I think everyone can agree that states’ baby steps toward legalizing cannabis have at least been fun to watch. In a consumer/bystander sense. From inside the industry? One snafu after another as unexpected and unintended consequences pop up like Whack-A-Moles. Who knew weed was going to be available in so many iterations? Flower? Gummies? Drinks? Vapes? Whoa. A buyer’s bonanza.
But, say, you’re on the road. You’re traveling in, say, Denver, where you’ve picked up a smorgie of pre-rolls. They smell delicious. Your mind is salivating. Your Bic is burning a hole in your pocket. Let’s light up!
Where? Your hotel room? No. A comfy café? No. A quiet bar. No. A lovely park bench. No. You are literally SOL once you’ve spent your money. You get to take your legal weed into some dark alley somewhere (remind you of a bygone era?) in order to shesh it out. It smells like pee in that alley. A guy is passed out by the dumpster. Not from weed, of course. There are broken bottles and trash, and who knows what all hazardous wastes in abundance. You’re in your nice Dockers and an LL Bean button-down, just out of meetings about whatever high-level corporate crap brought you to Denver, and here you are: plenty of weed and nowhere to smoke. No place like home.
Edibles and drinkables get a pass. Vapes might, but is it worth attracting attention? Flower? Too, too fragrant. Too, too obvious, but also arguably the tastiest and certainly the quickest way to get your chill on. Something ain’t right.
PIONEERS
What to do about the matter of public cannabis consumption? It’s as obvious as the scent of Purple Hindu Kush that this is a huge issue for dispensaries and consumers alike. Currently, customers are forbidden from smoking on dispensary properties in every state with the – surprise! — exception of Nevada, where Las Vegas is poised to be the first city to permit consumption lounges. (A note on Michigan: Yes, lounges have existed there since 2019, but you can’t buy your green there. It’s BYOW, or have it delivered by a dispensary. They’ve made a step, anyway.)
According to an August 23, 2022, article from Beard Brothers Media, the ”state [Nevada] will process applications for 40-45 licenses for lounges attached to existing marijuana retail stores and 20 for stand-alone establishments.” Discussions around how all of this will work include problems with getting insurance, providing alcohol, and the ever-present headache of banking. (Weed is still a cash-only business. Banking still has to answer to the FDIC, making what to do with all that cheddar a constant workaround.)
OF SMOKE AND VODKA
What would be your ideal setting for a night out with Mary Jane? A movie? A club? A pool parlor? Just brainstorming here. The Vegas businesses are already lamenting — and scrambling to overcome — the separation of booze and weed. Then there’s the public cigarette smoking ban that has been in place practically since the dawn of time. Do we keep the line drawn against tobacco in place? Or would the proliferation of cannabis lounges reopen arguments to eliminate that prohibition as well?
Without the ability to offer booze and ciggies in addition to cannabis flower, Vegas ganjapreneurs wonder if weed would be enough incentive to draw tourists out of the usual casino environments into the potentially (almost certainly) more laid-back atmosphere of cannabis lounges. In Vegas, booze is big, big business bringing in big bucks. Alcohol prohibition only lasted 13 years; marijuana prohibition lasted nearly a century. The legit weed industry, in a fraction of that time, has barely begun the hefty work of rebranding pot as an out-of-the-closet addition to public consumption. It’s not much of a stretch to say that most people are used to alcohol as a presence in our daily lives, whether we’re imbibers or not. Marijuana? Not so much. Even in Oregon, where we’re globally famous for our historic subculture of weed in all aspects, seed to sale to spark-up, the level of misinformation and disinformation regarding cannabis ranks right up there with flat-Earth conspiracies. We think nothing of talking about alcohol. Or not. We can drink it. Or not. If you’re over 21, nobody can tell you no. (Even if they should slap that 10th beer out of your hand.) But I digress . . .
WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME (AND YOU’RE NOT SCARED)
Legalization has not brought the fall of civilization that haters anticipated. It has resulted in a Green Rush that has spawned new businesses from farming to manufacturing to marketing. It has created a whole new investment and entrepreneurial landscape, and as capitalists, don’t we just love that? It has made employment in the industry safer. It has provided for product safety. It has relieved law enforcement from piddling around with petty pot arrests and freed up jail space for incarcerating real bad guys. I know, I know: cartels. That’s another blog, okay?
The public consumption piece of the cannabis puzzle won’t go away. The assumption that a person who smokes should only do so at home alone ignores the fact that smoking weed has always been a social activity. Just on the down-low. Where do you think we got “puff, puff, pass?” Now that the pandemic is going bye-bye, even stoners want to get out and see friends and make new ones. Socialize. Share. See what’s shaking. Spend money.
SAVE THE POOR SCHMUCK FROM OUT OF TOWN
Remember the guy in the Dockers in the alley “relaxing” after a long business day in a strange town? He’d sure be safer in a friendly, clean cannabis lounge where the music is good, the food is tasty, and there’s climate control. And what do I call that place? A business opportunity. An employment opportunity. Something to tax the hell out of and use that money to fix a few potholes (tee hee).
I keep trying, but I cannot come up with a downside argument. Regulating cannabis lounges has a ready-made blueprint in the rules for establishments selling alcohol. No need to reinvent the wheel. Substitute one word for the other, and there you go. So, you say, it’s not as simple as that. But it sure is less complicated than the stigma would lead us to believe. I remember reading a long time ago that smoking weed may lead a person to want to examine his or her own navel, whereas booze makes you want to examine everyone else’s. It’s not all peace, love, and patchouli anymore. The weed’s stronger, and availability and commercialization are bringing in new customers who finally feel safe enough to give it a try. According to a short article in MarketWatch, the cannabis market is now “10% the size of the alcohol market, up from 2% five years ago.” Not a huge dent — more of a scratch — but it does show that the category is growing. Also, according to a Gallup poll published in the New York Post, cannabis use outpaced tobacco use by 5% in 2022. Seems to be plenty of room for everyone.
Speaking of room, cannabis lounges are not just an inevitable but a logical next step. Sooner the better in terms of the Docker guy’s safety and even, or maybe especially, in the protection of our kiddoes’ delicate sensibilities. Smoking cannabis would not be the only grownup pastime to go on in designated spaces. Time for us to do the grownup thing, work out the details, and get this party started.
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