North Seattle medical-marijuana access point The Solution has one of the most impressive bud rooms around, once you get past their large (but quite spare—actually, underdecorated) waiting room. Mercifully, the wait was short, since there’s not much to engage your eyeballs in the waiting room, just a dozen or so chairs.
But all is forgiven upon entering the inner sanctum, where one is greeted by not one but five identically stocked medicine stations, which facilitate much quicker patient service. Not that my experience ever felt rushed at The Solution; budtender Dylan took the time to fully answer all my questions and to show me every strain I requested without a hint of impatience.
If you have one of the newfangled vape pens that are all the rage lately—and if you haven’t tried one in a while, the technology has improved by leaps and bounds—The Solution has a good selection of $40 cartridges prefilled with a half-gram of cannabis oil. This oil runs from 37.5 percent to 40 percent THC, and is quite effective, either with the Tristik vape pen I already had or with the portable O-Pens available for $20 apiece at The Solution; if you buy two cartridges, they’ll throw in an O-Pen free.
But as convenient, discreet, and effortless as the vape pens are, my first love will always be organic cannabis flowers themselves, so after selecting a cartridge of the hybrid strain White Widow (which Dylan obligingly let me screw onto my vape pen to ensure its compatibility), I was on to perusing the 17 strains of buds. Making the selection process easier and more fun was the across-the-board $10-a-gram pricing structure (or you can get 12.5 grams of any strain for $99, which is just $7.92 a gram).
Eyeballing the sativa end of the bar first, I was struck by the beauty of the Sour Diesel flowers, and decided those would be my “working meds” for the next few days. Sour Diesel, while zapping nausea and helping transcend pain, also can result in a burst of creative energy that is just the thing for morning and midday medication. Its fuelish aroma may be an acquired taste, but devotees of the Sour D will settle for nothing else.
Fully intending to select an indica or hybrid strain next, I was waylaid by the crystalline comeliness of another sativa strain, Sugar Plum. With a knowing twinkle in his eye, Dylan opened the bud jar; the sweet, tantalizing aroma of ripe fruit terpenes mingling with the heady zing of fine cannabis sealed that deal in a hurry, with visions of Sugar Plum dancing in my head.
I wasn’t disappointed upon toke-testing Sugar Plum back at home. This is one of those delicious strains that tastes even yummier than it smells—better yet, the taste lasts almost all the way through a joint. The heady effects come on with a warm glow of positivity, potentiated by the fruity terpenes and bringing almost instant relief.
tokesignals@seattleweekly.com
Steve Elliott edits Toke Signals, tokesignals.com, an irreverent, independent blog of cannabis news, views, and information.
THE SOLUTION 14343 15th Ave. N.E., 364-1226, thesolutionmmj@gmail.com. 8 a.m.–9 p.m. Mon.–Sat., 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Sun.
