ARE YOU READY FOR SOME GRANDADDY PURPLE?

Medical Marijuana Dispencary Comes to Magnolia

As workers hammer away to put the finishing touches on her offices,
Magnolia's newest business owner discusses the line of rather unique
products she plans to sell to her customers.

They include Blue Dream, Grandaddy Purple, Train Wreck and Bubba
Kush.

These trippy product names are for strains of medical marijuana that
Maria Mendoza is preparing to sell to patients with a doctor's
prescription. Her new office is a medical marijuana dispensary and
will offer both the leafy form of marijuana to be smoked and
"edibles," such as brownies or cookies.

"I'm a little scared of those Kush varieties," said Mendoza. "Those
are 'couchlock' strains."

For the uninitiated, "couchlock" is defined by the Urban Dictionary as
when someone get so incredibly stoned that they actually become part
of the couch.

Opening its doors on May 18th, the Seattle's Best Alternative Care
dispensary is located in a nondescript retail storefront that is part
of the office park at 2820 Thorndyke. The business is so new there
isn't even a business sign up yet.

Patients enter a small entryway where they speak to employees through
a window. Patients must show identification and a valid Washington
State Medical Marijuana Doctor Authorization. Mendoza said the
doctor's office is called to verify that the prescription is legitimate.

The dispensary is a non-profit, so Mendoza said the charge for the
marijuana products are considered "donations."

The 26-year-old Mendoza said prior to starting the business, she ran a
medical marijuana delivery service for eight months, delivering
marijuana to customers, with proper medical paperwork she states, at
their homes or other locations. But, after talking to a business
lawyer, she decided that an office would be safer for herself and her
patients, both legally and personally. The office allows her to sell
the marijuana in a safe and secure environment. She says she expects
many of her delivery clients will now come to the office. But Mendoza
admits that so far they have been a bit skittish about venturing into
the business.

"My aim is to do everything I can to make this safe and secure for
everyone involved," Mendoza said. "I definitely want to keep the area
around the office safe. I'm a mother and I don't want kids who don't
have a medical reason for getting marijuana in contact with the
medication."

Mendoza said she has worked very closely with the building owner to
make sure that it is the best situation possible the other businesses
and patrons. She requests that her customers don't smoke or ingest any
of the medical marijuana near the premises.

Such dispensaries are in what a spokeswoman for the Seattle City
Attorney's office described as a "gray area" in the law. State voters
passed an initiative in 1998 that legalized the possession of small
amounts of marijuana for personal use. But the legislation didn't
specify how the marijuana could be sold or grown.

In some jurisdictions, dispensaries have been considered illegal.
However, Seattle City Attorney Peter Holmes has announced that his
office would not file charges against people who are medical marijuana
patients. A spokeswoman for the city attorney said that it is up to
Seattle police whether they would raid medical marijuana dispensaries.
But to her knowledge, that hasn't happened to any of the between 24
and 50 dispensaries that are known to be operating in Seattle.

Recent attempts by State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) to create
an organized system for dispensing marijuana and for keeping track of
patients with a doctor's prescription to buy medical marijuana was
passed by the state Legislature this year. But Gov. Christine Gregoire
vetoed most of the bill's provisions, fearing the law would put state
employees involved with managing the dispensaries in danger of arrest
from federal officials.

Mendoza said she got into the field of dispensing medical marijuana
because she has personally seen it help a number of people, including
a cousin who suffered from cancer.

She said medical marijuana treatments helped her cousin gain weight
and handle the nausea that came with chemotherapy treatments. By
contrast, she has seen her once-active mother begin sleeping all the
time and almost fall into a coma because the prescription medication
she was taking.

"I've seen the affects of prescription drugs on people who are sick
and I think medical marijuana is a better way to go," Mendoza said.