About Us
Giles Day, co-founder of The Greenhouse Dispensary, has witnessed CBD’s trajectory from its controversial beginnings to its rapid cultural acceptance. Yet despite its recent societal acceptance, cannabis continues to receive negative press, and a lot of Giles’ work is educating people on cannabis truths, debunking colloquial myths and presenting the evidence.
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‘The CBD market is currently an unregulated market, so consumers need to be careful when choosing which products or brands they buy and retailers need to be careful when selecting which products or brands they choose to sell’ explains Giles. ‘Because it’s unregulated, there are no mandatory standards for retailers to comply with and therefore we find a lot of retailers selling poor quality CBD products that may only contain hemp seed oil, some may contain illegal amounts of THC [the main psychoactive compound in cannabis], and some contain no CBD at all. We've even seen stories in the press about unfortunate consumers who have failed drug tests at work after taking CBD products that had detectable levels of THC in them.’
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Giles’ main inspiration to open The Greenhouse Dispensary as a complementary business to Offshore Vapes was to provide a separate space from the existing shop to sell CBD products. ‘All of the products we stock at The Greenhouse Dispensary have been independently lab tested, and we will always attempt to independently verify those reports,’ says Giles. ‘We also try to obtain soil reports from the hemp farm where it’s grown, as hemp is extremely effective at absorbing heavy metals from the soil. If it’s grown in soil where there’s a heavy presence of lead or cadmium, then this could be damaging to your health. We also want to check for evidence of harmful pesticides, herbicides or plant growth regulators’
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What sets The Greenhouse Dispensary apart from other on island retailers of CBD products is their investment in rigorous research of the products they sell. They also have extensive industry knowledge, are big advocates of cannabis policy reform and just love talking about all things cannabis! The fact that they are the only cannabis centric business on the island also speaks volumes.
In light of the recent government consultations, part of The Greenhouse Dispensary's existence was to normalise cannabis products by opening a shop slap-bang in the middle of the capital's high street, which enables them to have educational conversations with people about cannabis with the government consultations as a fitting backdrop.
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As part of his continuing ethos of promoting the safe and adherent use of cannabis, Giles has also been fundamental in establishing the Manx Canna Business Association, which is aimed at promoting self-regulation within the CBD retail industry: ‘It’s about encouraging other retailers to be responsible and conduct a level of research into the products they’re selling to Isle of Man residents.’