The flower room at BASK, the Registered Marijuana Dispensary in Fairhaven, is bathed in a very bright light to keep the plants growing. The plants in the back are almost ready for harvesting. The RMD is located on Pequod Road in Fairhaven and sells buds, pre-rolled joints, and a variety of edibles, such as lozenges and cookies. Photo by Beth David.
By Beth David, Editor
It has been a long time coming, about four years since that first meeting with local officials in the summer of 2014, but the Registered Marijuana Dispensary (RMD) in Fairhaven has opened for business. Now called BASK, after a recent name change, the RMD offers a variety of products for people with a medical marijuana card to buy.
Security is tight at the combination retail shop and growing operation on Pequod Road in Fairhaven. Anyone who enters needs to show a medical marijuana card to get buzzed in. Then the card is checked to make sure it has not expired.
After signing in, patients who know what they want can simply walk back to the retail operation and browse.
Chapman “Chappy” Dickerson explains how the plants are started in this room, then moved to larger pots to grow at the BASK registered marijuana dispensary in Fairhaven on Saturday, 2/17/18. Photo by Beth David.
For those who are not sure of what they want, or how it all works, Executive Director Joanne Leppanen is on hand to talk and explain the products available.
A waiting room with lots of natural light has chairs and a table, and there are other rooms where they can meet in private.
“People associate marijuana with smoking,” said Ms. Leppanen. “But a lot of people have worked very hard not to smoke.”
She said there are lot of other options with edibles.
The most important thing is dosing, said Ms. Leppanen and Tim Keogh, spokesperson and President of the Board of Directors.
“People need a starting point,” said Ms. Leppanen.
In the retail room, approved buyers can choose from strains with names like Black Dog, Grape God, Lemon Jeffrey, and Gorilla Glue, available in a variety of products including pre-rolled cigarettes; flowers, aka buds, that they can smoke or use in their own recipes; edibles such as cookies, caramels, lozenges and energy bars; and tinctures.
Each product has a dosage level clearly marked.
Right now, the edibles are not being made on site, said Mr. Keogh, but will be soon.
The plants are started and grown on the premises. The product is harvested and dried, then prepared for sale.
Very soon, they will start extracting the oil from the plants and then cook their own edibles using that oil.
Employees who work in the growing area enter through a door that has an airlock entrance and a sticky pad to keep any impurities from getting into the rooms where the product is grown. No pesticides are used, no chemicals at all.
These plants in the flower room, grown under extremely bright lights, are just about ready to harvest, at BASK, a registered marijuana dispensary in Fairhaven, on 2/17/18. Photo by Beth David.
The 10,000-square-foot space has about 6,000 square feet for growing operations, and about 4,000 sf for the front entrance, waiting room and retail room.
Mr. Keogh said the company just broke ground on a facility in Freetown that will give them an additional 30,000 sf of growing space. The retail operations will stay in Fairhaven.
To tour the growing operations, visitors must wear a Tyvek suit and hat or hairnet.
“This is where plants start their life,” said Chapman “Chappy” Dickerson, who is in charge of the growing.
He and Mr. Keogh both worked in the medical marijuana industry in Rhode Island before striking out on their own.
“I’ve been in the garden since I was a kid,” said Mr. Dickerson.
He said the company started with a seed stock, has more than 20 “mother plants” now, and will soon be creating its own strains.
Mr. Dickerson lives in Mattapoisett and said the job in Fairhaven was coming “back home.”
“It takes me four minutes to get here,” he said.
They are cultivating 25 different strains of marijuana, under very controlled circumstances to keep track of each one. The idea is to be consistent with dosing or strength of each product and effects.
Different strains will affect different people in different ways, said Mr. Keogh.
Eventually, the company will be creating their own products from their own strains, with their own names. Those names “will be representative of the Southcoast,” said Mr. Dickerson.
“Happy Chappy Chocolate Bar” anyone?
Plants are started in a peat moss plug, then transferred to a hydroponic system, then transferred to larger pots in a professional grade growing soil .
In one room, the lights are on for 12 hours and off for 12 hours to trick the plants into producing flowers. In the other flower room, the extremely bright lights are on for 20 hours a day.
“You’re as close to the sun as you’ll ever be,” said Mr. Keogh as the pungent aroma of budding marijuana plants wafted through the air.
The next step is to flush the plants with lots of water to make sure that any metals that are naturally present in the soil do not stay in the plants.
The state is very strict, said Mr. Keogh, and tests regularly to make sure there is no trace of pesticides or metals. The state also tests for yeast and other elements.
“We scrub the water,” said Mr. Dickerson, because even treated drinking water has metals in it.
The room has a series of fans, temperature controls and a “sniffer” to check for carbon monoxide.
Chapman “Chappy” Dickerson pulls out a tray of drying buds in the drying room at the BASK registered marijuana dispensary in Fairhaven on 2/17/18. The buds that are not formed well enough to sell whole are used for pre-rolled joints, or for edibles. Photo by Beth David.
When the kitchen is up and running, the product line will expand to home-made baked goods, chocolates, and other items that will distinguish BASK from other places.
Once the oil is extracted, the possibilities for products are endless, and include patches to release the product through the skin, beverages, lotion, and liquid for vaping pens.
One of the biggest pieces of the operation, said Mr. Keogh, is getting the dosing right. It needs to be consistent. People need to know that when they buy a product it will affect them the same way each time.
“People need to know when they take a five milligram edible, how it’s going to affect them,” said Mr. Keogh.
He said people who are affected a certain way by illegal marijuana will probably have the same experience with medical marijuana. It is the same basic product. The difference is that people can try different products, made from different strains, with controlled dosing. They will be able to find a product that alleviates their pain, but also allows them to function and not be on the couch. People need to try different products to gauge their effects.
What about the munchies?
It depends on people’s individual biochemistry, said Mr. Keogh.
“Not every strain will give you the munchies,” said Mr. Keogh. “It’s terpenes.”
The list of products includes “Lemon Jeffery,” which is billed as a good daytime medicine that helps with anxiety. Others are not recommended for daytime use. Grape God is recommended for physical pain and insomnia. Some are stimulating, some are sedating.
BASK will have priority to sell recreational marijuana in Fairhaven, because of the way the law is structured. Mr. Keogh said he plans to apply for a license with the state. The same facility will sell both medical and recreational marijuana, he said, if the town’s zoning allows it.
The medical marijuana will be cheaper because it will not have the extra taxes tacked on that recreational sales will have.
The downside to getting a marijuana card, though, is expense. It costs almost $200 and has to be renewed every year.
Mr. Keogh said they have been forced to turn away quite a few people whose cards had expired.
The good thing about the medical is that there tends to be more interaction with patients, he said. And they have already spoken with a doctor.
“Everybody wants a safe product,” said Mr. Dickerson.
The product is sold by weight, edibles are sold by strength.
The mother plants are carefully pruned to be kept to a certain size, and cuttings are used to create new plants, at BASK registered marijuana dispnsary in Fairhaven. Photo by Beth David.
A pre-rolled joint is $10-$20 depending on the strain and strength; by weight the range is $15/gram up to $55/gram. A 40 mg cookie is $20; and 40 mg caramels are $25. Products can also be bought by the eighth or quarter of an ounce.
The “Energy Bar” seemed to be a bit out of place, as marijuana is not exactly known for giving people energy. But…
“When people feel better, they have more energy,” noted Ms. Leppanen.
And, what about that name change from Coastal Compassion to BASK?
It is not an acronym, said Mr. Keogh.
“It’s a nod to our plants basking in the light, and our patients, basking in the wellness,” he said.
To learn more about how you can bask in the medical marijuana wellness in Fairhaven, visit www. cometobask.com The retail operation is open Wednesday through Saturday.
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