Etain Health, New York’s only family-run, women-owned vertically integrated agribusiness and medical marijuana dispensary, has opened its new flagship facility at 242 East 58th Street on August 6, 2020.

The Peckham family, which owns the premium cannabis company, transformed the 5,000 square foot street level space into a dispensary and retail location for the commercial distribution of its medical marijuana, and THC-free products.

Sophisticated and inviting, the new Midtown East location is only a block from Sutton Place on the iconic Designers Way, and welcomes medical marijuana patients and retail customers to enjoy experiential interactions and integrative wellness offerings. The space is suffused with joy through elements such as a living green wall, an airy mezzanine, and a retreat space permeated by the sounds of running water. Renowned designer Clodagh applied her life enhancing minimalist approach by filling the space with simple, natural touches that simultaneously elevate and ground the customer experience. Etain has created the next level of healthcare and concierge medicine by merging this elevated environment with personal consultations and premium products so customers can feel good about investing in their health and wellbeing.

Etain Health continues to sell their premium cannabis products to licensed New York state patients alongside a variety of diverse non-THC New York based health and wellness brands. Brands featured include botanical wellness products from Nature of Things, organic teas by Rishi, Khushi handmade body balms and butters, Golde superfood face masks and Patriae handwoven hemp and linen textiles including face coverings. A rotating selection of limited edition merch by diverse women owned brands are featured with the first spotlight on BWFW (Buy Weed from Women). Store staff is outfitted in custom aprons from local women-owned textile designer Utility Canvas and their versatile canvas products will also be available for purchase.

The new retail space also serves as a showcase of Etain’s renewed branding through the inclusion of a vibrant new logo, vividly-colored photography sourced from a locally renowned floral photographer in the UK, and by embodying the new brand mantra “Take a moment with Etain”.

“This represents the next step in Etain’s growth strategy moving into 2021,” explained Hillary Peckham, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder. “Over the past year we have been re- assessing, recalculating, and re-imagining the brand. What has remained consistent is our commitment to the wellbeing of our clients by creating the highest quality and purest products to meet the needs of our customers. Etain Health was one of the original five licensees in New York and now has dispensaries in Manhattan, Yonkers, Kingston and Syracuse. Before the year end, Etain Health will be unveiling all new product formulations and new consumption methods for patients.

WB: I visited the dispensary yesterday and found the room to be fresh, inviting and deeply relaxing. The water feature on the far wall, calms the buzz in the room and the double high ceiling is framed by natural light from gigantic skylights. Cleverly designed chandeliers formed from intricately cut “cannabis leaf,” give the ceiling even more lift because they focus the light deeply into the extra-tall ceilings. On the voluminous second floor (currently not open to the public) there is room for educational spaces and event spaces with expanses of daylight at both ends of the floor. Between the water feature in the rear of the dispensary stands a two-story tall green wall. A fitting reminder of the fact that green means growth and healing comes from medical cannabis served up in a friendly and accomodating fashion.

New York has some unique laws in place pertaining to medical cannabis. First of all, they don’t allow the smoking of any flower at all. I’ve never come across a medical cannabis program that doesn’t include smoking the plant.

It seems to me somewhat of a disconnect from the pleasure that a person receives from twisting up a joint or filling a Stonedware bowl with with something really sumptuous from Green Bodhi out west. Traditionally, vape pens are too much of a disconnect from the plant, and tinctures tend to be bitter as do some lozenges. But for those patients who fortunate to be qualified for the extremely restrictive New York State medical program, this is the hand that has been drawn for them.

Etain Health are manufacturing the finest New York State- compliant medical cannabis products for deeply ill patients in a design forward fashion that is retail-centric without being stuffy or pompous.

Coming from the medical cannabis program in New Jersey, where we are allowed the pleasure of smoking flowers this was all rather hard to surmise. Where is the fun in New York State medical cannabis?

It just doesn’t exist, at least not in the wink-wink, nod-nod world of recreational cannabis smoking. And if I was walking around on any given day in New York City and I smelled the plant being smoked, I’d say stay well clear, even though it is said that the NYPD tolerates it. There is no excuse if you get caught smoking the plant in NYC because let me be the first to tell you, there is no provision for smoking cannabis in the medical cannabis program. Smoking flowers in NYC is at your own risk! If you tell your arresting officer that you are smoking medical? They’ll probably arrest you, just because they know you are trying to fool them. There are no medical flowers in the NY State Medical program. Period.

They don’t sell cannabis flowers at Etain Health, so don’t ask! What they do sell there is the very finest vertically integrated medical cannabis extract products available anywhere in New York State. If you have a NY State Medical cannabis license, give Etain Health a try. I wasn’t able to try anything out, but if you’re qualified, please let me know what you think. Cheers!

Thank you.