I had a strong day. Not like it was last Tuesday, when I was all go-go-go to Rocky Mountain National Park for the afternoon. But I got up at close to a normal time, had a cup of mostly hot chocolate with a little coffee, and walked around the back yard a little, finally seeing the rebuilt pond in person. I showered, dressed, and got a ride (because I'm not stupid) to the Rotary day out. When I signed my name on the list, I was only the third person brave enough to break the stereotype about Rotarians being a bit conservative in their opinions on businesses, to go visit the pot shop that recently opened across the street from the Super Target. By the time today rolled around, there were seven of us ready to visit a 21st century business.
I was a little late, because I'm still moving slowly, even though I'm moving. I got signed in at the front desk, and was then sent over to the conference room where everyone was sitting down to lunch. There was quite a bit of gluten in the spread, but I wasn't super hungry, so a pile of the salad and garlicky beef was plenty for me. It was the first real "meal" I'd had in a week. I was quite full and happy. We sat around the conference table, asking all sorts of questions. It had been burning in me for weeks to learn about the current state of banking for the cannabis industry. It has come much farther than I imagined it had, but there were still high hurdles. They said they can take some credit cards, but it's expensive. They can deposit their money in a bank account, but it's not FDIC insured. They still pay all the same payroll tax expenses and unemployment insurance and everything, but their costs associated with employees are not deductible. The rest of the group asked a ton of questions too, from informed medical questions to ones that revealed people who had never strayed into counter-culture as a kid. A few questions sounded a little slippery-slope to me, but the person asking didn't seem to have malicious intent behind them.
After lunch and discussion, we got up for a tour of the facility. I had never seen a medical sales room before. It was interesting. Apparently a lot of the products are similar, but more potent (and I forgot to ask whether they were a better value). Then we saw the recreational room, which was pretty big, all things considered. They showed us pre-rolled joints, and let us sniff them. One of them smelled almost like candy. We also looked and sniffed a bud (still in the jar -- we weren't actually touching anything). The facility was entirely different than the other one I've seen. The other was in a historic brick building that was my favorite restaurant in the 1980s. This was in a strip mall and it was industrial and open. Concrete floors and modern walls, open to the HVAC above.
The budtender was charming and knowledgeable, and we asked more questions of him. Everyone left feeling like they had learned. I stayed behind, for two reasons. One, I had been given a ride, and forgot my phone at home, so I didn't have a way to let him know we were done. Second, several people at the cancer center were highly supportive of using this to battle nausea and decreased appetite. So I kept talking to them, and decided I wanted a chocolate bar. For two days, I have been craving chocolate, even when I felt like my muscles were liquefying in a numb skin sac. I read labels, and had to send back several things that were either outright not gluten free, or made in a facility that couldn't guarantee no cross-contamination. I was very surprised to realize that "coffee and doughnuts" didn't actually have any donut in it. Just milk chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon sugar. And THC. Did I realize it was THC and not CBD when I bought it? Nope. Will I continue to use it, as I go through chemo? Probably. I have a CBD tincture that I can mix with it. Half a dropper of oil under my tongue, followed by a half a piece of chocolate to make the taste go away. It might work as I go more and more days in a row thinking that food has lost all of its lustre anymore. (Because it has.)
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