What is a Head Shop?

ALTERED STATES: THE CHANGING FACE OF THE HEAD SHOP

Hear the word “head shop” and I dare say a multitude of images coalesce in the mind…

One can picture a small dingy space inhabited by a tiny gaggle of beardy, red-eyed, spaced out refugees from the Seventies hovering over a multitude of arcane tools of debauchery and vice. You can almost smell the odour of old secondhand smoke clinging to the air, mingling unpleasantly with the clouds of cheap incense and garlic-infused hippy sweat that clings to the rows of tie-dyed Hawkwind and Grateful Dead concert tees, yellowing the back issues of Robert Crumb comics on display. Certainly not a place for the uninitiated and most certainly not a place for anyone other than those in search for that elusive Happy Valley High. Essentially name any of your Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers’ cliché preconceptions…

You know what I mean.

And nothing could be further from the truth. Times and attitudes have moved on since the heady days of the “Flower Power” revolution and so has the retail industry that it gave birth to. In fact, it would be safe to say that we are experiencing the onset of what could only be described as a revolution itself. One could go even further and describe the time and place the nations cumulatively considered as the “West” have arrived at as a paradigm shift in motion. Something big is happening, and it is happening now. And this “something” is perhaps most strongly felt within the realm of the modern head shop.

The history of cannabis laws and regulation is a long and tawdry one complete with its own stash of conspiracies, hidden agendas and plain-out lunacy, however those are topics for another day. Suffice it to say that those who enjoy and benefit from the many uses of that particular plant species have found themselves harassed, bullied and essentially marginalised over the years. Lumped together with harder, far more damaging narcotics, Marijuana and its users have been demonised since 1917 when (ironically) the American state of Colorado passed laws making the recreational use of the plant a misdemeanour. As the rest of the States followed suite with even harsher and more draconian laws Europe inevitably took the American lead and drove cannabis use underground, maintaining its criminal mystique with well documented propaganda and government scare tactics.

Propaganda films such as 1935’s “Reefer Madness” and 1936’s “Marihuana” were the then benchmark for drug education and generally funded by the religious right; with the expected results. In these contemporary times both films and others of their ilk are pretty much considered and viewed (mostly by stoners) as comedies but at the time, that was the prevailing image of cannabis. A demon plant that was used by black jazz musicians and distributed by criminals to corrupt the clean-living white Christian youth of America. That was the prevailing wisdom, not just amongst legislators but society in general… and not just in the States. As we all well know, Cannabis laws here in the United Kingdom have been no walk in the park. The “stay off the grass” signs were pegged in around the same time as America outlawed the demon weed (once again there are more than one conspiracy theory revolving around this) and the marginalisation of cannabis users became institutionalised.

Then something very funny happened…

The Beat Generation of the Fifties.

Alan Ginsberg. William S Burroughs. Jack Kerouac. Neal Cassady. A small but immensely influential cartel of poets and writers started vocalising the fact that the clean-living white Christian youth of America was tuning in and turning out… In their droves. What was whispered about and hidden away from the eyes of white picket fence America was gradually becoming something that songwriters were singing about and respected literary figures speaking of. As the decade of the hep cat hipster morphed into the turbulent time of the free loving hippy, it became more apparent than authorities could suppress that weed was more than just a passing recreational fad restricted to intellectuals and coloured musicians. The pungent clouds hovering above festivals and universities was more than just an indication of a flash tempest. It was becoming more than obvious that a sea change was occurring. As more and more middle class Americans started signing up to the emerging counter culture, Europe and Britain were experiencing their own extended Summer of Love. Of course, existing in a world whose wheels are greased with capitalism, as with most societal trends this shift in fashion and acceptance found its own expression on the (no pun intended) high street.

And therefore and thus…The head shop was born; the first, the Psychedelic Shop opening its doors for business in San Francisco on January 3rd, 1966.

The rest is history.

While that history, once again, deserves mention and enquiry that will have to be saved for another day and another blog. We just needed a little overview of how we have travelled from point A (a barely hidden, embarrassing secret), to point B (Robert Crumb comics, sweaty bearded hippies and Hawkwind merchandise). Now it is the moment to jump across to point C... The modern head shop. Our head shop.

Brightly lit. Open. Customer friendly and focused staff who know their biz. Hosting a plethora of patrons from varying backgrounds and demographics, the modern head shop is a quantum leap away from the arcade of the arcane described at the beginning of this piece. Things have certainly changed, and changed in ways that reflect the societal shift in attitude towards the use of, uses for and users of herbal products. There now exists an, all be it cautious, acceptance that the herb has gone mainstream and it is here to stay. Whereas back in the day a head shop would be the congregation place for hippies and drop-outs, now you are more likely to see a business person in office attire perusing the cabinets and shelves than a bandanna wearing, long haired love child. Don’t get me wrong, there will always be a place for the fringe in such an establishment due to the freewheeling nature of the scene. However that scene has become harder and far broader to quantify than it ever has been.

Why?

As much as I hate constantly referring back to the States, this is where I feel the big leap in acceptance and sensibility has come. Just as it was the first American state to criminalise marijuana use, Colorado was the first to decriminalise its use. Well known as a liberal leaning territory, Colorado passed Amendment 64, which opened the way for the decriminalisation of the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. This created a domino effect, with Alasksa, Oregon and Washington following in Colorado’s footsteps. As much as a reason for celebration this move was and continues to be, the downgrading of cannabis laws signified an incredibly important step forward that can not be dismissed. What is of the most significance is the arrival at a point where the once speculated medical properties of cannabis and its products could be openly discussed and considered. For years the cannabis debate had been propelled by moral and religious vigour with no basis in fact or reality. Now users of the demon weed had science on their side. Limited to anecdotal evidence and conjecture, gradually academic studies were not just focussing on finding the harms of marijuana use (the results of which have always been negligible), rather they shifted to concentrating on isolating and describing the medical benefits of the plant… And apparently there are many.

And apparently folks are cottoning on to that idea. In their droves.

It is this new found and dawning realisation that the use of herbal products such as CBD and terpenes might have valued properties beyond jumping on the Red Eye Express has demanded the need for a new and professional approach to the retail end of the industry. Of course there will always be the recreational aspects of the scene, but the realisation that the world is teetering on the edge of a paradigm shift in healthcare has meant that the head shop has evolved into a very different shopping experience. Of course the United Kingdom has not yet achieved the same enlightened level of legal acceptance that America is on the way to achieving, but as with all things in these modern times, the internet has allowed the revolution to go viral, and gone viral it has.

So, even though the UK is a little further behind on the road to decriminalisation, there exists a public demand to know and discover more. A curtain has been lifted, and once opened it is impossible to draw back. Information savvy and enquiring, the British public are prepping up to take a step… Not so much on the wild side… But more on the natural side.

And that is where a shop like Green and a website like ours steps up to the plate ready and swinging.