Budding Business:

MONTANA PAIN MANAGEMENT OPENS POT SHOP FOR PATIENTS

Storefront medical marijuana dispensaries are rising to the fore in
Missoula, and Rick Rosio says it's high time.

"As things progress and people grow more accustomed, this will become
a part of the community," said Rosio, president of Montana Pain
Management Inc., a pot clinic on South Third Street West where a
roadside sandwich board reads "Now Open."

"Two years from now we'll say, 'What was the big deal?' It's no big
mystery anymore. There is no mystique. There is nothing to hide," Rosio said.

With the Obama administration's decision in September to soften the
federal stance on medical marijuana, Rosio contends that he is
finally able to provide a valuable service to his patients - a
service that the 2004 Montana Medical Marijuana Act legalized.

Rosio became a state-licensed "caregiver" four years ago, which means
he can legally grow as many as six marijuana plants for each patient
he ministers to, though federal scrutiny previously compelled him to
operate on a more clandestine level.

When Justice Department officials announced that pot-smoking patients
and their licensed providers would no longer be targeted by criminal
prosecutions, however, Rosio hung his shingle and opened Montana Pain
Management. He estimates that more than 300 patients now obtain their
medical marijuana from his clinic, and says a dozen or more are
signing up every day.

Rosio assures anyone who inquires that his clinic houses fewer plants
than it serves card-carrying patients, and says he's in total
compliance with Montana's incipient medical marijuana law. He
maintains meticulous business records to prove it.

"Patients are finally able to come here and feel safe," he said of
the clinic, which is run by about 10 employees, is open seven days a
week, and accepts debit and credit cards.

A tour of the immaculate facility reveals a waiting room like that at
any conventional health clinic, populated by a few elderly patients
and a young man with his foot bound in a plastic foam brace. Once
their names are called, the patients pass through a door behind the
reception desk and - in another, more private room - receive a bag of
marijuana buds or a baked good, such as a pumpkin bar with a "ganja
cream cheese filling."

Montana Pain Management also offers chocolate truffles and apricot
bars, tinctures and elixirs, and charges a sliding scale ranging from
$35 to $75 for one-eighth of an ounce of marijuana.

The clinic produces various strains to remedy different ailments, and
provides home-delivery services to hospice patients at no charge.

Down a long hallway, a half-dozen doors open into various rooms, each
serving a unique purpose. In one room, a colossal storage safe
reveals jar upon jar of green, leafy marijuana buds, each one labeled
with the exact quantity it contains, and bearing a strain name, such
as Big Buddha Cheese, White Widow, Blueberry Haze or AK-47.

Another door opens into the nursery, where dozens of four-week-old
plants are arranged like tenpins beneath the lambent glow of grow
lights; another door leads to a larger room where the head gardener
tends to 4-foot-tall adult plants that are just weeks away from being
harvested, their buds showing off sparkling diadems of crystals.

"We harvest 100 plants every month out of this building. But our
hands are clean. Our books are clean. We don't want people to wonder
what's going on here. This is what's going on. And if you saw the
kinds of patients that are coming through our doors, you'd understand
that we are doing the right thing," Rosio said.

The lion's share of Montana Pain Management's clients are cancer
patients undergoing chemotherapy, pain patients looking for an
alternative to a regimen of narcotic painkillers, and veterans with
disabilities or post-traumatic stress.

"These will work when fentanyl won't," Rosio said, pointing to a
pot-medicated chocolate truffle. "We have baked goods that rival Bernice's."

The decades-old war on drugs makes Rosio's nonchalance seem
unnatural, and while criminal prosecutors and law enforcement have
cast a wary eye on operations like the Montana Pain Management, he
remains undaunted. Rosio has plans to open clinics in Helena, Great
Falls, Kalispell and Whitefish.

"There is no criminal element here," he said. "We're an ag producer."

The Montana Medical Marijuana Act applies to patients with certain
specific, debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma,
multiple sclerosis or Crohn's disease, or those who suffer from
medical conditions that cause them chronic pain, severe nausea or seizures.

A doctor then signs a recommendation and certifies in writing that
the patient has a debilitating medical condition and the benefits of
using marijuana for medical purposes probably outweigh the health
risks. The patient then registers with the state Department of
Public Health and Human Services and pays a $25 fee (dropped from $50
in October), with annual updates costing $10.

Roy Kemp is deputy administrator of quality insurance at the DPHHS,
and one of his duties is to oversee the registry of medical marijuana
patients. Kemp said 4,571 people were registered as medical marijuana
patients in Montana as of Nov. 6, and he has about 1,000 requests pending.

Montana has 1,414 registered caregivers who can legally provide
medical marijuana to the registered patients, and 27 caregivers are
growing pot for more than 20 patients. There are 221 Montana-licensed
physicians who are registered with the state to participate in the
program, and in the past three weeks, Kemp has gotten anywhere from
145 to 521 registry requests each week.

"Right now, we're six weeks out in our processing," he said. "That
means we are currently processing applications we received six weeks ago."

As long as the application is complete, the person has paid the fee
and a physician concludes they have one of the debilitating
conditions listed in the statute, "they cannot be excluded," Kemp said.

"The only exclusionary element is that a caregiver cannot have been
convicted of a felony drug offense," he said. "A felony drug offender
can be a patient but not a caregiver."

Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul said the statute's
ambiguity not only allows just about anyone to obtain a medical
marijuana card, but also provides very little direction for law
enforcement trying to make head or tail of medical marijuana
dispensaries such as Rosio's.

"It is very ambiguous," Paul said. "The law says that as a caregiver
he can have six plants for every patient he has a caregiver card for,
as well as 1 ounce of dried material. So if he can pull out a
thousand cards, according to the act he can have 6,000 marijuana
plants and 6,000 ounces of marijuana."

Although the law doesn't specifically permit co-ops or limited
liability companies, it doesn't prohibit them, either.

"We have to abide by the law, whatever it is, so our hands are kind
of tied at this point," Paul said. "There would have to be a change
from somewhere higher up, a legislative change, in order for us to do
anything."

Scott Paasch, senior license specialist at the Missoula Finance
Department, said Montana Pain Management is one of five businesses
that have applied for permits - including a bakery - but the licenses
have not yet been approved.

The licensing procedures for a medical marijuana dispensary are
currently no different from any other business. The licenses must be
approved by the Office of Planning and Grants, the Fire Department,
the Engineering Department and the Building Department. That process
can take 90 days, but the business can remain open while the
application is pending. If something is found out of compliance, the
business has 30 days to correct it.

But Paasch said he has drafted an ordinance that better defines a
marijuana dispensary and puts limitations on where and when it can operate.

"We have no statewide regulations like other states do, so at a local
level we want to define what a medical marijuana dispensary is and
what they can and cannot do," Paasch said.

For example, the ordinance proposes limiting dispensaries to certain
zoning districts and imposes special hours under which they can
operate. The dispensaries would have to be a certain distance from
in-home day cares, churches and schools, Paasch said.

"We're going to try to limit them to certain zoning districts because
of inherent dangers like break-ins, just like we do with pawn shops,
so police can be there more readily," he said. "Essentially we're
trying to limit the hazards that could come about from having a
medical marijuana dispensary in your neighborhood."

Rosio doesn't anticipate problems such as theft and break-ins. He
also insists that businesses like Montana Pain Management, if run
correctly, won't beget seedy neighborhoods or unsavory clientele.

"All we do is provide safe access to medicine," he said. "It's very
rare that you can do something fun, help people, bring a smile to the
faces of those who most need it, and make a buck."