CHOICE COLLECTIVE FOUNDER: POT 'A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE' TO PAIN
DRUGS

GAYLORD - Choice Collective co-owner Drew Driver said he felt
"obligated" to open the medical marijuana facility because of the
relief he's gotten as an illicit - and now legal - medical cannabis
user. Along with his longtime friend and co-owner, Ricky Weber, Driver
hopes to provide the same relief to other legal medical marijuana
cardholders.

Opened April 20 inside a renovated building at 611 N. Center Ave. in
Gaylord, the collective connects registered patients for member
patient-to-patient transfers. Currently, Driver said the collective
has 75 members, some of whom rent lockers to store their marijuana.

Driver said Michigan's Medical Marihuana Act allows for such
transfers, and the collective makes its money through compensation for
its service providing a "public, secure atmosphere" for patients to
meet. No marijuana is consumed on the premises, cardholders set their
own prices, typically $10 to $18 per gram, and Driver said locker fees
are "extremely low."

Sitting behind a glass-top office desk in a fresh and neatly-decorated
room, Driver exudes a professional, casual businessman persona one may
not associate with a place where glass pipes sit in a corner display
case, and where a faint aroma of pot occasionally floats through the
room to a Grateful Dead tune over the speakers.

"We're not in it to make money," Driver said. "We're here to prove
that (medical marijuana) works and that it is a viable alternative to
prescription medications."

For Driver, marijuana is a very real alternative. Nine years ago, a
quick swerve to miss a deer crossing Peanut Hill Road put Driver in
the hospital for three months. His injuries from the accident were
extensive - numerous fractured vertebrae, broken femur, hips, pelvis
and ribs, and other internal injuries. During rehabilitation at Mayo
Clinic, Driver was prescribed Marinol - synthetic THC, one of several
active chemicals in cannabis - to ease the nausea caused by other
prescriptions he was taking. It worked.

"It was through that I realized this had real medical uses," he
said.

Driver continued to use marijuana illegally to manage the pain from
his injuries until he could legally do so as a registered patient.
Though he still needs crutches to stand and walk, he medicates daily
with nothing other than pot, which also controls the muscle spasms in
his legs which would otherwise keep him awake at night.

In July last year, Driver and Weber, who is also a cardholder, decided
to open the collective. They renovated a building that hadn't been
used for four years, hired Weber's mom, Valerie, as an employee and
committed themselves to "doing it right," meeting with community
leaders prior to opening.

"We wanted to know we had the community behind us before we made the
investment," Driver said, noting requests from city officials to be
discreet with their signage and to install a security system.

"He was real receptive," Gaylord City Police Chief Joe FitzGerald said
of Driver's consideration of the city's requests. "He's trying to do
everything by the letter of the law."

Since opening, the collective has become a member of the Gaylord Area
Chamber of Commerce. Driver also is willing to give tours of the
facility to non-cardholders before and after hours, but the facility
is open to cardholders only during business hours, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.,
Monday through Saturday.

For more information, call the collective at 448-8298.