Whoopi Goldberg’s weed products are proof of the ‘branding of the bud’

[steve2470]

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/whoopi-goldbergs-weed-products-are-proof-the-branding-the-bud

Whoopi Goldberg’s personalized brand of medicinal marijuana products has been trending on social media and remained a topic du jour on talk shows since it was first announced on Wednesday. The brand’s arrival is the culmination of a movement toward changing the narrative on legal weed that has been building for years.

Alicia Darrow, the chief operating manager of the Blum medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland, California, which will be one of the first locations to sell Goldberg’s new products, is a 15-year veteran of the business. She told MSNBC she remembers the days when providing sanctioned pot was “very similar to how speakeasy was during Prohibition.”

“It was small doors in areas that were very hidden, there was no advertising, there was no signs, no Yellow Pages ads or anything like that would direct you,” she said.

Darrow was drawn into the world of medicinal marijuana first as a patient when she sought treatment in the late ’90s for endometriosis. She became hooked by the drug’s ability to heal. Now, in a post-Colorado landscape where business is booming and lots of regulations are in place, it feels like a whole new world.