Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Part Four

These past two days have been the most revealing yet. I’ve left the relative glamour of coffeeshop life behind and descended into the shady underbelly of the business—the secret life of the runner.

Runners are like delivery services for coffeeshops. They are responsible for supplying the shops with all of the weed they sell and must be on call at all times during shop hours to replenish whatever stock is running low. They operate out of hidden little rooms called “runhouses” or “drophouses” where they store, sort, weigh, bag, seal, label and deliver all of the shop’s inventory of strains. To experience what their job is like, I rented a bike and followed one of these runners on his rounds, helping him package and deliver a few runs. Then today, I met with the head runner, who brought me to the main inventory storehouse. I gotta tell ya, working at HIGH TIMES I’ve seen some pretty big piles of weed before, but this place was the motherload. Kilos and kilos of weed and hash from all over the world, all packed and stacked and oh so stinky and yummy. I'm starting to see the allure of this job.

Well, I’ve only got a couple more days here. So far, the experience has been pretty amazing, and I think I’ve acquired enough information and material to put together a pretty killer feature—maybe two. All that’s left for me to do are a few more interviews, and to put together a killer photo shoot. Then, it's back to NYC and the daily grind. I’ll try to get one more blog posted before I leave…if not, see ya on the flipside stonahs. And be sure to look for my coffeeshop feature in our October Cannabis Cup Preview issue!

Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Introduction

Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Part One

Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Part Two

Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Part Three

Inside an Amsterdam Coffeeshop - Gallery