Some things have a certain way of sticking with you throughout your life. For Michael Murphy, known to his friends and co-workers as “Murph,” it’s owning a pug. He said the only stretch of his life he’s never had one in his ownership was for maybe about a month or two.
“Right now, I’m on No. 6 of my lifetime,” he laughed. “I’ve always had a pug involved in my life someway. My mom and grandma had a pug and chihuahua when I was born. They’re like my emotional support animals.”
Murph grew up outside of Baltimore as the only child of a single mom. As a kid, he said sports took up most of his time outside of school, finding his passion to be splitting his time between the football and lacrosse teams. Being an only child, he found it easy to immerse himself in the fun of playing in a group and the family-like mentality associated with joining a team.
“It was just me and (my mom) most of the time. A lot of the time it may have been just me,” he said, adding he’s found that harvesting that kind of environment has carried over into his work life as an adult. “I like that camaraderie of people sharing in your misery and successes.”
Entering his college years with the intention of playing football, Murph instead pivoted to attending community college right out of high school to figure out his career path. After transferring to Salisbury University, he got a degree in physical education.
He initially wanted to pursue broadcasting and potentially break into the sports media industry, but after talking with his mom, she steered him onto a “secure” career path in the educational field.
After getting his degree, his first teaching job was at a Catholic school. After three years of teaching in a private school, he moved to the public school system in Anne Arundel County, where he taught various grade levels at a few different schools around the county.
Teaching at public schools also gave him the opportunity to start coaching in the athletic programs. He knew at some point that he wanted to get into coaching given his athletic background, but it was the lessons he’d learned from his coaches that really inspired him to make an impact in the communities he was joining.
“Growing up without a father figure around, I kind of gravitated toward that male leadership of a teacher or a coach,” he said. “I’m a big relationship guy; that family camaraderie of a team that I felt when I played and being part of that as a coach made that all come full circle.”
After teaching in Anne Arundel County for 15 years, Murph moved to teaching in Baltimore City until 2022, when he decided to step away from teaching altogether and make the leap into the Cannabis industry.
As a teenager, he said he dabbled with Cannabis until he decided to get serious about sports and his education and didn’t touch it again until after college. It was around that time that his mom got sick, and he had to care for her while finishing up college and finding a job. She passed later that same year, and Murph said he had to “grow up really fast.” He credits Cannabis for helping him deal with the anxiety and trauma that come with that.
“As a 23-, 24-year-old who is inheriting a house and all the bills, I think Cannabis helped me ground myself,” he said. “I drank and partied, but the side effects wore me out, and I didn’t want to feel that hangover. I way more preferred the peace and solitude that Cannabis gives you.”
He got his medical card in 2019 while he was still teaching, and it inspired him to get more serious with his Cannabis use. With his athletic experience in mind, he crafted a regimen of consuming the same amount of edibles and flower every day so he can really feel the full effects of the plant. Being at work acts as his “built-in t-break” for the day, but when he gets home, his downtime involves a couple joints — anything indica-leaning in terms of strain — and some edibles, one preferably with some CBN in it to wind down with later in the evening.
“If you wanted to take a vitamin so you don’t get sick, you would take that vitamin regularly,” he said. “Your body’s built to take in these cannabinoids, and for the most part of our lives, it’s been starved for so long. So, a regular dosage, I feel, functions the best. Things tend to get better with repetition.”
Currently working as a budtender, Murph previously worked for Verano in the packaging department. It was here that he found his passion for growing and caring for Cannabis plants after meeting a regular at the shop who grew them, and he figured out how feasible it was to take the journey for himself.
“I used to fish and play golf and have all of these other hobbies with coaching and being around sports. Then, when I left education, I lost that,” he said. “Now (growing) is one of my favorite things to do in my downtime. It fills that little void that I had when I stopped teaching.”
But even with distancing himself from teaching, Murph manages to find those teachable moments throughout his workday and exercise those years of experience to make an impact in someone’s day to day.
“It’s a little better that I’m working at the front end of a dispensary as a budtender where I can talk to and grow people with their knowledge, like I would my plants or like I would if they were my students.”
