We’ve divided the county of Los Angeles into regions based on the county’s own “Service Planning Area” boundaries. Therefore the county is divided into: the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, Metro LA, West LA, South LA, East LA, and the South Bay/Harbor.
We begin in South LA, one of the city’s historic communities for growing and selling weed. South LA was hit hard by the War on Drugs and the gang culture that it ushered in. Today, this community is growing and thriving and adding more cannabis businesses every year. Locals are creating generational wealth through cannabis.
East LA is another region that was hit hard by the War on Drugs and yet that produced a lot of the weed culture that LA is known for. There are important, influential dispensaries in this part of town and more are on the way.
The South Bay/Harbor region includes some very influential communities that participated heavily in weed culture during the era of prohibition and the War on Drugs. Bordering cities like Inglewood and Compton, this region has significant ties to weed culture. Long Beach is a hotspot of dispensaries. This region was ground zero for SoCal gangsta rap in the 80s-90s, which heavily promoted weed.
The LA Metro Area includes the Downtown area, a part of the city that was once a collection of Mexican and Indigenous towns. Mexican communities in this area were some of the first targeted by law enforcement for growing cannabis. The DTLA area has been revived as an arts community and many historically important dispensaries are located right downtown. The LA Metro Area also includes hotspots like West Hollywood, Wilshire, and Hollywood, aka Hollyweed.
The San Fernando Valley has a large dispensary culture and is one of the city’s dispensary hotspots. Many dispensaries here come from the legacy era of medical marijuana. Some very historically influential dispensaries are in this part of town. The Valley contains the largest concentration of legal dispensaries in the county.
West LA is where some of the wealthiest zip codes in the state reside, and also includes popular beaches and tourist attractions. In the era of legal recreational cannabis, these parts of town have added more and more dispensaries to service the growing interest in weed culture and consumption. These communities were not targeted by the War on Drugs, but some neighborhoods have been culturally associated with weed culture in LA for generations, such as Venice Beach.
Although large and populated, the San Gabriel Valley to the east does not yet have many dispensaries. Only a few cities have allowed them to open, and even then at very low numbers. However, many more dispensaries will open in this region in the future.