OAKLAND POT DISPENSARY SERVES UP THC WITH TLC

Manager Larry Richards sells marijuana to authorized patients in the
back room of Oakland's Coffeeshop Blue Sky. He supervises a staff of
22.

In downtown Oakland, Larry Richards is a licensed medical marijuana
provider. His boss, Richard Lee, is the activist-entrepreneur who
opened Oaksterdam University in 2007 and helped put Proposition 19,
the failed state initiative to legalize marijuana, on the November
ballot.

Richards, 50, grew up near Portland, Ore., and lived 12 years in
Honolulu, where he worked as a hotel desk clerk and waiter. He shares
a house in Concord with his three German shepherds and a roommate.

I'm the general manager for Coffeeshop Blue Sky. It's a local
marijuana dispensary with a coffee shop in front. We allow people to
come in and purchase coffee, pastries, soft drinks. But to get past
the soda machine, they need to show a valid medical-marijuana card or
a doctor's letter with ID.

We're a small operation. There's a little waiting room in back with a
bench, just big enough for four or five patients. The budtender stands
behind a Dutch door, and he has a book with plastic folders inside
with all the product. Richard Lee actually designed it after Amsterdam
pot clubs.

Budtenders know the properties of all the different strains. Let's say
a patient has a lot of pain but doesn't want to get tired and sleepy.
A sativa like White Widow helps you get through the day. It's an "up"
high. An indica like Granddaddy Purple makes you mellow and helps you
sleep. We also have hybrids like Hindu Skunk or Mendo Afgoo.

High-grade strains cost $44 for an eighth of an ounce or $352 for an
ounce, medium-grade $33 or $264. We also sell edibles. Lemon bars,
teas. Chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. Truffles, olive oil.
Marijuana-infused honey.

We have our Oaksterdam Nursery, where we grow clones by taking
cuttings from other plants, and then sell them in 4-inch rockwool
cubes at the dispensary. We don't bud out the plants. We buy the bud
from vendors. There's always growers coming in wanting to sell to us,
but we can't help them all. There's so much on the market now.

To get into my club, a person needs a doctor's letter or a medical
marijuana card. There are people who need medical marijuana who don't
look sick. So I would never say, "You look too healthy. You shouldn't
be needing medicine." I don't know their situation.

I've got 22 employees. Security guards, budtenders, coffee bar
personnel, two managers. I supervise the whole shop, make sure the
product is good when it comes in. I do the scheduling, payroll. To
work here, a person needs compassion. They need to be friendly, upbeat.

People come in here all day, and they might not be in a good mood. And
you've got to not give that back to them. I refuse service only when
somebody is intoxicated or belligerent to another patient or the budtender.

I've been living with HIV since 1982. I take HIV medication every day,
and I smoke marijuana every day. It helped me with my appetite when I
had pneumonia and needed to put on weight. If it weren't for pot, I
think I would've had to take more powerful, toxic HIV meds. I probably
smoke an eighth of an ounce each day.

I started in this industry in 1995 with Dennis Peron at his Cannabis
Buyers Club in San Francisco. I was a security guard, then worked my
way up to budtender. I loved it: You got to meet all these different
people, from A to Z. From living on the streets to well-to-do
professionals. From every ethnic background.

Nine years ago, I started working for Richard Lee. When I started,
there were 12, 13 pot clubs in Oakland - all congested in this same
area between Broadway and Webster, from 15th to 19th Street, what we
call Oaksterdam.

In March 2004, when Oakland cut back the number of licensed marijuana
dispensaries to four, it also became illegal here to sample or smoke
at pot clubs. I miss the days when patients could medicate on premises
and talk to other people who might have the same disease. Exchange
information. Cannabis is good in groups - it's a social thing.

We get some older patients, grandmas in their 60s and 70s, who've
never smoked marijuana before. Their doctor recommends it for their
arthritis or glaucoma or some kind of cancer problem. If they don't
want to smoke, they can do a low-dose THC pill. Or they can do an
edible or one of our teas or chai.

Sometimes I'll grind up their pot and roll it for them. Or I'll send
them to our gift shop for a pipe. They just need a one-hitter. For
people who never smoked their whole life, one hit is enough.