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Baltimore Co. Dispensary Teaching Customers How To Make Marijuana Products

COCKEYSVILLE, Md. (WJZ) -- In the past nine months, medical marijuana has been legal to buy in Maryland. Many dispensaries have sprouted up, but one in Cockeysville is offering a unique service.

"This is our demonstration area inside Chesacanna to teach our patients how to live a healthier, fitter lifestyle," said Chesacanna co-owner Marc Spataro.

It's also a kitchen where their customers are taught how to turn cannabis flower into food.

While most patients just smoke marijuana, others don't.

"It's usually a customer who prefers using something oral, rather than smoking or vaping. Someone who's not comfortable smoking or vaping," Spataro said.

The active ingredients in marijuana flowers are being put into products like a cream or rub to apply to your skin or liquid drops called tinctures.

"Well this is a tincture, you apply drops under your tongue. It's sublingual," Spataro said.

The products have a very specific formula, but for some people, the mixtures of different kinds of cannabis -- as good as they may be -- don't work as well for them.

The owners of Chesacanna know of a specific strain that does the trick and built a kitchen in their new dispensary to teach people how to make their own foods and oils infused with cannabis.

"We would perform this in our classes to show people how easy it is -- proper temperatures, how long to cook it," Spataro said."There are patients that find there are specific strains of cannabis that work specifically for their condition."

At the same time, the couple said they are also teaching overall health, wellness and nutrition.

All of this is a far cry from when marijuana was an underground, illegal drug.

No one is allowed into the dispensary area or kitchen unless they have their Maryland state cannabis card.

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