The Land of Oz.

Once the decision was made, the first thing I had to do was select a dispensary to call my home. This was important because once the facility was selected, I was wedded to it. There aren’t a lot of locations in the state to choose from, and even fewer that are close to home, so the choice boiled down to two places. One is in a suburban area that I knew would be in a “good” location and easy on the eye, and the other in a more urban area. The urban location was fifteen to twenty minutes closer, so that’s the one I selected.

I had a general idea of where the place was located, and left home sooner than I needed to because the person I scheduled the appointment with urged me to arrive at least fifteen minutes early to complete the paperwork. It’s a good thing I did, because even though I had the address and knew the street the office was on, it was not easy to find. In fact, I drove by it twice.

The dispensary is in a non-descript brick building that I wouldn’t compliment by calling an office park.  It looked more like a square bunker with a lot of doors, and a few windows.  Actually, all the businesses at that location had the same street address and a unique unit number. There was no signage at all, nothing to announce the name or street address of the location. My GPS kept announcing that the location was on my left (then right as I passed it a second time). By then my bladder was about to erupt, so I pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot to heed nature’s call. As I did, Ms. GPS announced I had reached my location, and I had a WTF moment. Through my windshield, I saw the building I described in the next parking lot, and figured that must be the one. Once I finished my business, I pulled out of the lot I was in, turned left, and took a semi u-turn into the new parking lot. As I did, I spied the name of the place I was looking for on a small sign affixed to one of the doors.

After I backed into my parking spot and left the car, I surveyed the area. One of the negatives about choosing this location is that it is not in the greatest neighborhood, as it lay on the fringe of a hood that I would not want to visit when darkness falls. It was not an isolated area, the buildings aren’t decrepit, and the ground is not littered with trash or broken glass. There are a couple of large car dealerships were nearby, so I don’t want to give the impression it is in a war-zone. But the area is urban, and you can see the razor wire of one our state’s high security prisons in the distance. Better Homes and Gardens, it is not.

As I approached the building there were two doors, only one of which had an intercom, so I pushed the intercom button, and the receptionist buzzed me in. As the secure lock clicked behind me when the door closed, I walked up to the receptionist who was behind what looked like bullet/shatter-proof glass, and gave her my temporary certificate and driver’s license. She looked those over, then released another secure door that was to my left, and met me as I walked through it, handing me a clipboard in the process.

The office, which could be better described as a botique, was u-shaped, tastefully decorated, clean and modern. A high definition flat screen television was mounted on a wall in front of a variety of sofas, tables and chairs, with a rolling loop extolling the virtues of and the different kinds of medicinal pot that was available, but there was no sound. I didn’t do much investigating, so I don’t know what might have been on display.

The paperwork was straight forward and took about fifteen minutes to complete. It asked, among other things, my condition, my symptoms, and what I would consider using. The receptionist re-emerged as I was signing the last document, and I handed it over to her. She showed me where the restrooms were, a refrigerator that was filled with bottled water, and the exit, which happened to be the door next to the one I entered. Apparently, patients had to leave via that door, on the opposite side of the office, for security reasons.

Ten minutes later, as I sat pondering what would happen next, one of the pharmacists, called my name. A young, attractive woman approached, introduced herself and shook my hand as I rose from my seat, and escorted me to a private meeting room. For the next twenty minutes, this person reviewed my symptoms and the choices that lay before me.

The number and variety of these choices made my head spin. A five page color-coded laminated notebook, similar to a restaurant wine list, lay by her side. There appeared to be at least two-hundred items on the menu, and that might be a conservative guess. If this kind of thing were available in my twenties, assuming it were all legal, of course, I would have been like a kid in a candy store.

The pharmacist also had a little box with some of the paraphernalia that came with many of the options, ranging from rolling papers to something that looked like a communion wafer container. As she reviewed the choices, she removed an item in that box through which the drug was delivered. It was all very professional, thorough, and non-judgmental. She made comments such as, “I like this..,”  or “This is really nice…,” which made me wonder if they have to sample the product and delivery systems before they can meet with new clients. If that’s true, what a gig!

I asked a handful of questions, made my selection, then waited outside in the lobby while they prepared my selection. Now that the bloom was off the rose and I wasn’t on edge about the entire thing, I looked at the menu more closely and began to people-watch. I don’t think a single person in that office who wore a white coat was much older than thirty.

Clients like myself ran the gamut. Most people there appeared to be in their sixties, and a few might have been in their seventies. Nobody looked younger than the staff who worked there. Some were very professional looking, others looked old and haggard, and there was one guy there who looked like a total burn-out. Think of the “Reverend” Jim Ignatowski on Taxi. I was the only one with an obvious physical disability, which made me think most of the others were either dealing with a PTSD issue, anxiety, or some other kind of pain.

The best part of the deal was the sticker shock I expected did not transpire, but I will delve into that more with my next installment, where I will share what was on the menu, what I ultimtely chose, and how it’s working so far.

Stay tuned.

Author: Steve Markesich

I am loving husband, a doting father, a Red Sox fanatic, an aspiring novelist and MS advocate. Feel free to check out my stevemarkesich.com web site. View all posts by Steve Markesich