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Kyle Palmer of Stonington remembers the terrible accident that almost ripped him in half eight years ago, ejecting him from his car and sending him barreling into a tree in the woods after his vehicle went off the road when it slid on black ice.
“It ruined the rest of my life,” he told me Wednesday afternoon while waiting for his medical marijuana order at Curaleaf in Groton.
Curaleaf on Monday became southeastern Connecticut’s second medical marijuana dispensary to offer adult recreational cannabis. On Friday, Zen Leaf in Norwich became the first store in the region to open offering both medical and adult-use cannabis simultaneously, under a provision that gives preference to license applicants from cities cited as “disproportionately affected” by the nation’s 1970s-era war on drugs that many believe unfairly targeted minority communities.
Another shop, The Botanist in Uncasville, had opened up in January for recreational sales after also being the first location in the area (under another name) to offer medical marijuana.
Palmer said he had used marijuana recreationally for years, even when he worked in power plants where he was drug tested. He said it made him concentrate better and helped him with the Tourette syndrome he was diagnosed with at age 7.
Now, after the accident that caused him muscle trauma, punctured his kidney and fractured his leg, the pain is constant, he said, leaving him no way to work. He has to lie down most of the time, and his body is slightly twisted, but he maintains a pleasant demeanor that disarms many.
“See this smile?” he asked. “The smile is because of the medicine.”
Palmer uses medical cannabis flowers that he said adequately address his pain, but he doesn’t begrudge anyone who comes to the newly renovated Curaleaf store at 79 Gold Star Highway looking for recreational marijuana.
“It can help everyone, if there’s something wrong or not,” he told me.
Of course, like with everything else, different people react differently. That’s why Curaleaf offers customers so many choices, from edibles to vapors to “pre-rolls” (joints). Cannabis at different strengths is available so a first-timer with minor issues can get a smaller dose than those like Palmer with major trauma.
“Our budtenders do an amazing job at educating new consumers on the different types of strains we offer and the varying product formats so they feel empowered to make the best decision for their first purchase,” Dinesh Penugonda, senior vice president of retail operations at Curaleaf, told me in emailed responses to questions.
Customers I talked to seconded that statement.
“The people are amazing,” said Billy Charette, a medical cannabis user from Groton. “They won’t give you the most potent thing if you’ve never done it before.”
Cathy Mosher of Mystic, another medical user, added, “They’re faster than CVS.”
Mosher and Charette also liked the significant expansion at the Groton Curaleaf, a national chain based in New York, as before there was just a tiny waiting room (a ribbon cutting is planned by the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce at noon July 21).
“To support recreational sales, we recently invested in additional site upgrades to ensure our medical guests continue receive easy priority access, while creating more shopping areas for our new adult use guests to learn all about our products,” Penugonda said.
Both Mosher and Charette said they preferred to stay with medical cannabis because the prices are better, there is no Connecticut tax, and the paperwork is less onerous.
The adult-use cannabis prices range from $240 an ounce to nearly $400 for flowers, about $5 or $6 a joint for five prerolls and a wide variety of other pricing for tinctures, vaporizers, topicals, concentrates and other products.
“Customers earn loyalty points for every dollar spent that can be redeemed for savings on future purchases made at any Curaleaf-operated dispensary,“ Penugonda said.
The maximum purchase on any one day for adult-use customers (21 and over) is 7 grams per transaction, or up to an ounce daily.
“The limits for medical patients are contingent on their medical prescription, and each patient has a unique monthly allotment,” Penugonda added.
Penugonda said the products are independently analyzed in a lab that gives the breakdown of active ingredients such as THC and CBD.
The store employs 21 people, including 10 additional hires specifically for the recreational adult-use side of the business. The Groton shop, open most days from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., first opened in July 2020.
One of the first comments I heard at the Groton Curaleaf from a recreational customer was that he didn’t recognize the names of the cannabis strains. He was told that in Connecticut cannabis stores cannot use the street names that people often associate with marijuana such as Colombian gold.
“The product sold on the adult use side is the same product sold on the medical side with a few exceptions; medical patients have access to flower testing over 30% THC, concentrates, and high dose edibles,” Penugonda said.
As for security, before you can enter the Curaleaf dispensary you will be asked for two forms of identification. Inside, customers will find kiosks where they can look over their cannabis options before approaching a long counter where associates can help them with their purchase.
All this normalcy, like an airport check-in or hotel lobby, feels a bit surreal for someone like me who lived through the war on drugs and all its hyperbole and excesses. Forty years ago, I opined on The Day’s editorial page that the country should legalize marijuana and all drugs, seeing that addiction would never be cured by prohibition and hatred, only by love and medical intervention.
The war on drugs only increased crime, flooded our prisons with nonviolent drug offenders and increased the power of gangs and mafia bosses, not to mention corrupt politicians. It also made it seem way cooler than it ever really was.
After my column came out, an elderly gentleman from Waterford called me to talk about a time when he was a kid that folks would walk down to the local drug store to pick up drugs such as cocaine that are now considered illegal. In fact, there were no federal drug laws in this country until 1914, and the first state law on drugs in California was clearly targeted at a minority community: the Chinese who used opium.
By allowing people like Curaleaf customer Kyle Palmer to buy cannabis without the fear of being branded as criminals, we here in Connecticut have shown that drug legalization does work, and it is far from scary. In fact, cannabis provides life-saving relief to those with significant pain like Kyle and to others who may have a variety of other ailments, some of which may not yet be diagnoseable .
Can someone send the memo to our politicians in Washington?
This is the opinion of Lee Howard, The Day’s business editor.
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