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The morning sun barely clears the Berkeley hills east of the San Francisco Bay today, yet the Volcano vaporizers are already warm at the public cannabis lounges across the region. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot(“/43459271/nat-external/leafly.com/Mobile/Medrec”, [300, 250], “leafly-dfp-ad-widget-mobile-medium-rectangle-293999821″) .defineSizeMapping(googletag.sizeMapping() .addSize([0,0], [300,250]) .addSize([768,0], []) .build()) .addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.enableServices(); });
Over at Barbary Coast Collective on Mission St. in San Francisco, the staff sets out cleaned ashtrays and psychedelic silicone bongs that suction cup onto the table so customers can’t knock them over. The plastic still smells faintly of a rubbing alcohol wash.
When the doors open at 9 a.m. over at SPARC lounge on Mission St., lawyers and pensioners alike stand in line to show their ID, pick up a grinder, and sit down to hit Volcano bags. Some stop by before their shifts at work. Others come straight from government housing where federal laws prohibit medical cannabis use.
As the dim morning light filters in through the stained glass windows, the Volcano bags inflate with the brrrrrrrr of miniature air pumps. Bic lighters flick and touch joints. The first dabs touch down on quartz nails with a sssssssssSSSSSSSSS. Jay-Z’s ebullient “Big Pimpin” chimes in over the Barbary sound system. You hold it in. Stifle a cough. Try to exhale cooly. Then cough for real.
Aside from the music, this early it’s quiet like a church or a library. A staffer in plaid dusts the houseplants.
There are only nine places on planet Earth where you can go to a cannabis consumption lounge like you would an alcohol bar. San Francisco has seven. Oakland has one. Denver — one. That’s it. For the Earth.
And “San Francisco has the best regulations of anywhere,” said Charles Pappas, a Berkeley medical cannabis commissioner.
The famed coffee shops of Amsterdam are seedy and merely “tolerated”. The semi-private clubs of Barcelona don’t have city and state permits displayed on the wall. Sorry, trailblazers Washington and Oregon. The future is happening here — again.
This September, the San Francisco Department of Public Health will issue updated rules for its world-class lounges, which have been around since at least 2010 in a medical capacity and went recreational on January 1. Even more lounges are in the planning pipeline, Leafly has learned. State officials, as well as staff from the cities of Los Angeles and Sacramento, have been spotted at Barbary Coast this summer taking notes.
Sure, the usual happy hour of 5 p.m. weekdays tend to get crowded. Friday afternoon happy hours will draw lines out the door. But despite 2018 stories in the Associated Press and UK Guardian, most Bay Area locals have never set foot in a lounge. They don’t know how, said Robbie Rainin, retail director at SPARC.
“I have the same problem with the gym. I want to go, but I don’t know how to use the machines. And you don’t know the culture.”
“I saw a family of tourists walk by and decide to come in, but one family member stayed outside, saying ‘I’m not going in there.’ It still feels like they’re doing something wrong.”
Lounges can’t advertise like bars, operators said. And the lounges might just be playing it cool amid the Trump Era. Officials in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Nevada and beyond have all rejected cannabis bars, for fear of public health and safety, and federal reprisals, they say. They worry about drugged driving, or lounge-related crime, or overdoses or smoke exposures.
Erich Pearson, the CEO of SPARC, said they’ve had one incident in eight years. He calls those concerns “just more prohibitionist crap, essentially.”
The ranking lounge criticism involves people smoking at a lounge and driving. What is society to do? Wheels needn’t be reinvented, it would seem.
“We do have something we can adapt to use for cannabis intoxication — and that’s state alcohol regulations,” said Magnolia Wellness director Debby Goldsberry.
Pappas notes that, “If bars are safe why can’t lounges be safe? A lounge owner can say, ‘OK you’ve smoked enough, that’s it.’ Just like a bar.”
Indeed, Magnolia Wellness adapted state alcohol intoxication protocols to get its Oakland lounge permit. There are four stages of intoxication, said Goldsberry. They’ve cut off a couple people, and called a couple Ubers. “Nobody ever gets to stage four. We just don’t allow it.”
Most people take mass transit to Bay Area lounges, said Rainin. And with ride sharing apps, people have plenty of alternatives to driving.
Cannabis also carries less crash risk than alcohol (1.6 vs 17), with more tolerable effects that peak in eight minutes versus 90 minutes for alcohol.
Early data shows access to legal cannabis cuts down on reckless driving, primarily among young, male nighttime weekend drivers who would otherwise be drunk. “The first full year after coming into effect, [medical] legalization is associated with an 8–11 percent decrease in traffic fatalities,” researchers found in 2013.
His one incident at SPARC in eight years, involved a person on prescription medication. By contrast, he said, nearly all municipalities “sanction and permit alcohol establishments, and those have incidents on a nightly basis.”
“Most problems can be solved with a glass of water,” said Goldsberry. “We have an abundance of water.” Others need fresh air, too.
Since January, anyone 21 or older can enter a lounge, so budtenders more vigilantly police newbies. To reduce acute THC exposures:
“The people consuming are usually very respectful and private and keep to themselves as they consume,” said Jesse Henry, executive director at Barbary Coast.
Lounges might also appear to undercut decades of hard-fought gains to clear California workplaces of smoke. So all use have high-powered ventilation systems, and San Francisco’s health department plans more clean air rules in its release this month.
Many say workers should be exposed to zero smoke, just like tobacco. One day the federal OSHA might step in. The solution there is simple. “Just do it outside. On a patio. Then there’s zero problem,” Goldsberry said.
Unless you’re a neighbor. Magnolia is in an industrial part of town where no one cares. Future lounges will also have to master odor control to pacify garrulous neighbors.
The neighborhood around SPARC is deserted at closing time, 10 p.m. every night. Most lounges set a 9 p.m. last call for bongs and Volcano bags.
As the last regulars file out, the evening shift clicks off the vapes and e-nails, puts away the snacks and empties the ashtrays into trashcans, and the trashcans into dumpsters outside. They fill the dishwasher with vaporizer mouthpieces and parts, set the machine to “sanitize” mode at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, and flick the lights off for a bit — until the morning sun summits the Berkeley hills again.
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Can’t wait for cannabis lounges to become the new norm! People like me who don’t drink and don’t like “alcohol culture” (i.e. bars) will finally have an opportunity to go out into the world and enjoy our favorite plant.
>>>”Cannabis also carries less crash risk than alcohol (1.6 vs 17), with more tolerable effects that peak in eight minutes versus 90 minutes for alcohol.”
The numbers here are important. – This means that alcohol is TEN TIMES more risky than marijuana. A crash risk of “1” would mean it’s equal to the risk of a totally straight driver. – So, an increase in risk of .6 approaches insignificance!
The preponderance of the research shows marijuana consumption is NOT a significant cause of auto accidents. In 2015, the Drug and Alcohol Crash Risk report, produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that while drunken driving dramatically increased the risk of getting into an accident, there was no evidence that using marijuana heightened that risk.
In fact, after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, the report found that drivers who had recently consumed marijuana were no more likely to crash than drivers who were not under the influence of any alcohol or drugs.
Further, studies show medical marijuana law states had lower traffic fatality rates” compared to states that haven’t legalized.
>>>”Cannabis also carries less crash risk than alcohol (1.6 vs 17), with more tolerable effects that peak in eight minutes versus 90 minutes for alcohol.”
The numbers here are important. – This means that alcohol is TEN TIMES more risky than marijuana. A crash risk of “1” would mean it’s equal to the risk of a totally straight driver. – So, an increase in risk of .6 approaches insignificance!
The preponderance of the research shows marijuana consumption is NOT a significant cause of auto accidents. In 2015, the Drug and Alcohol Crash Risk report, produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that while drunken driving dramatically increased the risk of getting into an accident, there was no evidence that using marijuana heightened that risk.
In fact, after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, the report found that drivers who had recently consumed marijuana were no more likely to crash than drivers who were not under the influence of any alcohol or drugs.
Further, studies show medical marijuana law states had lower traffic fatality rates” compared to states that haven’t legalized.
I’m wondering about how private clubs might evolve. Thinking that by “not serving” the general public” perhaps the burden of rules and regs might be less intrusive.
Post time: Jun-25-2019