Page 20 - Vallejo_Chamber_of_Commerce_Magazine_Spring_2020

CannaBIZness By Matt Larson

In the world of cannabis, the future is now! After a year in San Jose, Maurice and Anh things,” he said. “There wasn’t any type of
More and more entrepreneurs are hopping started their business in Vallejo. “Anh regulation; it was pretty much up to law
aboard the dispensary train these days, with thought we should open our own medical enforcement about how they were going to
This Vallejo dispensary has survived for nearly a decade bigger investors and even greater inventories. cannabis dispensary so we could fulfill our enforce it in their city.”
dream of providing therapeutic benefits for
California legalized recreational marijuana health challenges,” Maurice said. In 2012, Maurice and Anh played it as safe as they
more than two years ago now, so it may be that dream emerged. could. “We always operated as conservatively
surprising to hear that Vallejo’s as possible,” he said. “I didn’t
Plantacea has been in operations try to hide what I was doing.”
for nearly a decade. Maurice would even go to the
police department and let them
The business is co-owned by know where he was, and what he
husband-and-wife team Anh was doing. “We went through
Nguyen-Solis and Maurice about a year of consulting with
Ernesto Solis. At first, Maurice an attorney prior to opening.”
didn’t believe in the medical
benefits of cannabis. “I thought Today, Plantacea provides
it was a bogus claim and people customers with a warm, safe, and
were just out to get stoned.” welcoming environment. “We
However, his wife, Anh, helped go above and beyond just selling
him see the light. products,” Maurice explained.
“We are your neighbor, your
Maurice managed a dispensary in friend, your family.”
San Jose—his first employment in
the industry—and he remembers It’s all about knowledge;
the very moment he truly understood the The couple originally called their dispensary Maurice and Anh have studied their
health benefits of cannabis when helping reLeaf when they first opened their storefront products extensively, and they have collected
a customer who recovered from numerous in Vallejo, yet they later changed the name to testimonials from their customers about the
shoulder surgeries. Plantacea (pronounced planta-see-uh). The different effects of various products.
name is a portmanteau of “planta,” (Spanish
“He was taking blood thinners, a few types for “plant”) and “panacea” (defined as an all- “Our knowledge of matching individuals
of pills for pain management; I think about encompassing remedy), as marijuana seems to cannabis products, we feel, is second to
eight different prescriptions,” Maurice to serve a purpose for any ailment. none,” he stated. “We enjoy finding what
recalled. “We were doing a trial and error works for the individual, as all bodies are
thing, working through it together, and we The business didn’t come easy, however. different [and] hereby react differently to
figured the products that worked for him. He Cannabis laws are constantly evolving today, this plant.”
got down to just taking 800 milligrams of and ten years ago cannabusiness owners had
ibuprofen if I remember correctly. That, for to be much more careful than today. “People At Plantacea, people can choose from more
me … I was pretty darn sold.” were getting busted for all types of really odd than 100 individually vetted cannabis

18 Spring www.vallejochamber.com