Marijuana dispensaries around Kansas City opened their doors to a sudden rush of customers on Friday, the first day that legal weed became available to purchase in Missouri.
“It’s just been crazy,” said Bianca Sullivan, CEO of Fresh Green Dispensary in Brookside. “Everybody thought that maybe they’d roll out over the weekend.”
The Missouri State Department of Health and Senior Services announced Thursday they would start approving conversion requests for medical marijuana dispensaries, which many businesses applied for in December.
That was a few days ahead of schedule, and caught both owners and customers by surprise — the state previously said Monday, Feb. 6 would be the start of legal weed sales to non-medical clients.
Despite the late notice, Sullivan said she had customers lining up at 8 a.m.
“Everything has gone pretty smoothly so far,” she said. “We’ve been definitely busy with recreational patients but not overwhelmed or anything like that.”
Medical marijuana has been allowed in Missouri since the passage of a ballot measure in 2018, but voters went a step further this November by approving a constitutional amendment legalizing the drug for anyone 21 or older to purchase and consume.
At Good Day Farm dispensary in Kansas City, Lacee Stanley from Kansas City said her father had been using medical marijuana for a while. She showed up to buy her first batch of recreational marijuana shortly after their doors opened.
“I really like to see what it’s like for him,” she said. “But I also have anxiety, depression myself so it’s nice to see what it is without the pressure of having to apply for things, go through a lot of things, and kind of just for fun.”
Stanley said her friends who work at different dispensaries tipped her off to the sudden availability.
“It feels so much less stressful,” she says. “It feels less illegal, it feels less pressure that we’re doing something bad with the stuff, so there’s such a less negative connotation with it.
Jane Justus, a marketing specialist for Good Day Farm, said they’ve been getting ready for this day for the last few months, but were still caught a little off guard. The company has almost 20 locations around Missouri and more in Mississippi and Arkansas.
“We’re flying by the seat of our pants,” she said.
Good Day Farm made their first two sales of recreational marijuana shortly after their doors opened at 9 a.m. Justus says was excited for a new kind of customer to experience buying legal cannabis.
“This isn’t what they bought behind the bleacher when they were 16,” Justus said. This is really important, really special, tested, great product that can help people live a better life.”
