If I could only shop at small businesses and avoid corporations, I would in a heartbeat.
I think that corporate pharmacies are some of the worst businesses that I’ve ever dealt with in my time as a consumer. They used to steal my parents’ pain medications back when they were cancer patients in the early 2010s. The company in question has been under DEA investigation numerous times because of their sketchy practices involving scheduled medications. From what I read, it wasn’t just about pharmacists skimming drugs off patients’ prescriptions. In fact, it was even worse than that. Apparently they were knowingly accepting fraudulent prescriptions from doctors’ offices that were giving them out like candy. In some cases it was staff filling prescriptions for themselves and this pharmacy was conspiring with the corrupt doctors. It was a total and complete mess, especially from a public relations standpoint. This was all I needed to keep up with shopping only at small businesses, especially with cannabis dispensaries. It seems that the cannabis budtenders are better at smaller cannabis companies as well, as they are often given more hands-on training than the employees at large cannabis corporations. I want to shop in a place with knowledgeable budtenders so they can help me find good products if I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for any particular day. You really notice the difference when you try shopping at a medical cannabis dispensary with bad budtenders because they can’t answer basic questions about the marijuana plant. The better trained budtenders can discuss the pros and cons of each individual strain of cannabis, starting with its classification of being a sativa, indica, or hybrid.