WHAT IS STATE SMOKING?

On good days, Jason Young walks with a cane or uses a wheelchair. On
bad ones, he can't get out of bed.

"The pain overwhelms me without something to take care of it," says
the 33-year-old multiple sclerosis patient from Denver.

At first, he treated his muscle spasms with prescribed Percocet, which
made him drool. Then he switched to Vicodin, which made him dumb.

Finally, Young turned to a different treatment — daily fixes of
high-grade marijuana. Now he's having more good days than bad.

"The law works," he says. "The state is trying to fix a policy that
isn't broken."

Young is one of 7,630 Coloradans registered under a voter-approved law
legalizing marijuana for people with medical problems. The state
doesn't track the number of so-called caregivers designated to grow
and dispense the "medicine."

(Turns out that terms like "dealer" and "pot" are frowned upon by
health officials.)

The caregiving business has boomed since Barack Obama signaled that
his administration won't prosecute medical users or suppliers who
follow state laws. Some 30 dispensaries have opened in Colorado since
he took office.

One of the busiest is Patients' Choice on South Broadway, offering 18
organic strains to take the edge off everything from broken bones to
nausea. Its "A-Train" herb offers a peppy buzz that's light on the
lungs. I'm told. And "Maui Wowie" promises sleep for insomniacs.

Young is partial to a prescribed blend of "Endless Sky" and "Island
Sweet Skunk," and to orange-flavor hashish lollipops that ease pain
smoke-free.

Co-owner Jim Bent claims his shop has 300 customers; he and partners
opened it in February.

To keep business budding, he and fellow caregivers are rallying
against a proposed policy to limit their clientele to only five
patients per provider. The reforms also would redefine "caregiver" to
mean someone who also cooks, cleans or gives rides to sick users.

The first attempt to curb legal dealing went up in smoke.

That was after the Board of Health passed the five-patient cap in
2004. Legalization advocates persuaded a judge to overturn the policy
because the meeting was held in secret.

The board has scheduled a hearing on its proposed rule changes for
July 20. It has taken the unusual step of renting a bigger room to
accommodate members of the public, 350 of whom already have commented
by e-mail.

Oddly, the same officials pushing the reforms refuse to discuss the
rationale behind them.

"We just don't get out and beat a drum and make a case of what the
department's position is going to be," says health spokesman Mark
Salley in a statement that sounds pretty paranoid to me.

Meantime, critics are fuming, arguing the changes stray from what
voters passed in 2000.

"They would block safe access, limit choices and rip patients from
their caregivers," says Brian Vicente of Sensible Colorado, a
nonprofit pushing for legalization.

Advocates also argue the proposals would steer sick people to
black-market cannabis that could be moldy, laced with chemicals and
expensive. Caregivers take umbrage at the suggestion that cultivating
marijuana isn't caring enough. They gripe that the redefinition
diminishes their talents.

"I grow medicine, top-notch, with unparalleled professionalism," says
Todd Young, a self-described "urban shamanist" from Boulder.

"No one would ever think of making a neighborhood Walgreens pharmacist
prepare food and wipe up after patients."