It’s hard out there for a budtender. They’re expected to know dizzying amounts about all the products their dispensary carries—the lineage of dozens of different strains, the terpene levels and effects, the best options for individual conditions, and more. And that’s before delving into edibles.
There’s some real science to all of this, and for myriad reasons, many dispensaries do not offer their budtenders the degree of training they need and desire. Which is why you may have had the experience of asking about a strain that’s good for sleep issues, only to have the budtender reply, “Well, I dunno, but this Blue Dream is fire, brah. Fire.” (So take two grams of said “fire” and call you in the morning, then.)
But that’s usually not the fault of the budtenders, who only receive a certain amount of training from their places of employment. Sure, sommeliers for fancy restaurants get to go to France to try all the different wines, talk with growers, and learn about the terroir. Budtenders? They get some of the duff that gathers around the joint rolling trays and, if they’re lucky, can maybe pop a sample edible on their day off. Be still, my heart.
All eyes are on Oregon’s cannabis industry at the moment, from our groundbreaking pesticide-testing standards to our craft cannabis cultivators and our baffling social consumption laws. But it’s still the people who make Oregon’s cannabis community a world-class leader in all manners of the plant—and that includes the Portland powerhouse of cannabis knowledge and vision that is Emma Chasen. Emma is not here to fuck around, y’all. She’s on a bona fide raise-the-roof mission, and begins her budtender training programs later this month.