. It took her a month to save up enough money
to make a purchase. When she first tried it, she said, “My pain
in five minutes went from a 9, 10 to a 6, 7. Those five minutes
changed my entire life.”
Ms. Franklin still uses a walker, but she said she can move
better and stand for longer because of the relief cannabis
provides her. “I’m not as slow,” she said. “I’m not the Flash,
but I got a little pep in my step, and that’s all from
marijuana.”
“It helps with depression, anxiety, stress,” she said. “There is
no way on God’s green Earth that I would be able to deal with
the coronavirus and the protests of George Floyd and just me
being a Black woman, period, there’s no way.”
Ms. Franklin said edibles are the most accessible form of
marijuana for many people, but not for everyone.
Money can be a major barrier, especially since some 20 million
Americans are out of work because of the pandemic. Mr. Levine
noted that at one of the Green Dragon storefronts where he was
recently working, “half of the people coming in had no income.
I’m sure it was even worse than that.”
The price of edibles can vary based on the state — and the
amount of THC — but with a package of 10 gummies with 100
milligrams per bag of THC selling for $20 in Colorado and $18 in
California, the cost can be prohibitive for some people.
Mr. Emerson, in Portland, acknowledged that his own ability to
afford and have access to legal cannabis, for recreation, was a
privilege. “That’s not something that a lot of people have been
able to do,” he said. “A lot of damage has been done
particularly to Black communities, the communities of color,
because of something like cannabis, which is pretty harmless.”
Ms. Franklin echoed his words, noting the disproportionate
incarceration rates of Black people for marijuana possession.
“Dispensaries are an essential business,” she said. “It’s a drug-
dealing business that is owned majority by white. But the Black
people who were doing the same thing are locked up. The brown
folks, same thing, they’re locked up.”
“That’s the only thing about this whole weed business that I am
not of fan of,” she continued. “That’s the only thing.
Everything else, I am for it. I’m for it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/style/weed-edibles-
pandemic.html
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)