Dispensary upholds yerbera tradition

Brandi Gutierrez has a tattoo of an oil can with a drop of oil coming out of it pointing down to her elbow. It’s a reminder that hard work, measured in elbow grease, is essential for success.

Gutierrez owns and operates Nubes Dispensary in Sunland Park and Las Cruces with her husband, Peregrin Ramirez, and a partner who lives in Las Vegas, Nev.

The Sunland Park cannabis dispensary opened in August 2022, followed in October 2023 by the Las Cruces location, which will celebrate its second anniversary during Hispanic Heritage Month.

“We’re really just here to give back,” said Gutierrez, a native of El Paso who lives in Sunland Park with Ramirez and their two children, ages 6 and 11.

Gutierrez has experience in the cannabis industry in five states, including New Mexico. She was at one time director of operations for Hush Canna, which began in Oregon in 2015.

“We grew and went public and became Halo Collective,” an international cannabis oil manufacturer, Gutierrez said.

She later became operations manager at Amazon.com before deciding Sunland Park was the place to make a home and start a business.

A 2007 graduate of Horizon High School in El Paso, Gutierrez has a chemistry degree from New Mexico State University (she taught high school chemistry for two years), where she was also an outstanding distance runner. Opening Nubes’ Las Cruces dispensary in the Pan Am Plaza building that used to be an off-campus bookstore was part of Gutierrez’s plan to “bring something back to New Mexico. We felt like we had this mission, this duty to make that something beautiful,” she said.

Gutierrez and her family came home in April 2021, renting a building in Sunland Park and developing a business plan a year before recreational cannabis became legal in the state.

Gutierrez said she and her husband, a military veteran, have both had significant health benefits from cannabis and wanted to share their knowledge and personal experience with others.

Nubes has 10 employees, she said, following in the tradition of yerberas (herbalists) who are extensively trained in the many health benefits of cannabis and traditionally “come from both indigenous people and Spanish roots,” according to the Nubes website.

“We hired locally and we trained up,” Gutierrez said. “We have some of the best cannabis employees in the business.”

Her staff learns about the chemical background and medicinal benefits of the products they sell, she said, and the art of listening, so they understand the specific needs of each client.

The entire team is part of Nubes’ “accessibility to the community,” Gutierrez said, and its commitment to give back through local service projects like a toy drive to benefit La Casa’s domestic violence program, local schools, food drives that benefit Casa de Peregrinos emergency food program, while serving posole and menudo at Nubes events that include the whole staff. They also join other locally owned businesses at Sunland Park and Las Cruces mercados.

“We’re competing at a very top level,” she said. “It’s just a matter of getting that local support and supporting that mission.”

In New Mexico, it also means dealing with “ever changing rules and regulations” in the cannabis industry, Gutierrez said, where large out-of-state companies and small locally owned companies are not treated the same.

“We need to work together and listen to each other,” she said.

For Gutierrez, the work, the community she serves and Hispanic culture are all part of the cycle of life. And so is the cannabis Nubes is helping to restore to its rightful status, she said.

“What once was taboo is now being honored as something that should have been beautiful the whole time,” Gutierrez said, as cannabis is now being recognized as part of “holistic wellness.”

Her dispensaries are “loud and colorful and very New Mexico inviting,” she said, reflecting popular themes like football and Dia de los Muertos. The long-term goal is to expand Nubes into “a multi-state operation,” Gutierrez said.

Nubes’ locations are 100 Maguey Court in Sunland Park (575-332-4340) and 1713 E. University Ave. in Las Cruces (575-259-3957). The Las Cruces dispensary is open 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. The Sunland Park dispensary is open 7 a.m.-11 p.m. seven days a week. More information is available at NubesDispensary.com or @nubesdispensary on social media.