There’s a special place in my heart for hard candies. I’m not from the 1850s or any person’s great-aunt, but I sure do love me a good hard candy. It started when I was a child—like most things do—my best friend’s grandma would give us Werther’s Originals randomly (in retrospect, it was probably meant to shut us up “for one G.D. second”), and then I always grabbed suckers, Jolly Ranchers and throat lozenges when I could manage to. I’ve even made a point to carry around hard candies as an adult to make friends (Werther’s Originals and Life Savers—it worked!).I’ve tried the cannabis hard candies from a few dispensaries like Minerva, PūrLife, CG Corrigan, and I really, really don’t like them. If—rather, when—cannabis becomes legal in New Mexico, I would never recommend this candy even to my worst nemeses. After I forced the sad memory of my distain of this particular type of canna-candy from my brain, I tried Sweet Leaf Indica Mango Drops 50/50 Thc/Cbd (THC: 50 mg, CBD: 50 mg, $13) from CG Corrigan and hoped for the best. The immediate flavor was a sweet mango confection, but the following predominant flavor was a combination of cannabis being ground into dirt and mixed in with glucose, syrup and food dye. I suppose since it is medicine, it should taste like it, right? Then the buried memory of my experiences with cannabis hard candy hit me: all terrible. Reader, you should know (as my biggest fan), I’ve tried drinks, chocolate truffles and tinctures, but I’ve also had plain ole’ chocolate bars, brownies, infused coconut oil, energy bars and even a CBD gummy when I was in Colorado (which is my favorite edible to date), so I’ve had a variety of edibles—and sure, some were bad—but if someone knows what they’re doing (e.g. Not a noob trying to make canna-butter for the first time), they can definitely be good. Since I’ve tried several cannabis suckers from around town and was never satisfied with them, it could be just an impossible task, but I remain true to my chaotic good self and stay hopeful regarding the future of cannabis hard candies. Regarding the effects of the candy, each sweet is 10 mg—and with half of it being CBD—I didn’t feel anything heady, but my body did relax which helped my muscle recovery, which you can read more about in the feature section of this issue.Speaking of recovery—on my way to the gym recently, I decided to stop by Sacred Garden at Green Jeans and see what they’re about. They caught my attention when they first opened and more recently when they hosted a Senior Education Fair. The dispensary is on the top level, tucked away in the northeast corner of the complex and split into two rooms across from each other. The super friendly staff had me fill out the necessary paperwork in the waiting room and then took me over to their dispensary to browse their goods. I was a bit surprised by the small variety of products, but for the space it makes sense (it’s small in there)—I ended up choosing the legendary sativa strain Girl Scout Cookies (THC: 23.9%, $11) which I’ve managed to evade until now. I’ve recently been dealing with anger triggered by PTSD, and the morning following my purchase was unfortunately a difficult time. I loaded up my handy-dandy portable pipe (purchased from R. Greenleaf for only $10) and took a hit before going into work. The smell was earthy, but the smoke had more sweetness than I expected. I waited a minute, gathered my things and by the time I was sitting at my desk I was feeling just peachy. The only thing that I didn’t like about it was it was very heady. It’s stronger than what I usually take but, like I said, it was very effective—I dare say it calmed me down more than Blue Dream. Leafly.com notes that “Girl Scout Cookies launches you to euphoria’s top floor where full-body relaxation meets a time-bending cerebral space,” which comforts me when thinking about how I could hardly look anyone in the eye and bumbled through a coffee order—an effect that I usually only deal with when consuming indica strains—so much so that I think I’ll consume this strain at home, but it is nice to know that I can rely on this in emergencies.
CG Corrigan6614 Gulton NE(505) 933-5599Hours: Mon-Fri noon-7pmSat and Sun 10am-7pmFirst-time Freebies: YesSacred Garden3600 Cutler NE, Ste 12(505) 348-5599Hours: Sun noon-8pmMon-Thu noon-9pmFri-Sat noon-10pm First-time Freebies: Yes