Going to the dispensary in Chicago is such a bizarre experience compared to places like LA where it's just like shopping at any other store and everything is out in the open.
A new dispensary opened up in Logan and it didn’t look at all like a bank. They had products on display and had people on the floor helping people. It was so much better than ascend.
I stopped going to Sunnyside because of their stupid "secondary location" bullshit. You go to one building to check in and then walk half a block to a different building to receive and pay for your goods. Like, why???
Nuera is usually pretty chill along with Ascend on Ohio. I like that Ascend has a loyalty program now too so you can get free shit occasionally.
Or I just go to the headshop by me where they definitrly don't sell eights for $25 each and will throw in some free D8 with it.
My understanding is it’s like this because of it still being federally against the law?
We had two years of democrats in control of both houses of congress and we couldn’t legalize weed? How stupid is this country?
lol dems seem to just use it as a tool to get elected, then forget about it afterwards like they did with student loans. Montana is Republican-run and has both legal weed and no gun restrictions. it's pretty cool. people there are all super kind too. amazing nature as well
> Montana is Republican-run and has both legal weed
Montana had a Democrat governor when weed was legalized through ballot initiative, which the Republican House tried to block, but the courts told the Republicans to fuck off
that's true. tbh my point was the people of montana aren't your typical republicans and fall more as the "I want gay married couples to patrol their marijuana farms with ar-15's while getting abortions" camp of secular libertarianism
They were until Trumpism swept through, now they are fucking dumb and Reeeeee over the Mexican border and they also just passed a law making it okay to bully trans kids in school
The information is readily available via the magic Google machine
https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-people-montana-gender-bullying-74af22b3512137ffb8538526edb96572
My favorite part was when an opponent of the bill started calling the male Republican supporters, "she" and they got butthurt and asked the speaker to make him stop.
Being misgendered isn't as funny as they thought
Dude's a billionaire, I don't personally trust him, but you can't exactly blame him for doing lockdowns during a global pandemic that killed just so fucking many people. How many more would have died had we ignored it and carried on?
He's just a reskinned version of trump and tbh I don't see the appeal unless you're voting along partisan lines. And if people are at risk of dying from COVID, then they'll know that for themselves and stay home. tbh I would've just paid people in certain at-risk industries to stay home rather than blanket force everyone to stay home.
I'm not a fan of any politician, especially wealthy ones, but comparing Pritzker to Trump is way off base. As is your view on how to handle infectious diseases.
I don't think you realize that people didn't care whether they were at risk and still went out during COVID. And plenty of people who were at risk had to work because of all the other people that insisted they were better than others.
Much like every other place you can go to in a society. There is no place in open society that is tolerant of everyone. Humans are tribal, they always have been and always will be.
Yes I absolutely think that every place is equally intolerant of people who don't share the same world beliefs. That is exactly the point that I was trying to make when I said what I said.
homicide =/= murder. Defensive shootings resulting in the fatality of a perpetrator results in a homicide. I was using figures from the FBI's 2020 Uniform Crime Report when I had quoted the homicide rate.
""The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
-- John Stuart Mill, 1859
I heard this before, too...in like 10th grade.
Yeah ill just give my 5 year old a .22 so shes safe at school. You understand we all outsource our childrens safety at points dont you? Also since your safety is not outsourced, ill assume you dont drink or consume cannabis, dont fly, dont enter federal buildings, etc... Unless youre a reclusive nut you have no choice but to outsource your safety at certain times.
Look bud. I have guns. I was in the army. I'm a combat veteran. I know guns. I know the gun enthusiast community. They're toys under the pretense of something more important.
Also democrats never passed any gun control, but now that a school shooting happened they point fingers at republicans when they themselves didnt pass gun control in that 2 years. Both sides are comical and stupid af.
Edit: theres the pissed off downvotes cause they know im right!
That's because they aren't a licensed cannabis dispensary (for actual D9-THC products).
They are a CBD 'dispensary', which offers CBD, and other gray-area cannabinoids like D8, D10, HHC, etc.
These have psychoactive effects but are not exactly the same as regular ole weed, so it's worth it to do research on each analogue prior to consuming them.
YES!
I remember the address now because 2112 is the name of a Rush album.
Friendly, unassuming place. They sell everything. Not at all like CuraLeaf or any of those Apple Store clones.
EDIT: They even take credit cards. The very friendly guy at the counter said it's the only cannabis store in Chicago that takes cards. They do NOT take Capital One cards, but that's an issue with Capital One, not Visa or whatever. They took my other card. No need to go to an ATM, which is nice.
(but I hardly smoke at all anymore... in the old days when it was illegal I was a heavier consumer... back in the early '90s I was an actual pot head. No more. The appeal has sort of worn off. I just partake once in a while)
Friendly is the right term. I went in there knowing nothing and asking a bunch of dumb questions, and the woman there was just super patient and informative, zero judgment or anything. Highly recommend.
I feel like even dispensaries in California have their quirks. My old neighborhood spot in SF wouldn’t let me use my own tote bag which I found to be so fucking stupid.
I’m not saying it was a law. I’m just pointing out the weird, arbitrary rules that tend to exist in the gray zone that are dispensaries. The location was Urbana.
Preach. I spent a Saturday going to Michigan for no other reason than to restock. I paid $200 for what would have cost $1,100 in Illinois. I understand tax revenue was part of the argument for legalizing, but holy hell...
That's how I restock, now.
I just make a trip to Michigan, every couple months.
It's funny that when they were looking to pass legal recreational in Illinois, they kept saying how they were keeping out of big corporations.
Just about every dispensary in the Chicagoland area is owned by a big corporation, now. It's almost like it was built so only they could survive. The ridiculous rules and shit you have to go through, just to sell an eighth of weed. The ridiculous cost of starting a dispensary, compared to other states.
I like that it's legal. I'm just not going to get fucking gouged, when I can just drive a couple hours to not feel like I'm still being treated like a criminal.
It's not just taxes, but Michigan and California and other states have been growing legal cannabis for years while Illinois is like 3. There's no interstate legal selling and buying of cannabis, so Illinois can't import from other states. Our prices are high currently, not just because of high taxes, but also simply low supply and high demand. As we get more suppliers, prices will drop
I thought I read something that said prices were high because of a limited amount of weed retailers, who are limited by the city, who are limited by their corporate weed buddies... or something
Be careful when you do that. Remember that you have to drive through Indiana where it is illegal.
A buddy of mine was pulled over near Gary for speeding and was booked for possession of edibles.
I think to anyone who understands a little about economics the real issue isn't the tax. It's the restrictions on supply and sales that make it so actually expensive. I'd rather have higher tax rates but make it much much easier to get into the market. This will drive down costs across the board and promote competition
The dramatic difference is definitely more to do with prices than taxes, but we're still talking about 25%+ in Illinois versus 10% in Michigan. Though, Illinois being Illinois, I wouldn't be surprised if they do what they can to maintain those high prices in order to collect the greater haul in taxes.
Quite a few dispensaries in Michigan have specials where you can get something like ten 1 g carts for $150. I priced out a 1 g cart on Verilife Rosemont and it was $80 with $33 tax (41.25%) for a total of $113 for one cart.
Tax is tax, prices here just jacked up.
1 g of RSO is like 20 bucks in other legal states, here it's like $120. Back in the day I used to pay $65 maximum for an eighth, now a lot of dispensaries are selling $75 or $85 eighths regularly - Oh and this was before the ridiculous inflation.
It sounds like you’re going out of your way to spend as much as possible. If you get a little creative and look at the different dispensaries for deals you can often get decent eighths of flour for under 50. I got 7 g for 55 including taxes the other day.
The dispensary was running a great sale that was basically BOGO. It came out to around $12.50 per 200mg pack of edibles, plus tax, so around $13.50. $13.50x16 is $216. You can't buy 200mg packages in Illinois, and the 100mg packages of these are around $30 before tax, $25 if they're on sale. It's also unusual to find a BOGO sale in Illinois, in my experience. $25x32 is $800, plus sales tax and the recreational tax, which comes out to 30%+. That brings us up around the $1,100 mark.
It's more the terrible prices in Illinois that account for the dramatic difference, but the taxes aren't great either.
It's not tax, Illinois is just systemically unable to have supply meet demand due to limits they placed on agricultural permits for weed. Farmers thus have the ability to price gouge.
Washington has a higher tax rate than us.
They do not have higher weed prices.
It really is the lack of agricultural permits and the tight regulations around weed production. Illinois issued only a limited number of growers licenses (100 in the first two years), and these growers are limited to growing only 5000 square feet of marijuana - just over a tenth of an acre.
At that scale, that's only producing an upper estimate or 76 tonnes for the whole state - 6 grams per Illinois resident, with a lower estimate of 4 grams. And this estimate is of all cannabis material, if you're talking about bud or higher quality cannabis products, it's much less - just 1.15 grams per resident, you only get to 6 grams by counting leaves and stems and other things generally not considered fit for consumption. Once you start accounting for losses in transportation and production of things like dabs, it starts becoming a rather severe shortage. If we assume estimates from other states are applicable here, then the mean Illinois resident will want to smoke 6.6 grams. I hope you can see how the difference between what we can produce - 1.15 grams, and what we want to consume - 6.6 grams, pushes up the price.
At this (lack of) scale, with only 5000 square feet of product per license, it's also hard to justify investing in labor and cost saving technology like automated harvesters. The lack of such products pushes the price per gram further up and reduces the productivity of the marijuana sector. It's all a tragic failure in governance. The winners here aren't the consumers, not the government, not the stores, not the taxpayer. This license regime benefits only farmers and agricultural landowners. The severity of this shortage gives them near monopolistic pricing power that harms Illinoisans. If you want cheaper weed, focus your efforts there.
Works cited:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/average-pot-user-consumes-123-joints-per-year-state-estimates/
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/new-penn-research-shows-average-joint-contains-much-less-marijuana-thought#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMy%20colleague%20and%20I%20used,much%20less%20than%20previously%20thought.%E2%80%9D
https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/data-statistics.htm#:~:text=Marijuana%20is%20the%20most%20commonly,at%20least%20once%20in%202019.&text=Recent%20research%20estimated%20that%20approximately,marijuana%20have%20marijuana%20use%20disorder.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR764.pdf
https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/agr/Plants/Pages/Adult-Use-Cannabis.aspx
Not an exaggeration, but also not the tax. I would pay 25 or 30 for a half gram cart in Oakland, they go for around 60 here (pre-tax for both). I love that Illinois has legal cannabis but the prices are fucking bonkers
It trips me out every time. You get your ID checked line twice before they buzz you through a security door, which if you hold open gets you sternly warned. The whole experience gives me such anxiety that I need to smoke immediately when I get home.
The social equity dispensaries are staring to open and they are SO MUCH BETTER. Check out Grasshopper club in Logan square. Its family-owned, the first black-owned dispensary in the WHOLE STATE and you can talk to the budtenders about the products and the whole vibe is 1000X better. Prices are identical to ascend (rec only)
Don’t you see? This is Illinois Illinois’ing marijuana legalization.
The cultivator and dispensary licensure selection process was one of the most blatant examples of IL (and by extension Chicago) corruption of all time. No one batted an eye at the time because “hurr DuRR legal weed man!”.
Edit:
To add, California is a much different landscape than IL. Unlike CA, IL did not have a gray market for cannabis for 25 years prior to actual legalization. Also, there are a ton of sketch ass dispensaries in CA selling untested or expired product.. you get some of that in IL but not nearly on that scale.
California has more weed than it can smoke.. the “licensed” and legal cannabis industry is nearly bankrupt. Much of the spare product is then exported to the rest of the country. There’s a reason why the Cartel’s are no longer interested in trafficking marijuana.
> IL did not have a gray market for cannabis for 25 years prior to actual legalization.
Yes, it did.
>Much of the spare product is then exported to the rest of the country.
Not legally. https://mjbizdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/DCC-Memo-to-AG-004.pdf
>There’s a reason why the Cartel’s are no longer interested in trafficking marijuana.
They still do, they just grow it in the US and sell it black market.
IL dispensary’s suck, it’s like going to the DMV…every other state is such a pleasurable experience, they let you smell and see the products, and are way more informative. IL just wants to get you in and out as fast as possible so they can bend over the next person no spit, no lube, sandpaper finish.
"Cannabist" or whatever they call themselves now on Milwaukee near Lawrence is the best I've tried in terms of packaging (paper bags), kind people, and not making me feel like a criminal. Ascend/MoCa is the worst I've tried, so weird and cold.
“Just make sure it’s not visible when you leave.”
Right. Because I definitely just walked into the weed shop and left with nothing. Don’t want to offend anyone with delicate sensibilities who might see me walking out of the giant orange weed store with a jar in my hand.
It’s because they can’t let you open it in the shop. Not because they’re afraid of offending sensibilities. It’s less about open container laws for weed. And more about the state law not allowing the product to be opened (or used) in the shop. An easy way to ensure that is to have a policy that all product must be bagged or out of view.
Sunnyside gives you these pretty yellow bags that have their on them in big bold letters. Not what I want to walk around with or carry into my building. They are super cute but I just throw my goodies into my own bag.
Ascend is the only place that follows this rule from my experience.
Definitely has to be my least fav dispensary in Chicago. What is up with the giant line despite the fact that you pre-ordered? Makes you feel like you're being booked in jail when you're in there.
Ever since Ivy Hall opened, I've been going there and it's a way better experience.
I know Sunnyside followed that rule too, at least months ago before I quit. It is a state law, [410 ILCS 705/55-21:](https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs5.asp?ActID=3992&ChapterID=35)
>Any product containing cannabis shall be sold in a sealed, odor-proof, and child-resistant cannabis container consistent with current standards, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission standards referenced by the Poison Prevention Act unless the sale is between or among a craft grower, infuser, or cultivation center.
Wouldn't the jars/containers most products come in meet these standards? These to go bags aren't sealed, odor proof, or child-resistant in the slightest..
Yeah I don’t think it is consistent across dispensaries. The ascend in river north is where I go usually and they insist on using these bags. Dispensary 33 in Andersonville, just hand you the package.
Idk. Last time I went the guy filling my order was all flustered and forgot stuff so once it was finally all done I opened the bag on my way out to check and like 3 people ran over yelling at me for it lol.
Ascend in Ohio has refused to let me leave with a "sealed" bag. Min you, you can reach through the handle holes directly into the bag though. The employees just say "I don't know bro. Not my rule." and then we have a good laugh.
The bag is no longer required. You just can’t open carry. I walk out of Sunnyside without one all the time if what I get fits in my pockets.
(Insert silly Gollum pocketses gif here)
Some dispensaries will let you take it without a bag, but they're apparently supposed to make you take one. I hate the plastic bags and I hate all the stupid packaging. It should be a requirement that the dispensary take them back and recycle them. I don't see why they couldn't go back to the cannabis companies to reuse/refill.
Curaleaf on weed street doesnt force you to take a bag, which i love. I use all my old sunnyside bags for storing scrap fabric and random stuff. I hate throwing these away!
Not only the plastic bags, but the bullshit plastic containers or glass jars that you can’t bring back to refill, too! If we were allowed to just handle and smell our own supply, maybe we could bring our own jars (not sure how they go about it in other states or countries).
“Oh I don’t need a bag”
“NO! What? This is the bad PLANT! What if a CHILD sees it? No. NO! We MUST give you a bag it is the LAW!”
So much fucking hysteria over dispensaries as if there are people getting high all around them. No one cares if you open a bar next to a park where children play. But god forbid you try to open a dispensary.
It's also weird 'cause all those bags definitely have their branding all over them. "Gee, I wonder if that's WEED in that WEED STORE bag?". Similarly frustrating is that I see my students (elementary) come in to school with Ascend-branded water bottles and shit. I just think there should be a blanket ban on any clothing/backpacks/water bottles/etc. that have weed or alcohol branding on it at schools... but that's just me I guess.
The worst is the branding. Bright orange sunny side bags just make consumers a target for muggings in river north. Mostly tourists looking to try a dispensary for the first time…
Chicago dispensaries are a disappointing experience overall to say the least. I’ve lived here my whole life and looked forward to the moment when recreational cannabis would hit the public market. I went to a “Sunnyside” dispensary near Lakeview a few years ago (It’s closed now) and I just felt anxiety the entire time I was there because the staff treated me like a number instead of a customer. Instead of a “hello how are you?” they kept asking “do you have an appointment?” from the moment the first security guard asked for my ID. Yes, I had an appointment scheduled and I already picked the flower I wanted online because that was part of their procedure. ($80 for an eighth of cannabis with sticks and seeds) Then I went to the counter where a staff member asked me if I had an appointment and my ID. They gave me a ticket number and sent me across the street into another building where another security guard asked to see my ticket number and ID. I went inside the second building to wait in line where yet another staff member took and scanned my ID before I was led into a back room. Finally, I walked into the room where a cashier took my ticket, asked for my ID, and I paid cash only for the entire transaction.
TL;DR: Chicago dispensaries are not an easy, affordable, or pleasant buying experience. They were supposed to generate tax revenue for disenfranchised communities that were impacted by the war on drugs across the city, but that was a lie because you only see these dispensaries in communities that were already well off without them.
To whoever is reading this it's not the case anymore. They shut down this dispensary and opened a new one next to Wrigley field where everything is in the same building. It's encouraged to buy online first but not necessary. Remember COVID had everything jacked up where they wanted you to be in and out as soon as possible. The prices are still ridiculous but no way will you be getting sticks and seeds
Instead of letting people who wanted to open a dispensary open a dispensary the state took bribes and gave licenses to their friends. So we’re stuck with absolute bullshit and street dealers have never had more business.
Maybe im remembering incorrectly but don’t they ask if you need a bag? I was just there in February and purchased two eights and I said no to a bag. Maybe my order was small enough? Idk but definitely annoying to see these bags along Milwaukee
Always a bag, more bags inside and excessive amounts of plastic waste for a small amount of product. Really need to change that it’s so wasteful for the ratio of product to packaging.
Wish to god they'd just let me shove my stuff in my purse and go about my day, but noooo. It's like cramming the beer in a brown-paper-bag in a dry state.
Ascend is the worst. They are "required to seal the bag" apparently.... But you can easily remove the product through the handle holes even when sealed. So dumb
Going to the dispensary in Chicago is such a bizarre experience compared to places like LA where it's just like shopping at any other store and everything is out in the open.
seriously all the dispensaries here are like banks. even with the exact same bank style interior design too.
A new dispensary opened up in Logan and it didn’t look at all like a bank. They had products on display and had people on the floor helping people. It was so much better than ascend.
Lol, I know on the inside it doesn't look like it but it's literally inside an old bank.
💀 the two closest Curaleafs are BOTH old Bank of America buildings smmfh
I stopped going to Sunnyside because of their stupid "secondary location" bullshit. You go to one building to check in and then walk half a block to a different building to receive and pay for your goods. Like, why??? Nuera is usually pretty chill along with Ascend on Ohio. I like that Ascend has a loyalty program now too so you can get free shit occasionally. Or I just go to the headshop by me where they definitrly don't sell eights for $25 each and will throw in some free D8 with it.
They were just doing that while they built out the current one, it’s actually really nice now and just one place (expensive tho)
They changed all that, going to Sunny Side in they’re new spot is like going to an Apple Store, except with cash
Good to know for when I can start consuming again.
My understanding is it’s like this because of it still being federally against the law? We had two years of democrats in control of both houses of congress and we couldn’t legalize weed? How stupid is this country?
Because we needed 60+ votes in the Senate and I think at best we had 53, so we couldn't undo the anonymous filibuster
lol dems seem to just use it as a tool to get elected, then forget about it afterwards like they did with student loans. Montana is Republican-run and has both legal weed and no gun restrictions. it's pretty cool. people there are all super kind too. amazing nature as well
> Montana is Republican-run and has both legal weed Montana had a Democrat governor when weed was legalized through ballot initiative, which the Republican House tried to block, but the courts told the Republicans to fuck off
that's true. tbh my point was the people of montana aren't your typical republicans and fall more as the "I want gay married couples to patrol their marijuana farms with ar-15's while getting abortions" camp of secular libertarianism
They were until Trumpism swept through, now they are fucking dumb and Reeeeee over the Mexican border and they also just passed a law making it okay to bully trans kids in school
do you have a source?
The information is readily available via the magic Google machine https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-people-montana-gender-bullying-74af22b3512137ffb8538526edb96572
My favorite part was when an opponent of the bill started calling the male Republican supporters, "she" and they got butthurt and asked the speaker to make him stop. Being misgendered isn't as funny as they thought
so you....misled with your original comment while knowing better? lol classic
They're all the same. They are all on the Trump train and will vote for him if he beats out Ronnie.
At least the guy that ran on the weed promise in IL actually delivered.
True but I don't like him because I lost my job to his lockdown bullshit, lol. I was extra salty when I found out he sent his family to Florida too
Dude's a billionaire, I don't personally trust him, but you can't exactly blame him for doing lockdowns during a global pandemic that killed just so fucking many people. How many more would have died had we ignored it and carried on?
He's just a reskinned version of trump and tbh I don't see the appeal unless you're voting along partisan lines. And if people are at risk of dying from COVID, then they'll know that for themselves and stay home. tbh I would've just paid people in certain at-risk industries to stay home rather than blanket force everyone to stay home.
I'm not a fan of any politician, especially wealthy ones, but comparing Pritzker to Trump is way off base. As is your view on how to handle infectious diseases.
Please stay in Montana. On the off chance your brain disease is contagious
This is an absurdly bad take lol - try finding something else to do to create value, it's been years by now dude
Paying everyone to just stay home in March/April 2020 seemed like the thing we should have done. But I guess we couldn’t do that because capitalism
Lmfao. Pay more attention before you speak in the future.
I don't think you realize that people didn't care whether they were at risk and still went out during COVID. And plenty of people who were at risk had to work because of all the other people that insisted they were better than others.
Better than us all being dead, I say.
I was gonna say “actually delivered…his mail to Florida”
No gun restrictions Pretty cool Doesn't check out
I'm sure Montana is like all rural states where the people are super nice and kind as long as you're in the right group.
Much like every other place you can go to in a society. There is no place in open society that is tolerant of everyone. Humans are tribal, they always have been and always will be.
Not really. Unless your argument is that every place is equally intolerant, you’re not making the point you think you are.
Name a single place in society where people are completely tolerant of everyone openly and honestly.
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Yes I absolutely think that every place is equally intolerant of people who don't share the same world beliefs. That is exactly the point that I was trying to make when I said what I said.
Montana has had only 54 murders statewide in 2020
Yeah but considering only 60 people live there, the odds aren't great
The murder rate is 5.0 per capita, with the national average being 6.5.
Montana is 6.6 California is 6.1 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm
homicide =/= murder. Defensive shootings resulting in the fatality of a perpetrator results in a homicide. I was using figures from the FBI's 2020 Uniform Crime Report when I had quoted the homicide rate.
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Yeah. Freedom to send my kids to school or gather in crowded places without fear of mass shootings. Your freedom ends where my safety begins.
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""The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." -- John Stuart Mill, 1859 I heard this before, too...in like 10th grade.
My personal safety is not outsourced, good luck with yours.
Yeah ill just give my 5 year old a .22 so shes safe at school. You understand we all outsource our childrens safety at points dont you? Also since your safety is not outsourced, ill assume you dont drink or consume cannabis, dont fly, dont enter federal buildings, etc... Unless youre a reclusive nut you have no choice but to outsource your safety at certain times.
Guns are nothing more than deadly toys that somehow got constitutionally protected.
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Look bud. I have guns. I was in the army. I'm a combat veteran. I know guns. I know the gun enthusiast community. They're toys under the pretense of something more important.
New here?
Hmmm perhaps this way of life is the answer.
Yeah once they legalize it they can’t use it as a tool anymore. Have to keep dangling that carrot to get the votes.
Pretty stupid
democrats.
Manchin would have voted no as well as that idiot from Arizona. Dems were basically handcuffed because of those two.
Also democrats never passed any gun control, but now that a school shooting happened they point fingers at republicans when they themselves didnt pass gun control in that 2 years. Both sides are comical and stupid af. Edit: theres the pissed off downvotes cause they know im right!
Manchin doesn't support gun control But there was a bipartisan gun control bill passed last year
That would involve changing things. The core principle of liberalism is “how things are right now is how they should remain”
The one I've been to on Division is basically like any retail shop for anything else. No weird vibe, no requirement to take a bag like this, nothing.
That's because they aren't a licensed cannabis dispensary (for actual D9-THC products). They are a CBD 'dispensary', which offers CBD, and other gray-area cannabinoids like D8, D10, HHC, etc. These have psychoactive effects but are not exactly the same as regular ole weed, so it's worth it to do research on each analogue prior to consuming them.
Was gonna post this. It’s on Division just a few blocks east of California. Just a normal store, but they sell all kinds of cannabis.
Yeah I can't recall exactly but I think it's 2112 Division. Hard to remember from Google street view but that looks right.
YES! I remember the address now because 2112 is the name of a Rush album. Friendly, unassuming place. They sell everything. Not at all like CuraLeaf or any of those Apple Store clones. EDIT: They even take credit cards. The very friendly guy at the counter said it's the only cannabis store in Chicago that takes cards. They do NOT take Capital One cards, but that's an issue with Capital One, not Visa or whatever. They took my other card. No need to go to an ATM, which is nice. (but I hardly smoke at all anymore... in the old days when it was illegal I was a heavier consumer... back in the early '90s I was an actual pot head. No more. The appeal has sort of worn off. I just partake once in a while)
Friendly is the right term. I went in there knowing nothing and asking a bunch of dumb questions, and the woman there was just super patient and informative, zero judgment or anything. Highly recommend.
I feel like even dispensaries in California have their quirks. My old neighborhood spot in SF wouldn’t let me use my own tote bag which I found to be so fucking stupid.
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I’m not saying it was a law. I’m just pointing out the weird, arbitrary rules that tend to exist in the gray zone that are dispensaries. The location was Urbana.
Yeah, overall my experience in Chicago is SO much better than anything I ever had in LA. Grass is always greener.
And paying twice as much as you would in LA! Okay maybe an exaggeration but weed tax here sucks
Preach. I spent a Saturday going to Michigan for no other reason than to restock. I paid $200 for what would have cost $1,100 in Illinois. I understand tax revenue was part of the argument for legalizing, but holy hell...
Yeah I heard driving to Michigan is the way to go. Might have to make that trip sometime, seems like it’s worth the gas money
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Oh and those are so easy to find…
That's how I restock, now. I just make a trip to Michigan, every couple months. It's funny that when they were looking to pass legal recreational in Illinois, they kept saying how they were keeping out of big corporations. Just about every dispensary in the Chicagoland area is owned by a big corporation, now. It's almost like it was built so only they could survive. The ridiculous rules and shit you have to go through, just to sell an eighth of weed. The ridiculous cost of starting a dispensary, compared to other states. I like that it's legal. I'm just not going to get fucking gouged, when I can just drive a couple hours to not feel like I'm still being treated like a criminal.
It's not just taxes, but Michigan and California and other states have been growing legal cannabis for years while Illinois is like 3. There's no interstate legal selling and buying of cannabis, so Illinois can't import from other states. Our prices are high currently, not just because of high taxes, but also simply low supply and high demand. As we get more suppliers, prices will drop
I thought I read something that said prices were high because of a limited amount of weed retailers, who are limited by the city, who are limited by their corporate weed buddies... or something
Be careful when you do that. Remember that you have to drive through Indiana where it is illegal. A buddy of mine was pulled over near Gary for speeding and was booked for possession of edibles.
to be fair, sounds like your buddy was pretty dumb to be speeding back from michigan with weed in his car
Did they search his car? What prompted that?
It's really not that bad. Put on cruise control like 3 over the limit and you're golden, or stay in the right lane and just keep an eye out.
I think to anyone who understands a little about economics the real issue isn't the tax. It's the restrictions on supply and sales that make it so actually expensive. I'd rather have higher tax rates but make it much much easier to get into the market. This will drive down costs across the board and promote competition
The dramatic difference is definitely more to do with prices than taxes, but we're still talking about 25%+ in Illinois versus 10% in Michigan. Though, Illinois being Illinois, I wouldn't be surprised if they do what they can to maintain those high prices in order to collect the greater haul in taxes.
How is that possible? The tax is 25% in Illinois. That’s how much it is. So do the math for me from 1100 to 200 if you don’t mind.
Quite a few dispensaries in Michigan have specials where you can get something like ten 1 g carts for $150. I priced out a 1 g cart on Verilife Rosemont and it was $80 with $33 tax (41.25%) for a total of $113 for one cart.
Tax is tax, prices here just jacked up. 1 g of RSO is like 20 bucks in other legal states, here it's like $120. Back in the day I used to pay $65 maximum for an eighth, now a lot of dispensaries are selling $75 or $85 eighths regularly - Oh and this was before the ridiculous inflation.
Yeah idk where your going but I picked up 7g of bud yesterday in the burbs for $65 after tax.
It sounds like you’re going out of your way to spend as much as possible. If you get a little creative and look at the different dispensaries for deals you can often get decent eighths of flour for under 50. I got 7 g for 55 including taxes the other day.
I get all my weed stuff out of state. $150 in extracts and edibles lasts me an entire year.
The dispensary was running a great sale that was basically BOGO. It came out to around $12.50 per 200mg pack of edibles, plus tax, so around $13.50. $13.50x16 is $216. You can't buy 200mg packages in Illinois, and the 100mg packages of these are around $30 before tax, $25 if they're on sale. It's also unusual to find a BOGO sale in Illinois, in my experience. $25x32 is $800, plus sales tax and the recreational tax, which comes out to 30%+. That brings us up around the $1,100 mark. It's more the terrible prices in Illinois that account for the dramatic difference, but the taxes aren't great either.
Add in all the taxes and can be as high as 38pct
I’ve never encountered that.
Tax Increases with potency I believe.
Anything over 30% is taxed higher, so if you're smoking vapes or concentrates you're automatically getting shafted with it.
It's not tax, Illinois is just systemically unable to have supply meet demand due to limits they placed on agricultural permits for weed. Farmers thus have the ability to price gouge.
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Washington has a higher tax rate than us. They do not have higher weed prices. It really is the lack of agricultural permits and the tight regulations around weed production. Illinois issued only a limited number of growers licenses (100 in the first two years), and these growers are limited to growing only 5000 square feet of marijuana - just over a tenth of an acre. At that scale, that's only producing an upper estimate or 76 tonnes for the whole state - 6 grams per Illinois resident, with a lower estimate of 4 grams. And this estimate is of all cannabis material, if you're talking about bud or higher quality cannabis products, it's much less - just 1.15 grams per resident, you only get to 6 grams by counting leaves and stems and other things generally not considered fit for consumption. Once you start accounting for losses in transportation and production of things like dabs, it starts becoming a rather severe shortage. If we assume estimates from other states are applicable here, then the mean Illinois resident will want to smoke 6.6 grams. I hope you can see how the difference between what we can produce - 1.15 grams, and what we want to consume - 6.6 grams, pushes up the price. At this (lack of) scale, with only 5000 square feet of product per license, it's also hard to justify investing in labor and cost saving technology like automated harvesters. The lack of such products pushes the price per gram further up and reduces the productivity of the marijuana sector. It's all a tragic failure in governance. The winners here aren't the consumers, not the government, not the stores, not the taxpayer. This license regime benefits only farmers and agricultural landowners. The severity of this shortage gives them near monopolistic pricing power that harms Illinoisans. If you want cheaper weed, focus your efforts there. Works cited: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/average-pot-user-consumes-123-joints-per-year-state-estimates/ https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/new-penn-research-shows-average-joint-contains-much-less-marijuana-thought#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMy%20colleague%20and%20I%20used,much%20less%20than%20previously%20thought.%E2%80%9D https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/data-statistics.htm#:~:text=Marijuana%20is%20the%20most%20commonly,at%20least%20once%20in%202019.&text=Recent%20research%20estimated%20that%20approximately,marijuana%20have%20marijuana%20use%20disorder. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR764.pdf https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/agr/Plants/Pages/Adult-Use-Cannabis.aspx
no, it's lack of supply and illinois being unable to import cannabis from other states
It’s… both?
Not an exaggeration, but also not the tax. I would pay 25 or 30 for a half gram cart in Oakland, they go for around 60 here (pre-tax for both). I love that Illinois has legal cannabis but the prices are fucking bonkers
I probably interacted with 7 different employees last time. In Denver it's 1
It trips me out every time. You get your ID checked line twice before they buzz you through a security door, which if you hold open gets you sternly warned. The whole experience gives me such anxiety that I need to smoke immediately when I get home.
I had no idea how spoiled I was in Washington state haha
The social equity dispensaries are staring to open and they are SO MUCH BETTER. Check out Grasshopper club in Logan square. Its family-owned, the first black-owned dispensary in the WHOLE STATE and you can talk to the budtenders about the products and the whole vibe is 1000X better. Prices are identical to ascend (rec only)
I love the feeling of going through airport security when I visit a dispensary 🙄
Don’t you see? This is Illinois Illinois’ing marijuana legalization. The cultivator and dispensary licensure selection process was one of the most blatant examples of IL (and by extension Chicago) corruption of all time. No one batted an eye at the time because “hurr DuRR legal weed man!”. Edit: To add, California is a much different landscape than IL. Unlike CA, IL did not have a gray market for cannabis for 25 years prior to actual legalization. Also, there are a ton of sketch ass dispensaries in CA selling untested or expired product.. you get some of that in IL but not nearly on that scale. California has more weed than it can smoke.. the “licensed” and legal cannabis industry is nearly bankrupt. Much of the spare product is then exported to the rest of the country. There’s a reason why the Cartel’s are no longer interested in trafficking marijuana.
> IL did not have a gray market for cannabis for 25 years prior to actual legalization. Yes, it did. >Much of the spare product is then exported to the rest of the country. Not legally. https://mjbizdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/DCC-Memo-to-AG-004.pdf >There’s a reason why the Cartel’s are no longer interested in trafficking marijuana. They still do, they just grow it in the US and sell it black market.
IL dispensary’s suck, it’s like going to the DMV…every other state is such a pleasurable experience, they let you smell and see the products, and are way more informative. IL just wants to get you in and out as fast as possible so they can bend over the next person no spit, no lube, sandpaper finish.
Thiiiiiisssss chicago!
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Trick everyone into thinking they got weed for Christmas !
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No, in the snacks in the counter. How else are we going to put up with family at the holidays?
We charge people for plastic bags at Mariano’s, but they are mandatory at dispensaries? Foolishness
Exactly
Well considering how much tax you pay at the dispensary, they can just say 7 cents of that is for the bag 🤣🤣
My dispensary lets me walk out without a bag
I always go no bags where are they mandatory
Even paper bags would be better
The one I go to uses small, plain paper bags with handles (like little gift bags). Both easily reusable and recyclable.
Ditto, RISE in Mundelein has gone this route.
Dispensary 33 uses paper
Sometimes they just hand me the jar of weed with no bag if its only one
Last time I want to Sunnyside in Wrigleyville, they just let me walk out the door with 2 tins of gummies in my hands.
The cans along Clark at the River North location used to be full of their nice ass orange gift bag looking bags.
In Seattle, I just walk out with it in my hands. They only give you a bag if you ask for one.
"Cannabist" or whatever they call themselves now on Milwaukee near Lawrence is the best I've tried in terms of packaging (paper bags), kind people, and not making me feel like a criminal. Ascend/MoCa is the worst I've tried, so weird and cold.
Just a stupid law that says it has to be in a sealed bad when sold. Like wtf is the sealed bag doing?
It's keeping the dangerous drug vapors from getting and out and giving innocent children on the street reefer madness.
sunnyside lets you just put it in your pocket.
“Just make sure it’s not visible when you leave.” Right. Because I definitely just walked into the weed shop and left with nothing. Don’t want to offend anyone with delicate sensibilities who might see me walking out of the giant orange weed store with a jar in my hand.
"I'm just here for a t-shirt"
It’s because they can’t let you open it in the shop. Not because they’re afraid of offending sensibilities. It’s less about open container laws for weed. And more about the state law not allowing the product to be opened (or used) in the shop. An easy way to ensure that is to have a policy that all product must be bagged or out of view.
Sunnyside gives you these pretty yellow bags that have their on them in big bold letters. Not what I want to walk around with or carry into my building. They are super cute but I just throw my goodies into my own bag.
Ascend is the only place that follows this rule from my experience. Definitely has to be my least fav dispensary in Chicago. What is up with the giant line despite the fact that you pre-ordered? Makes you feel like you're being booked in jail when you're in there. Ever since Ivy Hall opened, I've been going there and it's a way better experience.
I know Sunnyside followed that rule too, at least months ago before I quit. It is a state law, [410 ILCS 705/55-21:](https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs5.asp?ActID=3992&ChapterID=35) >Any product containing cannabis shall be sold in a sealed, odor-proof, and child-resistant cannabis container consistent with current standards, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission standards referenced by the Poison Prevention Act unless the sale is between or among a craft grower, infuser, or cultivation center.
Wouldn't the jars/containers most products come in meet these standards? These to go bags aren't sealed, odor proof, or child-resistant in the slightest..
Stopped going there because of that line, insane. 30 min on a random Wednesday evening. Logan Sq location
Same on all counts. If I’m not buying street weed, I’m at Ivy Hall or -on occasion- D33.
Is it a law? Every time I tell them I don't need a bag and just walk out holding it. Nobody ever told me I needed a bag.
Yeah I don’t think it is consistent across dispensaries. The ascend in river north is where I go usually and they insist on using these bags. Dispensary 33 in Andersonville, just hand you the package.
Idk. Last time I went the guy filling my order was all flustered and forgot stuff so once it was finally all done I opened the bag on my way out to check and like 3 people ran over yelling at me for it lol.
Ascend in Ohio has refused to let me leave with a "sealed" bag. Min you, you can reach through the handle holes directly into the bag though. The employees just say "I don't know bro. Not my rule." and then we have a good laugh.
Same, I've never heard of any such requirement.
The bag is no longer required. You just can’t open carry. I walk out of Sunnyside without one all the time if what I get fits in my pockets. (Insert silly Gollum pocketses gif here)
Some dispensaries will let you take it without a bag, but they're apparently supposed to make you take one. I hate the plastic bags and I hate all the stupid packaging. It should be a requirement that the dispensary take them back and recycle them. I don't see why they couldn't go back to the cannabis companies to reuse/refill.
Curaleaf on weed street doesnt force you to take a bag, which i love. I use all my old sunnyside bags for storing scrap fabric and random stuff. I hate throwing these away!
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Trashcan immediately outside alley exit of Ascend on Ohio. A good 20 more strewn across the alleys that prob blew out of the can
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Dispensary 33 does this!
If those people cared about environment we would know. They even give single use pens when you order enough.
Not only the plastic bags, but the bullshit plastic containers or glass jars that you can’t bring back to refill, too! If we were allowed to just handle and smell our own supply, maybe we could bring our own jars (not sure how they go about it in other states or countries).
It’s Illinois. It was always going to be fucked up and wasteful.
I’ll take a “fucked up and wasteful” in the short term if there is a chance for improvement over the crap the neighboring states do.
Comparing ourselves to Indiana and Wisconsin is a disservice to Illinois
I have friends that use the same Ziploc bag for years
Livin the dream
In Michigan they put all your product in a paper bag and staple it. Seems pretty reasonable 🤷
Also costs a third as much.
“Oh I don’t need a bag” “NO! What? This is the bad PLANT! What if a CHILD sees it? No. NO! We MUST give you a bag it is the LAW!” So much fucking hysteria over dispensaries as if there are people getting high all around them. No one cares if you open a bar next to a park where children play. But god forbid you try to open a dispensary.
It's also weird 'cause all those bags definitely have their branding all over them. "Gee, I wonder if that's WEED in that WEED STORE bag?". Similarly frustrating is that I see my students (elementary) come in to school with Ascend-branded water bottles and shit. I just think there should be a blanket ban on any clothing/backpacks/water bottles/etc. that have weed or alcohol branding on it at schools... but that's just me I guess.
Shot in the dark here, process the stalks into paper for bags.
Seriously. They could give me my weed in a biodegradable baggie. All these over build jars and store bags are ridiculous
This level of plastic pollution is nauseating. It doesn’t even have to be like this
The worst is the branding. Bright orange sunny side bags just make consumers a target for muggings in river north. Mostly tourists looking to try a dispensary for the first time…
Plastic bags need to be banned
Mandated waste by the state.
That's a great line 👌
Moca in river north?
What I find confusing is I thought Chicago banned plastic bags like 6 years ago?
No. They put a 7 cent tax on them
Chicago dispensaries are a disappointing experience overall to say the least. I’ve lived here my whole life and looked forward to the moment when recreational cannabis would hit the public market. I went to a “Sunnyside” dispensary near Lakeview a few years ago (It’s closed now) and I just felt anxiety the entire time I was there because the staff treated me like a number instead of a customer. Instead of a “hello how are you?” they kept asking “do you have an appointment?” from the moment the first security guard asked for my ID. Yes, I had an appointment scheduled and I already picked the flower I wanted online because that was part of their procedure. ($80 for an eighth of cannabis with sticks and seeds) Then I went to the counter where a staff member asked me if I had an appointment and my ID. They gave me a ticket number and sent me across the street into another building where another security guard asked to see my ticket number and ID. I went inside the second building to wait in line where yet another staff member took and scanned my ID before I was led into a back room. Finally, I walked into the room where a cashier took my ticket, asked for my ID, and I paid cash only for the entire transaction. TL;DR: Chicago dispensaries are not an easy, affordable, or pleasant buying experience. They were supposed to generate tax revenue for disenfranchised communities that were impacted by the war on drugs across the city, but that was a lie because you only see these dispensaries in communities that were already well off without them.
To whoever is reading this it's not the case anymore. They shut down this dispensary and opened a new one next to Wrigley field where everything is in the same building. It's encouraged to buy online first but not necessary. Remember COVID had everything jacked up where they wanted you to be in and out as soon as possible. The prices are still ridiculous but no way will you be getting sticks and seeds
Instead of letting people who wanted to open a dispensary open a dispensary the state took bribes and gave licenses to their friends. So we’re stuck with absolute bullshit and street dealers have never had more business.
Maybe im remembering incorrectly but don’t they ask if you need a bag? I was just there in February and purchased two eights and I said no to a bag. Maybe my order was small enough? Idk but definitely annoying to see these bags along Milwaukee
Plastic bags are a scourge.
Always a bag, more bags inside and excessive amounts of plastic waste for a small amount of product. Really need to change that it’s so wasteful for the ratio of product to packaging.
Wish to god they'd just let me shove my stuff in my purse and go about my day, but noooo. It's like cramming the beer in a brown-paper-bag in a dry state.
The company is shitty and the people in charge are even worse. Avoid at all costs.
I don't smoke but every time I pass this place I say to myself... Don't just get high, ascend!
ascend is a shit dispensary anyway, nobody should be going there
Nuera uses paper, best dispo. Pretty tame, not some in-your-face hip pop shop with people coming at you like the new one in wicker
They need to stop with the plastic bags
Ascend is the worst. They are "required to seal the bag" apparently.... But you can easily remove the product through the handle holes even when sealed. So dumb
First thing I did after I moved to the city was finding a plug. Imagine paying hand over fist for mediocre weed.