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Cannabis retail outlet

location in which marijuana is legally sold

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ24140788
Source-derived summary

A cannabis retail outlet (also known as cannabis shop, cannabis dispensary, cannabis store, cannabis cooperative) is a location at which cannabis is sold or otherwise dispensed, either for recreational or for medical use.

Due to the complex legal regimes surrounding cannabis, cannabis shops have different names and modalities depending on the jurisdiction. In the Netherlands these are called "coffeeshops". In the United States they exist as outlets often called dispensaries for both recreational and medical use. In other jurisdictions like Malta, Spain, Uruguay, Germany, cannabis dispensation takes place in cannabis social clubs, legally not considered as a retail shop but as non-profit cooperatives. Finally, there are other types of cannabis shops like Bhang shops in India and experimental cannabis dispensation systems in Switzerland.

Cannabis shops differ from head shops in that the latter sells only drug paraphernalia. The world's largest cannabis dispensary is in Las Vegas, Nevada, at 112,000 square feet opened by Planet 13 Holdings.

Types of cannabis retail outlets

Coffeeshop

Cannabis selling coffeeshops began in the 1970s. Establishments like Mellow Yellow coffeeshop were known for open cannabis smoking and dealing.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Cannabis retail outlet” as location in which marijuana is legally sold. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cannabis, retail and outlet.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 182-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Cannabis, retail and outlet providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Cannabis retail outlet”, the useful work is to connect “location in which marijuana is legally sold” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24140788. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cannabis retail outlet”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cannabis retail outlet primary sources, Cannabis retail outlet archive and Cannabis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Cannabis retail outlet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.