Highs and lows of Lowell Cafe, America’s first cannabis cafe, where weed is king and everyone is smiling – despite the food and lack of booze
- Lowell Cafe in Los Angeles is the first full-service cannabis cafe in America where you can smoke to your heart’s content with other like-minded stoners
- SCMP reporter Charley Lanyon went to sample the extensive cannabis menu and found that it’s not all giggles living the high life – at least at his age
You smell the cafe blocks before you reach it. While the scent of marijuana smoke is ubiquitous in Los Angeles, walking up to Lowell Cafe – “America’s Original Cannabis Cafe” – feels like approaching an especially pungent forest fire.
On the street outside you first encounter a doorman who checks your name against a list, a bouncer who asks for your ID, then you walk through a gravel car park full of Teslas.
Finally, the host ushers you inside and welcomes you to the United States’ first cannabis cafe. Everyone turns and smiles as you walk in, then they turn back but keep smiling. They are always smiling. They even smile as they chew.
In the United States, marijuana is here to stay. On both sides of the aisle, in blue states and red, Americans love their weed. If they don’t get high themselves, they love the tax revenue pot sales generate.
Today, the country is a patchwork of often conflicting national and state laws. The District of Columbia and 11 states have legalised pot outright, while others have decriminalised it. Some have legalised it for medical consumption and most agree it is just a matter of time before the rest follow.
Even in states where it is legal, laws are confusing. In California, where weed was legalised for recreational use in 2016, pot stores are everywhere but some can only sell to “patients” with a special medical card, while others serve anybody over 21 years of age. It is illegal to consume the product on the premises, except in lounges where you can smoke, and the sale of food and beverages is strictly prohibited.