Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jul 2014
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2014 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Erin Heffernan
Page: 4

POT DISPENSARIES, PATIENTS WATCH WARILY

Will Medical Pot Face New Rules?

Users Fear Cheaper System Is in Danger

As lines formed outside Washington's first legal retail marijuana 
shops Tuesday, a quiet waiting room in a downtown Seattle office 
building filled with another group of people looking to buy pot.

The Green Wellness clinic is an alternative-medicine center where 
business cards say "Medical Cannabis Doctors."

Keith Gordon, 61, came to the clinic to get reauthorized for medical 
marijuana. Despite legalization, he said, he doesn't plan on buying 
from the retail shops.

"Here [in the medical-marijuana system] there are more choices, more 
flexibility and the price is easier to control," Gordon said. "It's 
easier to find a supply and go buy it, too, and I don't want it to be 
that much harder."

Once he's reauthorized, Gordon, who says he uses marijuana to relieve 
arthritis and pain, will be able to buy a variety of marijuana 
products, from edibles to joints, at an estimated 300 dispensaries 
throughout Seattle.

Compared with the retail shops, which numbered just one in Seattle on 
the first day, the medical dispensaries are more prevalent, carry a 
larger variety of products and face far fewer regulations and taxes 
from the state.

The pot is also cheaper. At Green Anne, a dispensary in Queen Anne, 
one gram of pot costs $10 to $15, according to general manager Phoebe 
Bizzelle. Compare that to about $20 charged Tuesday at Seattle's 
first legal retail store, Cannabis City.

State regulations on medical growers are also much looser. While 
every recreational-pot plant must be bar-coded and entered into a 
tracking database, medicalmarijuana users are permitted to grow up to 
15 plants in their homes.

But recreational-pot users have greater assurances about the safety 
and chemical content of the pot they buy at retail stores than the 
best-educated patients have in the largely unregulated medical 
system, where testing and accurate labeling are not mandated. Testing 
shows that some marijuana strains are not what they purport to be in 
name, chemical content and genetics. This is particularly concerning 
for patients seeking pot low in intoxicants and high in 
pain-relieving or other therapeutic qualities.

Robert Dotson, a medical consultant at Green Wellness, said the 
medical-marijuana community is wary that new regulations could be 
coming, with the medical system eventually brought into the new 
state-licensed stores.

"I would hate to see recreational pot mean that medical marijuana 
gets derailed to match," he said. "People need this; it is their 
medicine. For that to be snatched away by things like limiting 
access, increased taxes and preventing people from growing their own 
medicine is just criminal."

But Bizzell said she is not worried about the immediate business of 
the dispensary.

"Sure, some people might want to wait in line to buy expensive pot," 
she said, standing at the Green Anne counter. "I really don't think 
we're going to lose any patients."

Information from Seattle Times archives is included.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom