Medical Marijuana Shops Ready to Open

Friday, 10 December 2010 21:15

By Caitlin Harrington

Although medical marijuana will probably not be available in Arizona until summer 2011, the wait has not deterred prospective medical marijuana dispensary owners from preparing to set up shop. They are doing this in hopes that they will be one of the 124 stores allowed to sell the drug in Arizona.

Allan Sobol is one of thousands who has already applied for a license to dispense medical marijuana. Unlike some of the other applicants, Sobol has already set up shop.

As owner of Marijuana Marketing Strategies LLC, he has managed to find a way to keep his head above water while patiently awaiting a license from the state. Then he can sell medical marijuana out of his store in Glendale, Ariz.

Currently, Sobol and his partner hold seminars for people looking to open their own dispensary at the same shop.

“Medical Marijuana Marketing Strategies is a business me and my partner set up,” Sobol said. “There really is no other program out there that does what we do.”

The program aims to teach future shop owners the ins and outs of owning a dispensary.  He refers to this program as, “Expert help with medical marijuana

dispensary start ups.”

The shop in waiting is adorned with jars of fake pot and larger than life black-and-white posters displaying marijuana-smoking people with diseases, such as glaucoma and cancer. Currently, the storefront houses a back room that serves as a classroom for the hundreds of students attending training sessions each week.

“What we do in these training sessions is really prepare prospective owners and guide them on the step-by-step process of opening a dispensary,” Sobol said. “Now that the initiative has passed, there are so many people interested in opening their own shops but there’s no real information out there anywhere on how to do it.”

The training seminar, entitled “From Seeds to Success,” covers every aspect of owning and operating a medical marijuana dispensary and helps future owners in the application process and submission.

But getting licensed to own and operate a dispensary is not as easy as attending training sessions and filling out an application.

Getting a prescription may be even more difficult.  For a patient, this means seeing a primary care physician who will determine if the patient is indeed a candidate for medical marijuana.

The Department of Health will have the final say in licensing of the dispensaries and distribution of medical marijuana cards that will allow the patients to buy up to two and-a-half ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

“Two and-a-half ounces may seem like a lot, but you gotta think about these patients who can’t smoke because they have lung cancer or asthma,” Sobol said. “So instead, these people can cook with it, which requires a lot more of the product.”

In addition to the training seminars for future shop owners, Sobol plans to have a mandatory class for customers before they can purchase the marijuana.

“The class we will be requiring our customers to attend is not something that is government required,” he said. “We want our customers to know all they need to about using medical marijuana”.

“Just because someone has a medical marijuana card, doesn’t mean they can be out operating a car completely stoned,” Sobol said.

According to Tucson Police Captain, Michael Gillooly, spotting a driver under the influence of marijuana is only slightly harder than identifying a driver under the influence of alcohol.

“We have been pulling over and arresting people under the influence of marijuana and other narcotics for ten years now, so we know what were doing,” Gillooly said. “We have trained our officers to identify certain signs and to administer tests that will tell them if the driver is under the influence of marijuana.”

Operating a car while using medical marijuana is only one of the problems that may arise. The reselling of the medical marijuana and increase in crime has already been seen in Colorado and California, where medical marijuana is available

“TPD does not have a position on the validity of medical marijuana,” Gillooly said. “What we are concerned about though is the quality of life in the areas that these shops will be located.”

“What we have seen in California and Colorado are clusters of medical marijuana shops all located in the same area.” According to Gillooly, these “clusters” equal more burglaries, the reselling of the drug and overall lower quality of life in the neighborhoods they are in.

Arizona is going to keep clusters from forming once shops begin to get licensed by limiting the number of shops allowed in the state and restricting areas where shops can be located. For example, how far from one another they must be, as well as how far the shops must be from schools, churches, etc.

Sobol, who became interested in this business of medical marijuana for the money, said that the training sessions are aimed at just that goal, to make money. But the actual selling of the product is to help people who really need it.

“I don’t condone the smoking of marijuana for personal use whatsoever and I never have,” Sobol said. “But you see the way it helps people who are legitimately sick, even though some people say it’s a placebo affect. It makes them feel better and it makes these people who are dying more comfortable. I’m not ashamed of what I do, I’m proud to help people.”

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