Although her businesses are directly affected by the legalization of marijuana, Amanda Stewart, owner of Valley Hemp Imports & Co. in Penticton and Oliver, said her plan is to stay the course.
Stewart’s stores offer a wide variety of vaporizers, pipes and bongs for the consumption of marijuana or tobacco, as well as a plethora of other accessories and products. In addition, she carries a line of sustainable, hemp clothing.
But despite having a product line and business focused around the consumption of marijuana, she said she won’t be offering the actual substance at her shop.
“I started off thinking maybe I would (become a distributor), and then I’ve seen them some violent hold ups involving marijuana shops down on the coast. So that’s not a position I want to put any of my staff in,” said Stewart. “You have to have a security guard at the store and you have to buzz people in and out.”
Stewart noted her stores have a “relaxed and chill vibe,” something these changes would disrupt. In addition, she’s wary about the type of advice people seek within dispensaries.
“Also, dispensaries are expected to give out a lot of medical advice. Taking medical advice from someone who doesn’t have a medical degree is questionable at best,” said Stewart. “I don’t even want to be providing medical advice but at the same time you can’t say ‘I don’t know what it does, here’s your weed.’ You can’t make claims like this will cure your cancer, this will make you sleep at night. And we don’t know what alternatives there are – maybe there’s a pharmaceutical that will work better for them or another herb.”
Instead of offering cannabis, Stewart has decided to offer her customers something crucial when it comes to its use – advice about the methods of consumption. Stewart said she’s seeing a whole new customer base entering her store, coming to learn the do’s and don’ts when trying cannabis for the first time.
“A lot of (the questions are from) seniors, they wouldn’t touch it before because it was illegal, they followed the laws,” said Stewart. “Usually they say they weren’t even going to try it but then a friend suggests they do for arthritis or glaucoma or stuff like that.”
She said most seniors she’s helped want to cook with it, rather than smoke it in a vaporizer or pipe. She’s happy to offer up advice on method of consumption, types of accessories, and will even point them in the right direction online if they need further assistance.
“We’re really specialized in what we carry right now, we’ll tell you what temperature you want to vaporize at, what material you want to use, where this pipe is blown, what are the features on this design of pipe,” said Stewart. “You want 75 different kinds of rolling papers and we can tell you what makes each one different from the one next to it.
So, we’re so specialized already that I didn’t want to muddy the waters. We’re where you’ll go when you want a good bong or pipe or your favourite papers, and the knowledgeable staff who can tell you how something works,” said Stewart.
She added that her customers “really appreciate” that she carries a sustainable clothing line and hopes that the hemp industry will begin to flourish as a result of the legalization of cannabis.
