The Disillusioned Budtender

It has been nearly three months since I bolted from my job as a Budtender at a local dispensary. 
Three months of missing my customers.
Three months of wondering which direction to take with my life.
Three months of receiving cannabis job postings from across Canada....and I have something to say about that.

Literally every day I have received emails from Indeed.com with multiple job postings from across Canada for employment in anything Cannabis related. Those jobs postings are for positions like; Master Grower, Medical Sales Reps, Medical Receptionist, Security Guards, Executive Assistances, AVAC Techs, Accountants, Social Media Specialists, Graphic Designers, Chief Financial Officers, Production Facility Managers, Director of E-Commerce, International Import/Export Associates, IT Support, QA Managers...and the list goes on. All require a higher level of education than I have. But this is not a pity party. I have a point.

Not once have I received less than three, but usually its between 10 and 30 new job postings, A DAY!

The few posts for Budtenders out there are almost always for part time positions, OR they are looking for people with Social Work backgrounds or medical backgrounds. It is disheartening to say the least!

I have knowledge! Lots of it. I also have the skill and professionalism to teach others one on one how to medicate, which strains to pick and which method of intake would be best for different issues, or lifestyles. I know how and HAVE taught people, with success, how to make their life better when medicating with cannabis. But apparently that skill is not enough for the legal or grey market. Unfortunately I am not savvy enough to know how to market myself and start my own business.

My perspective of who uses cannabis, and this whole legalization process has changed a couple times since I have become a medical cannabis user only four short years ago. I now see very little difference between medical users and recreation users. Anyone who uses cannabis regularly, even if its a couple times a month, is using it for its medicinal properties. The real difference is one could find a doctor to write the damn prescription, and the others either are too afraid to ask, or can't find (or afford) a doctor to write the prescription. That's the ONLY difference.

Meanwhile our government is literally stealing away the very medicine, and the jobs we held, from us. In part by arresting honest people who chose to help others in the grey (black) market, which in turn prevents them from getting good paying jobs in pretty much anything due to having a criminal record.  But also by taking these cannabis jobs and putting titles, and educational parameters that many in the field already, don't have. Many of us had to get those jobs, and our education from the illegal market place, or while in hiding. It's beginning to feel like the government is trying to take away the knowledge of cannabis from the common man by lifting all the jobs up and out of the common workforce. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid...

Another issue I have found. No one in the government sanctioned medical Licenced Producer market is willing to hire from the grey market. We are marked as a non-conformist. We work in the grey market because we don't believe the system the Liberals brought in will work, so right there we don't qualify, because we don't already tow the line.

Am I less of an advocate because I am unwilling to take a part-time job as a Budtender somewhere? Am I less qualified because I am unwilling to risk being arrested?

No. But with all the angry postings on Facebook from medical and recreational users and advocates I think I am seen as less. With companies passing up my knowledge and passion to teach others how to medicate effectively for their clients improved health I'm wondering why I bothered in the first place.

Where is the peace, love, and hippie-shit Cannabis use to be about? Where is the community I first found when I started? Now I'm seeing division between Legal and Illegal and Grey market places. I'm seeing and hearing how medical dispensaries are pitted against one another and even calling the police to report other dispensaries or personal growers. Its despicable!

Yes, its about money. Everything is always about money (and control)...unfortunately while some are trying to sabotage others and we have infighting amongst the good people who originally wanted to help, the govt is still bulldozing a broken system into place and we will soon have no other options, other than to go back to the black market and remain in hiding.
Perhaps I'll learn what its like to have to look over my shoulder after all.

God I wish I was a better writer....I'd apply somewhere as a Cannabis writer if I were.

oh well. The call centre gig is all I got for now.

Peace Love and Hippie-shit people...it's still important. As is fighting together for our rights.

Keep up with me on Instagram #Newbieontheherb, and Newbieontheherb on Facebook too.

Cannabis Culture Vs. the Pot Culture

I had a short conversation via text the other day with a friend about the oddity that is my life right now. How I'm stuck between the Cannabis Culture and the Hippie High.

See I'm a new breed of Pot smoker. I don't call it Pot, and I don't (usually) smoke it. Admittedly I feel a sense of importance to the new Cannabis Culture that is arising. Why? I'm not really sure. I've never grown it so have no helpful tips of the trade. I don't sell it, and so have no secret insider information. I'm no scientist so I can't tell you any groundbreaking new discoveries. Heck! I've only started using in December of 2014. I think it has more to do with the importance one person can make when they stop believing the propaganda and learn something from experience instead. It also has to do with being a woman involved, in a small way, in a new revolution. I've never felt so important actually! (if only Rona Ambrose really knew from experience, perhaps she'd lighten up too and start making a positive difference!)


That conversation I had started like this....
Me: ....the whole stoner culture intrigues me cuz I'm not really part of it. Everything I do is measured and dosed and picked based on relief of symptoms. And done alone. I don't often get the chance to indulge in the freedom of just having a toke and a talk with a friend.

That right there sums up the Cannabis Culture Vs. the Pot Culture


Thankfully my friend calmed my slight paranoia that evening and let me know I did nothing wrong by immediately seeing a simple drive home one evening after work as an appropriate time to pass a joint her way (whew). Navigating this new life is sometimes easy and other times I have no grid for what's right, wrong or otherwise. My Cannabis use is for medicinal reasons. But it's fun to cross that line and just get blasted too. I've had to learn everything I know by myself. Whether it was through Youtube videos or reading articles from HighTimes, or The Stoners Cookbook. I've taught myself how to roll joints, blunts, make butter/oil and what paraphernalia is best, worse, or most useful. I can also discuss the finer points of Cannabis science that has so far exceeded everyones else's limits I know. This is what the new breed of Stoner looks like. Like a 40-something working mother trying to live life to its fullest cuz hiding from it in alcohol, pills or seclusion just weren't working for me anymore.



This is Cannabis use in the selfie culture! Everything done alone. A quick search of Puff Puff Pass in Google images bears no group photos. I have one photo of myself smoking from a pipe, but the full photo won't be seeing the light of this or any other computer. At least not yet, I'm still a closet cannabis user. But I do have rather a lot of photos of the different strains I've bought, blunts I've rolled, the cookies I've made, and the stuff I've bought (many of these photos can be found on my public Facebook page of the same name). All of it done alone. So am I taking pictures to prove I can do it? Maybe, but I tell myself its for my blog. I also do it to educate. I'm not the only Mid 40's woman out there who has just embarked on a new Cannabis way of life. If I can do it, so can anyone!

It is a strange thing being on one side of the coin but having grown up "seeing" another side, the old culture. The Hippie Pot culture. What some refer to as Stoner culture. Where a group of people gather, pass a few joints around, share some peace, ideas, and free love. Really, they were doing exactly what still needs to happen today. Sharing life together in real and meaningful ways. Having community. Something sorely lacking in todays fast paced selfie culture. But is it dying out? Is the Stoner Culture being transformed along with our laws, regulations and knowledge of the Cannabis plant? Will any of the original Pot Culture hang on through this transition and stay firmly fixed in spite of the new solitary places we find ourselves? I guess that's really up to us to determine. I for one do not want to lose the good old days that I have still yet to experience, but would rather see it merged with the new.

I'm That Mom Next Door

“You probably don’t expect the nice mom next door to be getting high,” starts a report on ABC’s “Nightline” titled “Confessions of a Pot Mom.” It originally aired Sept 23rd, 2014 and now seems to be coming up in my Facebook news feed featured in High Times Magazine, and of course The Cannabist. Well, this Canadian Mom is one of those mom’s next door who’s getting high. And I make no apology for it, thought I’m not about to start announcing it from the roof top just yet. Give me at least a year on this stuff and then we shall see. 

Not being in Colorado or Washington States where it is legal to use Cannabis, but instead being in Canada where nothing yet has changed presents some unique challenges. Here are a few I am struggling with.

The first is me! I’m the kind of person who likes to hit the ground running. When I take something on I’m all in, or not at all. I’m not a half-assed type person. So one of my struggles is that I am a newbie. Somehow I want to be more seasoned before I hardly have started. One month and only nine doses in and I’m already wishing I was into bongs, and pipes, and edibles, able to have a puff and head to work, or hang with some friends for the evening and enjoy a bowl together. I have to be reminded frequently to just take one dose at a time and keep on keepin’ on. Gotta start somewhere and not despise my new (and small) beginnings.

Second biggest frustration is all this information available on the internet about strains, and special varieties of cannabis. Each one with slightly different personalities and effects depending on what you need medically or want recreationally. The two families; Sativa or Indica plus hybrids of the two. Then there are the variations with names like Royal Kush, Sour Diesel, or Bubblegum. Before I started I asked Sensei what strain it was that they usually purchased from the supplier. I was actually disappointed to hear I can’t choose what I purchase on the illegal market. Ha! Funny. To some degree I’m over educated on weed! Of course, this only makes me want to get into growing my own so I can have a choice, but that’s not going to be happening any time soon either! That, or I need to encourage Sensei to get a passport so we can do a road trip across country to do some testing where it is legal! Hmmm, Cannabis Vacations sounds like a good business for someone to start. (Note: It already exists...http://coloradohighlifetours.com/ )

Third frustration. I have to hide my cannabis use. Seeing Jane West smoking pot on National television, standing up to society to re-educate a Nation is admittedly inspiring. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would love to eventually do, or at the very least support.  But I think for Canadians, at least for now, that’s not going to happen for a few years. So in the meantime I will have to follow and learn from what’s happening in the States. If jobs are increasing currently in the Cannabis Industry there, they will eventually grow here. If Women are making a big impact in the States both in advocacy and business now, we will eventually be doing the same thing here. Meanwhile, I am willing to watch and learn, and wait my turn to join in when things do change here. For the time being I will learn to be content in continuing this journey as I get more experienced in smoking and hand rolling my own little joints. Eventually taking on new experiences with pipes, bongs, and edibles. Probably even experimenting with dabs, vapes and finding out what this crystal catcher on my grinder will provide me! (See? Such a newbie!)

So I guess I have a pot bucket list of things to experience before I can be any kind of mentor to others when prohibition lifts here in Canada. Lots to learn, lots to do, and courage to gather. But as I said before, when I start something, it’s all or nothing. And I’m all in baby! 

For your entertainment, and education. Here is a video called Stoned Moms that I watched even prior to my first experience with pot. This is partly why I'm over educated in some areas. Highly educational. 
Enjoy.