MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES GO FROM SHADOWS TO BRIGHT LIGHTS

For the uninitiated, a visit to a medical marijuana dispensary is an
eye-opening experience.

Marijuana, relegated to the shadows for decades, sits openly in
bright display cabinets. Prices are posted on the wall. Helpful
clerks measure out purchases on digital scales.

Money changes hands; credit cards are swiped; and growers get W-9
tax forms. Parents bring in young children and discuss what might be
good for bad backs or hip pain or headaches.

"People come in the door and they feel a sense of relief," said Dave
Watson, owner of Kind Care of Colorado at College Avenue and Trilby
Road. "People want options."

Watson, who opened his doors about four months ago, said he's done
no advertising and sought no publicity. But each day seems to bring
new patients. Kind Care is set up like someone's house, with
armchairs, a fireplace, a kitchen and television.

Over the course of an afternoon, patients, mostly men, and mostly
young men, stop in to purchase what Watson consistently referred to
as medicine. He knows most of them by name, records who they are and
what they buy on a clipboard.

Watson keeps photocopies of all his customers' paperwork on file.

Asked why so many young men apparently have gotten medical marijuana
registry cards, Watson points out that doctors make the
recommendations - he just sells a product available to them under a
voter-approved constitutional amendment.

The customer base at the Medical MJ Dispensary in Campus West in
Fort Collins, near CSU, appears to be about the same.

Owner Nick Dice said many of his customers are regulars, coming in
daily or every few days to pick up their supplies. Dice's store is
set up to be more like an Amsterdam-style coffee house, which isn't
surprising given that it's located inside the old Wired Bean coffee shop.

While Kind Care has no visible security and anyone can walk in the
front door, visitors to the Medical MJ Dispensary must show their
paperwork to an employee before being admitted through the front vestibule.

In both dispensaries, the smell of marijuana hangs heavy even though
no one is smoking it. Both store owners say they keep relatively
little product on hand. Watson said he'd just walk out the back door
if someone tried to rob him.

"That's been our business plan from the beginning. No bars on the
windows; you don't have to get buzzed in," he said.

Dice said he's not as worried about armed robbery as he is about
dealing with what he feels are constantly changing rules governing
how he can run his business.

Dice said he just wants the city, county and state to settle on a
set of rules so he can keep serving people who have been given a
constitutional right to use medical marijuana.

"I'm doing exactly what they want me to do. And the attitude they
put off is that they want to put me in jail. But don't be late with
the taxes."

He added: "They're looking at it like it's drug money but taking it
with open arms."

Both Dice and Watson said they've sunk money into their dispensaries
and fear any legislation that could force them to shut down.

Both said it's pretty clear that many people were using marijuana to
self-medicate, and those people will keep buying and using.

"People will be back buying it under bridges, and they won't be
paying any taxes," Watson said.