I stopped by the National Holistic Healing Center this week. I’m a registered medical marijuana patient in Maryland; lately I’ve been checking out DC dispensaries to see how they compare to what I can find out about them online. Fans of National Holistic seem like they want to keep this dispensary all to themselves, because they’re pretty quiet about it on the Internet. Well, I’m glad I visited to check out NHHC for myself, because my experience was top-notch!
Shopping at National Holistic Healing Center
National Holistic Healing Center is just a couple of blocks from the Dupont Circle Metro Station, which made my commute easy. The dispensary is located on Connecticut Ave NW, with a ground-level entrance for easy wheelchair access. Store hours are 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. every day.
When I arrived at the store, I was buzzed in, and my patient info was input by one staffer while another employee helped me choose my samples. Shopping was made much easier by NHHC’s online menu, which allowed me to sort the menu by date added to browse the freshest options before I left home. While I could have pre-ordered on the website, I always prefer to buy in store to keep my options flexible. You never know what’s going to jump out at you.
I really enjoyed the shopping experience at NHHC, and found it very informative. The mantra of the establishment is to spread awareness and information about all of the ways cannabis can be used medicinally. NHHC is operated by Dr. Chandra Macias, an executive at Women Grow and an advocate for diversity in the cannabis industry. Her expertise is on display in the dispensary as well as on the website, where popular strains are profiled alongside educational articles about cannabis.
What’s on the Menu at National Holistic Healing Center?
NHHC carries a solid selection of flower cultivars as well as edibles, topicals, pre rolls and concentrates. There’s truly something for everyone, especially in their flower choices. One thing I think many medical patients take for granted is that in DC, almost all the bud in dispensaries is grown within a 5-mile radius of where it’s sold.
For this review, I selected an eighth of Alt Sol’s Hell’s OG (OG Kush x Blackberry), Capital City Cultivation’s Orangutan T’z (Grease Monkey x Zkittlez) originally bred by Exotic Genetix, and a tester gram of Sweets #1 (Guava Gelato x Sour Diesel Bx2) originally bred by Karma Genetics. Each was an excellent expression of the strain: fresh, well-kept, and potent. (Weed nerd alert: for the big Sour fans reading this, the Sweets was more of a body-odor Sour than a fragrant Sour, and had excellent resin development.)
Customer Service at National Holistic Healing Center
The menu layout gives the impression that the store has selections stocked for every kind of patient to ensure a high-quality experience. Staffers showed me actual samples of the flower I was getting, rather than stale display samples. Whatever storage method NHHC uses is also perfect for freshness, which addresses a common complaint I hear from the DC medical patient community. Consumption-wise, the best part of the NHHC samples was that I felt no post-session exhaustion, which in my opinion is a major benefit over a lot of flower purchased from the traditional market.
National Holistic Healing Center: The Last Nug
I highly recommend National Holistic Healing Center for its excellent all-around patient experience. This dispensary flew under the radar for me — but now that I’ve seen how awesome it is, I’ll be talking it up to everyone!