Medical marijuana is officially available in Branson.
Greenlight Dispensary of Branson celebrated their grand opening on Friday, May 28 and is available to all who have their state issued medical marijuana card.
Greenlight Dispensary, located at 201 S Wildwood Dr., is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. till 8 p.m. Although not everyone can go inside the dispensary’s sales floor, Greenlight is still happy to provide information at their facility.
“You don’t necessarily need a medical card to come into the lobby to get information,” said Greenlight’s Director of Retail Operations Casey Efting. “You can come in and we can have a one-on-one session with somebody who has questions and we have a very comfortable lobby where they can have a seat and we can educate them on anything they have questions about. If they know somebody who is a patient, they can come in with that patient as a support person and then visit a sales floor.”
Greenlight Dispensary even has a little something special to appeal to Branson’s tourist aspect.
“First and foremost, we have a passion for what we do. Our patients are the No.1 thing in our business model,” said Efting. “What makes Branson unique is we’ve taken an approach for our patients that matches the Branson vibe; we have a cannabis museum inside. We realized coming to Branson you have to be more than just a business, you have to offer something the community can really appreciate and latch onto. We also want to be a local spot. We know that eventually cannabis will be available to people and tourists from other states, but we want to make sure we capture that local patient and let them know we’re here to service them.”
Greenlight Dispensary decided to wait to open in order to make sure that they could cater to all patient’s needs, according to Efting.
“One of the things that we knew before we opened was we had to have a variety of products, and it wasn’t going to be worth opening until that was achieved,” said Efting. “We wanted to make sure we had enough variety and different types of products to cater to different needs and different ailments. Certain people require higher content THC products; flour or bud was the first thing available to market, (but) we wanted to wait until we were able to generate edibles, vapor cartridges, concentrates and drinks, so we could help as many different types of patients as possible. We really didn’t want people to come in and see empty shelves.”
According to Efting, Greenlight now has all the products they need to effectively help all patients.
“Now we categorically have those main items: flour, which is all of the bud or the marijuana you can combust, roll in a joint, smoke in a pipe, a bong, you name it. Concentrates are the concentrated form of THC that’s derived from the plant,” said Efting.
“Take it as flour or bud and it is usually about 23% THC, which is a psychoactive portion of cannabis. A concentrate will be closer to 80-90% (THC). So, for people who have to have that higher content of THC, it’s available. We also have edibles that come in the form of gummies, cookies, honey; and these range from 10 milligrams to 100 milligrams, even up to 200 milligrams in our beverage section. And these items are just consumed like a normal food item or a drink.”
Greenlight can even help potential patients receive a free doctor evaluation.
“We definitely help. What we’ve been offering to the entire state of Missouri, in places that are around our locations, is free doctor evaluations,” said Efting.
“The doctor evaluation is usually a $100-250 cost to the patient. They could go see their regular doctor, they could go see any doctor in Missouri, or they could even use telemedicine. What we’ve done is we’ve worked with a doctor out of St. Louis that does a telemedicine session every day for patients that are interested in getting their recommendation. We cover that portion for them and then they do have to apply through the state and pay the state the $25 application fee.”
For more information visit greenlightdispensary.com or their Facebook page ‘Greenlight Dispensaries.’