POT DISPENSARIES POPPING UP TO SERVE KITSAP MEDIAL MARIJIUANA PATIENTS

BELFAIR -- A steady current of medical marijuana patients come and go
from a quaint blue building on Highway 3 every day of the week, each
emerging with a small brown bag.

The place is a pioneer on the Kitsap Peninsula -- a brick-and-mortar
medical marijuana dispensary in a state that has been grappling with
how qualifying patients can obtain the drug since voters approved it
as medicine in 1998.

Yet Mari Meds, founded by a Grapeview couple in November, in some
ways differs little from its fellow establishments along the bustling
highway: it is set up to pay taxes with the state's Department of
Revenue and is registered as a sole proprietorship. It has been
approved to occupy its 400-square-foot location through Mason
County's Department of Community Development. It keeps a careful
paper trail and balances its books.

"I want to create a professional facility," said Lori A. Kent, its co-founder.

Similar storefronts across the state, from Port Angeles to Spokane,
are cropping up. By the Washington State Department of Revenue's
count, there's about 129. Forty of them are registered with the
department, said its spokesman Mike Gowrylow.

They've taken the plunge into a murky area of law that lawmakers in
Olympia are contemplating changing: the provision of providing to
"only one patient at any one time."

Kent said the Belfair dispensary does indeed help only one
card-carrying patient at a time -- but they come and go about every
15 minutes. The dispensary has built a clientele of about 500
patients in its two-and-a-half months of operation, and it is already
looking to open a second location.

The state Department of Health says dispensaries are not allowed,
though it does permit a provider to supply a patient. Making the
message further mixed, the Department of Health's website has
astatement saying that dispensaries are illegal -- yet the state's
Department of Revenue is registering them as tax paying entities.

Philip Dawdy, spokesman for the Washington Cannabis Association, said
legislation under consideration by state lawmakers would allow for
dispensaries and create a system of regulation by both the state
departments of health and agriculture. It would also allow collective
marijuana-growing gardens for patients.

Dawdy said Senate Bill 5073 would also give patients protection from
law enforcement arrests. Currently, the medical marijuana law enacted
by voters in 1998 only allows for a legal defense in court for
prosecuted patients.

SB 5073 would create a state database so law enforcement could check
to ensure patients are authorized.

Kent and fellow Mari Meds founder Robert A. Wood Jr., both
transplants from California, say they're committed to providing
patients medicine in an above-board, open fashion.

"I respect the law," Kent said. "We don't want to go against John the lawman."

Michael Dorcy, Mason County's newly elected prosecutor, said he's
aware of the Belfair location but hasn't yet made a decision about
the legality of dispensaries because a case has not been referred to
his office for review.

He said it's an issue he's watching, and he is working to formulate
an opinion. But he would like legislative guidance.

"Just tell us what the law is," he said.

The sheriff's office will conduct an investigation "when we find a
probable violation of the law," said Mason County Sheriff's spokesman
Dean Byrd. But he acknowledged that without clarification, police
have a difficult time knowing what to investigate and what will hold
up in court.

"The criminal law should not be ambiguous," he said. "When there is
ambiguity, it ties the hands of law enforcement."

'Free For All'

In Bremerton, Herbal Healing 420, a delivery service for medical
marijuana patients, is contemplating opening a storefront on Callow
Avenue. It also is registered with the state's revenue department.

Business owners are consulting an accountant and a lawyer to
determine what other governmental hoops they'll need to jump through,
said co-founder Archie Lee of Bremerton.

Lee, 33, a former contractor who was recently laid off, agreed that
Washington's law was less-than-clear -- but he believes helping
patients who qualify for medical marijuana is worth the risk.

"It's like a free-for-all right now," he said.

Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge said that a storefront, open to
the public as a distribution point for medical marijuana, is simply
not authorized under state law.

Hauge, who often testifies in Olympia on behalf of the state's
prosecuting attorneys' association, agrees the law needs clarifying.

"Our position remains that we believe that the current law needs to
be addressed, particularly in how people who have the right to use
marijuana can obtain it lawfully."

Two developments helped spur dispensary organizers to act, Dawdy
said. First, "King County pretty much decided it wasn't going to
prosecute" dispensaries, he said. Second, the federal government, on
decree from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, issued a memo to all
federal prosecutors in fall 2009 directing them away from pursuing
medical marijuana cases.

'Circle of Life'

Belfair's first dispensary has drawn the attention of its neighbors
in downtown.

"I was skeptical at first," said Bill Palmroth, of Mr. Bill's
Sportscards & Variety shop, which is next door. "But it doesn't seem
like too much of a problem."

Palmroth said a closed-down pawnshop that occupied the same building
was more troubling. He suspected people attempted to sell stolen
goods there, and at times they'd come to his shop as well.

Founders Wood and Kent are taking no chances with crime. No money or
medication is left on the premises after hours and the building is
armed with an alarm; surveillance cameras monitor the premises inside
and out around the clock.

The source of the marijuana is "from all over," Wood said, declining
to elaborate. The pot comes from medical marijuana growers who will
at times exceed lawful supply -- 24 ounces of dried pot and up to 15
plants -- and give it to the Belfair dispensary for patients.

Their donation, Wood said, is met with a donation from the dispensary
for their troubles.

"It's a circle-of-life type of thing," Wood said. "We donate to them,
they donate to us."

Patients have 47 different blends to choose from. Kent said they're
seeking out strands of marijuana that alleviate pain and are not for
getting high.

"There's no partying here," Wood said.

He added that the dispensary is strict about its rules:

no authorization card, no entry.

The pair, both 53, have a simple philosophy: no one with a doctor's
authorization who needs medicine is turned away.

"We're giving people a better quality of life here," Wood said. "I
have miracles walk through my door everyday."