This past December, Massachusetts saw the end of another kind of prohibition, as the state opened up marijuana for recreational use. While we're still waiting until 2018 for retail locations to set up shop, we Mass. residents do have the green light to grow our own cannabis. And Cannabis Connoisseur Club of MA, a company based in Plymouth, is here to help us do just that.
“The general idea of the business is to provide assistance to people who want to grow marijuana," David Barlow, founder of Cannabis Connoisseur Club of MA, told us. "It’s comparable to the ‘Geek Squad for weed.’”
The company offers consultative services to weed-growing novices, or people struggling to get the quality of cannabis they’re looking for. “If you want to grow, but don’t know how to start, reach out," Barlow said. "For people who haven’t grown pot ever, it’s an overwhelming thing to do. We offer grow lessons, and in-person and web consultations… If you have problem with an existing grow, we’ll monitor and troubleshoot it for you.”
Barlow established the business in January. But he’s been growing pot since it’s been medically legal in Mass. “I started doing that because I broke my back," he said. "I fractured it in three places snowboarding. I was in so much pain but didn’t like how the prescription drugs they were giving me affected me. I tried medical marijuana and found it to be more helpful. It didn’t put me in a Jello state of mind where I couldn’t focus or do anything, like the prescription meds did.”
A lot of people go about it all wrong.
From there, Barlow began to grow medical marijuana, as well. That’s when he realized that all sorts of things can go awry when you’re trying to grow it. So he started a company to help people avoid making the same mistakes he did.
“A lot of people go about it all wrong," Barlow told me. "They think they just need to buy some Miracle Grow, throw a seed in there and hope that it goes well. That’s a no-no.”
Cannabis Connoisseur provides an assortment of consultative services, depending on the exact needs of specific clients. The pricing is as follows:
- An in-person grow consultation, including an hour-long meeting, is $80
- A web-based consultation, which is the same thing as in-person services but it’s over Skype, is $60
- A grow design consultation, where Barlow draws up a personalized layout for your grow tent or grow room and includes a list of all the supplies you will need to care for your crops, is $100
- In-person setup of all of your grow equipment (think lights, fans, plants) for you is $200 for three hours of services
So far, Barlow has been pleasantly surprised he hasn’t encountered any legal hurdles. He attributes much of that to the fact that he’s not growing and selling his own marijuana inventory. Instead, he’s strictly providing services to assist people.
His clients aren’t who you’d stereotypically associate with smoking weed. (You know, a bunch of dirty hippy kids who talk slowly and play hacky sack, as seen in every 90s movie about high school). Barlow said, “It’s a very big variety of people - people in their late 40s and 50s, to younger people like myself… It’s not what you would imagine. The majority are older people who don’t know how to Google what they need to know to grow.”
