Stacy Zeal, CEO of maryzeal.com and Host of the High on Self-Care Podcast

 Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:00):

This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:07):

Welcome to How To Do the Pot, a podcast de-mystifying cannabis for women. I’m Ellen Scanlon. On these short episodes, we share women’s stories about the first time they bought legal weed. I hope they bring a little fun and a new perspective into your week.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:24):

Stacy Zeal is the CEO of MaryZeal.com, that’s M-A-R-Y-Z-E-A-L.com, and the host of the High on Self-Care Podcast, which is available wherever you listen.

Stacy Zeal (00:38):

The first time I bought legal weight, I was in Las Vegas where I was living at the time. I originally started smoking in Las Vegas, so fortunately for me, recreational cannabis had just gone legal probably a few months after I decided to really start to use cannabis for sleep. Being the learner that I am, I love to learn new things, I’m on the internet, just Googling everything I can about cannabis and how do I use it for sleep and all that kind of stuff, and I just saw indica, hybrid, sativa, all these different terms. I’m just like, “I don’t know what this stuff means.”

Stacy Zeal (01:13):

I go to the dispensary, and a budtender, he’s like, “Hey, how can I help you?” whatever, and I’m just like, “I have so many questions.” I’m just like, “I really, really have questions.” I was not unfamiliar with weed so I knew what weed was and didn’t have those kinds of questions, but I was really wondering how can I use this to help me with sleep. He said, “Oh yeah, we recommend indica strains for people who have sleep problems. This is typically what you use that are downers and they relax you.” I’m like, “Okay, cool. Give me an indica, a hybrid and a sativa, because I need all the things, I need to try all of them.” I was just being a little extra and I was excited, but I was also nervous and all the things.

Stacy Zeal (01:59):

I remember he just was so helpful and just saying like, “Oh yeah, this is what I recommend. I’ve tried this one, this one’s as good.” I remember when I went in, I wasn’t sure what to expect because I had never been to a dispensary before. I remember thinking maybe it will be like a smoke shop, but really, I remember going in and thinking like, “Oh my gosh, this is like an art gallery grocery store.” You can see the products, you can try the products, there’s things that you can smell and just all kinds of stuff, but it was beautiful. It was nicely laid out, it was pretty, it was clean. The budtenders were very, very knowledgeable.

Stacy Zeal (02:39):

I still remember which one I went to. I actually just went to one that was near my house, that’s just how I found it. I had been a loyal customer there for a very long time. They had a loyalty program. I remember one time they had a drive where you could bring canned goods and you could get points to get weed, and so that was awesome. We just went to the grocery store, bought a ton of cans to donate to the homeless.

Stacy Zeal (03:01):

Honestly, they’re not like smoke shops. They’re really, really nice and most of the people that work there are very, very knowledgeable. I appreciate that, because as a novice, I was going in there nervous, but they definitely left me feeling like I was confident in taking this journey. I just asked them like, “Well, what have you tried?” I tend to do that with people who I view are experts. That’s a great tip for if you have friends who already consume cannabis, if you don’t really don’t know what to get, just try something that your friend has. At least you know that your friend will tell you whether they like it or whether they don’t like it. Or lean in on the budtenders because they actually do try the products most of the time, or they come from a cannabis background themselves and they have to do so much extensive training and stuff online that I think it’s great to just lean on the experts there.

Stacy Zeal (03:49):

Then once you start to get your feet wet, then you can start to dive in. Once I tried cannabis and found out that it was helping me sleep, that’s when I was like, “Oh, I got to really, really dive into this and really figure this out because this is helping me sleep and this is amazing. What else can I use this for?”

Ellen Lee Scanlon (04:09):

Thanks for listening to this episode of How To Do the Pot. If you’d like to share your story about the first time you bought legal weed, please send a voice memo to hi@dothepot.com or DM us @dothepot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit dothepot.com. That’s also where you can sign up for How To Do the Pot’s newsletter, which comes out every other Friday. If you like How To Do the Pot, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (04:38):

Thanks to Madi Fair, our brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, And we’ll be back soon with more of How To Do the Pot.