Studies show that dispensary visitors tend to stick with their local providers. But whereʼs the fun in that? So, when my husband fit the elusive algorithm and won a ride with Waymo, and I needed a story about great dispensaries in L.A, an idea was born. My family was up for a thoroughly un-family-like adventure.

Waymo, the company that offers 100% self-driving cars for passengers as a taxi service, is permitted to travel only a narrow strip of land that encompasses DTLA and stretches to Venice Beach. Since Waymo doesn’t reach our home address, we had to drive into the Realm, just a few blocks away. The Realm is what I affectionately dubbed the Waymo zone in Los Angeles. From a nondescript street in a mediocre neighborhood off-Western, we parked our car and called for our Waymo, my husband and two adult offspring by my side. My daughter said what we were all thinking: “If we die in a fiery crash, at least we’ll be together.” It was oddly comforting.

We whipped our heads back and forth, searching up and down the street, when right on schedule, what should appear? A four-door Waymo Jaguar coming near. A sleek, all-white exterior and an alien appendage atop with 29 cameras. The display on the roof blipped my husband’s initials. This futuristic taxicab was the one for us! It idled in an empty spot on the street, hazards blinking, and we waited while my husband navigated the app to unlock the doors. We climbed in and a Siri-like voice greeted us, “Good afternoon, James.” We pressed the “start ride” button on the touch screen and thoughts of joy and death danced in our heads. “Are we out of our fucking minds? This is fun!” Before I could securely strap on my seatbelt, we moved forward confidently, and merged onto Western with no one in the driver’s seat and cars speeding in every direction around us.

With most of the windows tinted, people barely noticed the empty driver’s seat. Occasionally someone would stare and smile. A few visibly registered their disgust with daggers. We very quickly got used to the experience and didn’t care. I have been hella terrorized by Uber drivers on many an occasion: crazy, horny, weird, religious, creepy, you name it. All said and done, this experience was far more relaxing. Sorry, Uber, I still love you.

We settled in as the dashboard displayed the car’s path with a real-time detailed projection of our surroundings, even beyond our direct line of sight. Waymo technology deftly managed merging, turns, signage, jaywalkers, obstructions, and crowded chaotic city streets. When we came to a stop where the traffic lights were out, the car entered the ring like a champ, more decisively than the humans who dithered about who should go next. The car made up its mind, confidently poured on the gas, glided forward, and just like in real life, everyone else stopped and waited as our computer-on-wheels traveled through.

Before embarking on this journey, we’d meticulously mapped out our adventure: Venice followed by Culver City, West Hollywood, and then back to our car. On the leisurely ride across town, there seemed to be primarily two topics of discussion: how much the Westside has popped up (Eastsiders rarely go west of La Brea), and the ethical intersection of Los Angeles traffic and AI. What happens if you grab the wheel? Stomp the brakes? Smoke in the car? Get intentionally rammed by someone? The low-hanging fruit of questions. Several of them were answered by the abundance of cameras, so we advanced to such lofty dilemmas as, is it programmed to avoid hitting a dog? The ubiquitous Los Angeles chihuahua? A squirrel in the road? How fast could it, would it, stop? Fortunately, these questions remained comfortably unanswered.

Occasionally, a car would aggressively cut us off as though the driver knew that we had no choice but to acquiesce. A human-operated car might have recklessly jockeyed for position or at least expressed some version of road rage at the slight. On the flip side, the Waymo car was annoyingly obedient, staying precisely 35mph on a street no right-minded Angeleno would dare, for fear of reprisal.

We were almost exactly on time when we arrived at the resplendent Green Goddess in Venice. We pulled into a tiny paid lot across the street and a valet walked aggressively in front of the car, hand outstretched, shaking her head with authority. The car freaked out: moved a few inches forward, then back, the driver’s wheel spinning, forward, back, nudging left, and right… we gestured to the attendant, mouthing, “There’s nothing we can do!” And we all got a good laugh. After a few more moments of indecision, we were told by the car politely to disembark. We watched and laughed with our new friend as the empty car squeezed through two rows of closely parked cars to escape down a small driveway alone, anxious to get out of there.

Inside the Green Goddess, the space was gorgeous with hardwood polished floors, apothecary-like back-lit displays, marble and glass counters with artful touches. The budtender, Keith, honed in on what we wanted. I asked what I know to be a semi-controversial question: “What’s the THC?” Many say that it’s not a good judge of intensity. But I still find it to be a loosely applicable judge of character. Keith was engaged. He explained that it was the strength of the terpenes that he watched more closely. “Anything with above a 2% terps is gonna get you high.” He grabbed a box of flower to demonstrate the fine print. “This one is only 19% THC, but the terps are 2.9% so this one gets you annihilated.” I politely declined. I’m a solid stoner, but I don’t seek incoherence. At least not consistently. But I appreciated the friendly advice and we left with a few goodies.

We stepped out into the bright sun of Venice, smoked a joint in the alleyway, and waited for our chauffeur. We understood that the car might decide not to come back and send another in its place. Would we have to wait long? Would it still know our route? A few minutes later, a new Waymo with a tiny, telltale dent in the passenger door arrived. We merged back into heavy traffic in the narrow passages off Abbot Kinney, and the car navigated everything with confidence and accuracy.

Next stop: Erba, Culver City. The dispo lay a few blocks outside the confines of the Realm, so our car told us that it would be a seven-minute walk from our drop off point. We pulled up on a side street behind another Waymo and took a short stroll to Erba. A big brick building with a sprawling Bob Marley mural out front and an original 50s Airstream parked out back. We pushed through the glass doors, entered the voluminous space, and made our way past a comfy couch into the cloistered room piled high with an endless variety of product. Fun packaging that looked like a leather guitar case with Bob Marley’s likeness stood out in the mix. Sixties memorabilia and beautiful original artwork lined the walls. A dapper gentleman manned a Bloom vape booth, “Buy one, get one goin’ on,” he encouraged.

A lovely budtender named Joanie guided us to a collab with The Woods that offered Mendocino Grasslands sungrown flower from Humboldt County (my favorite OG county) and introduced us to some new brands we’d not smoked before. Hello... mood-elevating effects and enhanced focus with a full body presence, some other party favors, and a groovy sticker. Love it. And we were off.

Next stop, The Woods! A place known well for its chill hang spot and sassy macaws. Today, we were here for the dispensary out front. Our Waymo closed in on WeHo with ease, dodging errant dog walkers, and rolled up three feet from the front door. I had been here a few times to relax and/or take meetings--one of the best things about being in the weed business! The interior is awesome, not surprisingly the former space of lauded interior designer and vibe-inducing Thomas Schoos. Thomas’ immaculate decor now enlightens a new stripe of customer.

At the counter, a long-haired hippie of a budtender listened intently to my desires: sativa dominant, pre-rolls or flower, on a budget. I discovered a new strain that will forever make this day worthwhile. Thank you, Pink Jesus! A heady sativa mind-full with happy undercurrents, yet solid reasoning and writing skills. We hung around while I showed the family the hangout possibilities: garden area, cannabis juice bar, macaw huts, koi ponds, comfortable suites for indica smokers and their friends. What else could one need? A locker to store your stash! Yes, it’s here.

A quick toke, and we were back on the streets, headed home. Like a pet watching a suitcase being pulled from the closet, the car just knew--we were about to say goodbye. It started to turn left off Western but left its tail hanging in the middle of the street while it gently slowed to a stop. Uh oh. A convergence of road dots, a substantial dip, and a sloppily parked car were simply too much to bear. Enthusiastic honkers took joy in our bizarre discomfort.

My daughter, unfazed in the front seat, pressed the help button, and a voice with a thick accent and perfect English immediately and politely requested our informational situation as he took the wheel remotely, drove us out of trouble, and made sure we were all safe. I asked in which country his call center was located but he replied that he was not allowed to share this information. Fair enough. No gotcha there.

I’d sum up my Waymo experience as a sort of breaking of the third dimension of car realities. Surprisingly drastic, yet also chill and effective. My senses were heightened in a multitude of ways. I not only released myself to the experience, I barely needed to pay attention! It surprised me to think that by contrast, this was more relaxing than riding in the passenger’s seat with my husband at the wheel. After all, Waymo could be trusted to know the right, legal, safe things to do. Right? I was fully stoned and free to people-watch, which made the ride more entertaining and provocative than ever. This, my dear stoners, is the future.

All in, our trip took 5 hours, 3-1/2 of it driving. The Waymo bill across three rides cost $140.

I’ll leave you with a little Pink-Jesus-inspired existential question: If your Waymo were headed toward certain death, would you trust the car to discover the wrongness of its actions and save the day? Or would you go all-Mad-Max and intervene? We agreed, we’d have sat dead still and perished.

As for the budtenders and flower, and all the human qualities that you’d expect from a great dispensary? Score one, humans.