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The Sweet Life: A Day In The Life Of A Professional Cannabis Baker
Cereal edibles (Photo by eggrole via the Creative Commons on Flickr)
Medical marijuana dispensaries offer its collective members more than just green, sticky bud to fill their prescriptions. Baked goods are also a staple of local collectives.
An anonymous, middle-aged baker tells BuzzFeed the story about how she got into the business of baking the goods in dispensaries that help patients get baked. She used to have a straight-laced career in the nonprofit world before she became a full-time baker:
I was pregnant when I left my last office job. I was chief of staff at a nonprofit tech organization, but I became disillusioned with that path, and after my daughter was born, I decided I would never to go back to a corporate environment. A friend of mine was baking edibles — that is, foods infused with marijuana — and had approached me a few times about getting involved. I was reluctant because I knew that if I was going to do it, I had to go all out. I couldn't hide it from my family, and I didn't want to hide it from my family. I've been around marijuana and smoking for years, but I kept it private. I was going to step out of a closet in a way, and that was something I struggled with for a while. It took a little bit of courage. But my family was very supportive.
She works about 20 to 30 hours a week now. She donates 3 packs of cookies for $5 or $6, and patients donate about double that for these packs. She's a mother of two, and she has made a living from her baking business over the last three years.It sounds as though she is pretty passionate about her work, although she says working in a quasi-legal business has some pretty big downsides. She says people in the medical marijuana industry are "very protective and isolated." Dispensaries are routinely shuttered, so it's hard to plan ahead. Banks don't want to do business with people in the industry since marijuana is still illegal under federal law (for more on this issue, listen to this Planet Money episode). She can't even create a website to help market her products (which is why we're a little surprised that the name of her company Ruby Doobies wasn't blurred out like her face).
Her story is told in first person and she explains the whole process of making edibles alongside some Pinterest-ready photos of the trim, her crock pot for making the THC-laced butter and, of course, the final product: ginger "kush-kies," carrot cakes with cream cheese glaze, lemon cakes and triple chocolate cakes.
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