Stop Calling Them Dispensaries
In the film The Last Emperor, Reginald Johnston (played by Peter O’Toole) is hired as a tutor for the teenage emperor of China, Pu Yi. Upon meeting his tutor in the Forbidden City, Pu Yi learns Mr. Johnston is from Scotland and asks, “Where is your skirt? In your country, men wear short skirts, do they not?” Johnston replies, “Scotsmen do not wear skirts, they wear kilts…a matter of words perhaps, but words are important.”
Overwhelmingly, stores that sell marijuana are called dispensaries. This nomenclature includes shops that sell weed legally or illegally, for purported medical purposes, or just to get wrecked. Dispensary has become synonymous with “pot shop.”
The standard definition of dispensary is “a place in a hospital, shop, etc. where medicines are prepared for patients.” The use of this word for the place where people with medical certificates purchase marijuana makes sense. In that case, the pot shop was serving a quasi-medical function. It dispensed a substance under the recommendation of a medical professional, yet could not rightfully be called a pharmacy. On the other hand, extending the use of the word dispensary to every marijuana store is wrong. It only serves to reinforce the erroneous popular belief that marijuana is some sort of healthy panacea, instead of an intoxicant.
The storefront in the picture above sells weed illegally. Yet the accompanying article consistently calls it a dispensary. It should be called a drug den, a trap house, or even a head shop. It is anything but a dispensary.
Another common semantic fallacy is that physicians “prescribe” marijuana. State laws that allow marijuana sales for alleged medical benefits never use the word “prescription.” Rather, “state approved practitioners may certify patients recommending the medical use of cannabis.” A matter of words?… Perhaps. But words are important.
I spent a little time as part of my training, with a physician widely known for alternative/complimentary practice. He had a dispensary with compounding pharmacists, kept very busy. I wanted to check the place out. The front looked like any natural/alternative/complimentary pharmacy, with natural snacks, vitamins, cosmetics, supplements. Two pharmacists in the back. The doc gave me his card, scribbled on the back “He’s with me, he’s OK” something like that. Give to the pharmacists. I felt like I was walking into a speakeasy from the 1920’s.
Quite educational actually.
Looked like a duck, quacked like a duck. I made the mistake of using the word “pharmacy” out loud.
The two guys turned to stone. They started looking around. DAMMIT, WE’RE NOT A PHARMACY, WE’RE A DISPENSARY !!!
And they gave me the bum’s rush out. They were paranoid of State inspectors. They were OK if they called themselves a DISPENSARY open only to that doc’s patients. If they called themselves a PHARMACY, then the Pharmacy Board had jurisdiction and they’d be in a world of hurt.
They were paranoid of anyone using the WORD “pharmacy” in the shop, lest inspectors draw a conclusion that they were effectively holding themselves out as a pharmacy to take control.
Actually, to be honest, it wasn’t really paranoia. They had been on the receiving end of lots of grief from State and Federal authorities.
This is so funny but I had Italian relatives who made a bunch of money during prohibition so I can’t complain!! I asked my paternal grandpa when he married my grandma if they had liquor or wine during their wedding reception in 1927. He said with a smile, “Oh we had plenty.”
Folks always worked around the stupid rules.
Pot is legal in Illinois and though I don’t partake of it and there is a “dispensary” about 30 seconds drive from my house, I’m glad to say I’ve never smelled it out in public. I have to hand it to the users as they’re keeping it under cover. Kurt
Oh, wine for religious purposes was still OK during Prohibition.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1IywhHCAAATFBn?format=jpg
I’m sure all the patrons of this store were Jewish. At least honorary Jewish.
In the run-up to Prohibition, the AMA piled on to prevailing opinion, and took an official position that alcohol had no medicinal value except as a disinfectant and a solvent.
AFTER Prohibition the same gutless wonders at the AMA did an about-face. Maybe alcohol DID have medical value after all. If you went to a physician of course. And paid a fee.
The doctor would engage in the mental masturbation of whether whiskey or vodka would cure your ills. Maybe gin for that mater. Basically the doctor’s thinking would be guided by whatever the patient had asked for.
Then out came the official medicinal alcohol prescription form.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/during-prohibition-your-doctor-could-write-you-prescription-booze-180947940/