What is a dispensary in Vancouver?

A dispensary sells cannabis and cannabis products over the counter. In BC it needs a licence from the provincial Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch and approval from the city it trades in. It buys all its stock through the province's wholesaler, so every product on the shelf comes from a producer Health Canada has licensed.

Two kinds operate in Vancouver: BC Cannabis Stores, which the province runs, and private stores such as Coastal Green. Both follow the same rules on age, ID, labelling and purchase limits.

The word comes from medicine. A dispensary was a place that prepared and handed out, or dispensed, medicine to patients. Vancouver's first cannabis shops borrowed the name in the late 1990s, when compassion clubs supplied cannabis to patients with a doctor's note.

By 2015 Vancouver had well over a hundred medical dispensaries, and the city became the first in Canada to license them. When recreational sales became legal in October 2018, the law renamed them cannabis retail stores. The old word stayed in everyday speech.

Today's stores sell to any adult. Medical patients with a prescription order from a licensed producer by mail, not from a dispensary counter.

You'll find cannabis in every legal form, sealed in labelled packages that list THC and CBD content:

• dried flower, sorted into indica, sativa and hybrid strains
• pre-rolled joints
• vape cartridges and disposable vapes
• edibles such as gummies and chocolates
• cannabis drinks
• concentrates such as hash, shatter, rosin and live resin
• CBD oils, capsules and topicals

Most stores also sell papers, grinders and other accessories. Staff called budtenders stand behind the counter and explain strains, potency and dosing. You can't smoke or sample anything inside: BC law keeps dispensaries strictly retail.

You'll hear a dispensary called a cannabis store, a weed store, a pot shop or a cannabis retailer. The province's licence calls it a non-medical cannabis retail store. All of these mean the same kind of licensed shop.

No. A dispensary sells cannabis. A smoke shop sells pipes, bongs, papers, grinders, vaporisers and tobacco, but it can't sell cannabis without a cannabis retail licence. That includes CBD oil, which Canadian law treats as cannabis. If a smoke shop offers you THC or CBD products and shows no provincial licence, it's selling them illegally.

The opposite of a licensed dispensary is an unlicensed seller: a street dealer, an unlicensed storefront or a mail-order website without a BC licence. Their products skip the lab testing Health Canada requires for potency, pesticides and mould, and their labels can claim anything. Every licensed store in BC displays its licence, so check for it before you buy. Coastal Green's licence numbers appear on our Vancouver dispensary page.

Bring government-issued photo ID showing you're 19 or older, such as a driver's licence or passport. Staff check it on every visit, and a photo of your ID on your phone won't work. You can buy up to 30 grams of dried cannabis, or the equivalent in other forms, in one purchase. Our guide to where to buy weed in Vancouver covers store hours and payment.