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Around a thousand wait in line for inaugural marijuana farmers' market
About a thousand people Friday wait in line outside the new California Heritage Market, a cannabis farmers' market in Boyle Heights.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Buyers line up at one of the booths to purchase cannabis during the first-ever farmers' market for pot producers at the California Heritage Market in Boyle Heights.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Jamie Hale talks to a patient about growing cannabis during the pot farmers' market at the California Heritage Market in Boyle Heights.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Anthony Guillen, left, shows a sample of a marijuana bud to a patient at the California Heritage Market, the first-ever cannabis farmers market in Los Angeles.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Mike Slan smells a jar of medical marijuana at the California Heritage Market. He moved back to California to grow medical cannabis, he said.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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The California Heritage Market held the first-ever medical marijuana farmers market in Boyle Heights. The goal of the event was to connect producers with patients. The collective expects to host the farmers market each weekend.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Dhane Crowley purchases a pot-infused tea drink made at the California Heritage Market in Boyle Heights.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Anthony Guillen, left, and Diana Sibrian explain the differences between medical marijuana strains to a buyer at the California Heritage Market in Boyle Heights.
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Benjamin Brayfield/KPCC
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Around a thousand wait in line for inaugural marijuana farmers' market
Call it a celebration of the red, white and green. What's been billed as L.A.'s first ever farmers' market for medical marijuana opened its doors Friday in a warehouse in Boyle Heights.
By mid-afternoon, about a thousand people were standing in a line that stretched around the block. After an hour in the hot sun, John Arnt wasn’t even half way to the door.
“We’ve heard from a couple people going by it’s another hour and a half,” Arnt said.
When asked if he was willing to wait that long, Arnt laughed and said, “I’m willing to wait all day.”
Inside the warehouse in the 1500 block of Esperanza Street, about 25 vendors had set up booths, selling marijuana, but also pipes, pot brownies and even marijuana-infused sunscreen.
The market was for medical marijuana prescription holders only, and organizers verified the ID cards of visitors before issuing wristbands for entry.
Charles Gould said he had come out to buy marijuana for pain he’s had since a failed back surgery.
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“This stuff is a lot better than Oxycontin and all the Cymbalta and all the Darvocet and Vicodin the doctors try to prescribe to me all the time, which I don’t take because I do it the natural way preferably," he said.
The three-day event was organized by the West Coast Collective, an East L.A. marijuana dispensary. It promoted the market as an opportunity for consumers to buy directly from growers, meaning lower prices. That’s what attracted 20-year-old Edwin Delgado, who arrived with $2,000 in his pocket.
“Gotta take advantage," Delgado said. "I smoke a lot. I’ve been smoking since I was 11.”
Organizers haven’t yet said whether the farmer’s market will be a regular event or just a one-time thing. Judging by the turnout, several vendors said, the organizers would be crazy not to continue.
The event is scheduled to continue Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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