Cannabis regulations may technically dictate what dispensary employees are allowed to say, but a new study suggests that customers are hearing something very different at the counter.
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During the summer of 2025, trained mystery shoppers visited 130 licensed cannabis retailers across Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Denver, Portland, and Seattle. Posing as customers, they asked employees about cannabis products, potential health benefits, and safety concerns—and the study revealed a significant gap between written cannabis policies and real-life retail interactions.
Are budtenders offering consumers risky advice?
More than 88 percent of employees suggested that cannabis could help with anxiety and insomnia. Twelve percent said healthcare providers recommend cannabis for those conditions, while around 10 percent claimed scientific evidence supported its use. Those responses are especially notable because Colorado, Oregon, and Washington (three of the five states included in the study) restrict cannabis retailers from making health claims.
The mystery shoppers also received conflicting safety guidance. Although 42.3 percent of retailers warned customers against transporting cannabis across state lines (which is indeed a crime), 44.6 percent reportedly gave them suggestions for avoiding detection. Some recommended traveling with less recognizable products, such as gummies or mints.
To better understand why these interactions occur, we chatted with Sara Gluck, founder of cannabis compliance company Above Board. The company conducts mystery shopping audits to help retailers identify the gap between their written policies and what customers actually experience at the counter.
“The travel example is a good one because of the potential legal consequences for the customer,” Gluck said. “Cannabis remains illegal at the federal level and under many state laws, so any staff guidance suggesting it is safe to transport product across state lines is materially false and puts the customer at risk, not just the dispensary.”
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Researchers uncovered similarly inconsistent responses surrounding driving and pregnancy. Fifty-eight percent of retailers warned customers against driving after consuming cannabis, yet 50 percent said whether it was safe depended on the person or situation.
Responses about pregnancy were equally mixed. Although all five states required warnings against using cannabis while pregnant, 36.2 percent of retailers suggested it could help with pregnancy-related nausea.
That included 13.1 percent who said it helped generally, 14.6 percent who acknowledged they could not provide medical advice but said most people found it helpful, 5.4 percent who claimed healthcare providers recommended it, and 3.1 percent who cited purported scientific evidence.
According to Gluck, these interactions reflect a structural problem that begins with employee training.
“At dispensaries, training is typically front-loaded at hiring and rarely reinforced,” Gluck said.
After that initial onboarding, budtenders often fill knowledge gaps through repeated customer interactions and guidance from coworkers rather than ongoing compliance education. High turnover makes preserving accurate institutional knowledge even more difficult.
“What gets passed down is rarely audited against current regulation,” Gluck said. “We do it this way because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
Turnover also problematic
High employee turnover can further weaken institutional knowledge, while operators may assume their original training remains effective without checking how employees communicate months later.
“Anyone can pass a policy quiz,” Gluck said. “Whether that policy survives contact with a real customer conversation six months later is a different question.”
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Gluck recommends clearly separating the product information employees should know (including cannabinoid content, terpene profiles, and form factors) from medical, legal, and condition-specific dosing claims they are not authorized to make.
She also believes retailers need ongoing, unannounced assessments rather than relying exclusively on onboarding.
“Unannounced, standardized checks are a reliable way to know what is actually happening on the floor versus what is assumed to be happening,” Gluck said.
As the study shows, regulations on paper don’t necessarily determine what a customer hears inside a dispensary. Without continued training and oversight, casual counter conversations may expose customers and licensed retailers alike to serious risks.