Cody MurrayPhoto by Todd Cooper

Best Budtender

1. Cody Murray Amazon Organics, 3443 Hilyard Street. 541-636-4100. AmazonOrganics.net.

2. Rosie Amorose Moss Crossing, 2751 Friendly Street. 541-636-3724. MossCrossing.com.

3. Tyler Banks Moss Crossing, 2751 Friendly Street. 541-636-3724. MossCrossing.com.

Cody Murray knows a lot about weed. He’s been growing it for 12 years since he got his medical card when he was 18. He makes extracts in his free time. And as a budtender at Amazon Organics, he’s sampled 90 percent of the dispensary’s 700 cannabis products

 Murray is friends with many of the shop’s suppliers and has even gone to many of their grows to be able to better explain the intricacies of the finished flower or extract to his clients. 

Product knowledge is especially important for a budtender at Amazon Organics because it’s a connoisseur’s dispensary. The shop offers a large selection of flower, extracts and edibles like cannabis chocolate, mints and fresh-squeezed orange juice. It even sells cannabis plants, kept in a glass case in the store. The walls of the dispensary are decorated with a gallery of locally blown glass smoking paraphernalia with price tags ranging in the thousands. 

Murray says he enjoys discussing cannabis with the commercial growers who come into the shop, and helping people find success in their first backyard grows with his expert advice. 

But besides his vast knowledge of everything cannabis, Murray says his favorite part of budtending is helping people who are in pain. 

“I come from a medical background so I like the compassionate side of it,” he says. “Helping people out is my main goal.”

He recalls an instance when a 95-year-old man came into the dispensary to buy cannabis for the first time. Murray held the door open for him, let him sit on one of the couches in the shop and brought over products for him to smell and look at. 

“He was really, really thankful,” Murray says. “It was an amazing experience. That’s what we’re all about.”