Brittany Ruth walks out of her local dispensary with a six-pack of Tall Seltzers from Evermore, a bevy of flavors in hand. To the wandering eye, it looks like she’s just stocking up for the week, but what someone passing by may not know is that she’s celebrating a special milestone.
“It’s now been six months, and I have not had a drop of alcohol,” she says, smiling as she finishes sharing the news. “And I probably never will again.” She notes that the Talls make her feel more comfortable and included socially when she’s at a party or out with friends, without any added peer pressure to drink.
She says the seltzers, along with her overall journey with Cannabis, not only helped her cut out alcohol completely but also allowed her to face and work through some lingering trauma she’s had to carry with her from her upbringing.
Growing up in a small town in rural Pennsylvania, it didn’t offer much to do outside of meeting up at bonfires in the cornfields, she says. As she started high school, an opportunity to escape from the dull nature of a small-town life and the uninspiring people in it presented itself to Brittany in the many forms of art.
“I was one of two Asians in my high school,” she says. “I knew that I was already standing out and they already think I’m weird and crazy, so just run with it.”
She took every extracurricular art class she could in school, but she says her passion for art started when she was younger and spent the summer with her grandmother, who was an artist.
“She would teach me how to draw, how to paint ceramics, and how to make pottery,” Brittany says, adding that her grandmother would also task her with taking reference pictures for her art, sparking her love for photography. “I kind of grew up with a camera in my hands.”
After high school, Brittany attended Penn State as a psychology major before dropping out after one semester. She later re-enrolled as an art history major but dropped out again shortly after. Her family moved to Maryland before she started college, so she decided it was time to join them. Once she settled into her new surroundings, she enrolled at Harford Community College to study photography, earning her A.A. and landing a studio photography job.
Reflecting on the two semesters she spent at Penn State, she says the experience helped her realize she wanted to make a career out of helping people. How to offer it, though, was still something she had to figure out.
After working a variety of odd jobs in Maryland and losing her studio job due to COVID-19, Brittany applied at a dispensary and became a budtender — a job she says she had been looking for since moving and the most rewarding she’s had. She started smoking weed when she was younger, out of boredom and as a sleep aid, and got her medical card not long before starting her budtending job.
Brittany slowly took on more responsibilities at the shop and was given the opportunity to implement her artistic abilities in upper management work, such as product photography and ad design, teaching herself along the way. This eventually led her to shift from the sales floor to the dispensary’s marketing team full time, where she now leads the team.
It was tough climbing the ladder to get to where she is now, she says, but the support and encouragement from the team around her to see her grow and step out of her comfort zone inspired her to continue her personal journey of educating and helping those around her.
“Water doesn’t just push you; sometimes you have to go with it,” she says. “Going from smoking weed at 15 to working in the industry, and I can say I help people — that’s the best thing ever.”
While she’s loyal to the Tall Seltzers as her go-to favorite for consumption, Brittany has a few different ways of enjoying her medicine. Smoking an indica-heavy flower rolled in a joint is a pretty consistent choice, she says, adding that she enjoys the physical act of smoking and the social aspect attached to it.
“You can hand anybody a joint, and then you end up in a conversation and know everything about them in 10 minutes,” she says.
While Cannabis is a huge part of her life, Brittany says she doesn’t see herself being in the industry forever. She floats the idea of one day starting her own business that focuses on giving creatives a place to find their niche, grow their abilities and make their connections, similar to the opportunities given to her by her former bosses and what her grandmother helped her to find as a kid.
“I know it’s hard to find a job, especially in what you’re good at. I mean, I started with a pen and paint,” she says. “It’s fun showing other creatives there’s nothing set in stone; yet, there are rules they recommend you follow, but it’s literally just a recommendation.
