Medical marijuana has become a growth industry in Colorado

That, it turns out, was part of the plan all along for Amendment 20, the only medical marijuana law in the nation that's a constitutional amendment.

"The plan was to write it into our constitution so it couldn't be tweaked," says Edson, the law's co-author. "There is a reason there are no limits to the number of people you can be a caregiver for. There is a reason a caregiver isn't specifically designated as a doctor or a nurse. It is left open to a broad range of individuals."

Michael Lee tends to his latest crop of medical marijuana.

Scott Carr (above) is the THC Foundation's regional manager in Colorado; Warren Edson (right) co-authored the state's medical marijuana law.

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Medical Marijuana for Wellness

1240 S. Parker Road
Denver, CO 80231

Category: Closed

Region: Southeast Denver

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• Michael Lee
• Warren Edson
• THC Foundation
• Psychoactive Drugs
• Medical Marijuana

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For one thing, if doctors were responsible for actually providing patients with marijuana, the federal government might retaliate by revoking their Drug Enforcement Administration-issued licenses, which allow them to prescribe narcotics.

Furthermore, Edson had noticed the inklings of a dispensary industry developing in California, whose open-ended 1996 medical marijuana law led to an industry there that now boasts hundreds of such businesses. He decided that an entrepreneurial take on medical marijuana would encourage product diversity, innovative practices and competitive prices, all to the benefit of patients.

"I like to see some of these places where a patient has some options," he says. "Where it's not just one guy in his basement with one type of medicine."

So while other states included impediments to dispensaries in their medical marijuana laws or eventually had lawmakers implement such restrictions, in Colorado the free-market approach was allowed to flourish.

The results were evident at the activist boot camp. In a side room, staffers in vendor booths handed out brochures and business cards for dispensary operations, not to mention marijuana-friendly medical clinics and drug-law-savvy lawyers.

Denver real-estate broker Michael Griffin says he's recently picked up three clients, all looking to open 1,500- to 3,000-square-foot dispensaries in the area: "People are noticing it as a viable business. Once it's legal, I think it's no different than a liquor store."

Michelle LaMay has also found a niche. Last fall, the longtime Denver activist launched "Cannabis University," a day-long, $250 program that gives students a run-down on marijuana laws and growing practices. It's for patients wanting to produce their own medicine, and a mini-MBA for those wishing to break into the business.

"I'm hoping the vast number of caregivers and dispensaries will have to hire some people. And maybe they will hire our students," she says.

While they go by different names, dispensaries or caregiver cooperatives operate under roughly the same model. Patients who wish to buy pot must designate that operation as their primary caregiver on their medical marijuana license by filling out a state health department application. Since the law doesn't say where the pot has to come from, dispensaries can theoretically pick it up anywhere: indoor grow rooms overseen by a dispensary's owner or employees; out-of-sight backyard gardens tended by patients; middlemen hawking stuff from large, clandestine outfits squirreled away in the mountains or in networks of fluorescent-lit basements.

According to Amendment 20, the marijuana is legal as soon as it gets into a patient or caregiver's hands, so no need to ask too much about its provenance.

Many dispensaries operate quietly, relying on word of mouth, while a few advertise openly. If Edson's predictions are correct, local dispensary owners could eventually be servicing a statewide client base of 50,000 registered patients.

"It's a full-on gold rush," says Paul Saurini, producer of Marijuana Radio, a weekly pot-themed radio podcast recorded in a slick studio in the Santa Fe Arts District and broadcast in many a dispensary. "People are rushing here to make a buck. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but I think it's a fascinating moment for the movement."

To get a Colorado Medical Marijuana ID card, Colorado residents first need a doctor who will recommend them for the confidential state registry. And to get that recommendation, many patients turn to the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation in Wheat Ridge. Of the 5,000 people on the registry, about 2,700 relied on its services.

One of those is Sandra, who's been on the registry since 2005, but who, like all medical marijuana patients, has to go through the state's annual renewal process. That means another visit to the foundation's 1,500-square-foot, third-floor office in a professional building on Wadsworth Boulevard.

Sandra, her pigtails streaked with gray, sits in a solemn, bare-walled waiting room surrounded by people filling out paperwork or watching a marijuana video on TV. It's a scene that's playing out in similar waiting rooms across the country: the nonprofit, known as the THC Foundation, also has clinics in medical marijuana-friendly states like Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Montana, California, Nevada and Michigan.

Eventually, Sandra is called into the office of Eric Eisenbud, a lanky Colorado ophthalmologist. Before Eisenbud has a chance to review Sandra's history — her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1995, her MS-related leg spasms that qualify her for medical marijuana, and the recent discovery that she has degenerative disc disease in her spine — Sandra blurts out, "Thank you for being here for us." She's well aware how hard it is to find a doctor who will recommend patients for the registry. Before she found the THC Foundation in 2006, she asked her primary care physician to recommend her for medical marijuana — and says the doctor nearly threw her out.