NAPA PICKS PREFERRED MEDICAL POT PROVIDER

More than a year after the Napa City Council approved an ordinance
allowing the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries, the
city's preferred operator has been named.

Harmony Patients' Center of Napa, Inc. is the city's applicant of
choice, Cass Walker, the city's community development director,
announced last week.

Five other applicants have until Sept. 7 to comment on the decision,
then it is up to Walker to make the final selection, Planning Manager
Rick Tooker said.

City staff evaluated the six applications in January, then picked the
top three - Harmony, Remedia Collective and Safe Medicine Access, Inc.
- - for interviews in June, Tooker said.

Following the interviews, City Manager Mike Parness, finance
consultant Vince Goetz and Tooker sent a letter to Walker recommending
Harmony as the most qualified of the candidates.

Their recommendation and Walker's subsequent preliminary decision were
based on Harmony's superior business plan and experience, Tooker said.

Harmony, which is affiliated with a dispensary in San Francisco,
showed "a high level of business experience" during the application
and interview process and presented a complete business and finance
plan, he said.

"The plan shows attention to a broader delivery of wellness services
to be provided to patients," the staff letter to Walker said.
"(Harmony) provided a strong outline of the procedures to qualify
patients as well as vendors."

Bill Iverson, a Napa resident who is Harmony's board chairman, said he
does not yet know how many patients Harmony could serve in its first
year, but estimated the number could be a few thousand.

Harmony presented clear plans on how it will document the cannabis it
will distribute, staff said.

"Transaction tracking and logging, including product bar-coding linked
to transaction limits, was thoroughly described in the interview, as
were provisions for a diversion plan, a clear reporting program,
proactive reporting to the city and allowing independent review of
records by the city," the letter said.

Harmony will also track its product to forecast future purchasing
needs and trends and was the only applicant that provided a specific
plan on how it will deal with surplus marijuana, the letter said.

According to the conditions of its selection, Harmony will have three
security guards at its dispensary. One will be located outside, one in
the entry area and the third will be stationed inside the dispensary
area.

After Walker makes her final decision, the named applicant has 120
days to submit an application for a use permit in Napa. Iverson said
he does not yet know where Harmony could operate if it is chosen, but
said the nonprofit dispensary is committed to hiring local people who
are disabled.

The planned dispensary and a companion warehouse for growing marijuana
will both require a use permit, with public hearings before the
Planning Commission and City Council on the locations and conditions
of operation.

Iverson, a quadriplegic since he broke his neck nine years ago, said
medical marijuana can be described as a remedy for severe, chronic
pain, among other ailments.

"The amount of people that medical cannabis is able to help is just
huge," he said. "It can be prescribed to people who have spasms and
pain or other things. The list goes on and on."

Iverson said Harmony plans to donate 10 percent of its profits back
into the community, though he does not yet know which organization or
organizations it will support.

Medical marijuana supporters dominated the seven months of hearings
that preceded the City Council's unanimous adoption of the ordinance
that makes Napa the first and only city in the county to allow a
medicinal marijuana dispensary.

In 1996, California voters approved an initiative to legalize medical
cannabis. Sixty percent of Napa voters supported that measure.

According to city staff, it could take the dispensary six months to go
through the process of getting a use permit. After the first
dispensary has been opened for one year, the city will consider
whether there is enough need to allow a second one.