Cool! Thanks for the heads up! I actually got an email today saying my card is on the way. Wahoo! I want to be like, here...let me save you a stamp and I'll come pick it up xD
Any good recommends for dispensaries? I seen a lot give first timer deals.
I'm anxious to see what az has got to offer. I just moved here from oregon.
I've only been to Kind Connection in Havasu myself, so unfortunately that's all I'm able to comment on. They were charging $50/8th and I got near 1.5g for a first time patient deal. I got their Lemon Skunk and their Ghost OG, both of which had an amazing smell and flavor.. however the potency left a lot to be desired in my personal opinion. I suspect the growers were spraying terpenes and/or bud candy on the meds. It is the only thing that explains how these dense buds can smell and taste so good, yet have mediocre potency. I come from California, so I'm going to be a bit more biased much like you likely will seeing as you're from Oregon.
Unfortunately, with the 25 mile radius rule against growing you likely won't be finding much quality in this state if I had to guess. I believe close to, if not over 90% of the MMJ patients in Arizona are within 25 miles of a dispensary and therefore cannot grow. This makes it much easier for certain dispensaries to monopolize, especially when 20-25% of the dispensaries in this state don't even grow their own product.
If you happen to be over 25 miles away from a dispensary, I would recommend growing it yourself. It's quite rare to find a good dispensary these days seeing as most of them have what I like to refer to as the "McDonalds mentality". Much like there is no need for McDonalds to source the absolute best quality beef to make money, dispensaries typically don't need to source the absolute best quality either. The consumers of both businesses don't seem to know/care, so why should the purveyors?
Before 2010, a vendor could get anywhere between $2800-$3600/lb depending on the quality. I've known some guys that used to get $4k/lb before 2006. Stuff on the shelves in dispensaries was almost always fire because the people that grew fire were being paid what they were worth. That all changed when everyone and their mom started growing outdoors. Gradually, these dispensaries stopped paying the professionals the $3k+/lb they were worth and instead bought amateur quality for $1200-$2000/lb but kept their prices the same.
It has now become difficult to find truly quality meds these days because the experts aren't being paid what they're worth anymore. To make things worse, your average consumer didn't notice/care and willingly continued paying $45-$55/8th for worse quality product.
Unless you know someone growing quality, or grow it yourself, you're likely going to be paying $45+ for an eighth of mediocre grown outdoor bud. Even worse is the fact that you can now buy terpenes online, so even if you grow something that is garbage you can simply spray some terpenes on it. And that's the best case scenario, God only knows if there's any mold/mildew/pesticides/etc in it.
The game has changed an awful lot in just these last 5-10 years. I used to be a vendor and worked in a dispensary. My organic outdoor was better than a decent amount of "indoor" you see on the shelves. Most "indoor" is actually outdoor. How do I know? I sold my outdoor for $2k/lb to this dispensary, wanting to provide patients with $35/8ths instead of $45+ but do you know what happened? They were selling my outdoor as "top shelf indoor" for $50/8th. I was livid and threatened to both quit AND stop vending if he didn't change the prices right then and there after I confronted him. I learned the hard way these people don't give a fuck about patients, both as a vendor and a patient. In the end, it's just business for these people.
tl;dr: Don't get too anxious about what this state has to offer, as you will be disappointed. Especially coming from Oregon. Growing it yourself is your best bet, otherwise you will be disappointed.