The Worst Cannabis Dispensary Ever!
Being a medical marijuana patient for several years, when I moved to Sacramento, narturally I had to locate a cannabis dispensary for my medicine. I did a search on computer and found several, and I picked the one closest to my place. It had to be within bicycle riding distance, and I am no Lance Burton.....(Armstrong).
Also, being a physician that has supported medical cannabis all my life, and having been attacked repeatedly professionally and socially (even!) for my uncompromising stance about phytobotanicals in medicine.
So, after my physician confirmed my letter of recommendation, I prepped for the breathless bicycle ride (THIS IS NOT BASEL or even A'dam--this is bloody Summer in Sacramento! !Joder!) with drinking 1 liter of gatorade first, then slathering on 45 spf sunscreen, then donning reflective (moon helmet) type sunglasses and a baseball cap. I brought along another liter of cold gatorade (punch flavor.)
After many joules expended, cursing the hellicopters that always try to film these pitiful sojourns, I arrive at my destination, located in a little mexican shopping center. Soaking wet with sweat, I go through the laborious process of locking up my bike. Since San Francisco destroyed my car, my bicycle is now very precious to me. I try to pretend I am bicycling around the Jordaan area of Amsterdam, but it is so dissonante to this desert torture scene, that it is very hard to hold it and takes lots of energy I can't spare.
The E.B.H.S (East Bay Health Solutions) at 2201 Northgate Blvd, Suite H, Sacramento CA 95833 in Natomas area of Sacramento is the subject of this dissingly painful review. Mind you, I did not write this until I had been a member for several months and had met all personnel and tried (almost) all the products offered for sale to the members.
From the get-go, the feng shui of the place is very bad. Bad vibes ooze through the black-tinted storefront window. One knocks or if no answer, push a doorbell button. A large male opens the door and is dressed to look like a cop.
Of all things to encounter first at a "helping dispensary of medicine!" Most medical marijuana users, at some time, have been hassled, arrested, even beaten by cops---so again, a definitively "NONTHERAPEUTIC VIBE ensues. Less like you are a patient, coming to purchase phytomedicine....much more like you are about to be booked and put in a holding cell.....your ID is checked.
This, again, ('like in a jail' feeling increases while waiting--no muzak, a few cannabis magazines) takes a long time. The woman behind the desk knows you are a member, because you go there regularly---so what's all this bs hoo-doo about? Ridiculous. Finally, you are "cleared to go back!"
The rent-a-cop-wannabe ceremonially unlocks the door and you go back a straight corridor....there is a long counter, about the height of a bar in a drinking establishment. The available strains of the day are written on a board, behind the staffperson who waits on you. The selection of herb is limited, to say the least. Usually 4-5 kinds of bud, at the most. And these tend toward non-organic, fertilizer-forced, "chem bud." Sometimes they even name the strain honestly, "chem dog," or "diesel wreck," etc. Most smell "chemically" in one way or another.
One has to ask about genetic lineage as it is often neglected or not posted. Most often the staff knows nothing about the product, though they certainly appear to have recently tried some of the stock....that is, except the unfriendly tiny bitchy broad who sits at the desk (would do her GREAT GOOD to try some at the job.)
So, after they got sick of looking like total idiots for a few months, they started asking the growers, and got some rough ideas about what indica and sativa mean.
Their concentrates and edibles were variable--sometimes good and effective, other times, the same "brand," if you will, will be lame and ineffective. In other words, E.B.H.S. is a crap shoot at best. At worst, it is a very non-therapeutic place that has a very "ghetto/gangland feel" with uneducated workers staffing the place, with mediocre to variable weed and no other services to clients. No massage, no allied healing arts, no good music, nothing. Pay, get out. Next!
To anyone who has ever been to some of the dispensaries in San Francisco, you'd think this was the dispensary that only people on parole would be ORDERED to go to, as part of their punishment...really it's just that cheerful a place. To anyone who's been to Amsterdam or Rotterdam, EBHS is just a piece of crap. No one would go there if this place were in Holland!! It would close in a week for lack of customers.
And their hours change bizarrely--I met several members in the parking lot, often after a long trip to get there--and we find it suddenly, inexplicably, closed on Sunday (was always advertising "Open Seven Days A Week.)
To the Sacramentan Medical marijuana patient, this reviewer says, EBHS is the bottom feeder of cannabis dispensaries--avoid it like the plague.
