Local business offers cannabis dispensary tours
After doctors found a cancerous tumor in one of her kidneys, Saugus resident Kacey Thorps knew she wanted to seek a more natural treatment rather than a conventional one.
“Oils, reiki energy and cannabis,” Thorps said were the ingredients to ridding her cancer. “I don’t take pills or rely on prescriptions because they have so many side effects and chemicals that harm you.”
Though doctors said the cancer was gone after removing the affected kidney, Thorps said she attributes her successful battle against cancer to reiki and cannabis.
To help others treat or cure their health conditions, ranging anywhere from anxiety to headaches, she and her husband, Sean, launched Ghanja Guru Tours in July, under their Beyond A Dream Enterprises. Thorps also owns and is an energy healer with Reiki Wellness Centers.
The co-owners work as tour guides to take people from the SCV and surrounding areas to dispensaries in and around Los Angeles via rented luxury limousine buses.
“We take people on an adventure for the mind, body and soul,” Thorps said. “It’s a whole, unique experience on a limo to the best dispensaries in L.A.”
Adult participants, regardless of whether they consume cannabis, can book a three- to four-hour or five- to six-hour tour with a group of friends or join other individuals. The ride to dispensaries consists of informational games and raffles about cannabis products and information on which are best for one’s needs, and how dispensaries operate. Tours also include food, wine, “plus a little more,” the company’s Facebook page reads.
Since its start, Ghanja Guru has completed nearly 10 tours, with about 80 customers total, most from the SCV and some from Bakersfield and the San Fernando Valley.
Though cannabis tourism in California is still in the early stages, Ghanja Guru is one of many cannabis tour companies available, with locations stretching south in San Diego to as far north in Humboldt County.
Each company differs in its focus and style. Some, for example, offer tours to edible kitchens and highlight the science of marijuana, while others look at the cannabis prohibition and criminal reform. Their shared goal, however, including Ghanja Guru, is to educate.
“I’m not a grower,” Thorps said. “I’m a middleman. I just take them on a journey and budtenders (a recreational or medical cannabis dispensary worker) provide the information you need if you have cancer, AIDS, or headaches. I am helping people just by enlightening them before they turn it down.”
That’s part of what encouraged the couple to start the business.
“A lot of people here in the SCV are unaware of the benefits and what cannabis can do to get rid of certain elements,” Thorps said. “Many think it’s just to get high.”
SCV resident Margo Grant was one of them.
“I had back surgery, and I wanted a natural way of healing, but I didn’t know much about cannabis,” Grant said. “The tour helped with the educational aspect like the kinds of edibles and what we could expect to see at dispensaries.”
Grant added at least one person in her tour group was not a cannabis consumer but was interested in learning more about the industry and its products.
Though Thorps does not know if the SCV will have a dispensary any time soon, she hopes “to lead people to a place where hopefully they can find answers, even if that means traveling somewhere else.”
To learn more about Ghanja Guru Tours, call 661-673-5677 or visit the Beyond A Dream Enterprises Facebook page.