A Sticky-Icky Issue
In the perplexing world of medical marijuana, a Pasadena nonprofit works to turn a gray area green
By Jake Armstrong 01/28/2010
It’s a hazy Saturday mid-morning when Liz McDuffie’s pupils — some toting briefcases, some bearing tattoos — begin filing into class in a small storefront on North Mentor Avenue.
California’s medical marijuana program is their text, and staking a claim in the booming $14 billion industry is their goal. If money does grow on trees, McDuffie’s students will be among the first to harvest, manicure and dry it.
“I regard you as the elite in this industry,” McDuffie tells the class of about 30 at the Medical Cannabis Caregivers Directory, which in three years has prepared about 2,000 people to navigate the increasingly complex world of medical marijuana.
Through a series of weekend classes, McDuffie trains future dispensary operators, cultivators, attorneys, doctors, accountants and others on the legal aspects of operating a collective or dispensary, the risks physicians face in writing recommendations, how to grow plants and how to ensure the medication produced or provided is safe.
Such education is crucial, McDuffie said, since marijuana appears on the precipice of both legalization and societal acceptance, and as its medicinal benefits become more widely understood. “What we’re seeing is a reemergence of cannabis — finally — into our pharmacology,” said McDuffie, who has used the herb therapeutically since 1967. “This is the biggest crop in our state. We don’t have a choice.”
‘The right way’
The complexity of medical marijuana laws, the many court decisions interpreting those laws and the pastiche of local ordinances regulating medical marijuana dispensaries present a gauntlet for dispensary operators to negotiate — one that could land them in prison, since marijuana is still illegal under federal law. So McDuffie, a post-graduate in public administration who also owns the adjacent Ritz Resale store, and a series of expert speakers instruct students on ways to stay out of trouble in a quasi-legal environment. Allow credit card transactions in a dispensary? That could land someone in federal court, since marijuana remains illegal under federal law and credit cards fall under federal jurisdiction, she tells the class. Set up shop and turn a huge profit? Collectives are restricted to nonprofit status by state law, and nonprofit directors driving expensive cars and traveling extensively will surely draw questions from the tax man.
“I’m trying to tell people how to do this the right way,” McDuffie said.
The task is equally hard for law enforcement. Just ask the Pasadena Police Department, whose command staff stopped by the center last Thursday for a briefing from McDuffie on the terms of the state’s medical marijuana law, Senate Bill 420, the 2003 statue that limited possession and cultivation at eight dried ounces and six mature or 12 immature plants.
That same day, the California Supreme Court unanimously struck down those limits as an unconstitutional amendment to Proposition 215, the 1996 voter initiative allowing patients to obtain a doctor’s written recommendation for cannabis use. SB 420 also created a voluntary ID card program to protect qualified patients from arrest. The high court said qualified patients could possess as much as is “reasonably related to meet his or her current medical needs.” It also ruled patients without the card could defend possession or cultivation charges with their doctor’s recommendation.
“I don’t think that it clarified everything. I think that it got murkier,” said interim Pasadena police Chief Chris Vicino.
While estimates of the number of Californians with a doctor’s clearance range into the hundreds of thousands, only 37,236 people have obtained ID cards, according to the state’s figures. Medical marijuana advocates hope the ruling will make police think twice about arresting patients without the card who have less than the now-unconstitutional limits, but some worry prosecution may be arbitrary.
“We hope police still consider those numbers to be a guide for them so they don’t arbitrarily arrest and prosecute patients for fewer plants,” said Kris Hermes, spokesman for American for Safe Access.
Vicino said marijuana’s quasi-legal status in the state and the federal government’s stance to consider it illegal but respect state laws on medicinal use puts strain on officers trying to determine whether someone is legally or illegally possessing the herb.
“That does put law enforcement in the middle. Are we in the middle of a societal change in the way we see marijuana? Yeah, we are,” Vicino said. “But you have to understand law enforcement is part of the executive branch and we do not we write the laws — we enforce them.”
A special place
Many cities are moving to regulate storefront dispensaries. Some have opted to ban them entirely, like Pasadena, where dispensaries are outlawed under the zoning code. But McDuffie guides her students on how to pitch a dispensary to city officials who may be wary about them setting up shop.
But storefronts aren’t the only option. Delivery dispensaries and education centers, like the MCCD, are legal and viable options for those looking to get into the industry, McDuffie said.
The trade has even given rise to spinoff industries.
Tony Hunter, a 60-year-old janitor and medical marijuana user from Glendora, said he was thinking about the fortunes amassed during the Great Depression, many due to the end of Prohibition, and saw the same potential in medical marijuana, which could very well be headed to legalization under a bill being weighed in Sacramento or through multiple voter initiatives planned for ballots this year. As more and more people use medical marijuana, more and more would want to hide the odor. So two months ago he began distributing Re-Fresh smoke odor eliminator to dispensaries and hydroponics shops. After some success, he sees the financial potential marijuana could have for the sagging economy. “It really is a shame we haven’t done this much, much sooner,” he said.
McDuffie stresses the medical aspects of cannabis for her students. And one of the MCCD’s functions is to provide potential medical marijuana patients with access to a doctor’s evaluation.
One of those patients is Adrina Lockhart, a sprightly 70-year-old former counselor at Muir and Blair high schools, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2008.
Modern medicine has failed her, Lockhart said. “I just don’t have faith in doctors — period. They want to put you on four, five, six different kinds of medicine.”
Lockhart, who has only casually used the herb over the years, said the marijuana tinctures she now uses help relieve muscle pain. And she’s protected from arrest.
“I feel great. I know there is nobody who can sweat me now and say you can’t do that,” Lockhart said.
Laying down roots
It wasn’t until 1967, after suffering 22 years with migraines, that McDuffie learned the powers of the herb. She was teaching GIs at a base in Germany and a doctor there suggested she try hashish to combat the crippling pain of migraines. One of the GIs told her where to find some, and soon she was on a regimen of hash and aspirin that effectively quelled the pain. “I could carry on through the day. I didn’t go down for the count,” McDuffie said.
Come 1996, as California voters ushered in medical marijuana under the Compassionate Use Act, McDuffie was studying public administration and realized she wanted to get involved with the medical marijuana movement. So she went to Canada to study that country’s well-established but tightly controlled program. Canadians, who must get three doctors’ recommendations to qualify for medicinal use, were astounded by how commercial and unregulated California’s medical marijuana industry had so quickly become.
“The glaring need was for clean medicine, and the second was education,” McDuffie said.
McDuffie launched the Medical Cannabis Caregiver Directory three years ago with assistance from NORML, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. With assistance from prominent marijuana attorneys, doctors and cultivators, the training program debuted and has now produced about 3,000 graduates — dispensary operators, growers, accountants and attorneys among them. But she also partnered with an inspector from the US Department of Agriculture to develop a program to ensure marijuana is safely and organically grown and processed in accordance with the state’s medical marijuana program.
“This is medicine. The responsibility is even greater,” McDuffie said.
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