The Medical Cannabis Amendment Act of 2022, signed by Mayor Bowser, is set to issue out multiple new endorsement licenses for cannabis businesses including DC weed lounges, summer garden events, and cannabis cooking and tasting classes.
The Education tasting endorsement is a retailer license that is included in the Amendment Act, which will allow DC businesses to offer a facility in which medical patients can safely consume marijuana through food, drinks, and edibles for educational purposes such as cooking classes.
In this article, we discuss what to expect with the Education tasting endorsement license in the early 2024.
What is the Education Tasting Endorsement License?
The Education Tasting Endorsement is a new retailer license being issues by the ABC for cannabis businesses to allow cannabis cooking and how-to classes, demonstrations, or cannabis tastings for educational purposes.
The only requirement is you are a DC medical marijuana card holder and are at least 21 years of age. Initiative 71 was the law that legalized possession and consumption of marijuana, but currently you cannot technically consume any edibles in DC publicly, until now.
DC residents and business owners can finally have an approved space to cook with cannabis, make edibles, and consume them publicly.
You Can’t Smoke, You Can Only Eat
What makes a tasting endorsement different from the “Safe-use” facility endorsement in DC, is the tasting endorsement doesn’t allow smoking of cannabis, only eating cannabis infused foods, whereas the safe-use facilities allows smoking and use of edibles.
This endorsement specifically focuses on allowing DC residents to consume cannabis via food and liquid, not through combustion smoking. The purpose of tasting is for “educational purposes” so these licenses won’t be pushing for DC weed infused restaurants but more for educational cannabis cooking classes and tastings.
This opens up a wide range of opportunities with the licenses from cannabis cooking classes, edible classes, THC infused drink classes, and edible tasting events.
Similar to wine tasting events, cannabis is loaded with hundreds of aromatic terpenes that are widely undervalued. Educational classes that teach you how to discern between terpenes in your cannabis will help patients be able to shop and select strains more productively for medicinal purposes.
In the next section, we take a look at what type of new cannabis businesses will emerge through the Tasting Endorsement License in DC. Make sure to check back as we update our list with all the newest classes to be released early next year.
DC Cannabis Cooking Classes
Similar to LA, which has a host of weed cooking classes, DC’s Tasting Endorsement license will allow the first ever cannabis cooking classes to come to Washington DC by early 2024.
Instructors will teach you, step by step, how to cook with cannabis and most importantly to understand the fundamentals of the cannabinoids including THC, CBD, CBN, and CBG and the proper ratio doses to give your cannabis recipes the exact medicinal value that’s right for you.
The THC cooking classes in DC will have operating hours from 7 am - 9 pm, 7 days a week. We can expect a wide range of possible classes catering to standard, vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free diets. The cannabis used on site will be required to be marked for educational purposes for the classes and not for sale.
DC Cannabis Tasting Events
One event that I’m particularly excited about is the DC cannabis tasting events. In many countries, including Canada, customers shop with their nose, not their eyes. That’s because smelling cannabis allows you to understand what type of terpenes are available in the strain. The terpenes alongside the cannabinoids determines the entourage effect (your strains' signature high).
Cannabis tasting events are a great way to educate the consumer on picking the right medicinal strains for them, as certain terpenes are proven to alleviate inflammation, help sleep, and a whole list of benefits.
Traditional cannabis tasting events are smoke events where you taste the terpenes through inhaling and holding the smoke in your mouth. Since the Tasting Endorsement doesn’t allow for smoking on the premises, we can expect these events to be done orally through flavor.
DC Edible Classes
If you have been living in the District, you know we have some of the best edibles in DC. Now edible enthusiast will finally be given classes where you can learn to make infused cannabis treats correctly under guided instruction.
Instructors will teach you how to make your own canna-butter or oil, and how to properly infuse your favorite treats to make your own edibles with the correct dosage for your medicinal needs.
Everyone has had that nightmare experience with edibles, and that’s because the dosing was done out of our hand. Once you learn the correct dosage for yourself, you can infuse all your favorite snacks and make the perfect edibles that interact with your endocannabinoid system.
DC THC Infused Classes
THC infused drinks has seen an immense explosion in popularity, and that’s because edibles process through the body much slower. THC drinks are absorbed much more quickly but the high isn’t as strong. This makes THC infused drinks a popular alternative from edibles which can often times be too strong, last too long, and start too late.
Get hands on instructions with THC infusion experts on how to make a wide-range of medicinal THC infused drinks for yourself at home.
What You Can And Can’t Do
While it’s exciting to finally have DC cannabis cooking classes, there are some nuances about what you can and can’t do at these facilities. The laws set in place gives us an idea of how these classes will be held and what to expect by early 2024:
You Can Take Home What You Make
The Cannabis cooking classes and tasting events will allow you to leave the premises with medical cannabis that was offered to you through the event. This means whatever you make in your cooking class you will be able to take home with you as well. If there is any marijuana that was not used, you can take it back with you, as long as it’s packaged according to regulation.
No Drinking or Smoking
The cannabis cooking classes and tasting events will not allow any smoking of marijuana or tobacco on premises. If you are looking to smoke cannabis, you muse visit a designated Safe-Use facility (coming early 2024). These safe-use facilities will be located in medical dispensaries with their own room, ventilation system, and will offer non-THC foods and music.
The cannabis tasting endorsement license will also prohibit the use of alcohol on the premises, so it will be a non-drinking and non-smoking environment.
Final Thoughts
The Medical Cannabis Amendment Act of 2022 brought about tons of new endorsement retail licenses, which is set to open many new types of cannabis businesses. In this article we discuss the new emerging cannabis cooking classes, and tasting events coming to DC as early as 2024.
The Education Tasting Endorsement will bring about new DC weed events you can attend as a medical patient, such as cannabis culinary classes, edible infusion classes, and THC drink infusion classes.