WESTWORD LOOKING TO HIRE MARIJUANA CRITIC

'Mile Highs & Lows' Columnist Will Review State Pot
Shops

DENVER - The store has a television lounge and a pool table, and
snacks and acupuncture are free for customers who drop up to $130 an
ounce on 16 varieties of marijuana. But a reviewer of the business
warns the decor looks a little cliche, what with the Grateful Dead
posters on the wall and the Mexican-blanket tablecloths.

The medical marijuana review business is booming as states like
Colorado and California have seen an explosion in the number of pot
shops.

A Denver alternative newspaper recently posted an ad for what some
consider the sweetest job in journalism - a reviewer of the state's
marijuana dispensaries and their products.

Medical marijuana users can also look to dozens of review Web sites,
even mainstream rating sites such as Yelp or Citysearch, to find their
high. At least five iPhone applications allow weed fans to find the
closest place to legally buy bud in the 14 states that allow some sort
of medical marijuana.

The Denver paper, Westword, has already has gotten more than 120
applicants, many of them offering to do the reviews for free. When the
newspaper settles on a permanent critic for its new "Mile Highs and
Lows" column, industry watchers say, it will be the first professional
newspaper critic of medical marijuana in the country.

There's one condition: The critic has to have a medical ailment that
allows them to legally enter a dispensary, and buy and use marijuana.

"More and more people are having the opportunity to use marijuana for
whatever illness they have. Se we want to be a place they can come to
find out which place is the best, the cleanest, the closest, that kind
of stuff," said Joe Tone, Web editor at Westword.

Most current reviews focus on dispensaries in California, the first
state in the nation to approve medical marijuana in 1996. Los Angeles
now has an estimated 800 medical pot shops, up from only four in 2005.
Colorado has more than 100, including one across the street from the
state Capitol.

The growth of the business has created clashes with local, state and
federal authorities, prompting the U.S. Attorney General to issue
guidelines this week telling federal prosecutors that targeting people
who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state
laws was not a good use of their time.

Sites such as marijuanareviews.com and weedmaps.com boast thousands of
users who dish on the merits of various strains, from "White Widow" to
"Afghan Gold Seal," which is cheap but one critic warns "delivers a
very heavy stone with the same degree of munchies to go along with
it."

The pot review sites say they're getting dozens of new users a day as
people acquire permission to use medical marijuana but aren't sure
where to go or what kind of pot to use.

"People are really desperate for this kind of information," said
Justin Hartfield, manager of weedmaps.com, a Laguna Hills,
Calif.-based Web site that now has five employees and is planning new
sites for Colorado. "There are so many places to go that users are
really looking for honest reviews."

The idea for Westword's column came from a writer who doesn't use
marijuana.

Features writer Joel Warner has been covering Colorado's medical
marijuana industry for years, and he noticed a wide disparity in the
places selling pot.

"Some really looked like your college drug dealer's dorm room. You
know, Bob Marley posters on the wall and big marijuana leaf posters,"
Warner said. "But then some were so fancy, like dentist's offices.
They had bubbling aquariums in the lobby and were so clean. I thought,
somebody needs to review these. Somebody needs to tell people what
these places are like."

So Warner started the column. A back injury made him eligible for the
medical card needed to enter Colorado dispensaries. But because Warner
doesn't use marijuana and fears legal trouble if he gives it away,
Warner suggested the professional critic who would review both the
dispensaries and the products they sell.

The newspaper hasn't yet settled on a freelance fee for the reviews;
it's currently running an essay contest and sharing excerpts of
potential critics talking about what marijuana means to them.
"Marijuana isn't just important to me, it is my life," gushed one hopeful.

On one recent visit, Warner stopped in the dispensary across the
street from the Colorado state Capitol to pick up some
cannabis-infused candy. The office was nondescript, a couple couches
and a sleek modern glass receptionist's desk in front of a flat-screen
TV.

You'd have no idea what the Capitol Hill Medicine Shoppe was if not
for a pervasive marijuana smell and a few small marijuana plants
plopped on the front desk.

Another shop is located in a charming Victorian with exposed brick
walls, cushy leather couches and a coffee counter serves lattes and
herbal teas. The drinks, of course, are spiked with cannabis-infused
honey tincture that a reviewer says is "guaranteed to give you more
than just a caffeine buzz."

Reviewers say there is plenty of room for more critics.

Photographers are cashing in, too, with new Web sites popping up that
look like lush food photography sites - except the pictures feature
marijuana instead of fancy desserts. Hartfield just started a new
advertising-supported weed photo site called nugporn.com and says
there is plenty of work for photographers and even stylists for the
pot shots.

"This is professional stuff," he said.

Laura Kriho, spokeswoman for the Colorado-based Cannabis Therapy
Institute, a pro-marijuana legalization group, said it's natural that
the review industry is growing like, well, weeds.

"This is such a new industry. Just like anything else, the market is
going to decide which places survive," she said. "It's going to be a
battle, and patients want to do their research just like for any other
medicine."