‘Things are changing and things are good’: Adult-use cannabis sales start in Vermont

Bryan Menard didn’t wait for the sun to tell him when to get up Saturday. By 6:30 a.m. the Burlington resident was at the head of a line outside the Ceres Collaborative store on College Street, preparing to be the shop’s first customer on the first day of retail adult-use cannabis sales in Vermont.

“Things are changing and things are good. It’s about time,” Menard said about 15 minutes before the store let the first half-dozen patrons stroll inside — Menard included — just after 10 a.m. Saturday. “It’s nice to go to your local market and not go to a back alley.”

Vermont has a tradition of tolerance toward marijuana use, and many weed consumers already have their local dealer or grow their own pot plants, especially since the state allowed limited growing and possession of marijuana in 2018. But consumers were still ready to buy retail weed for the first time, as indicated by a line of a couple hundred people stretching from the storefront around the corner and down an alley toward The Daily Planet restaurant on Center Street.

Brandon Coburn of St. Albans stood in that line and came out of the store with a packet containing an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, “the same amount I got in trouble for when I was 18,” he said. He’s not sure if he’ll go back to a retail shop for his next purchase — the $70 price tag was about double what Coburn said he’d pay normally — but Saturday’s purchase felt like vindication for his 18-year-old self.

[Read more at Burlington Free Press]