Washington Has Gone To Pot

Washington has gone to pot.

And when I say that, I'm not talking about Washington D.C., the city and the politicians, who are circling their way down the toilet to the lower reaches of purgatory.

No, I'm talking about the state of Washington, which is literally going to pot.

My Mom lives in the great Pacific Northwest, in the beautiful state of Washington. We try to visit her often, but packing up four kids for a several hundred mile road trip isn't easy, so it had been three years since we had been up to visit her.

A lot has changed in those three years.

I first noticed it as we were leaving Mom's house to go check into our motel. There, right next to the Auto Zone, I saw something that made me do a bit of a double take. I took another look, and sure enough there it was: a pot shop! (And not just any pot shop. This was a pot shop called "Pot Shop.")

No, they don't also sell pans.

Since I live in Utah, I had never seen anything like it. As I continued to drive down the road, I saw more pot shops.

The Legal SuperStore! (Hmm...do you really want to get legal advice from someone in a marijuana superstore?)

Sometimes, there were even two pot shops in the same classy little strip mall.

The one pot shop, "Canna Zone," tried to be clever with their name. The other, nope. They're just "Pot."

And yes, there really are two different stores in one strip mall. "Canna Zone" has the big spot on one end of the strip mall.

Plenty of parking at the Canna Zone!

While "Pot Zone" is tucked in the corner next to The Ministry of Ink.

Nothing says "classy" like boarded up windows outlined with St. Patrick's Day lights!

After looking for a bit, I found seven pot stores within two miles of my Mom's house! Meanwhile, here in Utah, if I want to get some pot, I have to.....umm, I have no idea what I would need to do to get pot in Utah. I've never actually tried. (To be honest, I've only been offered marijuana once, and I wasn't in Utah at the time.)

So, I made it past all of the pot shops to our motel. But, there was still some pot waiting for me. No, Cheech and Chong weren't sitting by the pool. However, in the big display case full of travel brochures that is in the lobby of every motel, I found this pamphlet:

Do I really need a map, or can I just use Siri?

I'm a map guy, so I was interested what a cannabis map of Washington would look like. I wasn't completely surprised to find that the map wasn't even close to being at regular scale. It's like someone who had been visiting the pot shops decided to draw a map to the pot shops.

I did learn a few things from the handy "dos and dont's" section of the brochure. Such as:
Do: Purchase Cannabis in a legal pot shop.
Don't: Consume Cannabis and drive.
Don't: Light up right in front of a police officer.

Did you know they are considering changing the name of the Space Needle to  the "Spaced Needle?"
(I'm sorry. That's a really bad joke. Please accept my apologies.)

While we were in Washington, I didn't partake of the pot. I didn't shop at any of the pot shops. (I had four kids with me. Are kids allowed in the pot shops? That's something they didn't mention in the pamphlet.)

I'm curious to see what Washington will look like the next time we visit. My guess is that at least half of these pot shops will be out of business. It's new and exciting, so everyone is opening shops, but as things settle down, only the people who really know how to run a business will stay in business.

But, I could be wrong. There might be even more pot shops the next time I visit. After all, they do call Washington the "Evergreen State."