An Easy Bake Guide to Realizing the Potential of the Dispensary

Abstract

Two decades ago, legal adult-use cannabis dispensaries did not exist in the United States. Today, data from the Pew Research Center estimates that 15,000 dispensaries are in operation, and the cannabis industry is expected to reach approximately $40 billion in value in 2024. While scholarship has scrutinized the history, health effects, and commercial strategies related to cannabis, there is a lack of research investigating the architecture and physical space of the emergent cannabis industry. It is this gap that this work begins to fill. This thesis is first an investigation into the status quo, second an exploration into the untapped potential of the dispensary, third a reflection on how designers in the past have addressed similar issues, and finally a proposition for a design intervention that might realize some of the potential of what a dispensary can be. The modern dispensary is the product of the legal and cultural forces that birthed it. To understand this space, we must disentangle the current spatial and informational systems of dispensaries from the centuries long confusion over decoding and making meaning of the cannabis plant and its divergent uses. By engaging with these contradictions and the vestigial tendrils of history baked in the current cannabis industry, we get closer to realizing the potential of what the dispensary can be – a place of transparency, healing, and equity.