See also: "Could Colorado Springs Approve 26 Percent Tax on Recreational Pot?"
Mind, Body, Spirit Wellness ClinicI know this description sounds strange coming from someone who smokes pot, lives in Colorado and likes classic rock and jam bands -- but I can't stand hippies. It's one of the major reasons why I steer clear of Boulder, along with the traffic and college kids. And, frankly, it's the reason I haven't ever been to Mind, Body, Spirit Wellness Center before. In my head, the center seemed like the kind of place that would be run by barefoot hippies who talk with a marble-mouthed stoner drawl and talk often about chakras and auras while hand-trimming veganic-grown buds of cannabis that they refer to as "the tree of life."6745 South Mississippi Lakewood, CO 80226 303-934-9750 MBSWellnessClinic.com
Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Raw marijuana price range: $20-$45/eighth-ounce, $125-$2000/ounce. Members receive "heavy" bags (four-gram eighths, 32-gram ounces). Other types of medicine: BHO, CO2, edibles Online menu? Yes, though it is static and not updated.. Handicap-accessible? Yes. Recreational sales? Not at this location. Owners also operate a recreational shop in Dumont.
Thankfully, the shop isn't like that: My Colorado Avalanche-loving budtender was way more of an average Joe than some cosmic cat named Moonbeam. I was the only person in during my visit, which meant I had the place to myself and didn't have to sit in the warm, cramped, narrow waiting room out front very long to get buzzed back.
T-shirts, hats, bongs, glass pipes, rolling papers and electric bubblers all fought for space on the shelves and counters. Bud is kept in square glass jars on shelves hung randomly on the peach-colored walls behind the bud bar. Top tier buds go for $45 an eighth, and according to my budtender, all test at 21 percent THC or higher. Whether that was based on actual tests of the buds on the shelf or just estimates from marketing departments of seed bank companies I don't know; he didn't explain further. Buds on the mid-tier have 18 to 20 percent THC, allegedly, and sell for $35 an eighth. Bottom tier buds -- er, shake -- sold for $20 an eighth.
I didn't even look at buds on the $45 shelf. The jars didn't look any more appealing than the mid-tier strains, and while I'm sure some people buy the whole 21-percent-THC-or-higher line, I don't. Potency shouldn't dictate price on buds anyway: Harvest yields should. Either way, I wasn't paying $45 for bud that probably should have been selling on the $35 level. The same goes for the mid-tier buds currently priced at $35 an eighth. With plenty of shops selling solid, well-grown buds at that price or lower, it would be hard for me to go back to MBS to pay $35 for buds that didn't impress. I also didn't look at the shakey leavings in the $20 discount shelf. You can easily find better low-priced buds in town.Not that the herb was awful -- and I'm not trying to knock the entire stock. It's just that the mid-tier buds were the only ones that made any sense for me as a consumer. I thought the Bordello, a cross of Blackberry Apocalypse and something called "Alexis," was an interesting strain that smelled like rotten blackberry-orange jam and black peppercorns. The Coal Creek Kush also had a strong, funky haze smell that tickled the inside of my nose. The buds weren't all that great, but I'm starting to think that tiny, wispy buds are the norm with that strain. That, or nobody is growing it right, because I have yet to see a shop with chunky Coal Creek buds.
The Strawberry Cough buds were also decent, but I don't think anything really deserves to be over $30 an eighth before tax. Ounces do go for $175, though, which seems reasonable enough. Otherwise, the Golden Goat missed the mark entirely. Not so much golden as fresh and green; rather than a funky, caramelized soda sweetness, the buds gave off a dull Romulan scent. Same for the Colorado Cough. The light green, chunky buds with only a hint of haze didn't look or smell like any true Cough I've seen.
Continue for the rest of the review and more photos. I opted for the Jah Kush, if only for the look of the orange and neon-green buds in the jar. The smell wasn't extremely soil-heavy, like a kush. More like the fresh, skunky aroma of generic outdoor herb. Broken up, the buds had a fruity/skunky thing going on but overall nothing amazingly impressive. The flavor was about the same. Skunky and sweet, but with a nothing-special flavor that would be hard to distinguish from any other strain of its type. Put another way, it's the type of bud I expect to get when I'm out-of-town and am buying from a hotel concierge. Not schwag by any means, but nothing like what I normally put in my bowls. I did enjoy the buzz, however. It was light and happy and not too strong. A sizable bowl kicked off a minor appetite and left me buzzing for about an hour and a half before I would get the urge for another bowl. I don't regret the purchase, but I wouldn't seek it out again, either.The Blue Romulan, though, was something I would like to see more frequently. If you know Blue Dream, you know the soothing, lavender-like smell it emits. Imagine it mixed with the uniquely sweet, cotton-candy-esque Romulan odor in an almost 50/50 blend. One sniff was Blue Dream, the next was Romulan, the next was a strange zoo-like funk of the two combined. The buds didn't seem coated in trichomes and were not as dense as they likely should be, but breaking them up revealed the candy center of THC crystals. The flavor wasn't as strong as I had hoped and it actually tasted more like the Jah Kush than either Blue Dream or Romulan -- but the buzz was noticeably stronger than the Jah. Euphoric and mellowing, the BDR was a good end-of-day toke and I would love to see some other examples of this cross again.
For concentrates, the shop is heavy on Venom Wax, which frankly doesn't look any different than any of the other mass-produced, flavorless waxes out there -- one that leave a film in your nail and gunk in a vape pen. I also don't think associating marijuana concentrates with deadly reptile spit makes a lot of sense. It's not really an appropriate connection to draw. Kind of like the Aspen vape pen (say it slowly). But if you're a fan of the Venom stuff, this is probably the place to go. Grams go for $35 normally, but there's specials during the week so you don't have to pay full price. The shop's even got ball caps and sweatshirts with the Venom logo for sale, as well as other concentrates and items like 325-milligram hash oil syringes going for around $25.By the time I had finished up, two more patients had made their way into the shop, both greeting the budtender like they'd been around before. And on that end, there's no doubt the dispensary does okay, mostly due to Lakewood's lack of dispensaries compared to neighboring Denver. Also, my budtender was a really friendly guy and I liked the amount of time he devoted to going through strains with me. It matches up with what others have said about the place: It's got a family vibe and people feel welcome. But if the folks at MBS want the dispensary to be more than just the nearby, convenient pot shop, they'll have to adjust some pricing and put a little bit more effort in the garden.
Read more reviews from Westword's medical marijuana dispensary critic, William Breathes, in our Mile Highs and Lows blog, and keep up with all your Colorado marijuana news over at The Latest Word.
