Ask a Stoner: Can We Speed Up Dispensaries?

Dear Stoner: Can we rethink the dispensary sales model? I’m sick of standing in line so long just to buy the same damn thing every time.
Jinny

Dear Jinny: I’m sure dispensaries would probably prefer to let us browse, grab products and fill a shopping cart instead of allowing us in one by one for individual sales. Not only does that technique slow things down and give budtenders way too much power – no shade at budtenders, but it’s true – but it makes discovering new extractor or edibles brands tough, leaving you to buy the same damn thing every time. The current constraints aren’t by choice, though; they’re enforced by state regulations, built after a medical marijuana model that requires more of a one-on-one interaction between patient and budtender.

Even dispensaries with enough space to allow customers to wander must keep their products for sale behind the counter or glass so that people can’t grab their things and throw them down at the cash register.

It’s hard to complain about the system right now without hearing a small violin playing between your ears, especially to anyone who doesn’t live in a state with legal cannabis. Still, it does get annoying when you’re waiting 25 minutes behind four people just to buy a pre-ordered eighth (and with social distancing guidelines enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, this is taking even longer).

That process takes no more than five minutes under an open retail model.

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