One man's search for the best weed and the best Cannabis dispensaries since legalization in Canada. An in depth gonzo journalism piece by Sean "Suga Jam" Fisher.
The first time I ever encountered an actual dispensary in Canada it was in Vancouver British Columbia where my brother Geoff and his family live.
My wife and I were there for my father's 80th birthday. We all went out West together. This was about seven or eight years ago. My father died last year.
We were staying in the downtown area and when we left our hotel we noticed there was a dispensary across the street. These types of dispensaries were technically still illegal like the medical dispensary I saw in Los Angeles.
But we are Canadian so this time I was able to access the Cannabis. All we needed to do was prove that we had some sort of ailment. There was some sort of loophole that was allowing places like this to open. Toronto was always a few months behind Vancouver when it came to defying the law.
"Luckily I have asthma" is not something people often say. But I said it on this day because I was truly happy I had brought my own inhalers. It still seems strange to me that smoking something can help an ailment such as this.
There was a lovely young woman there to sell the Cannabis to us. My wife had taken the labels off of her inhalers so she was not able to purchase. I explained to the woman selling that I didn't really want to to be tired.
This was when I first learned the difference between what a sativa, an indica and a hybrid was. For those of you who don't know a "sativa" will lift you up so it's better to smoke this during the day. An "indica" is for when you want to chill out at the end of the day and will make you tired or relaxed. A hybrid is just what it says: a hybrid between those two. I'm not sure how scientific these differences are but certainly this is how everyone divides it up now that it has been legalized.
She sold us some sativa in their welcoming boutique store and I remember feeling that this is how it should be. If my father can just walk into a store and buy liquor than why shouldn't I be allowed to do this? What was wrong with our society? We needed someone to save us from the madness of a society that worshiped alcohol but shunned medicine. I left with a membership and for a few months I had my weed delivered to Toronto from this dispensary. These were the prototype dispensaries.
Not surprisingly a few months later these types of illegal dispensaries appeared in Toronto.
To me there is nowhere better to smoke weed than Vancouver. First of all the attitude towards weed is better. As I have mentioned before the west coast of both the United States and Canada has always seemed a lot more relaxed to me. Second, nowhere is more naturally beautiful than Vancouver in my opinion.
We smoked our Cannabis and walked down Denman Street towards English Bay Beach, my favorite place in the world. I remember my wife was suddenly alarmed by how large the sea gulls were. We lived in the Beaches of Toronto and she was right: the seagulls were significantly larger. I'm not sure why. Maybe there is more fish? Toronto is on a Great lake and Vancouver is on the ocean. This seemed to be giving her an an anxiety attack. And sometimes Cannabis can do this to people.
I also went to Vancouver post legalization and there were dispensaries everywhere. All of them are now legal but the illegal dispensaries were not allowed to continue like the one my wife and I visited that day. They have a similar amount as Ontario since the province allowed private businesses to participate. I remember I bought some pre-rolled joints called Ghost Train. I think I was hoping I would encounter my father's spirit.
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