Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Steve Hendrix

POT DISPENSARIES REPORT STRUGGLE TO MEET DEMAND

Shortage Could Ease in D.C., As More Firms Have Registered to Be Growers

Even as the nation's capital enters an uncertain new age of legal 
marijuana, the 2,500 District residents permitted to buy medical 
cannabis are facing a blunt truth of their own: There isn't enough 
pot to go around.

For months, many of the marijuana-using patients registered with the 
D.C. Department of Health have been frustrated by a chronic shortage 
in the system's very limited supply chain. Since last summer, when 
the D.C. Council relaxed the rules for obtaining a doctor's 
prescription for cannabis, the number of medical users has soared 
past the ability of the city's three official growers to meet it.

Operators of Washington's three medical marijuana dispensaries have 
struggled to meet the rising demand, frequently limiting the amount 
patients can purchase and occasionally turning them away.

On Wednesday, "we opened without any product to sell or without a 
delivery expected that day," said Vanessa West, manager of the 
Metropolitan Wellness Center in Southeast Washington. "It was a total 
bummer. We closed early." See page 20

 From page B1 West has heard from some impatient patients that the 
shortage has pushed them back to the pot dealers they relied on 
before the District launched its tightly regulated medical marijuana 
network in 2013.

Belinda Cunningham said she depends on the prescription she obtained 
last year to face life with HIV and Stage 2 cervical cancer. The 
63-year-old grandmother was down to 129 pounds, taking more than 25 
pills a day and suffering incessant vomiting. Cannabis, which she now 
smokes and vapes before every meal, settled the nausea and restored 
her appetite and her weight.

"I just started feeling better right away," she said.

But until growers can ramp up production, she can't always get what she needs.

"Last week I went to the clinic, and they didn't have anything, not 
even sticks," Cunningham said. "I'm really struggling right now. I 
know people are going back to the street, but I don't want to do that 
if I don't have to. You don't know what's in it."

The shortage has gone largely unnoticed amid the drama leading up to 
Thursday's legalization of recreational marijuana in the city.

(Although, the medical cannabis dispensaries have been besieged by 
calls from recreational users mistakenly hoping they could score some 
of the legal pot. "We have to tell them that, no, they cannot swing 
by," West said. The law wouldn't allow that, even if dispensaries had 
the pot to spare.)

The scarcity is a big change from the early days of the medical 
marijuana program, when dispensaries catered to so few registered 
patients that some ran out of room to display all the Blue Dream, 
Master Kush and Lemon Skunk they had on hand. At the time, residents 
could get a prescription for only a short list of approved 
conditions, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and spasms.

Patients then had to apply to the Department of Health for a card 
that allowed them to enter one of the dispensaries and buy marijuana. 
There were fewer than 800 patients in the system last summer when the 
council, responding to pleas from dispensary operators and patient 
advocates, scrapped the list of conditions. Patients must still 
register, but since August, physicians have been allowed to prescribe 
cannabis for whatever they want.

"We decided to open it up for the doctor to make the decisions," said 
D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7), who sponsored the bill.

Anticipating a surge in demand, the council also lifted some of the 
restrictions on cultivators, increasing the number of plants each 
grower can raise from 95 to 500. But as the number of patients has 
more than tripled in the last seven months, the supply continues to lag.

It takes up to 23 weeks to bring a pot plant from cutting to harvest- 
ready bud, according to Corey Barnette, a marijuana cultivator who 
owns District Growers. His company moved to add new seedlings as soon 
as the law allowed, hiring four new workers, upgrading its old 
printing plant in Northeast with dozens of additional LED lights and 
heavier climate-control systems.

"We are just, literally this week, starting to harvest some of the 
new plants," said Barnette, who predicted that the supply backlog 
would begin to shrink in coming months. "It's about to pick up substantially."

The law allows for up to 10 growers to operate in the network, and 
all 10 licenses have been awarded to companies that had to apply and 
pass an extensive background check. Only three grow houses have begun 
to supply marijuana to the dispensaries, but as demand has grown 
interest may be stirring.

Two additional license-holders, Abatin and Alternative Solutions, 
both in Northeast Washington, are now listed as operational on the 
Department of Heath Web site, although neither has sold cannabis yet, 
according to dispensary officials. A participant in the Abatin group 
declined to be interviewed for this article.

The highly regulated medical marijuana market in the District, where 
three approved growers have supplied three approved clinics, is a far 
cry from the freewheeling system in other states. West, who came to 
the District after managing medical cannabis dispensaries in 
California, said there were so many suppliers in the state that much 
of her day would be spent evaluating and selecting from among their wares.

"It was sniff and touch all day long," West recalled. "I'd actually 
have to take an antihistamine before I'd start my day."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom