Customer-service based industries are taking responsive action to prevent the spread of Coronavirus, and dispensaries are far from excluded. Many medical cannabis patients are elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise at a high risk of being severely affected if they contract COVID-19.
Precautions that dispensaries are taking across the US:
- Encouraging deliveries and drive through purchases where possible.
- Avoiding shaking hands.
- Increasing sanitation and social distancing.
As large events and gatherings of people are being discouraged, and even banned for the time being, business owners are doing their part to limit social interaction and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Just as people are stocking up on toilet paper, (and now Bidets), people are also stocking up on cannabis. As a result, there are an estimated three million medical cannabis patients in the United States who could see shortages at their dispensaries.
Some dispensaries, like MOCA Modern Cannabis in Illinois, are suspending recreational cannabis sales in efforts to better serve medical patients.
“We didn’t want to put our staff or medical patients in a position where they could be exposed to that many people… Hopefully it’s a short term thing. There is no playbook for something like this and we are going to take it day by day and reevaluate as things evolve,” MOCA Co-Owner Danny Marks told the Chicago Tribune.
Native Roots and Terrapin Care Station, located in Colorado, are following the CDC’s guidelines. Sharon Fender of Native Roots says the company is taking additional precautions such as “close monitoring of all persons coming in and out of its facilities.”
Peter Marcus of Terrapin Care Station says their budtenders are wearing gloves.
“In two months, there won’t be any vapes, they will all be gone,” a vape-product retailer in Philadelphia told Candid Chronicle.
Featured image: “Customers wait in a line outside NETA Brookline to purchase marijuana.” by Tori Bedford/WGBH News, via WGBH:
