Senior Support Services Holiday Party
On Saturday, December 16th, at Senior Support Services’ annual holiday party, volunteers from Lightshade served food to senior citizens in need. We will also be providing 250 sets of hand and foot warmers, as well as under-garments, to each of their clients. Our goal was to help keep Denver’s less fortunate seniors warm and fed throughout this holiday season.
Lightshade Volunteers at The Gathering Place
Continuing our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, Lightshade recently volunteered for the meal sponsorship program at The Gathering Place in Denver. The Gathering Place offers support to women, their children and transgender individuals who are experiencing poverty or homelessness.
Lightshade staff members, including the owners, prepped and served lunch to The Gathering Place members on Monday, November 6. It was a great experience to help such an inspiring organization. A big thank you to The Gathering Place for having us!
Learn more about Lightshade’s ongoing CSR initiative.
Denver's 2017 Health & Fitness Expo
Each year, Denver hosts the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. This event features a two-day Health & Fitness Expo prior to the race. The event is free and open to the public, “this expo features the latest in running technologies, fitness apparel, health & nutrition information and interactive displays.” Lightshade was proud to be an exhibitor with Mary’s Medicinals at this year’s expo.
At the event, we spoke to athletes about the benefits of CBD and how products like Mary’s Medicinals Muscle Freeze combines CBD and natural plant extracts for a soothing, cooling effect on sore muscles. We want to educate athletes about the benefits of cannabis and how it can fit into their active lifestyles.
Cannabis topicals include oils, lotions, balms, and salves infused with active cannabinoids. They are applied directly to your skin and, although some topicals may contain THC, the effects are typically non-psychoactive as the dermal skin layer absorbs most, if not all the compounds before any reach the bloodstream. If a topical is applied liberally to a venous region, such as the wrist, an overall relaxation effect may be experienced. The limited absorption and regionalized effects make topical products a terrific way enjoy the anti-inflammation and pain relieving aspects of cannabis, particularly in targeting specific regions of the body like sore joints or aching muscles, making them great products for athletes.
The most effective way to apply topicals would be to massage the product well into the affected area. If the patient is seeking relief from muscle spasms, combining the topical with heat would be most effective. Topicals can be used on joints, rashes and normally is combined with other ingredients to reduce pain and inflammation of affected areas. Topicals have become an increasingly popular method of consumption method in part due to their benign nature. At Lightshade we carry a broad selection from offering different mixtures of cannabinoids and herbs for general relief, performance sports and more.
Teaming up with Project Worthmore and Denver Urban Gardens
Here at Lightshade, we are extremely passionate about our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. We aim to remain active in the Denver community through volunteering and working with various organizations like The Gathering Place and most recently, Project Worthmore and Denver Urban Gardens. Last week, members of Lightshade and kindColorado volunteered at Delany Community Farm.
Delaney Community Farm is a partnership between Denver Urban Gardens and Project Worthmore. It is a 5-acre farm that provides refugees access to farming, healthy food and a community here in Denver. Their mission is to “support refugees from the local community through community-based food security programs.”
We pulled weeds, harvested vegetables, prepared the farm for winter, as well as sorted and packaged harvested vegetables and herbs. This is our second time volunteering with Delany Community Farm and we couldn’t have been more thrilled to be back. Thank you to Denver Urban Gardens and Project Worthmore for having us!
You can read more about our CSR initiative here and more of our work with Delaney Community Farm.
https://vimeo.com/236140382
Lightshade Hosts Quarterly Vendor Night
At Lightshade, we believe in investing in the education of our employees. Through our quarterly vendor nights, we provide our staff with information and product knowledge on the inventory we sell.
We want to be certain our employees are well-educated so we are able to provide customers with the best possible service and help them make better choices when shopping with us. We are currently the only dispensary in Colorado that sponsors company events like this one every quarter.
At our most recent vendor night, we had 150 people in attendance and 18 vendors including Kaviar, Wana Brands, Mary’s Medicinals and many more.
This is an incredible opportunity for vendors and budtenders to connect and engage with one another. It is also a time that budtenders are able to ask vendors questions they often receive from customers. In addition to our vendor nights, we have a training and development portal where vendors can upload training materials for budtenders to confirm they are always knowledgeable about the products we sell.
Check out our vendor night video to learn more.
https://vimeo.com/233689577
How High is Too High to Drive?
Lightshade is proud to be part of Cannabis Clinicians of Colorado (CCC) to spread awareness about knowing how high is too high to drive.
Cannabis Clinicians of Colorado is a non-profit that is dedicated to support the individuals working with Colorado cannabis patients. This group provides resources for physicians, caregivers and dispensaries across the state.
Last week, this marijuana advocacy group came together to learn more about how much marijuana someone can consume before it becomes unsafe to drive. The law currently prohibits driving if you have at least five nanograms of THC in your system. The study Cannabis Clinicians of Colorado conducted was to determine if that number accurately represents someone who is too impaired to drive.
Lightshade is passionate about increasing awareness regarding the danger and consequences of driving high. Safety is a big part of our commitment to our community and our industry, which is why we partnered with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to help educate and protect our consumers when it comes to driving high. You can read more about our work with CDOT on this issue here.
Science confirms that consuming cannabis affects your reaction time, peripheral vision, and perception of time, distance and speed – some of the more critical skills needed to drive safely.
Lightshade was a sponsor at last week’s event to support the CCC as they further research how much cannabis is too much to drive. Members of the CCC believe that the number of five nanograms of THC was set as the legal limit to drive without enough research.
As organizations like the CCC invest more in cannabis research we hope to learn more about the correlation between cannabis compound levels in blood and saliva and a reduction in a person’s cognitive functions.
Outside the Stereotype
Today’s cannabis user is not always what you’d expect. Lightshade has always valued the importance of education surrounding cannabis and the incredible products available for every type of consumer. We’re continuing to see an increased variety of consumers accepting and partaking in cannabis use, especially with the array of products available like flower, topicals, tinctures, edibles, concentrates and more.
Women and parents are becoming more familiar with these products, allowing them to have safe and subtle consumption for relief of anxiety, pain and other ailments without taking away their ability to parent and interact with their children. This recent article from Refinery29.com brings up some great examples and talks to two women about their experiences with cannabis.
Lightshade carries some amazing products that allow for these medical benefits without the high, replacing some consumers’ past use of alcohol or opiates. Our partners at Monte Content have testimonials from several success story patients like Bridgett, who can finally lead a comfortable lifestyle and play with her grandkids. Below are a few specific products we recommend trying, plus check out our up-to-date menus per location or try online pre-ordering!
Whitewater Teas
Coda Signature Truffles
Stillwater Ripple Dissolvable THC
Julie’s Natural Edibles
Binske Olive Oil and Honey
The Lightshade staff is trained and ready to answer questions or make suggestions based on what you may be looking for. It never hurts to ask a friend about their experiences too, you’d be surprised at how many people are adding cannabis into their wellness routines.
Lightshade Volunteers at DeLaney Community Farm
As a part of Lightshade’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, we aim to remain active in our community. Members of the Lightshade CSR Team, with representatives from each retail location, recently volunteered at DeLaney Community Farm to help weed and get the fields ready for planting.
DeLaney Community Farm, operated by a partnership between Denver Urban Gardens and Project Worthmore, has a mission of supporting refugees residing in the local community through food-based programs. Lightshade’s volunteers worked alongside immigrants from Burma, Senegal and Afghanistan, as part of the farm’s program to connect refugees to the local fresh food economy and teach sustainable agricultural practices.
We love being a part of the Denver Metro community and having the opportunity to give back through positive programs. Lightshade is proud of their team’s willingness to get their hands dirty and make a difference. Stay posted on more from our CSR Team to come!
What’s Your Ambience?
Whether you’re looking to jump-start the morning or wind down for the day, Lightshade has the perfect strain to fit your ambience. We realize the world of cannabis can be quite confusing, even for seasoned veterans, so we are launching a new categorization system in an effort to help our customers identify the physical and mental effects of our strains.
Lightshade celebrates the importance of night and day in the natural cycle of the plant as it soaks up energy from the sun and soil. The below four categories of our ambience scale were created from the course of the day—from bright mornings to soothing evenings.
Awaken • soak in the crisp morning
Enliven • get energized from the warm sun
Calm • enjoy the relieving evening breeze
Rest • find relaxation in the night sky
Lightshade used decades of knowledge from our growers and staff, as well as the latest terpene and cannabinoid research to categorize our strains. In addition, we are continuing to build this system with our customers by gathering feedback to understand the effects of various strains. If you’re interested in participating, simply enjoy our Lightshade strains and send over your thoughts: lightshade.com/strain-categories
Watch for more valuable information about Lightshade strains on our website and in stores over the next few months. And don’t forget that our trained budtenders are always willing to help guide your selections based on your needs desired effects. Outside of the over 30 strains available, we have concentrates, tinctures, edibles and topicals for you to explore and use to find the perfect fit for you and your day. Stop in and see why the difference is night and day.