POT CLUB WON'T GO WITH FLOW

Jim Green runs the Market Street Club, which has provided medical marijuana
to San Francisco's sick since December 1997. He brags that the club is the
longest-running single-owner dispensary in San Francisco. Despite this, his
views run contrary to the majority of his peers', who, he believes, are
milking the system for profit, losing sight of the real reason behind
Proposition 215.

Dan Evans: You have a real dislike for people you call "recommendation
mill" doctors. Who are they, and what's the problem?

Jim Green: These doctors will sign off a recommendation letter, usually
charging hundreds of dollars, hardly noticing or caring what their clients'
problems are. They provide no physical examination, there's no follow-up,
no doctor-patient relationship at all.

The only thing worse than these doctors signing off on these things as an
act of prostitution is if they really think their clients are sick. If
their clients are that sick, why are they charging them $200 for a minute
and a half of their time?

Q: How many of these doctors are in the Bay Area?

A: I'm aware of three big ones I get constantly.

Q: You refuse to take recommendations from these doctors, right?

A: Right.

Q: How many have you turned away?

A: When I was advertising in the SF Weekly between November and February, I
turned away more than 1,000 clients of one of those doctors at the door.

You start doing the math, and at $200 a pop, you see there's a lot of money
to be made.

Q: How many of the people you've turned down were actually sick and needed
marijuana?

A: I don't have any way of actually knowing they're sick. The way these
recommendations are done is so derelict. I just can't take the chance. We
shouldn't and we can't tolerate doctors who write their own standards of
conduct.

Q: Have you ever talked to any of these recommendation mill doctors?

A: No. Q: Do you think you should?

A: I know they know about me, because a couple of times I've blown their
clients off over the phone, and one of the doctors called to complain.

The standards doctors agree to be held to is far different than what I, as
a club owner, have. I shouldn't have to question the paperwork presented by
an M.D., but we're talking about four or five thousand people I've turned
down who've presented recommendations from these doctors.

Q: Since you're not a doctor, what gives you the right to turn down their
paperwork?

A: Because I know that's it's done is a fraudulent manner. I think I could
go up to 100 people on the street, point to these doctors' practices, and
ask "Is this a legitimate doctor-patient relationship?" And they would all
say, "Hell no."

Q: Your last name is Green and you run a marijuana club. Is that on purpose?

A: Purely coincidental. It's just my name. Q: What got you into it?

A: Well, my luck ran out with HIV in 1995, and I started the antivirus
meds. I always said that I wouldn't do them. But when you look across the
desk at the doctor, who's telling you "You have no T-cells left, you're
going to die unless we do something," your attitude changes.

I started taking them, but the side effects were just a nightmare. The pot
really, really helped. Turned my life completely around. I would die
without marijuana. Within 12 hours, 18 hours, I would be puking up my guts,
and huge weight loss.

Q: How did you get from an avid fan of pot to being an owner of a pot club?

A: In 1997, I managed to get myself fired from my job.

Q: For having HIV?

A: No, no. I was working customer service for a pharmaceutical company.
Seeing the way that I act now, the fact I that I would have ever worked a
customer service job is a little bit of joke.

I had some money from my life insurance, and it really wasn't a lot of
money, but it was more than I ever had in my life.

After my last job, I kinda figured out I wasn't going to fit in well with
another place. I thought I could do the pot clubs. I decided to open up the
business. It was something I believed in, I didn't have to have a huge
business to open up.

Q: What are the differences between your club and other clubs?

A: They take the recommendation mill letters. That's the difference between
being the oldest club and town and having a club with thousands of members
that's open for a short time.

Q: You also won't sell Mexican weed. Why?

A: Because of the risk of contamination. They use DDT and all sorts of
pesticides we don't allow in the United States. I'm also worried about its
being smuggled across the border lying next to a shipment of heroin.

Q: But it's cheaper, and you would do more business if you offered it, right?

A: I don't sell it because it's low quality, and I don't think it has any
medicinal purposes. I deal one-on-one with my clients, and I have to sleep
at night.

Q: How many clients do you have?

A: My client list is about 500, but only about 100 of those come in regularly.

Q: Is there tension between yourself and the other clubs?

A: I don't really have much contact with them because I don't approve of
how they run their businesses.

I don't think the club atmosphere at some of the other clubs serves the
industry well. I discourage people from consuming here, but sometimes they
need to. But I think it should be done at home, in private.

Q: What to you think about the recreational use of marijuana?

A: A lot of people are for decriminalization for recreational use, which I
don't think is a bad idea, but it's not medical marijuana. The association
of those two movements blurs that line, and puts medical marijuana at risk.

Q: Is there a real danger of 215 being repealed because of the conduct of
recommendation mill doctors?

A: The critics now have all the facts to substantiate their arguments.
There is no reason that 215 can't be done the way it was voted in. It's for
sick people, not for some yuppie who got his back injured between tennis
lessons.

Q: Do you suffer financially because you won't take these doctors' letters?

A: Ask me a different question.

Q: No, really, do you?

A: Oh, definitely. My budget is more like a tourniquet.

Q: So you make a sacrifice to do this.

A: Every time you turn away business there's a consequence. And as soon as
I turn someone down, they just go to one of my competitors, and their money
spends really good there.