Richard Lutz contemplates what’s on offer inside a US marijuana shop.

What better way in Seattle to thank a gracious host than to pick up a little gift at Uncle Ike’s?

It’s one of the city’s 30 legal pot emporia and business is buzzing in this town tucked in the north-west corner of the States.

You just trip (sorry…) up the steps of this storefront on a commercial main street, flick some photo ID proving you are over 21 and  buy what tens of thousands of customers have been waiting for…for decades. Legal weed. Over the counter. As if buying a toothbrush, a bag of apples, a box of cereal.

Seattle is in Washington, one of seven states that has fully recognised the sale of soft drugs. More states also have dope shops but you need medical approval.

So, off we go into Uncle Ike’s, one of his two city stores. A security guard with the body of a useful middleweight checks identity, notices that I far outstrip the 21 year age minimum and nods me in.

I step inside just about 6pm on a midweek evening. It’s already dark outside with that Seattle fog rolling in. Inside, it is immaculate, startlingly lit with sharp neon light. No hippy dippy head shop, this. A platoon of non-stoned chirpy sales folks await your query and your money.

There are some rules though. Federal law technically bans legal sale. But each state can bravely override national legislation. So, therefore, it is a cash only purchase (as banks won’t touch this sector yet) and you can’t take your newly acquired smokey purchase across a state line.

The choice is deliriously complex sitting there crammed on the wall shelving and  in the glass counter cabinets. I’m handed today’s menu which highlights by colour coding the following: Today’s Specials, Budtender’s Pick (I like that category) and something called CBD-rich.

Actually, this last one is indicative of the shop. Staff are enriched with lots of technical jargon to give you background info. But each of the four pages of menu also include essentials such as  prices, supplier and dippy details that can give a snobby winery a run for its money:

Let’s try Black Afghani Rose by Leafwerx: Two grams cost $24 and the THC count is 23%. The menu explains that the product is “….a rich flowered strain with an enigmatic buzz. The Afghani genetics create a stoney body high paired with the more cerebral  effects.”

Hmmmm. Let’s go upmarket. There’s a concentrate called Amnesia CBD brought to you by  Craft Elixir. It is offered up at £100 per gram.

But don’t forget Chernobyl concentrate at $38pg, or a sativa disposable cartridge for vapping at $85pg that promises “..it’s pre filled, pre charged and  discreet..”

Other weed and hash products roll off the menu and the legal suppliers have a fine old time with names: Strawberry Mango Haze, Cheshire Cat, Kosher Tangie (“…great for after work or after the gym…”) , Zombie Stomp and Alaskan Thunder Fuck.

A salesman, for some reason kitted out in full camouflage, talks me through other stuff for sale. I ask him to cut out the acronyms ( CBD, THC and other forms of alphabet soup) and he shows me the cookies, the drinks, the sprays, the vapes, the bhongs and hookahs and even cannabis oil tincture that is animal friendly (“We share your love for pets and the passion for their health…”) and supports the “advancement of cannabis  science for…” your dog or cat.

It, of course, responsibly comes with a rider: “This product can be habit forming,” it intones. “Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination and judgement.”

Which, I think, means don’t get high and use it in the shop or you’ll:

• forget where you are
• fall down the steps leaving the premises after you’ve put your coat on inside out
• Buy the whole store and take it home to your parents who are lifelong members of The Rotary Club

Actually, Uncle Ike allows no consumption on its property. And outside, as I hit the cold winter air with my gifts (a kief joint and some marijuana spray), there is no stoners’ ghetto crowding  the streets, no headbanger’s conference on the sidewalk, no long queues of wrecked patrons waiting to flick their ID. Just a huge over-lit parking lot to help the clientele load up their SUVs, pick up trucks and inevitable Toyots Prius  eco-cars.

The store is simply part of the neighbourhood shopping area, y’see, and part of a market (legal and semi legal) with a supposed $7 billion national annual turnover.

So, for those with a nervous disposition, especially after Prez Trump hunkers down in the White House, it could be  r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g just to sit back, watch the new chief roll out his platform and then take a hit from your newly purchased gram of Skunk Haze by Quincy Green- now on special offer, by the way, with its “functional and focussed CBD strain”.

Or just stick to the Alaskan Thunder Fuck for the next four years. You might need it.