INSIDE OPERATION: HOW ONE MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IN CHICO FUNCTIONS

CHICO -- Just one step into the dispensary that has a cool,
cliniclike waiting room, the pungent smell of marijuana wafts over the patient.

A security camera immediately snapped a photo of collective member
Jill Clarkson as she walked into North Valley Holistic Health on
Highway 32 near East Avenue smiling. The Magalia resident first came
to the dispensary when she was suffering from pain following a car
crash and cancer, having dropped to 89 pounds because she was so sick.

"I was going to die," Clarkson said. "I was taking no medications
whatsoever. These people down here saved me."

Clarkson stepped up to a window to show staff her driver's license.
She could not get behind locked doors to her medicine without it.
When she was a new patient, she had to supply a doctor's
recommendation and sign paperwork to join.

The collective on Highway 32 just west of East Avenue has about 4,000
members, mostly from Chico, said Robert Galia, CEO of the dispensary.

Staff verifies each patient's recommendation by calling the doctor or
checking the doctor's website, Galia said.

If a patient's recommendation cannot be verified, "We send them out
the door," Galia said. "That's the worst part of the job."

"The problem isn't with people faking or forging documents," Galia
said. "Recommendations are so easy to get, it shouldn't really be an issue."

How getting high helps

Marijuana makes Clarkson feel "rubbery," she said, so she feels
tension but doesn't hurt.

"How can that be that I wake up after 13 years and don't feel pain?"
Clarkson asked, addressing the issue of whether marijuana is indeed a medicine.

She uses tincture, a liquid cannabis, and edibles such as chocolate
truffles and lollipops that contain no THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, and
don't get her high, she said.

"These bloody things interrupt my pain circuits," she said. "I'm more
functioning than I have been in the past decade."

When she does smoke, she uses a vaporizer and doesn't drive, she said.

"If it wasn't for people willing to grow for me I wouldn't have
medicine," Clarkson said.

Andrew Merkel, vice president of the dispensary, said the collective
supplies medical marijuana for patients with cancer, Crohn's disease,
fibromyalgia and more.

"I had ADD (attention deficit disorder). I used medical marijuana and
it got me through school," Merkel said. "It focused me in and I
wasn't on Ritalin."

Merkel said the collective's goal is to help the community.

The not-for-profit collective is starting a scholarship program,
sponsors softball and donates to a cancer society and the sheriff's
officers association, Merkel said.

"If we weren't paying so much fighting the D.A. (district attorney),
we would have $50,000 to give away," he said.

Frank Ramirez, dispensary consultant and manager, said he had been on
disability for about 15 years because of neck and back problems along
with mental health issues before he started working for the dispensary.

"Nobody would ever hire me," Ramirez said. "This kind of work,
there's lots of work for me. I can roll joints, label bottles and make cuts."

Marijuana buds line the wall

As Clarkson stepped behind the first set of locked doors, she entered
a room with small "clone" marijuana plants under lighting, counters
filled with edibles and shelves stacked with jars of marijuana buds.

Cash registers sit on one counter in front of staff and TV screens
display prices. An ATM machine is in the corner.

The computer system keeps tabs on how much marijuana Clarkson and
other patients bought. It references patients' recommendations to
ensure members aren't buying more than allowed and "diverting"
marijuana to others, dispensary vice president Merkel said. If
members already had their maximum amount, staff does not sell to them.

The collective's product costs about $12 to $20 a gram.

Lower-quality marijuana sold illegally on the street costs about $5 a
gram, said Jeff Greeson, Butte County deputy district attorney.

However, the collective allows low-income people to make a donation
based on what they can afford rather than charging them full price,
Merkel said.

Staff makes sure not to keep a lot of cash on site, Merkel said. The
building has online security cameras, locked doors, large safes, an
alarm system and panic buttons. The collective also has a workers'
compensation policy and medical marijuana dispensary insurance.

Dozens of plants pack back room

There's another set of locked doors that most patients never see
behind. There, collective members grow about 54 plants upstairs in
the back of the building. The collective also grows outdoors in the
hills, CEO Galia said. Outdoor planting season just started.

"Various members in the collective help in the garden on a daily
basis," Galia said. "You don't need that many people to grow."

Upstairs, dozens of flowering plants are packed into the small grow
room. High-pressure sodium lighting glows overhead with vents
attached to dissipate the heat. A carbon filter also helps to scrub
the air clean through the ventilation system.

Growers are constantly trying to keep the plants from getting diseases.

The plants each produce anywhere from half a pound to more than two
pounds of marijuana buds, depending on the strain, said Merkel,
dispensary vice president. The indoor grow can go through two or
three cycles a year.

There are 453 grams to a pound, meaning at $12 per gram the
dispensary charges on the low end, a plant producing two pounds of
buds would be worth $10,872.

Mother plants sit downstairs in a back room. Growers cut from them to
make clones to grow new plants.

The collective grows different strains with some sativa-dominant
plants that give a more energetic high or indica-dominant breeds that
have a calming effect, along with hybrids. The dispensary grows
strains that include: Blackberry Cush, Jedi Cush, Purple Dragon and
Strawberry Cough, just to name a few.

"We try to help people zero in on the strains that work for them," Galia said.

Is medical marijuana legal?

Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney has not been to the dispensary but
said he does not trust the operation.

"The whole dispensary thing is a sham as is the whole medical
marijuana thing," Maloney said.

As a cancer survivor, Maloney has seen patients feel relief by using
marijuana, he said.

"I think there are people who legitimately need and benefit from
marijuana as a medicine," Maloney said. "I'm not a prude by any means."

But he thinks marijuana use is out of control and that a "cloud of
illegitimacy" hovers over dispensaries. He thinks the operations are
out to make money, he said.

"I think a lot of them, if not all of them, operate in this realm
that they're essentially conducting storefront sales of marijuana,
which is illegal," Maloney said.

Though Maloney plans to follow the Chico City Council's direction on
medical marijuana dispensary regulation, he doesn't support allowing
dispensaries to operate in the city. He thinks most patients in need
will be able to have their marijuana grown at a residence.

Maloney said he does not use marijuana.

"I've never even taken a single puff in my entire life," Maloney said.

CEO Galia thinks marijuana helps patients ease pain while helping
them quit more serious drugs, such as opiates, methamphetamine and
cocaine, he said.

"The line between medical use and recreational use is very thin,"
Galia said. "You get high. You feel good. You feel better. It's good
for your health."

Merkel said he thinks marijuana should be legalized, taxed and regulated.

"It's a multibillion-dollar industry not paying its taxes," Merkel
said. "We pay taxes."

The collective aims to be transparent, Merkel said.

Manager Ramirez thinks law enforcement should better regulate doctor
recommendations, he said.

"As an employee you have to turn patients away because of their
doctors, because your doctor is a flake," Ramirez said. "They need to
look at more doctors instead of patients."

Merkel thinks patients and collective operators have no
representation in county offices, he said.

"That's why people are so mad," Merkel said. "Where's our
representation? The D.A. is supposed to be representing the people.
. We're the only open dispensary because we can afford the lawyers."

Though the dispensary is outside city limits, Merkel wants to move
into Chico once the council passes an ordinance allowing the use, he said.

"We'd really like to be somewhere we're accepted," he said.