Inside marijuana shops: A picture of our future?

By Jeff Ostrowski, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Oct. 18--Standing behind the counter of the marijuana store he manages, Jeff Botkin proudly presents a glass jar filled with pungent green buds and invites a customer to sniff.

This cannabis strain, Bio-Diesel, contains hints of whole-bean coffee and skunk, Botkin says. Then he offers another variety, branded as Dopium, and describes its floral aroma.

Talking up the product at Denver Relief, a pot dispensary in the state with the nation's most lenient marijuana laws, Botkin sounds like a sommelier dissecting the nuances of nearly identical cabernets, or a master roaster discussing the ideal water temperature to create the perfect espresso.

Easygoing and nondescript except for a sleeve of tattoos, Botkin declares Colorado's experiment with marijuana legalization a success. The dispensaries, he says, are tightly regulated, very secure and otherwise unexciting.

"It's not a shady environment," Botkin says. "It's very comfortable."

Depending on your point of view, Colorado is either a nirvana or a nightmare. Pot proponents say the marijuana industry there is operating safely and responsibly. But in Florida, foes deride legalization as an effort to put "a joint in every backpack."

Florida voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to follow California, Illinois, Arizona and more than a dozen other states that have legalized medical marijuana. If 60 percent of voters approve Amendment 2, Floridians will be able to buy weed with a doctor's permission.

Colorado is the state farthest down the path of marijuana legalization. Denver's medical marijuana dispensaries opened in 2009. This year, the sale of pot to adults without a doctor's note became legal.

While opponents of Amendment 2 say pot proponents' ultimate goal is Colorado-style legalization, Florida's ballot measure would fall short of that mark. Beau Kilmer, a marijuana policy expert at the nonpartisan Rand Corp., said it's inaccurate to think that all loosening leads to full legalization. Most states have stricter programs that allow only medical use of marijuana.

"As jurisdictions are looking at Washington and Colorado, I hope they'll look at them as just one particular model," Kilmer said. "There are a lot of other models out there."

Outer Space, Bio-Jesus

Colorado's nascent cannabis industry is a study in contrasts. Dispensaries often grow their own product in converted warehouses. They market their strains with deliberately provocative brand names such as Moonshine Haze, Train Wreck, Outer Space and Bio-Jesus.

But the Cheech-and-Chong vibes vie with strict state rules about how growers and dealers can operate.

"It's very regulated," said Luke Ramirez, owner of Walking Raven, a Denver dispensary. "It's normal business, kind of like a liquor store."

Ramirez is a clean-cut entrepreneur in a blue dress shirt and black wingtips. He works from an office suite in a Denver penthouse. The only clue that he's selling pot and not insurance or software? A small "Cannabis Cup" sticker on his laptop.

Call it the banality of legalization. So long as the feds continue to ignore Colorado's embrace of taxed-and-regulated ganja, Ramirez can grow and sell pot without fear of prosecution. So his complaints -- too much government regulation, too little help from banks -- could be torn from the script of any business owner in any industry.

Visit Denver Relief, Walking Raven or other weed stores in Colorado, and you're immediately asked for ID, which a worker scans. At some dispensaries, like Terrapin Care Station in a posh part of Boulder, an armed guard is stationed at the entrance.

Helpful 'budtender'

If you're over 21, you'll be escorted into a separate, locked room. At Denver Relief, the interior walls are reinforced with Kevlar. At Walking Raven, the stash is stored in safes bolted to the floor. Security cameras aim in all directions.

Colorado law says cannabis must be sold in rooms that can't be seen from outside, so the real business happens in an interior room. A helpful and knowledgeable "budtender" -- a guy in his 20s or 30s, typically, who has submitted to a state background check -- guides you through the selections.

Prices start at $10 to $12 for a single joint, and range from $25 to $75 for an eighth of an ounce. Most shops sell pipes and offer a variety of "edibles" -- hard candy, chewy candy, granola bars and cookies made with cannabis. If you prefer to vaporize the cannabis, there's gear for that, too.

The budtender rings up a receipt that includes state and local taxes totaling more than 20 percent, then puts the product in a vinyl pouch with a childproof clasp. At Denver Relief, the safety envelope costs $4 after taxes, but you can reuse it for future visits.

No smoking onsite

Unlike in Amsterdam's famous buy-here-smoke-here shops, Colorado dealers don't allow customers to consume cannabis on the spot.

Every dispensary doles out reminders about state laws: Customers aren't allowed to smoke in public. Driving under the influence of cannabis is illegal. So is taking weed out of the state.

Because credit card issuers won't do business with dispensaries, you pay in cash or with a debit-card device that's rigged up not to come directly from your bank account.

The experience can be scary for out-of-state visitors. Botkin said some tourists are terrified about being filmed buying a drug that has been illegal for decades.

"Their hands are shaking," Botkin said. "They know that if they get caught doing this back home, it could ruin their life."

Like many who are building careers in Colorado's budding cannabis industry, Botkin is a true believer in the therapeutic wonders of weed.

"There's no ailment that cannabis isn't good for, even inflammation," Botkin said.

That sort of talk worries doctors, who say cannabis hasn't been subjected to rigorous research that would prove whether it works. Pot proponents engage in "a minimizing of risks, and a hyping of benefits," said Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger, a family physician in Aventura.

"The science is very thin," Wollschlaeger said.

Dr. Abbey Strauss, a psychiatrist in Boca Raton, also is skeptical. He said the budtenders serving up medicinal cannabis lack the formal training of a pharmacist measuring prescription drugs.

"Does anyone know how to dose marijuana? No," Strauss said.

Of course, the science is so scant because cannabis has been illegal for decades. In one exception, the Food and Drug Administration long has allowed the sale of Marinol, a synthetic version of cannabis prescribed to stimulate appetite in people with AIDS and to curb nausea in chemotherapy patients.

If the medical value of marijuana is an open question, so are the societal effects of looser pot laws. Doctors cite recent studies showing that young weed users are less likely to finish school and more apt to try harder drugs, and that potheads lose IQ points as they age. But other studies suggest marijuana legalization might lead to less heavy drinking.

"Is this going to be good or bad for public health?" Kilmer asked. "Ultimately, we don't know."

In Colorado, the marijuana industry seems to be thriving. One rundown strip in Denver is home to more than a dozen dispensaries, and several are scattered throughout Boulder. The four shops visited by a Palm Beach Post reporter in early October boasted full shelves, eager employees and a seemingly brisk business.

As Botkin described the offerings at Denver Relief, a steady stream of customers, ranging from perhaps their late 20s to early 50s, bought weed -- but from the medical side of the store, where prices are a bit cheaper and taxes are lower than in the recreational section. None of the patients were obviously infirm.

From the men with shaggy hair and fashionably scruffy beards to the woman with a flower tattoo reaching down her arm, all looked like they would know where to find an illegal dealer of weed. But the legal shops tout the certainty of a clearly labeled product made and sold in the formal economy.

"We're moving from the black market to the white market," Ramirez said. "It's a safer alternative for distributing marijuana than what's currently happening in Florida."

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