The security guard glances at our IDs, then at us, then back at our IDs.
I am 67. Diana is 64. We are not the typical pair walking into a cannabis dispensary on a weekday afternoon. We come carrying a folding table, boxes of product, and the determination of women who are not done building.
Diana is my recent friend and now my business partner. We are not here to browse. We are here to sell.
We set up near the glass display cases, unfolding the table and arranging our product across its surface. Diana smooths the corners of the tablecloth without thinking. We scan shelves for placement rather than reading strain names. Most of the faces behind the counter are younger. Many are men. They carry an easy, unhurried energy that pairs surprisingly well with our more deliberate, still lively pace.
The young men we meet are kind and gracious, but their presence reminds us how seldom we see ourselves mirrored here. You might expect an industry built around a female plant, what we like to call the Ladies’ Lettuce, to look different. To skew more female.
It doesn’t.
Still, we began noticing something else.
A woman behind the counter asked a few extra questions about what we were selling. A manager who listened closely when we mentioned tar reduction. A flicker of recognition when we shared our ages.
And once we noticed them, we began to see the shape of something larger.
An Idea Sparked
Less than two years earlier, Diana and I were sitting across from each other at a neighborhood coffeehouse, the only two volunteers who showed up to write letters for a political candidate in 2024. We were strangers then, addressing envelopes in careful block print. Halfway through our shift, we discovered we lived just six blocks …
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Author: Nancy Domenichelli / High Times
