No one was wearing tie-dye.
During a two-hour span one afternoon this week, it was a rare moment when no customers were inside of Appalachian Cannabis Company, a less than two-week-old business in Cross Lanes.
A 64-year-old man from an adjoining state drove an hour and half in the hopes that a product made with cannabidiol, referred to as CBD, would help his wife with her arthritis.
A woman with silver hair asked Scott McKenzie, an employee, if the product will make her high. He assures her that it won't.
Tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, is the compound in marijuana that causes a high.
CBD, another component, "may relieve pain, lower inflammation and decrease anxiety," according to the National Institutes of Health, although the products have not been approved by the FDA for medical use.
CBD "appears to be a safe drug with no addictive effects," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Appalachian Cannabis Company opened on Aug. 19 at 130 Goff Mountain Road, in Cross Lanes. They received 1,000 Facebook messages in the first day, owner Chris Yeager said.
To answer some of the questions, he decided to host a Q&A on Facebook Live. He ended up talking for an hour.
"We are finding that people are getting their lives back," he said. "And it's giving them their liberty."
R.D. Brunty, a truck driver from Teays Valley, already was a repeat customer by Thursday. He has anxiety and COPD. The anxiety will keep him in bed for days at a time.
"I actually got out of bed to come here when I read this was open," he said. "Within four to five days of taking it, my anxiety level tremendously dropped."
It used to take him an hour and a half to mow his lawn - a task that he said takes a younger man about 40 minutes to complete. When he does it, he normally has to rest and catch his breath about three times.
"Today I cut the grass the first time without ever having to stop," he said.
He wasn't sure about giving his name. He didn't want his mom to read about it in the paper.
Then he listened to Yeager talk about why he opened the business.
Yeager used to work in media and marketing. Then about seven years ago, his uncle and brother died of opiate-related deaths. Both used Suboxone, and had traces of opiates in their system when they died.
"My brother was on Christmas Eve," he said.
He decided to follow medical marijuana to Colorado, and immerse himself in the industry - "instead of relying on a pharmaceutical company to come in and heal us," he said.
He's wearing a shirt with the slogan "Pot Over Painkillers."
"I know more young people that have died from opiates than I do grandparents and old people that have died from natural causes," he said.
A Marine Corps veteran, he also lobbied at the West Virginia Legislature for years.
"I would tell them I am basically a criminal right now because I am using cannabis for my PTSD," he said.
Brunty listened to the story and decided to give his name after all, even if it means his mom finds out.
"She watched me cut the grass for the first time," he said. "Now I'm going to talk to her and say this is why."
"The community that comes around cannabis is part of the therapy," McKenzie explains.
He had worked in the industry in California, before moving back to Kentucky.
"I was planning on leaving again," he said, until he saw an advertisement for a job at the cannabis company.
"I left my job that morning," he said.
In the past 10 days, he's met people who have driven hours.
"A lot of people are coming here as a last resort," he said. "It's heartbreaking."
The store sells topicals, tinctures, gummies, capsules, syrups, vapeable products and concentrates. Prices vary. Some of the tinctures are hundreds of dollars. Ten 25-milligram gummies are $45. Ten 10-milligram capsules are $25.
"These stores are popping up all over the country, and the legality of their products is a subject of considerable debate," said Matt Simon, a West Virginia native who works for the Marijuana Policy Project. "It is hard to find clarity on this issue given the murkiness of federal laws and policies."
Asked about the DEA's prohibition on marijuana, Yeager cited the 2014 farm bill - the Agricultural Act of 2014 which "(a)uthorizes an institution of higher education or a state department of agriculture to cultivate industrial hemp if: cultivated for purposes of research under an agricultural pilot program or other agricultural or academic research, and allowed under the laws of the state in which the institution or department is located and the research occurs."
West Virginia code allows a person growing hemp for industrial purposes to apply for a license from the agricultural commissioner.
Appalachian Cannabis Company has a "Research and Marketing Cultivation of Hemp License" from the West Virginia Department of Agriculture displayed on the wall.
It also has a West Virginia flag displayed on the wall, but that's about it. They don't get their phone number assigned until Friday.
"I'll be honest with you," Yeager said. "I didn't expect it to take off like this."
In an August call for comment on CBD and several other drugs, the FDA said: "CBD has been shown to be beneficial in experimental models of several neurological disorders, including those of seizure and epilepsy. In the United States, CBD-containing products are in human clinical testing in three therapeutic areas, but no such products are approved by FDA for marketing for medical purposes in the United States."
"We're not allowed to call it a medicine," Yeager said. "We're not allowed to make claims that it heals anything... It helps with this and it helps with that."
Product testing, he said, is done in house. He said they test for contaminants, pesticides, and microbial content.
Yeager says that the business currently is focused on CBD, but has not ruled out the possibility of selling medicinal marijuana in the future.
But when the medical marijuana bill and a bill expanding the number of people who could sell CBD in West Virginia passed last legislative session, it "really ignited a fire in us to get going quickly," he said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.