# WSJ Article on Counterculture Clash



## greenthoughts (Mar 19, 2010)

*In Mile High City, Weed Sparks Up a Counterculture Clash *

*Medical Marijuana Brands Like 'AK-47' Harsh the Mellow of Upscale Potrepreneurs*

*By Stephanie Simon *

DENVERAttorney Warren Edson would like to throttle the anonymous marijuana breeder who named a potent strain of weed "Green Crack."
He's not too fond, either, of those breeders who have given strains names like "Jack the Ripper," "White Widow," "AK-47" and "Trainwreck." 
"How can I find them and strangle them?" Mr. Edson asks.
His beef: Mr. Edson is in the vanguard of an aggressive movement to make pot respectable but decades of stoner culture keep dragging him down.
Medical marijuana is now legal in 15 states for patients suffering certain conditions, including, in Colorado, chronic pain. More than 60,000 Coloradans have doctor recommendations allowing them to buy marijuana; physicians are approving about 400 new patients a day. Pot shops have popped up all over, including at least 230 here in the Mile High City.
Many of the new dispensaries are dingy and cramped, with bars on the windows, psychedelic posters on the walls and a generally furtive feel.
But a growing number of potrepreneurs have gone upscale, investing as much as $100,000 to launch "wellness centers" that look like spasand just happen to sell weed. This new breed of marijuana "pharmacist" is pushing hard to professionalize the industry.
That means promoting a voluntary code of conduct at odds with the traditional buck-the-system stoner culture. The new pot professionals look down on neon cannabis-leaf signs, wince at tie-dye Bob Marley posters, and cringe at the in-your-face swagger of the names traditionally used to differentiate varieties of marijuana. 
The result: a brewing culture clash within the counterculture.
"Some people don't even want to use words like 'stoner' and 'pothead,' " complains Steve Bloom, co-author of "Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life." He has no patience for that: "We should embrace those terms. This is who we are."
In 2000, Colorado voters amended the state constitution to let patients seek relief from pain, nausea and other symptoms by working with medical marijuana "caregivers." For years, all was discreet. Then, last summer, the Board of Health approved a liberal definition of "caregiver," opening the door to commercial dispensaries. A few months later, President Barack Obama ordered federal narcotics agents to respect state medical-marijuana laws. 
The green rush was on.
Self-styled pot experts like Nick Paul, an out-of-work handyman, found that for an investment of a couple thousand dollars, they could rent a small shop, set out a dozen strains of marijuana in glass jars and reinvent themselves as bud-tenders, ringing up $80,000 a month in sales. An industry took root, complete with security consultants, zoning advisers, even crop insurance. Westword, a Denver weekly newspaper, hired a medical marijuana reviewer.
Then came the backlash, as communities statewide moved to restrict dispensaries. The most organized and wealthy of the potrepreneurs formed trade associations to protect their interests; they hired lawyers and lobbyists, pollsters and publicists. They also took a close look at their industryand, in some cases, recoiled.
Wanda James, a recreational smoker, says some dispensaries have such a disreputable feel, "they put me on edge."
Determined to show there's a classier way, Ms. James and her husband run the Apothecary of Colorado in a gentrified building with exposed-brick walls, airy views and unimpeachable fellow tenantsarchitects, software engineers, wind-energy consultants. The bud bar is lined with live cannabis plants, and a gourmet goodie-shop stocks medicinal banana-nut bread and organic-vegan-gluten-free granola.
A couple blocks away, Shawna Brown creates a similar mood at Lotus Medical, an elegant space with muted lighting, antique furniture, massage tables and a Zen garden. This, she says, is the true face of medical marijuana: dignified care for patients with AIDS, cancer or other chronic illnesses. 
"People need to wake up and see this in a different light," Ms. Brown says. "It's not about Pink Floyd posters all over the walls."
But Ms. Brown says it is hard to convey that sober image and stave off a regulatory crackdown when other dispensaries glory in jaunty names ("Dr. Reefer"), goofy slogans ("If you got the pain, I got the strain!") and cut-rate deals ("Free med grab bag for the first 100 patients"). 
"A doctor wouldn't offer, 'Buy one Vicodin, get one free,'" she says. "It turns my stomach."
To which her low-rent rivals respond: Mellow out.
"That's very fancy-pantsy," says Angel Macauley, who runs the Little Green Pharmacy, a tiny pot shop with Christmas lights strung through the window grate and an enormous cannabis-leaf sign. 
"This is a simple business. Get them in and out, like a gas station," Ms. Macauley says, nibbling on Doritos. "I just want to make my money."
Across town at the Denver Marijuana Medical Center, a bare-bones shop with a three-foot-high plastic alien in the window, owner Julian Sanchez is equally dismissive of attempts to pretty up the industry.
"They're not doctors. They're people selling marijuana," he says. "It's all a money game."
A customer in a hooded sweatshirtwho calls himself Patrick and says he needs meds like Purple Urkle and Sour Diesel for chronic painchimes in. "You want us to sugarcoat it?" he asks. "Why?"
Economics may be behind the culture clash, with upscale joints trying to muscle out the competition, but there's also a real philosophical debate.
Rob Corry, a lawyer and longtime marijuana activist, sympathizes with those who want a neon pot leaf on every corner. "Part of normalizing this is putting it in peoples' faces and saying, 'You'll get used to it,'" he explains.
Yet Mr. Corry thinks the best way to win acceptance is to be discreet. He'd like to do away with the more violent names for marijuana strains. "Maybe we could come up with holistic names that reflect the wellness idea? Like Harmony," he says. "I can tell you, 'Trainwreck' isn't a great name for a medicine." 
Mr. Corry considers a moment. "Or maybe it is," he says. "I've heard 75-year-old grandmas say, 'I need more Trainwreck.' "


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## legalize_freedom (Mar 19, 2010)

Sounds like Mr. Corry needs to research some of these names a little bit before he critisizes them.....changing the names has nothing...absolutely nothing to do with it.

Maybe he should concentrate on changing ignorant peoples way of thinking.


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## kaotik (Mar 19, 2010)

y'know i've been getting bad feelings towards a lot of the medical marijuana crap for a while now.. it just seems to me more and more that non card holders are looked down upon now. like us non cardholders are some lower lifeform.
because someone has a script that says it helps them, means that just cause i don't have one it doesn't help me?

maybe it's just me, but there really seems to be some line forming trying to devide the casual or non-cardholders and the med users. (even hightimes with it's new med-hightimes.. basically saying anyone who buys the regular hightimes is a criminal)
we're all the same, i may not be dying or in constant pain like some, but marijuana use helps me too.


the "new pot professionals" can kiss my arse, i'll stick with my tie dye marley and proudly proclaim myself a stoner.  
i bet these professionals were all closet tokers that did F all for the cause, but now because they have money, benefit.

don't think for a second you're a doctor either. you're a dealer just like many, but you're a legal one. that's all it is.
 if you really care about the sick and not your wallet, you wouldn't be using street prices at your dispensary.


don't get me wrong, i'm happy that people have ways to get their meds.. i just don't like this seperation of medical marijuana users and marijuana users.
let's drop the 'medical'.. and call it what it is, marijuana. cause any of us here know it's all medical.

/rant


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## frogman71 (Mar 19, 2010)

I can see the point in trying to clean up the MJ image, it will help with overall acceptance in the near future.  But i think the best method will be diversity.  Having shops with their own unique decor and their own style will help.  Not all pot smokers like the same thing and by creating diversity it will show that we come in all different flavors.  We are not all the stereotypical "pothead" the more they see that the MJ community is anything but stereotypical the sooner reform will really gain legs.  We need everything from retro tye-dye Bob Marley shop to the upscale yuppy day spa shop and everything in between.  

PS-I have always thought it was funny that the counterculture preached individuality yet they all dressed and looked alike.


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## Moto-Man (Mar 19, 2010)

frogman71 said:
			
		

> I can see the point in trying to clean up the MJ image, it will help with overall acceptance in the near future.  But i think the best method will be diversity.  Having shops with their own unique decor and their own style will help.  Not all pot smokers like the same thing and by creating diversity it will show that we come in all different flavors.  We are not all the stereotypical "pothead" the more they see that the MJ community is anything but stereotypical the sooner reform will really gain legs.  We need everything from retro tye-dye Bob Marley shop to the upscale yuppy day spa shop and everything in between.
> 
> PS-I have always thought it was funny that the counterculture preached individuality yet they all dressed and looked alike.



FM, I have to agree with your prescient perspective. That certainly seems to be the way the things are going and it's not a stretch to suppose that cannabis distribution, whether medical or not, will eventually evolve/develop along corporate lines; it is business after all. Ameliorating certain issues - and I think we may expect many - will ultimately lie at the door step of governing authorities though.

What I also find interesting and equally problematic is that laws vary from state to state and municipality to municipality. As tensions between various entities increase, higher levels of governmental intervention could be expected.

I dunno, just musing 

Cheers,


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## subcool (Mar 20, 2010)

No one would smoke a strain called Harmony 

Yeah Baby Wall Street mentions JTR
To cool!

Sub


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## frogman71 (Mar 20, 2010)

subcool said:
			
		

> No one would smoke a strain called Harmony
> 
> Yeah Baby Wall Street mentions JTR
> To cool!
> ...


 
Sub, you should be honored.  

You know we are making headway when MJ names become politically correct.  Now I need to go smoke some caucasian widow


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## Diversified (Mar 20, 2010)

Moto-Man said:
			
		

> it's not a stretch to suppose that cannabis distribution, whether medical or not, will eventually evolve/develop along corporate lines; it is business after all.


 
That's what I've been thinking too. Once big business gets over the "stigma" of marijuana, they will begin selling it in large chain pharmacies. You will be able to walk into a Walgreens or a Walmart pharmacy to buy your medical marijuana. The bad thing about this will be that they are in it for the money, not to help people. Then the government will become even more involved, making it more difficult for the casual user due to regulations etc....


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## WeedHopper (Mar 20, 2010)

kaotik said:
			
		

> y'know i've been getting bad feelings towards a lot of the medical marijuana crap for a while now.. it just seems to me more and more that non card holders are looked down upon now. like us non cardholders are some lower lifeform.
> because someone has a script that says it helps them, means that just cause i don't have one it doesn't help me?
> 
> maybe it's just me, but there really seems to be some line forming trying to devide the casual or non-cardholders and the med users. (even hightimes with it's new med-hightimes.. basically saying anyone who buys the regular hightimes is a criminal)
> ...


 
I totally agree!!!!My wife doesnt have a card,,but she has gotten off allllll her Prescription Drugs(Historectomy)
 I dont have a card,,and I got off Pain Pills(Got Shot, 357 mag) And we havent looked back.:hubba: With none of the side effects.


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## nvthis (Mar 21, 2010)

OMG! This has to be the lamest article I have ever read. :rofl: 

Really? Are folk in CO. really that stuck on themselves? Are they really like that? 

Wanna know the real difference between the tie-dye flip flop dispensaries around here and those silk undy wearing do-righter knobs? How about $10 a gram 

It ain't no big thing to not like a particular name. No one says you have to like whatever the next guy likes. But that's a two way street. They want to clean up the business? They want to "throttle the guy that named their weed like that"? He wants to "find them and strangle them"??? WHAT??? lol. Well, that there is a pretty nifty image for a good and proper _cannabis retailer_ Warren... Sounds to me like the shoving of their ideas are heading to a throat near you. What a bunch of jerk offs!

I'll tell ya, I can't what for ol' Warren ta get a load of TCVG's gear!! Can you say _"postal?"_:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:



> "People need to wake up and see this in a different light," Ms. Brown says. "It's not about Pink Floyd posters all over the walls."



Oh yeah? SAYS WHO *****??????


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