MARIJUANA: AN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Drive to an aging, nondescript strip mall on Fillmore Street, knock
on the locked door of Cannabis Therapeutics, and when the door swings
open the first thing to greet you will be the sweet, pungent smell of
marijuana.

Here in the heart of Colorado Springs is the largest medical
marijuana dispensary in Colorado. Doorman Ken McAdams checks your
paperwork from the state, and then you're ushered into the inner sanctum.

Charismatic owner Michael Lee delights in showing newcomers around
his magic emporium, with his friendly pup Sawyer trailing at his
feet. There are 45 strains of pot on this day - with names like
chemo, white widow, purple kush, vortex, chocolate chunk, lemonade,
and orange crush - arranged in glass jars.

But that's just the beginning. There are tinctures, lotions and
balms. There are cran-raspberry drinks, chewing gum, cough drops and
caramels. There's bubble bath, banana bread and cherry cheesecake.
New creations are constantly being birthed in the "Herbologist's"
chemistry lab.

"There are so many ways to get your medicine now that you don't need
to smoke it," Lee said.

Cheech and Chong would go bonkers in this place, but Lee is careful
to avoid that stoner vibe. He doesn't make jokes about munchies or
being high. He calls marijuana "medicine" and his customers are "patients."

He has good reasons - personal and professional - to fight the image
of marijuana as the province of snowboard dudes and aging hippies,
and instead promote the drug as legitimate medicine.

State voters approved medical marijuana use in November 2000, thus
writing Amendment 20 into the state constitution. But nearly a decade
later state officials are still tinkering with its implementation.

Newly proposed changes by the Colorado Department of Public Health
and Environment threaten to close dispensaries like Cannabis
Therapeutics. The rule changes - to be discussed at a meeting in
Denver in June - would make it illegal to supply more than five
patients, effectively stamping out medical marijuana dispensaries.

"It's not about business, it's about patients," Lee said.

He sells marijuana to more than 500 people, he said, roughly 1 in 10
people on the state registry. More people come to him every month,
and he saw a boost recently when the Obama administration said
medical marijuana use can be decided by the states, ending the raids
by federal agents under President Bush.

The patients are teachers, lawyers, doctors and retirees, he said.
They have afflictions like cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, multiple
sclerosis, and chronic pain. And inside his place - where "the grass
is always greener" - they will find a cornucopia of legal marijuana products.

They will also find like-minded fellowship and care. Around the
corner from Cannabis Therapeutics is the Patient Activity and
Resource Center (PARC), where freshly cooked meals, massages and
occasional medical clinics are available on Cannabis Therapeutics' dime.

There, Holly Watson hit the vaporizer and pulled pot vapors into her
lungs. Watson was with friend Kristi Hernandez and Frank Blakely, who
zoomed in on his motorized wheelchair to hang out for a while.

A fibromyalgia sufferer, Watson said the pain made her quit working
as a certified medical assistant about a year ago, and she drifted
away from her family as she got more zoned out on prescribed
painkillers. She cried as she talked about what medical marijuana has
done for her.

"Since I've started medicating with marijuana, I've gotten my life
back," said Watson, 34. "When I was on morphine, my kids got away
with I don't know what."

'Miracle Plant'

So, how does one become the king of medical marijuana in Colorado? In
this case, reluctantly.

Michael Lee was an Air Force kid who moved around a lot, but
graduated from Palmer High School in 1982.

After he escaped high school, he moved in with his brother in
California. He was driving down Shoreline Drive in Santa Barbara on a
rainy Sunday, when another car collided with his and nearly ripped it in half.

Lee said he had a fractured skull, a ruptured spleen and five breaks
in his spine. But after the accident Lee spurned traditional
painkillers and turned instead to marijuana to control chronic pain
and muscle spasms during his quarter-century career as a flooring contractor.

When Colorado legalized medical marijuana, he got a recommendation
from his doctor and became patient No. 7 on the state registry. But,
Lee said, he never thought of starting a dispensary until his
physician, Dr. Randall Bjork, nudged him.

"It wasn't really my idea, but somebody had to do it," Lee said.
"When I was a patient, I couldn't find anybody to help me."

Cannabis Therapeutics grew from seven patients to more than 500
patients, and Lee has grown from a reluctant entrepreneur to a
medical marijuana missionary.

Lee is a Christian who thinks of marijuana as a gift from God that we
should be using for everything from fuel to hemp clothing. "It's a
miracle plant," he said, his voice rising along with his excitement.

State health authorities, however, are more conflicted. State
officials have been assailed by marijuana advocates for the proposed
rule changes that could threaten dispensaries like Lee's. The public
outcry forced the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment, an agency typically removed from controversy, to
postpone its originally scheduled March hearing to June so it could
find a meeting hall large enough for the anticipated crowd. Ron
Hyman, state registrar of statistics, said the department expects
more than 500 people to attend.

Critics say the health department's new rules are the latest example
in a long history of hurdles as the state struggles to accept the
legality of the drug. Hyman counters the rules are designed to better
conform to the amendment, not interfere with it.

The most controversial change involves the definition of a primary
caregiver, and a limitation on how many people one person can care for.

Amendment 20 defines a "primary caregiver" as someone who "has
significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient
who has a debilitating medical condition."

Dispensary owners like Lee have built their businesses on the notion
that they are caregivers under the amendment.

"We are more than providers. We are caretakers," Lee said, arguing
that his hot meals and massages and friendly conversation are more
than any doctor or pharmacist provides.

Hyman said "significant responsibility," as worded in the amendment,
was vague, but a merchandiser is not who most people would consider
to be a person's caregiver.

"They know better than that. That was not the original intent," said
Denver attorney Warren Edson, one of the authors of the amendment.
"We totally, 100 percent, intended for there to be dispensaries."

Dispensaries don't appear in the amendment, and Edson acknowledges
the authors did a literary tango to try to blunt direct conflicts
with federal law and find wording that would succeed with voters. He
said "caregiver" was simply the word they chose to define someone
other than a doctor who would grow and dispense marijuana. They
wanted dispensaries, he said, because the free market model
encourages innovation, variety and better prices for patients.

He thinks state bureaucrats who are uncomfortable with medical
marijuana are trying to exploit ambiguities to reverse the will of the voters.

"The amendment is pretty clear," Edson said. "And the Department of
Health shouldn't be changing the state constitution."

Hyman thinks the changes are true to what the people of Colorado
thought they were voting for. Did voters envision a cancer patient
raising a pot plant for himself, or that thriving businesses would
form to sell marijuana? The changes are designed to kill the latter.

The rule changes would define "significant responsibility" as
"assisting a patient with daily activities, including but not limited
to transportation, housekeeping, meal preparation and shopping, and
making any necessary arrangement for medical care and/or services."

With the many responsibilities of a caregiver, Hyman said, there's a
question whether a single person could effectively carry out such a
task for more than five people at a time, which is the new proposed limit.

The vast majority of patients on the medical marijuana registry are
approved because of severe pain. Lee contends it's a logical leap to
assume that all people with pain - such as himself - require a
caregiver to clean their homes or make their medical appointments.

He and most of his employees are approved medical marijuana patients,
he said, and yet they are far from helpless.

Dispensaries are not addressed in the Amendment or the rules, but it
is implied that someone not considered a patient, physician or
caregiver would be out of compliance and subject to legal action. In
other words, Cannabis Therapeutics and its ilk could suddenly be
considered a criminal enterprise.

Medical marijuana dispensaries haven't been a problem for local law
enforcement, said Lt. Al Harmon, a supervisor in the Colorado Springs
Police Department's drug unit.

"We haven't had any that we've been seeking prosecution on because of
an investigation," Harmon said. "But that's not to say there won't be."

The police do check out medical marijuana dispensaries to ensure they
abide by the law and aren't functioning as fronts for illegal drug
sales, and Harmon is very familiar with Cannabis Therapeutics.

"(Michael Lee) is very accommodating," Harmon said. "He lets you come
in and look around so you know exactly what's going on there. He'll
answer any question about his place. That makes it a little bit
easier, but they don't have an obligation to be as forthright as he is."

While opponents of the state's proposed changes argue that
dispensaries make the process more transparent, offer higher quality
marijuana at better prices, and keep patients from making dangerous
street deals, Hyman said the state wants to ensure patients are
receiving a reasonable amount of care from their caregivers.

"Most of these people have heavy duty conditions," he said.

For their part, the three patients hanging out together at the PARC
fear the state's changes. They said they can't take on the work of
growing their own marijuana, they don't want to buy it on the street,
and they don't have a caregiver in the way the state wants to define
it, so the rule changes essentially make it impossible to get the drug.

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REGISTRY FACTS

Amendment 20 was passed by Colorado voters in 2000 and implemented in 2001.

State health officials made caregiver-to-patient ratio changes in
2004 similar to the proposed changes to be discussed in June, which
would have eliminated dispensaries. The changes were thrown out by a
judge in 2007, due in part to a lack of public hearings.

The number of patients registered to use the drug more than doubled
in the past year, and has multiplied 10 times since 2004.

The number of dispensaries in Colorado has grown from 2 to about 30
in the past year, according to Keith Stroup, founder of the national
pot lobbying group NORML. It's his opinion that Colorado has more
medical marijuana dispensaries than any state other than California.

More than 500 doctors in Colorado have now recommended marijuana for
their patients, according to the state.

Conditions for which medical marijuana can be used include cancer,
glaucoma, HIV/AIDS positive, cachexia, severe pain, severe nausea,
seizures (including those that are characteristic of epilepsy) and
persistent muscle spasms (including those that are characteristic of
multiple sclerosis).

Patients approved for medical marijuana use and designated caregivers
register with the state and can possess as much as 2 ounces of the
drug and as many as six marijuana plants. Patients cannot engage in
the medical use of marijuana in plain view of the general public.

According to Amendment 20, the marijuana is legal as soon as it gets
into a patient or caregiver's hands, even if it came from an illegal source.

14 states have approved the use of medical marijuana, and Colorado is
the only one to have written it into the state constitution.

GETTING ON THE REGISTRY

To get on the state registry, you must get the recommendation of a
licensed Colorado doctor, apply to the state for a Medical Marijuana
Registry identification card, and then either grow your own marijuana
or designate a caregiver who can supply you. You must reapply every year.

To learn about regional doctors and dispensaries, contact the Patient
Activity and Resource Center associated with Cannabis Therapeutics,
636-6026, or the nonprofit medical marijuana advocacy group Sensible
Colorado, 1-720.890.4247.