- Christopher Smith, Publisher
Gifting is GO! in DC
My story today comes from WASHINGTON POST, and I am happy to say there is no trigger warning at all with this story except if you happen to allergic to sticking it to The Man.
Remember a few years ago in California when people got around the problems of selling weed without a license by selling something else and then gifting the weed. Also, apparently in New York, The Man is throwing a shit fit that people would have the nerve to do this.
But down in DC, fuck it! Gifting is a Go!
THE SCOOP
There’s a clever fellow In Washington DC named Ryan Ha. DC-native, 33 years old, whose last major gig was managing a comedy club in China. Which, if your name is Ha, seems like a dangerous thing to do.
Ha!
What?
Ha!
What?
Five bucks says that's the 1,000th time that lame joke has been told... but when he came back to DC, the laws about possession of cannabis had changed. Sales weren’t legal (still aren't, thanks Uncle Joe), it was legal to grow your own, to give away up to an ounce.
The gifting concept had worked in other places, so Ha created a gifting company called “Dreamy DC.”
As for employees, he was turned on by how Traders Joe’s greeters were so cheery. He thought of them as having the “ideal personality type”.
So now all he needed something to sell so he could gift the weed. My guess is he was broke at the time, so he tried to answer the question, “What is an intangible good that will sell?”
And you have to appreciate the logic. It’s like John Cusack in that movie “Say Anything”. The girlfriend’s father asks him “What are your plans for the future, Lloyd?”, and he says “I’ve thought about this a lot, sir. I don't hg to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed. Or process anything sold or bought.” What I really want to do is “spend time with your daughter, and kickboxing. Sport of the future.”
But for Ryan Ha the answer to his question wasn’t “kickboxing”, it was HUGS.
But “No one wants to hug their drug dealer!” Ha said.
DreamyDC launched in 2016, offering a product that is so sustainable, it generates no waste at all: MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES!
They are “sold” by Dreamy DC “speakers,” like this: Speaker Liz Sluchak riders her bike for deliveries. “On a street corner not far from Nationals Park, she finds Malcolm Bell, an account manager who has paid $60 to hear her read a Victor Hugo quote: “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” Bell contemplates them. He says the quotes “always connects him with something that I’m going through,” and feel especially good after COVID era.
Sluchak, now in her personal capacity, hands Bell the equivalent of an eighth of an ounce of marijuana. Authorities take note: The weed is not Dreamy’s product, it’s an unrelated gift.
THE LOOP BACK
In DC, you can sell T-shirts, pizza, juice, cookies, paintings by German Shepherds, or motivational quotes and then get a little cannabis gift to help you enjoy it.
And in the case of Motivational Quotes, who’s to say which is the product and which is the gift?
Image source: https://www.twoscotsabroad.com/quotes-about-sunshine