BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Bowling Green had history mark its place on Tuesday after the city’s first hemp dispensary open its doors. 

What You Need To Know

  • One Love Hemp Dispensary has several locations in Kentucky, including Louisville

  • The shop is owned by a husband and wife, Matthew Bratcher and Lauren Bratcher

  • The shops seek to provide studies and scholarly books to customers to learn how CBD can help them

  • Bowling Green's dispensary sells legal amounts of cannabis, hemp and CBD

The co-owners of One Love Hemp Dispensary, Lauren and Matthew Bratcher, have been advocates of adult-use cannabis, as they, and numerous studies, have found it can help with a multitude of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.

“When we started looking for a home office for our advocacy work, we thought we could have a whole hemp dispensary down here in Bowling Green,” Lauren said.

One way the owners do that is by educating their customers on finding relief, not only with hemp products, but with other natural methods like medicinal mushrooms, vitamins and supplements. 

“Not only do we recommend cannabis, but we can look into this book and figure out what nutrients are good for you to take, what vitamins should you take as well,” Lauren said. “Were not here just to sell you cannabis products. We want to teach you how to use natural products to supplement your health.”

The Bratchers have been the directors of the cannabis advocacy organization, Kentucky NORML, for years. Their advocacy led both of them to witness the recent Senate Bill 47 being signed into effect by Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky.

According to the bill, it is an attempt to reduce Kentuckians’ reliance on addictive opioids by allowing cannabis to be legal in the commonwealth starting on Jan. 1, 2025. 

Matthew said that was an exceptional step in the right direction and even hung it onto their wall inside the dispensary.

“To see it come through, it was good, and that’s kinda why we put it up there,” Matthew said. “A lot of people put blood, sweat and tears into getting this taken care of. We’ve lost a lot of folks along the way that could have benefited from this.”

And now, they want to bring positive social awareness and break social stigmas by showcasing how cannabis hemp can benefit one’s health and what to expect when the medical cannabis program launches in Kentucky. 

“What we really like about this is you can go through and figure out what you got, maybe ALS or chronic pain, and you can turn to that. You can see the research and references on cannabis for that ailment, which I believe is super important,” Lauren said.

“We don’t want you to just believe us. We want you to do your own research. So we’re gonna guide you to the best places to find that information.”

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