Back in 2017, I found out that one of my buddies was making a living as a private pot dealer. At the time, cannabis had just been legalized and dispensaries were everywhere. Regardless, Pat provided a service, thus, was successful selling pot. Curious how he was making out, I checked in with him a couple of years later; Pat, resilient as ever, had managed to stay in business. With the end of the pandemic in sight, I couldn’t help but wonder how Pat was doing. Was he still selling weed and what did that look like in a pandemic? With so many businesses having to close, I couldn’t imagine how Pat had been affected. So, I rolled a joint, gave him a call, and got one heck of a big surprise. After more than two decades of being in the weed business, Pat is looking at retirement.
JV: How’s business? Have you still been slanging weed during the pandemic?
Yeah but not as much as before.
JV: Has the pandemic affected your business?
Uh, not really. I kinda just, I don’t know. I kinda like, grew out of it in a way. I slowed down. I still obviously get weed for myself and just for a couple of other people now. When the coronavirus happened, the whole thing I had going at my office obviously stopped because we all started working from home. It would be too annoying having all the people coming by so frequently.
JV: Was it the risk? You know, sanitation measures and what not?
To be honest, it wasn’t because of that. I just started working from home instead of the office so I really just slowed down, then the summer happened. I mean, I’m stuck in this condo for eight hours a day and when I’m off, I want to get the fuck outside. It drives me nuts being stuck inside all day so I would be working or out all the time. I kept having to rush back home to meet people. Sometimes, I would get back from the boat or a hike in the woods and have four people trying to come to meet me while I’m cooking dinner. It just got to be really inconvenient.
JV: So you are fully retired and stopped selling weed?
… No. I just have a couple of older people that still come to me for weed. Other people, I told them to just go buy off one of those websites. I think it would be sweet to start one of those but I don’t know, it’s kind of risky.
JV: So you just told a couple of people that you weren’t selling weed anymore, how did that go over?
It was fine. I didn’t ever really consider it ‘selling weed’ because usually, I sold weed to people that I knew really well. It was more middle manning. I would just go buy a bigger amount so that a whole bunch of other people could afford at least a zip. Once I started working from home, I stopped really supplying anyone who wasn’t in my core group. Anyone I didn’t know really well, I told them to just go to a website.
JV: Fair enough.
The only exception is a few older people. They all live close to me and basically won’t even order something off of amazon. Whenever they are a bit low, they send me a text and I just grab something for them.
JV: That’s nice of you.
Not really. They’re old. They don’t even go into stores or have a lot of money. There’s no way those old people can supply their ounce a week habit of government weed. Besides, the pounds have been so cheap, like decent ones for way cheaper than what they were before the pandemic. I really wouldn’t consider it selling weed.
JV: So it sounds like you’re officially retiring?
Yep. I guess so.
JV: What does the future hold for Pat the Pot Dealer?
Uh, I don’t know. We will see.
