Ozone Acai Berry Gummies from Ascend Review: Delicious, Novel, Affordable

Ascend dispensary in River North has quickly become my favorite dispensary in Chicago due to its noticeably lower prices. "Ascend", a word that quite literally means to “get higher” is a clever and appropriate name for a weed dispensary. However, this cleverness is somewhat undermined by the fact that their logo looks like an arrow pointing downward. (Trust me, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.) While I wouldn’t classify Ascend as being cheap, they’re clearly trying to attract customers on a budget with their slightly lower costs and sales that offer a decent value. This is, of course, compared to the more tourist-oriented (or should I say tourist-priced) Chicago dispensaries, Sunnyside and Verilife.

I was so impressed by some of the prices at Ascend that I became inclined to “treat myself” with an extremely compelling 5 pack of acai flavored gummies that, with tax included, cost only $9 even. This was significant for a few reasons. The first reason being that I have been inclined to view my Cannabis budget as a strict one. In the current economy, plagued by low wages and inflation, my more than habitual use of pot means that my instinct is to spend as little on weed as possible. This is one of the things that kept me away from trying, in earnest, to give dispensary weed a chance in the first place.

The second reason that this purchase was significant was the inherent novelty and exotic nature of acai in America. Acai (ah·sah·ee) is a wild berry native to the Amazon Rainforest. Used for millennia by tribes of Native Amazonions, this dark purple, caloric berry is a very popular health food in Brazil, and it is quickly gaining popularity in America. Acai bowls, soft-serve acai with customizable toppings that include coconut, granola, peanut butter, and even chocolate, are a favorite way to consume this berry. Cafes that serve these delicious bowls are popping up all over American cities that harbor any Brazilian presence. Notably Deep Purple has a few locations around Chicago, and they are worth a try. You will not be disappointed. In spite of acai’s spreading appeal, the berry is still relatively unknown in Chicago and the midwest, as a whole. This is why I was surprised to see a pack of acai flavored weed gummies being showcased behind the glass counter, parallel to the queue, at Ascend dispensary. When I investigated the Ascend website, I was even more surprised to see that they only cost $9, and that’s with Illinois’ infamous Cannabis taxes INCLUDED.

To put this in perspective, I would expect to pay more than $10 on a questionable, legally-gray smoke shop Delta-8-THC knockoff of these acai gummy edibles. This is not a bad deal. Ascend, however, is NOT a smoke shop, it is a regulated recreational Cannabis dispensary. Therefore, like all dispensaries, it has its own quirky procedures. First, you will have to show your ID at the entrance, and the employee will ask if you have a pre-order. (The correct answer to this is yes, however there will be touch-screen order menus set up for less prepared stoners). Then, you will wait in a line surrounded by Cannabis products on shelves and in display cases until you are called up to the counter. They only take debit cards and cash, however, please note that the transaction will look like an ATM withdrawal to your bank. The system even charges a $2 fee to your card, that is given BACK to you in cash by the cashier. Talk about quirky. So not only do you have to ensure that you have enough money on your card to pay for the product and taxes, but also enough to cover what is essentially a mandatory $2 cash-back withdrawal on every debit card transaction. To make matters stranger, my bank charges me a $2.50 fee for what it sees as me using a non-Wells Fargo ATM. For anyone who’s bank also charges fees for 3rd party ATMs, I would recommend just bringing cash.

The final quirk you will experience shopping at Ascend is that every product must be carried out in a branded and stapled paper bag, extremely reminiscent of the white paper bags in which pharmacists place prescription drug bottles. This is not an option, but, perhaps it should be because as soon as you walk out of the only exit door, first-timers and regulars alike will be taken aback by a mountainous pile of these white Ascend-branded paper bags located only a single step away from the exit door. To make the situation even sadder, is that there is an unkempt-overflowing trash can around 5 feet from the door. To a random onlooker, it looks as if A) stoners are unable to contain themselves from using their cannabis for long enough to even make it a few feet out the door before ripping open the bag and carelessly throwing it aside, and B) that the stoners that run the dispensary cannot be bothered to maintain its trash bin. Nor can they be bothered by the trash overflow pile, a foot from the door, that every customer passing through the establishment has no choice but to exit from. Not a good look for stoner-kind, overall.

With all that being said, how were the actual gummies? Well, they were relatively standard, sugar-coated gummies. They were small and rectangular in size. The flavor and smell was of acai, in this regard, I was not disappointed. The gummies were not sour. The only thing that surprised me was that they were very soft, bendable gummies, while I prefer a harder gummy, similar to the consistency of Sour Patch Kids. Each of the 5 gummies contained 10mg of THC, for a total of 50mg in the whole package. There was no specific strain mentioned on the package, however it was labeled “Sweet Indica,” so I did have an idea of what the high would be like. I split the pack with my girlfriend, and I ate my 2.5 gummies all at once. Overall, it felt like an Indica. Notably, it helped me sleep, and made my hunger almost insatiable. The packaging utilizes the usual “child-proof” ziplock that does require a little bit of a learning curve.

Overall, I believe this product is made for beginner or occasional cannabis users to be an approachable way to get high, as well as a fun, affordable treat for stoners who may be on the fence about some of the more novel cannabis products they may glance at while buying their normal supply. I fall into the latter category, and you can trust that this will not be the last time I treat myself to exoticly-flavored weed gummies, if the current prices continue. I will say, I would not recommend these gummies for those who rely on edibles to manage pain or other severe medical conditions. As affordable as these gummies are as a treat, they would make an extremely unaffordable medicine. Furthermore, since the edibles give limited information on the strain used to make them, it would be impossible to ensure the edibles have the strain-specific combination of cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, and other psychoactive components of cannabis that would be appropriate for specific medical conditions. The only quality ensured when cannabis is labeled “indica” is that it will probably help you sleep, however this might be in combination with a slew of other potential effects that could change based on the indica strain.