From the outside, there’s nothing impressive about the In Good Health medical-marijuana dispensary—which sits in an unremarkable industrial building in Brockton. Step inside, though, and your impression changes. Fast.
David Noble, In Good Health’s president and CEO, says that when the dispensary opens later this summer, security will be intense.
Before you even got into the door, you’d have to present your Massachusetts Medical Marijuana card to the video screen so that we know you have proper identification to come into the building. After that, patients will check their belongings in a locker; walk through metal detector; and show their medical marijuana card again—along with a state-issued ID. According to Noble, "The whole philosophy here was, there can’t be enough security. Many people think it’s a little overkill." But he says that when dealing with patients and safety, that’s their top priority.
Eventually, they’ll reach the display area. Right now, it looks a bit like an empty jewelry store—with bright yellow walls, sleek wood cabinets, and clear plastic cases waiting to be filled with an array of marijuana-related merchandise. Noble says "We’ll have 32 different strains. We’ll have approximately six medical infused products to start with, cookies, brownies, cakes, molded chocolate, gummy chews and lozenges."
All the materials grow on site. Every plant raised here starts life in a “seed room,” where it gets a unique number and receives care that’s borderline obsessive. The plants then move to a “vegetation room”—where that TLC continues. During our visit, two staffers dressed in medical scrubs carefully tended a room packed with young plants as fans buzzed in the background.
That air flow serves an important purpose, Noble says. The reasons for the fans is air movement, but he also points out that the plants are moving. The movement strengthens the leafs and the stems he says, adding "As they grow they get bigger; they can support themselves. You can look all over the place—they’re all moving."
Around here, the plants are referred to as “the girls.” Noble says they refer to the plants this way because they’re all females— All the males have to be destroyed. Noble says each day the staff comes in, thankful for their “girls” that are here and say hello to them.
Then, finally, the… “girls” graduate to what’s called a “flower room”-- a vast space where they’ll spend up to two months soaking in rays dispensed by high-tech LED lights. Each plant variety has its own special set of properties—and its own…evocative name.
Noble says that some of the names-- like one strain called "The Funk" correlate with properties of that particular plant-- but not all of them.
But if names like that feed old stereotypes of pot smokers, the overall atmosphere here is one of carefully cultivated respectability. That’s helped In Good Health become one of just four dispensaries currently licensed to grow in Massachusetts. And while the rollout of medical marijuana has been slow—Noble has no complaints and says anybody who thought this wasn’t going to be a long and challenging opportunity—they probably didn’t have the right expectations.
And for Noble and his colleagues, the wait is about to pay off. The 32 varieties of marijuana here will range in price from $13 to $18 per gram—or up to $510 dollars for one ounce.
