BUSINESS IS STILL BOOMING AT THE FIRST LEGAL MEDICAL MARIJUANA CLINIC
IN SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN

KALAMAZOO - For more than a year, David Crocker has been providing the
means for thousands of people around Southwest Michigan to control
their pain or ease the symptoms of a disease.

Crocker, along with his wife, Annette, opened Michigan Holistic Health
on the corner of South Westnedge Avenue and Crosstown Parkway last
Feb. 15, becoming the first medical marijuana clinic in Southwest
Michigan since the voter-approved law went into effect in April 2009.

Since then, business has been brisk.

After the successful launch of his Kalamazoo clinic, where he charges
$200 for medical marijuana recommendations to patients who qualify to
use the drug under the state's law, Crocker opened another clinic in
Grand Rapids in July.

He started seeing patients in Muskegon, where he is renting office
space, in December. Another clinic will open in Battle Creek in the
very near future. He's constantly hiring more help and adding phone
lines at his clinics.

"Demand is obviously high," Crocker said. "Patients are getting the
relief they deserve - decreased pain, an improved lifestyle. They
don't have to be worried now and be looking over their shoulders."

More than 5,600 people have come into one of Crocker's clinics over
the past year. He has recommended more than 5,000 of them to use
medical marijuana, a sizable chunk of the more than 58,000 registered
medical marijuana patients in the state.

He's seen patients from as far south as Coldwater and as far north as
Big Rapids and several points in between.

In spite of the strength of the demand - Crocker says that it's "as
strong as ever" - many municipalities across the region over the past
year have passed ordinances to more tightly regulate medical marijuana
in their communities.

The city of Kalamazoo passed an ordinance making medical caregiver
operations subject to the regulations of a home-based business,
Kalamazoo Township passed a moratorium on new caregiver operations
until it can craft a medical marijuana ordinance and the city of
Wyoming banned medical marijuana altogether in November, just to name
a few.

And although Crocker - a fervent believer in the therapeutic value of
marijuana - said he doesn't think that moratoriums are a bad idea so
that local units of government can define how to deal with
dispensaries in their jurisdictions, the flurry of ordinances
tightening control of the use of the drug or simply banning it fly in
the face of the will of the voters.

"There's clearly a gap between the leadership and the will of the
people in some places," said Crocker, a medical doctor.

Voters passed the ballot measure by 63 percent in Nov. 2008. It passed
in all of Michigan's 83 counties.

Crocker said he is seeing people come into his clinics who had
previously believed that marijuana was nothing more than a drug to get
high on. Now, after they have spoken to others who have benefited from
the drug, they are asking for a medical marijuana recommendation to
relieve their own symptoms.

"We're seeing people 50, 60, 70 years old coming in," he said. "Some
waited a year before they decided to see us."

Said Annette Crocker, a registered nurse: "They are telling us: 'I
don't care about the taboo. If it works, I'll try it.'"

When asked to predict the future of how marijuana will be seen in the
state, Crocker said he believes - or at least hopes - the drug is
eventually legalized.

"I guess that would put me out of business," he said. "But I really
don't care."