PUFF PIECE

10 Myths About Medical Cannabis

The tortoise and the where?!

"It's true: Lumpy the tortoise lives at a Sacramento medical-cannabis
dispensary in a room filled with pot plants. Needless to say, this
isn't textbook reptile habitat. But the healthy 12-year-old is much
better off than the last-known instance of tortoise and marijuana
crossing paths: in June, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, when
customs busted a passenger trying to smuggle 300 tortoises and 5
pounds of weed into Malaysia.

I mention Lumpy because stories of senior-citizen tortoises toiling
away in pot dens are exactly the kind of ridiculous myths stoners
fabricate all the time. Like "Pot ice cream won't give you brain
freeze." Or "DeMarcus Cousins has a medical-cannabis prescription."

These little white lies are fun, but I was more curious about the
hundreds of millions of dollars that exchange hands every year due to
medical pot. Loyal SN&R readers no doubt have seen the ads in these
pages. Cannabis is king, ka-ching.

This is why last year, after Proposition 19 went down to defeat, I
got a doctor's referral for medical pot and embarked on long, strange
trip: Visit as many local pot clubs as possible, from Roseville to
Florin Road, Orangevale to Midtown.

For all its ubiquity, medical pot remains shrouded in mystery, rumor,
hearsay and bad jokes. It's time to clear the smoke, answer all those
questions you've always wanted to ask and prove (or disprove) the top
10 medical-marijuana myths.

Myth No. 1:

This is all just a big scam to get high legally.

Not all pot clubs are created equal.

Some are trendsetters. Such as One Solution, where employees use
iPads to ring up your order. Or El Camino Wellness Center, with its
Zen garden and Starbucks feel.

Others are suspect. For instance, the only way to find a certain
dispensary in Roseville is to visit an entirely different location
first, where, like some kind of rave, you can acquire the true
address. And the actual club itself is makeshift at best; you could
fit the entire store in the back of a pickup truck and be gone in
less than 10 minutes.

Some clubs surprise-in a good way. Florin Wellness Center, hidden at
the back of a '70s style, open-air shopping center, boasts sleek
hardwood floors and digital flat-screen menus. Grass in downtown's
Southside Park neighborhood took an unassuming former bank-or a gun
shop?-and made it a cool, retro dispensary.

Others astound-for the wrong reasons. At one Midtown club, members
must sign contracts agreeing to never discuss what happens inside,
including this mention of a 20-something budtender with cherry-red
eyes who can't tell the difference between indica or sativa, the two
basic types of cannabis strain. Or another club in the burbs, where
the lobby still has that new-paint smell.

Some clubs, like The Reserve, a modest upstart with a Wild West bank
theme, is run by clean-cut young guys who toss footballs and are
happy to cash in on the medical-cannabis trend. Other clubs, such as
The Green Temple down the street, are turning recession blight into
pristine new retail, as is the case with their former rental-car shop
turned marijuana in-and-out. And blessed be the mom-and-pops, such as
A Therapeutic Alternative, a cozy and pleasant shop in a Midtown Victorian.

Still, medical-pot-is-a-joke cynics can find ammo for their thesis at
any dispensary. They'll scoff at the ever-present "under-30 male,"
who's de rigueur, often in numbers, inside any pot-club lobby, toting
tall white pharmacy bags filled with ounces of cannabis, lacking
signs of any physical ailments. Sometimes friends are waiting in
cars, a common parking-lot sight. You can't help but think "These
kids aren't sick; this is all a stoner swindle."

"Everyone admits there are people who get a card to obtain marijuana
but use it recreationally," conceded Eric Wentworth, spokesman for
MediCann-the only referral business I've heard of that has actually
denied a prescription to a would-be patient. Wentworth says that,
sure, there are people who "sneak through the system," but counters
the this-is-a-scam myth by noting that a lot of people try pot and
simply like how it eases their insomnia, anxiety, depression.

"There are actually a lot of patients just self-medicating," he argued.

I'll go this far: I visited 33 local clubs during a two-month period.
I absolutely believe in the therapeutic qualities of the high-grade
cannabis proffered. (I wrote a cover about marijuana's medicinal
value in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, AIDS, chronic pain
and more; see "The healing power of pot"; SN&R Feature Story; May 22,
2008). But in my recent exploration, I never did observe a lone
grandma buying weed to treat her glaucoma. And I did see a lot of
young males playing doctor, self-medicating the day away.

FALSE

Myth No. 2:

It's easy to get a medical-cannabis prescription.

Usually, doctors have a diploma or family portrait hanging on their
office walls. The doctor that inked my recommendation for medical pot
had an amusing picture of him in a swimming pool posing with a young
woman and a dolphin.

Here's how the process works: To purchase medical cannabis in
California, you must have a referral from a licensed physician. There
are some places in Sacramento that claim to provide referrals via
online Internet examinations, but state law mandates that physicians
examine patients in person.

After Prop. 19 failed, I finally submitted and acquired a "scrip"
last November. Motivation was twofold. I wanted to write this story,
but couldn't do so without doctor's orders. Yet I'll admit that, like
an oenophile moving beyond plonk grapes, I was curious about
Sacramento's clubs and their "top shelf" cannabis strains. Let me be
clear: Unlike Sacramento Bee scribe Marcos Breton, I'm down with the
hippie lettuce.

But my family doctor wouldn't give me a prescription, so I'd have to
go out of network. My new pot doc operates out of a commercial office
spot on Q Street, tucked between a small taqueria and a Midtown bar
notorious for two late-night stabbings this past summer.
Incidentally, the space was also Barack Obama's local campaign
headquarters during the 2008 campaign. Good enough for the president,
good enough for me.

At around 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, eight 20-something guys are waiting
in the lobby. A male receptionist relaxes behind a wooden desk. Red
duct tape clings to the carpet and forms a square boundary around the
desk. A sign warns to never cross the red line.

After a few minutes, a doctor, who doesn't give me his name, invites
me into an adjacent room and asks that I not face toward him but
instead turn my chair and look to his right. What's up, doc? The exam
is pretty basic. He asks whether I'm schizophrenic. No. Check a box
on a form. When he finally inquires why I'm seeking medical cannabis,
I explain that I was having difficulty sleeping. Insomnia. (This is a
lie. My pug snores like a jackhammer, but that doesn't even keep me
from catching Zs.)

In less than 20 minutes, I have my referral: an 8 1/2-by-11-inch
printout on fancy resume paper. It set me back $50.

True

Myth No. 3:

Dispensaries are cash cows that don't pay taxes.

Getting a cannabis dispensary owner to open their books is tantamount
to prying energy-task-force transcripts from Dick Cheney. First of
all, dispensaries operate under an unusual business model. They're
ineligible for federal 501(c)(3) status and therefore must pay sales
tax to the California State Board of Equalization-even though
medicine at Rite Aid goes untaxed and other nonprofits are
tax-exempt. Club owners and employees must pay income tax to the
Internal Revenue Service as well, even though the feds do not
acknowledge their business' legitimacy.

Sonny Kumar, who owns El Camino Wellness Center, arguably the city's
most popular club, says there's a lot of confusion about what it
means for a medical-cannabis dispensary to operate as a
not-for-profit. He categorizes the business model as a "mutually
beneficial company," or a collective where patients and caregivers
share expenses and costs.

"We are truly a not-for-profit," he argued. "The extra money that we
have goes right back into the place." This is a credible claim. A lot
of people refer to El Camino as the Taj Mahal of local dispensaries,
what with its country-club-esque landscaping, state-of-the-art retail
atmosphere and extensive complimentary classes for patients, not to
mention free massage and peer counseling. A few dozen employees, from
buyers to budtenders to security, receive health benefits,
higher-than-prevailing wages and 401(k) options.

Still, Kumar will not disclose his salary. Nor will he divulge how
much one of his estimated 8,000 active patients spends on an average
each visit. Or how much El Camino paid in taxes to the Board of
Equalization last fiscal year. But he's not the only one: No club
owner I spoke with for this story would offer up such information.

Given to speculation, it's likely that smaller clubs in Sacramento
rake in anywhere between $1,000 to $4,000 a day. Larger clubs, such
as El Camino, One Solution, River City Wellness Center, Magnolia
Wellness and Florin Wellness Center, surely significantly more,
perhaps between $5,000 and up to $20,000 on the busiest days.

City Hall projects that 2011 fiscal-year sales tax revenue should
range between $125,000 to $275,000. But the city only receives 1
percent of the total sales tax, which means that the 39 registered
dispensaries could pay anywhere between $12.5 million to $27.5
million to the BOE. Do the math: Are medical-cannabis clubs in the
city ringing up anywhere between $140 million and $315 million in
annual retail sales? If so, that's a whole lotta green.

FALSE (the taxes part, at least)

Myth No. 4:

If you get a medical-pot card, your name will be on the federal
government's 'I smoke pot' list.

Ryan Landers, one of the region's original medical-cannabis activists
(see my cover story last year, "Mr. Compassion"; SN&R Feature Story;
October 28, 2010), says there are legit, terminally ill patients who
refuse to obtain a marijuana recommendation. "They think everything
on their medical record will be available on some government
database," he explained.

Tin-foil hat, maybe.

Here's their side of the story: Counties throughout the state offer a
voluntary medical-marijuana identity card. The logic behind the
"county card" is to ensure patient protection from law enforcement
and general hassle via a state-certified form of ID. If a cop pulls
you over and you have a lot of pot in your back seat, the card
instantly means you're in the clear.

Yet most patients don't acquire the card, in part because it's
optional-you don't need one to buy pot at clubs-but mostly because it
costs $166. And also because it means your name will be on a database
somewhere as an official, government-recognized user of medical cannabis.

Landers, who collaborated with state Sen. John Vasconcellos to help
craft Senate Bill 420 (a 2003 law that clarified the scope of
Proposition 215) says the archiving of cardholders in county records
was something he vehemently challenged during the bill's conception.
"I fought on the task force against potential abuse of those
records," he said, "and they still left them open to abuse."

History has proven that Landers was right: A few years back, patients
exposed that the Department of Motor Vehicles was using the
county-card database to suspend the driver's licenses of medical-pot
patients. Americans for Safe Access sued the DMV in 2008, however,
and the practice quickly ended.

TRUE

Myth No. 5:

Sacramento County will shut down all pot clubs in its territory.

On April 5, 2010, landlords whose buildings were home to
medical-cannabis dispensaries received a notice from Sacramento
County code enforcement. These weren't welcome-to-the-neighborhood
Hallmarks; they were violation notices, and straightforward at that:
Cease operations within 15 days or the county will take action,
including possible criminal prosecution.

Sacramento County has never permitted medical-cannabis dispensaries.
In fact, you won't even find the word "medical" anywhere on the
county's pot-laws Web page. To do so would be, as activist group
Sacramento County Patients Collective president Damien Payne says, a
"tacit acknowledgement" of a pot club's legitimacy.

As County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan explained: "By allowing for
dispensaries-by adopting an ordinance-we're basically saying they can
commit a federal crime." So she wants them shut down.

But county code enforcement director Carl Simpson insists his
department works only off complaints. And that, at the end of the
day, he doesn't really know how many dispensaries there are in the
unincorporated county. "If we're aware of at least 25-and again, this
is not based on any real data-there's at least anywhere from 25 to
75," he hypothesized.

Seven of the 25 clubs targeted by the letters made appeals in front
of the board of supervisors this past summer. All seven motions were
denied. Two clubs, City of Trees in Carmichael and The Green Temple
in Arden Arcade, have asked for writs from a Sacramento County
Superior Court judge, hoping to reverse the board's ruling.

In the meantime, inspections carry on. Sac County Patients' president
Payne says his club, One Solution on Madison Avenue, one of the
region's busiest, where patients carry customer-loyalty discount
cards, has been charged $470 twice for code-enforcement visits over
the past nine months.

Many other clubs, including Jenna King's family-operated Enso
Wellness in Orangevale, have been inspected as recently as late
December. A code-enforcement officer warned King that the department
soon will be issuing fines, of up to "$1,000 a day" for
noncompliance. If this happens, will it be the last stand?

"Oh, we'd have to close, yes," King conceded.

However, Simpson says no clubs will be shut down just yet. This is
because everyone's waiting on the word of Steve Szalay.

Szalay is the county's chief executive. He's also the man charged
with reaching out to department heads, the district attorney and the
sheriff to formulate a plan for what the county should do with its 75
or so pot clubs. He's tight-lipped about the process, but did clarify
that the county is looking for approaches "other than the one we've
been taking so far."

He also disclosed that there are four options being discussed and
anticipates reporting back to the board of supervisors within 45
days, or early March.

The patients collective hopes the county will enact a moratorium at
this time and, after that, implement some type of ordinance, perhaps
similar to what the city of Sacramento approved last year. And the
pot clubs may have at least one ally on their side: new County
Supervisor Phil Serna, who replaced Assemblyman Roger Dickinson a few
weeks back.

Serna wouldn't say outright what he thinks should happen to the
clubs, though he did express an interest in eliminating the cycle of
"ad hoc appeals and appearances before the board." Fine-but does this
mean the county should accomplish this by banning all the clubs outright?

"I will say this: That's not what I'm saying."

FALSE

Myth No. 6:

Today's pot is stronger than your daddy's pot.

Leave the central city, take Business 80 to Interstate 80, then to
Greenback Lane. Head east for what seems like an eternity, hit the
second star on the right, drive on straight till friggin' morning.
And then keep going until finally, finally, you arrive in Orangevale,
a quaint if unremarkable abode smack dab in the center of the
Roseville- Citrus Heights-Folsom trisect. There's not much to do in
Orangevale, so it's a good thing the burb is home to some of the best
medical-cannabis clubs in the Sacramento area.

There's no sign out front of family-owned-and-operated Gaia's Gift
dispensary, just a mural of a giant black stallion, namesake of the
adjacent bar. A Mexican joint, La Placita, proffers hearty aromas at
the other end of the strip mall. When you find Gaia's, a small
terrier greets you at the door.

Down the block, Enso Wellness is another club with a "dispensary
dog": This time, it's Mia, a months-old, caramel-colored poodle. The
pup was Christmas present for the club's owner, who runs Enso with
her mom and dad.

There are no dogs at the busiest dispensary in Orangevale, which is
one of the region's most popular: Magnolia Wellness. It's located in
yet another nondescript commercial office complex that, incidentally,
is right across the street from my childhood orthodontist.

One important Trivial Pursuit factoid learned while visiting pot
clubs: The light-brown Saeter extended love seat from Ikea, which
retails for $399, is winner of the Official Lobby Sofa of
Sacramento's medical-pot clubs. You can plop your butt on a Saeter at
Magnolia at almost every club it seems. Not to mention in my living
room, which is how I noticed in the first place.

There are two reasons Magnolia is one of region's top clubs. First,
its superinformed budtenders sell award-winning cannabis, such as
High Times Medical Cannabis Cup first-place winner Ingrid hash. Also,
all of Magnolia's strains are tested for potency, contaminants,
pesticides, mold and other carcinogens by Steep Hill Lab, a
medical-cannabis laboratory based out of Oakland that was the first
of its kind when it opened shop three years ago.

If anyone can resolve the new-weed-kicks-old-weed's-butt debate, it's
the chemists at Steep Hill. Verdict?

"It's absolutely stronger," assured CEO AnnaRae Grabstein, after
conferring with Steep Hill's lab techs. Here's the science: Over the
years, there've been huge advances in cannabis breeding and
hybridization. Cultivators want visually sexy, aromatic pot-or what
Grabstein calls "bag appeal"-because this is what consumers buy. So
cannabis not only looks and smells different today than it did 50
years ago, but it's also consistently more potent, what with its
Technicolor leaves, robust orange hairs and dandruffy kief crystals.

Next time you smoke out with Pops, be sure to warn him.

TRUE

Myth No. 7:

Pot prices are falling.

"We have the lowest prices," Canna Care proprietor Bryan boasted. He
also explained that when competitors complain that his prices are too
low-this happens often, he said-he lowers them even more.

Stocky with a wiry, Founding Father-like beard, Bryan doesn't look
like Sam Walton. Yet his business philosophy is simpatico. Bryan and
his wife, Lanette, run their dispensary out of another uninteresting
commercial office park in north Sacramento. It's one of the four
original Sacramento pot clubs.

Today, Bryan also claims to have the most patients-"more than
10,000"-of any club in the region.

For a weed, pot isn't cheap. Most area clubs offer a bargain-basement
cannabis strain on their menu, usually in the $20 to $25 range for an
eighth, or three-and-a-half grams. The ceiling for top-shelf buds is
typically $50 an eighth. Additionally, clubs have all sorts of
marketing and promotional incentives, such as happy hours, free
joints with purchase and even two-for-one specials to sweeten the deal.

But Canna Care? They sell eighths for $10, offer multiple strains in
the teens range, and top-shelf buds, such the mighty
insomnia-crushing Romulan indica strain, is just $30 an eighth. Other
clubs surely offer more remarkable, lab-tested, award-winning
cannabis. But of all the 33 clubs I visited for this story, no one's
prices come anywhere near Bryan and Lanette's.

In the real world of supply and demand, however, cannabis prices have
taken a slow dip. Years ago, before the post-Obama pot-club surge,
the price of an eighth teetered between $50 to $60. The $60s are long
gone, and nowadays clubs have to remain competitive by offering
plenty of quality, sexy-looking strains in the $30 range. Prices drop
if you buy weed in bulk, as is the Costco way.

There's some concern among dispensary owners that patients will buy,
say, an $160 ounce at a club, then resell it on the street and net,
say, $170 on the transaction. Dispensaries strictly forbid such
practices-to become a member at any club, you sign a contract
agreeing never to resell or share your medicine-but with so many
clubs, it's not unreasonable to assume there are a few street dealers
doing this to defray the month's rent.

As for market trending: Patients' rights activists want more free
weed for the terminally ill and lower prices in general. But the city
of Sacramento's new business-operations tax, which kicks in on July
1, will add up to 4 percent on top of the existing 8.75 percent sales
tax. This could possibly raise prices, but until then:

TRUE

Myth No. 8:

Think twice before indulging in edibles.

Cannabis ice cream is one of those things sold at clubs that makes
the medical-pot skeptic ever more dubious of the "for medical use
only" label. Because nothing says "medicine" like a pint of Ben &
Jerry's Stoney Baloney.

During the past month, my girlfriend could hardly keep a straight
face every time I brought home new edibles, which I'd either
purchased or received as first-time patient gifts. Pot pretzels,
Chocopotamus-brand marijuana dark chocolate, weed-infused rocky-road
candy, brownies, honey-ginger hard candy, lollipops, a 12-ounce
bottle of cannabis cherry-lemonade soda, two pints of ice cream-all
bear the "medicinal" label, but are therapeutic only insofar as their
THC content. Eat this stuff with any regularity, and you'll wake up
from your next food coma with type 2 diabetes.

Healthier edible options exist, such as cannabis olive oil. But in
general, pot-club edibles skew more 7-Eleven than farmers' market.
The tastiest, arguably healthy edible I discovered on my
journey-something I might actually consume again-was a cough drop
made of trichomes, or crystals from the cannabis flowers, for $8 at
El Camino Wellness Center. Puts Ricola to shame.

But the biggest concern about edibles is that no one really knows
what's cooking in a kitchen. Are chefs making cookies with spoiled
eggs in a basement full of cat hair? Or, God forbid, licking the
spoon while mixing brownie batter?

There needs to be some kind of top-down regulation of edibles
production. Some ordinances in other California cities actually do
this, stepping in where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
won't-since the feds, for some reason, don't recognize pot Rice
Krispies treats as legitimate medicine.

But Sacramento has no law on the books, so you're pretty much on your
own. My advice is to ask budtenders and club owners lots of
questions-Who makes these? And where? And do they have soap and hot
running water? Or, even better, join a dispensary that offers free
cooking classes and go Betty Crocker wild in your own kitchen.

TRUE

Myth No. 9:

You've got a prescription so you can get stoned at work and smoke pot
anywhere you damn please.

During last year's World Series, Texas Ranger outfielders complained
to the media of stinky pot clouds emanating from the bleachers at San
Francisco's AT&T Park. And a TV news clip went viral when Giants fans
blew pot smoke at a reporter mid-broadcast, causing him to exclaim,
"They're smoking weed!" like Tom DeLay at an E-40 concert.

Texans were uptight-but they also were right: California's pot laws
have relaxed. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger inked a bill last
October to soften punishment for possession of an ounce of pot.

"I think the real myth," offered Sacramento Police Sgt. Norm Leong,
"was that local cops were always after pot in the first place." He
reminds that police often work off of complaints, but also that new
medical-cannabis laws have made it tougher for district attorneys to
prosecute cannabis cases. Plus, the city's narcotics division has
shrunk from four squads to only one over the past years, and the
district attorney's office is prioritizing harder drugs, such as
meth. So cops don't go after stoners as much these days.

As for the myth: Does anyone care if a patient wants to smoke in
public or during work hours?

I figured that if I tried to receive permission to smoke at three
places-City Hall, the county courthouse, SN&R-then I'd get some real answers.

The downtown courthouse was a bust. Sheriffs explained that they
cannot allow anyone to consume pot out in front of the courthouse.
One female officer even shared a fun story: Last week, a guy tried to
smuggle a small amount of pot through security and into the jury
waiting area, but was caught, so he ran off without his bag and belongings.

City Hall had the same story: The officer on duty said he would not
allow it, but added that he wasn't "looking for trouble," for what it's worth.

And yes, even SN&R has reservations when it comes to allowing
qualified medical-cannabis patients to consume pot during work hours.
Human resources director Deanna Frederickson put it this way: The
company's policy is that employees must disclose use of any
prescription medicine that might impact job performance. In theory,
then, I could tell her first and then smoke pot on my lunch break at
home. But then, surely, I'd be too high to even run spell check. This
would have the copy editors in a tizzy, my all-knowing boss would
soon catch on and I'd be out of work faster than you can type "when
keeping it real goes wrong."

FALSE

Myth No. 10:

California will never legalize marijuana.

Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. You know: Everyone
thinks the speedy rabbit is going to win the race, but he gets
distracted and, slowly but steadily, the tortoise takes the checkered flag.

Well, the story of the ADD rabbit and the stoner turtle is a lot like
the saga of the medical-cannabis movement.

Fifteen years ago, California voters legalized medical pot. And for
13 of those years, the movement inched toward its endgame of
providing patients safe access to quality and affordable medical
cannabis with a unified front.

During the past couple of years, however, things got hare-y. New
clubs owned by fresh faces, outsiders who perhaps didn't know the
difference between Prop. 215 and Prop. 8, started popping up on
WeedMaps.com and in these very pages. A very tight-knit community
quickly became fragmented.

Prop. 19 didn't help. The measure fell short at the ballot box but
garnered an impressive 46 percent of voters. Its true failure,
however, was the rift it caused among California's marijuana movement.

And so now, all eyes are on the 2012 election-which was always the
year the cannabis movement planned to try for legalization, according
to National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws president
and Prop. 215 co-author Dale Gieringer, who says now is the time to
slow down and steady the ship.

"There are a lot of different ideas," Gieringer explained via
telephone from the Bay Area, "and we're hoping there will be a little
more public input in [the 2012] initiative than with Prop. 19, which
was written by a small group of not-so-able attorneys."

NORML will host a summit in Berkeley at the end of the month to
kick-start the 2012 election brainstorm-and to also heal wounds.

In the political world, ballot-box failure is often the kiss of
death. "The voters have spoken" is the flack's parlance. But polls
still show that a majority of registered state voters want to
legalize pot, and activists and big funders remain seduced by the
prospect of another effort to end prohibition.

So can legalization ever happen?

"I suspect that it's pretty much inevitable," Gieringer posited.

A call to Las Vegas oddsmakers wasn't returned by deadline. Still .

FALSE