Today, We Celebrate 4/20 + Canada's Cannabis Revolution

If you walk into a dispensary today - you’re greeted with sleek displays, curated menus and licensed budtenders with tablets in hand. You smell fresh terpenes, hear words like 'micro-dose', 'full-spectrum' and everything feels legal.... but it wasn’t always like this.

Before I was a budtender in the regulated industry in Canada - I was just another someone who knew this plant had purpose. Making sure to consistently fight for it to be taken seriously. Working years in the underground areas of business and cannabis, consistently advocating in the face of the law and risking it all for this nation.

For some of us, 4/20 isn’t just a celebration.... It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come.

Life of a Budtender - The Early Days

I remember the early days - working in underground dispensaries, helping medical patients find relief and risking everything just to help. Gatherings at Hamilton's City Hall where police in bullet-proof vests would show up to 'protect' the people (reality check: potheads are some of the most chill people in this world! Who would've thought? lol). There wasn't lab testing or product consistency, but there has always been community and the cannabis community has an energy unmatched. A community with collective knowledge and a wide variety of ages (19+). We had people who trusted us, not because of a piece of paper on the wall - but because we listened, we cared, we did everything in our power to help each and every customer.

Being a cannabis worker in the grey area was hard... very hard. You were constantly educating yourself about cannabinoids, terpenes, strain genetics and legal boundaries - but always with the understanding that at any moment, it could be taken away from you.

You could lose your job, your reputation and your freedom. I’ve seen raids happen. I’ve helped pack up a store because of rumors or nervousness and I’ve watched some of the most passionate people I know walk away when the heat got too intense (or even worse, arrested).

Living the Shift

When legalization finally came in 2018, there was this collective sigh of relief... but also a strange kind of grief. Suddenly, everything we fought for was 'acceptable' but only if it came with a government stamp (welcome to a world where weed is taxed...). It was weird.

People like me, who had been doing this for years, were suddenly considered 'entry-level' next to people who had never rolled a joint and couldn't give accurate recommendations but had business degrees? It stung.

We had real-life experience, deep product knowledge and most importantly, customer loyalty - but it didn’t always translate in the regulated world.

I stayed because this plant saved lives, including mine - and I wasn’t about to let corporate cannabis take all the power out of the culture we have all built. Some of my favorite and closest people have come from the cannabis community.

Life of a Budtender - Now

Today, being a budtender isn’t just about selling weed. It’s about connection. It’s about guiding someone through anxiety, chronic pain or insomnia. It’s about helping someone’s grandma find a 1:1 tincture or introducing a first time user to low dose edibles. I get to make people feel safe trying something that once carried so much shame. I get to be a trusted voice in an industry I once had to whisper about.

Yes, it’s still hard... but to be fair it's safer. You can now call police during a robbery, when you feel unsafe or when things just go wrong. The industry is volatile and the regulations are constantly shifting. These days, budtenders are required to have a CannSell certification, which is a pretty simple process - especially if you’re genuinely passionate about the plant. People who made the groundwork are still being overlooked - but the moments when a customer says, “Thank you, you really helped me," makes it all worth the hassle.

Continued Advocacy

I speak up for legacy workers, I advocate for equity and I support craft growers/brands that care. I won't take it off my resume and in fact, I am very proud of my experience. Legalization isn’t just about access - it’s about justice, opportunity and respect for the culture we built when nobody else believed in it. There are still people who can't travel and have lost years of opportunity for something the government has now regulated - it's always important to recognize.

If you’re walking into a dispensary today and you see a budtender behind the counter, just know many of us are not just clerks. We are pioneers and survivors of a movement. Educators and passionate plant people.