Boulder approves temporary medical pot rules

A "green" issue much different than the Boulder City Council is used to discussing brought out more than 100 area residents Tuesday night amid concerns that the city might ban medical-marijuana dispensaries. While the council didn't go that far, it did approve a set of temporary regulations for an industry that was otherwise unregulated.

Just after midnight this morning, the council voted 4-2 to pass an emergency ordinance aimed at keeping medical marijuana dispensaries away from schools, clustering together or operating in neighborhoods. Councilmembers Lisa Morzel and Macon Cowles voted against the regulations, while Councilmembers Crystal Gray, Ken Wilson, Angelique Espinoza and Susan Osborne voted in favor of interim rules.

The ordinance means that through March 31, 2010, any dispensaries that want to open in Boulder may only do so if they are at least 500 feet away from schools or licensed daycare centers, are not within 500 feet of three or more other dispensaries, and are not located in residential areas.

The rules do not apply to the 42 businesses that have already pulled sales-tax licenses with the city, or the 21 or so dispensaries that applied for permits prior to Nov. 6.

The council stopped short of ordering a moratorium on new dispensaries. Most of the leaders agreed that the city needs more time to study how marijuana dispensaries should be regulated in the long-term, and that short-term regulations are appropriate now.

Osborne said the temporary rules give the city "some breathing room" to consider more comprehensive regulations.

Cowles said he would support a "green" ribbon commission to study the issue through the spring.

"I think this is potentially an important industry," he said, adding that he wouldn't mind seeing commercial marijuana growing operations flourish in Boulder.

Cowles even suggested that Boulder could eventually offer a "city marijuana facility" in which growers could bring excess products for redistribution to patients -- a sort of pot clearinghouse.

The vote didn't satisfy many of the 100 or so medical marijuana advocates who attended the late-night meeting, but most said it was a better decision than a wholesale moratorium on the industry.

The public debate began just before 9 p.m., with a flood of impassioned public comment.

Cheryl Crosby, 70, a nurse, came to the meeting from her home in Lafayette. Crosby said she has a prescription for medicinal marijuana to treat the inflammation and pain in her eyes caused by glaucoma.

"Even I, myself, didn't understand how effective it is for pain," she said.

Crosby uses a Boulder dispensary to obtain her medication, and she fears that the city is rushing to regulate the one thing that treats her symptoms effectively without the use of strong pharmaceuticals.

"To say you can only have 42 of a certain kind of business in a city seems strange," she said, referring to a proposal to limit the number of dispensaries allowed to do business within city limits.

Crosby said the city is unfairly targeting users of legal marijuana by not also taking a hard look at other drug providers -- such as pharmacies.

Amendment 20, approved by state voters in 2000, allows patients and caregivers to have marijuana for medical use in Colorado. There are now 42 medical-marijuana dispensaries licensed to do business in Boulder, although the number of storefronts is thought to be smaller. At least 21 other businesses have applied for licenses but are not yet approved.

Kim Cohen, a Boulder nurse practitioner, also said she uses marijuana to treat her glaucoma. Wearing a vintage 1965 button reading "All Power to the People," Cohen said that individuals, not the city, should decide where and how they receive medication or medical treatment.

"We are not 23-year-old frat boys looking to get high," she said.

But Peter Rogers, a Boulder resident and lawyer, is opposed to medical marijuana being sold or grown in the city.

"I would urge council to enact a moratorium now," he said. "I think we've got to be extremely careful -- marijuana is still against the law."

City Attorney Jerry Gordon told the council up front that the state laws regulating medical marijuana are "enormously confusing," but the city is well within its rights to regulate land uses and business zoning.

The Boulder Planning Board last week recommended not imposing a moratorium on dispensaries and instead using some interim regulations to prevent problems until permanent regulations can be adopted. The City Council softened those recommendations with their vote.

Adrian Sopher, chairman of the Boulder Planning Board, told the City Council on Tuesday that the density of dispensaries is especially a concern in the downtown and University Hill areas. Such businesses, he said, should be spaced out "just in the same way we don't want to have bank after bank" lining any given street.

Andrew Shoemaker, a Boulder attorney and member of the Planning Board, told the council that Boulder should do anything to help legalize the drug and bring about "the beginning of the end of prohibition" on marijuana.

Pot, he said, could help pay for city services through taxation.

"It will pay for itself," he said. "Get Boulder ready for the inevitable."

Not guilty pleas for three men in Boulder medical-pot robbery case

Trials for the co-defendants scheduled to begin in February
John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer

Separate trials were scheduled Friday for three co-defendants in the case of a Boulder medical marijuana dispensary that was robbed in June.

David Henderson, 40; Justin St. John, 29; and Lamare McGee, 22 pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery and kidnapping.

A fourth defendant in the June 16 robbery of New Options Wellness Center -- 21-year-old Walter Carter -- isn't scheduled to be arraigned in the case until Sept. 25.

The quartet is accused of sending St. John into the medical marijuana facility at 2885 E. Aurora Ave. to make a phony pot purchase and case out the place.

Minutes later, McGee and Carter entered New Options, restrained the female employee working there, and stole 26 pint jars with marijuana, 72 sample packs of the drug, canisters of hashish, cannibis pills, pipes, security system components and $1,128 in cash, according to police.

Henderson is accused by prosecutors of masterminding the entire plan and driving the getaway vehicle.

The men were stopped by police driving eastbound on U.S. 36 shortly after the incident and arrested. St. John's trial, scheduled for Feb. 16, is up first.

It will be followed a week later by Henderson's trial. McGee is set to go on trial March 1.

The Boulder County District Attorney's Office has not yet filed a motion to consolidate the cases into one trial.St. John and McGee are free on bond, while Henderson and Carter remain behind bars.

Cannabis Therapy Institute holds health fair at CU

(reprinted from the "Daily Camera" - Boulder, CO - September 12, 2009)

Patients, doctors provide education on medical marijuana
By Scott Franz

The Cannabis Therapy Institute hosted a health fair at the University of Colorado on Saturday to educate the public about marijuana as a medicine and the process involved in becoming a part of Colorado's medical marijuana registry.

"We're not just a bunch of hippy stoners anymore," said medical marijuana patient advocate and Nederland resident Timothy Tipton, who talked to attendees about cannabis as an alternative medicine. "We're baby boomers with a chance to step up and show the public that holistic and healthy alternatives are available."

In his speech, Tipton also commended what he called a "phenomenal turnout and the great medical marijuana community that continues to evolve in the Rocky Mountain state."

More than 100 people filled the Eaton Humanities lecture hall to hear first-hand from other doctors, marijuana law experts and cannabis therapists. Upstairs, more students and visitors from across Colorado talked to representatives from cannabis dispensaries and other related businesses.

"We assembled the best experts from Colorado on the issue," said Laura Kriho, Cannabis Therapy Institute's outreach director. "One of the reasons we're doing this is to educate everyone on how to protect medical marijuana patients."

The Cannabis Therapy Institute is an advocacy group that recently worked with medical marijuana patient Jason Lauve, a Louisville resident acquitted last month on charges of possessing too much medical marijuana. After the acquittal, the institute worked to put together Saturday's fair to promote cannabis education, research and advocacy.

Speaking from a podium adorned with fake marijuana leaf necklaces in the humanities building lecture hall, cannabis therapist Erin Marcove told fair attendees about the positive health effects of marijuana.

Marcove is a medical marijuana patient herself, using marijuana to treat pain that resulted from damage to her nervous system during a surgery when she was 13 years old.

"We're still finding out ways cannabis can be used as a medicine that we never thought we could," Marcove said after sharing results of a study that suggests cannabis can slow down the effects of Alzheimer's disease. "... It's eased my pain as well."

Justin Longley of Boulder attended the fair to listen to the lectures and learn more about what experts are telling potential medical marijuana patients. Longley uses marijuana to treat pain degenerative disc disease.

"Marijuana helps me take as few narcotics as possible," said Longley.

He also expressed concern that too many people are being put on the medical marijuana registry and that some may not need it.

"It makes everybody look bad when doctors are lenient in getting people in the registry, and that hurts the people who really need it," said Longley.

According to Jade E. Dillon, a doctor who has been recommending selected patients to the registry for two years, there are three diagnosis that can qualify her patients for medical marijuana. She will only approve medical marijuana for those with active cancer, glaucoma and HIV/AIDS.

"I have to abide by the registry," said Dillon, a speaker at the event. "There is no other check box or medical condition that can be recognized."

Rasmussen Poll: Majority Of Americans Say Marijuana Is Safer Than Booze

(reprinted from NORML News of the Week 9/3/09)

Ashbury Park, NJ: Slightly more than half of American adults believe that alcohol is "more dangerous" than marijuana, according to a national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters by the polling firm Rasmussen Reports.

Fifty-one percent of respondents, including a majority of women, rated the use of marijuana to be less dangerous than alcohol. Only 19 percent of those polled said that cannabis is the more dangerous of the two substances.

Twenty-five percent of respondents said that both substances are equally dangerous.

Commenting on the poll results NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano, co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink, said: "By almost any objectively measurable standard, cannabis is safer than booze – both to the individual consumer and to society as a whole. However, given our government's longstanding demonization of the cannabis plant and its users it is remarkable that anyone – much less over half of America – recognizes this fact. Ideally, these survey results will spark a long-overdue dialogue in this country asking why our laws target and prosecute those who choose to possess and consume the less dangerous of these two popular substances."

A previous survey conducted by Zogby in 2002 reported that most Americans believe that cannabis is less dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco.For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org.

Darine Chely - Felony Charges 2009

THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED AS NEW INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. PLEASE CHECK BACK REGULARLY

To view the Arrest Warrant - CLICK HERE


If you have any information or evidence regarding any crimes committed by this career criminal, please contact the Boulder Police Department at (303) 441-3333 and ask for Detective Carey Lutz.


CHELY, DARINE
Court Docket Number: 09CR293 Division: 6
Law Agency: BOULDER POLICE DEPT Agency Number: 07-17233
Case Status: Open Felony

Prosecuting Attorney MICHAEL FOOTE
Defense Attorney MARK E. BIDDISON

Charges
1 F5 FORGERY
2 F6 CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT FORGERY
3 M2 FIRST DEGREE OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT

Case Events
1/14/2009 2:00 PM BOND HEARING Held Okubo
1/22/2009 2:00 PM FILING OF CHARGES Continued
1/23/2009 2:00 PM FILING OF CHARGES Continued
1/27/2009 2:00 PM FILING OF CHARGES Held
3/16/2009 9:00 AM STATUS CONFERENCE Held Bakke withdraws
5/29/2009 1:00 PM ARRAIGNMENT Continued
7/10/2009 1:00 PM ARRAIGNMENT Continued
8/4/2009 8:15 AM ARRAIGNMENT Posted


Court Docket Number: 09CR595 Division: 9
Law Agency: BOULDER POLICE DEPT Agency Number: 09-3022
Case Status: Open Felony Violent Crime

Prosecuting Attorney MICHAEL FOOTE
Defense Attorney MARK E. BIDDISON

Charges
1 F6 POSSESSION OF A WEAPON BY PREVIOUS OFFENDER
2 F6 VIOLATION OF BAIL BOND CONDITIONS
3 M3 RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT
4 M3 RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT
5 M3 RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

Case Events
3/20/2009 2:00 PM FILING OF CHARGES Held Welsh
4/9/2009 1:30 PM PRELIMINARY HEARING Waived
5/29/2009 1:00 PM ARRAIGNMENT Continued
7/10/2009 1:00 PM ARRAIGNMENT Continued
8/4/2009 8:15 AM ARRAIGNMENT Posted

ON 4/10/2009 A BAIL BOND REVOCATION HEARING WAS HELD AND DARINE CHELY WAS ONCE AGAIN SENT TO JAIL. THIS TIME HER BAIL WAS RAISED TO $30,000.00 AND SHE IS BACK OUT ON THE STREETS OF BOULDER WITHIN HOURS.

(The information posted above is a matter of Public Record and was obtained from the Boulder County District Attorney website)

Justice Department Urges Equalizing Drug Sentences

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 29, 2009; 10:00 AM

Justice Department officials this morning endorsed for the first time proposed legislation that would eliminate vast sentencing disparities for possession of powdered versus rock cocaine, an inequality that civil rights groups say disproportionately has impacted poor and minority defendants.

Newly appointed Criminal Division chief Lanny A. Breuer told a Senate panel this morning that the Obama administration would support bills to equalize punishment for offenders accused of possessing the drug in either form, fulfilling one of the president's campaign pledges.

The issue has received attention from both political parties, but never before have top law enforcement officials backed legislative reforms, according to drug control analysts.

"Now is the time for us to reexamine federal cocaine sentencing policy, from the perspective of both fundamental fairness and safety," Breuer said in remarks prepared for delivery to the committee. He told lawmakers that the sentencing issues would be among those considered by a department panel that is examining a broad array of topics related to criminal justice charging, sentencing and prisoner treatment.

The announcement represents part of a broader strategy by the White House to move away from failed strategies to combat the war on drugs and to shift more money into treatment, counseling and job training. That outlook has been endorsed by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and former Seattle police chief R. Gil Kerlikowske, who awaits Senate confirmation as Obama's new drug czar.

Conflict over the cocaine possession laws, which date to 1986, has simmered for years. Even the U.S. Sentencing Commission has pushed Congress for more than a decade to address sentencing disparities.

At the heart of the debate are vastly unequal penalties for carrying cocaine in powder form as opposed to rock form, commonly known as crack. The inequality has come to be known as the "100 to 1" ratio, in which possession of five grams of crack, the weight of two small sugar cubes, triggers a mandatory five-year prison term while a person carrying 500 grams of powder cocaine would receive the same sentence.

The penalties have had far-reaching consequences, according to police chiefs, federal judges and drug control operatives.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) noted in his prepared comments this morning that more than half of federal inmates are locked up for drug-related crimes, including high ratios of African American offenders. In 2007, Durbin said, 82 percent of people convicted on crack possession charges were black, and only 9 percent were white.

"These racial disparities profoundly undermine trust in our criminal justice system and have a deeply corrosive effect on the relationship between law enforcement and minority communities," Durbin said.

In practice, according to the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the sentencing disparity has a discriminatory impact on African Americans who serve sentences on average nearly two years longer than people sentenced under powder cocaine laws.

One client of FAMM is Eugenia Jennings, the mother of three children, who was convicted of trading small amounts of crack cocaine for designer clothes on two different occasions. She was charged as a career offender and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 2001.

Cedric Parker, Jennings's brother, was to tell the Senate panel this morning that had his sister been caught with powder cocaine, she would be preparing to return home because that offense carried far less prison time. Jennings is not scheduled for release until 2019.

"This hearing gives new hope to thousands . . . who have loved ones serving harsh sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses," said Mary Price, vice president and general counsel at FAMM.

The origins of the tough sentences reside in the hothouse environment of the mid-1980s, when many urban communities suffered outbreaks of violence and drug use stemming from the introduction of high-quality cocaine into local drug markets. At the time, authorities believed that crack cocaine possessed unusually addictive powers, an idea that has since been dispelled, said Asa Hutchinson, former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"When significant numbers of African Americans on the street question the fairness of our criminal justice system, then it becomes more difficult for the officer on the street to do his or her duty under the law," Hutchinson said in his prepared remarks for the committee today.

John F. Timoney, the police chief in Miami, this morning called the current state of the drug law an "unmitigated disaster" and said he was "pleading with the Congress to right a wrong."

New push in Arizona for medical marijuana

by Matthew Benson - Apr. 18, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

An initiative planned for the 2010 ballot would ask Arizona voters to legalize medical marijuana, setting up a California-style network of cannabis clubs and even allow some patients to grow their own drug supply.

It's the fourth time since 1996 that state voters have been asked to decriminalize marijuana as a medical treatment. Local supporters, backed by the national Marijuana Policy Project, have their sights set on the 2010 general election and plan to submit ballot language to the Secretary of State's Office as early as next week.

The initiative would allow individuals with illnesses ranging from cancer to HIV/AIDS or glaucoma to seek a doctor's recommendation for medical marijuana, according to draft ballot language obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Eligible individuals would be able to purchase up to 2 1/2 ounces of the drug every 14 days from a series of non-profit outlets, known as dispensaries. Patients in rural areas of the state could cultivate a limited number of their own marijuana plants.

Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug under federal guidelines, like heroin or LSD. But the initiative would shield from state prosecution the doctors who recommend marijuana for medical treatment, the dispensary workers who provide it and the patients who use it. Thirteen states already have legalized medical marijuana in some fashion, though only California has established a widespread network of dispensaries to distribute it.

Proponents of medical marijuana say it can relieve pain and suffering.

Supporters of the Arizona initiative say it would provide another treatment alternative to the desperately ill, sparing them and their family from having to brave the underground drug market and risk criminal prosecution.

"These people are facing a terrible choice," said Andrew Myers, campaign manager for the Arizona initiative. "It's either continue to suffer with debilitating effects or risk arrest and jail time."

Skeptics voice worry

Skeptics aren't so sure. They question the drug's medicinal benefits and wonder whether efforts to legalize it for the sick and dying are a prelude to decriminalization for everyone else in the future.

"Don't get blinded by the smokescreen," warned Rick Romley, a former Maricopa County attorney. "It's still a step toward legalization of marijuana. That's what it has been since Day 1."

Romley was in office in 1996 during the state's initial medical marijuana vote.

By a nearly 2-1 ratio, voters approved a ballot proposal that OK'd use of the drug for medical purposes, but lawmakers subsequently stripped the provision from the law.

In 1998, federal authorities threatened to revoke the license of physicians who prescribed the drug.

That same year, voters rejected a ballot attempt to require that the federal government or Congress OK the use of medical marijuana before it could be prescribed by a doctor.

In 2002, Arizona voters rejected an effort to decriminalize possession of small quantities of marijuana and make the drug available free of charge to patients suffering from cancer and other diseases.

Medical-marijuana supporters think the timing is right to try once more. They believe they've solved the past licensing issue with their latest initiative, which requires that patients obtain a physician's "recommendation," rather than a prescription, to obtain the drug.

Additionally, new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently indicated that federal authorities will not pursue cases involving medical marijuana in states that allow the practice, a reversal of Bush administration policy.

Backers of the initiative need to gather at least 153,000 valid signatures to qualify for the 2010 ballot. Myers is confident his group can do that and is girding for a multimillion-dollar campaign.

A degree of mercy

The issue of medical marijuana is personal for Ellen Terry Friedman.

In early 1988, the Tempe woman's father, Harold, was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 70. The disease had spread to his bones.

His condition deteriorated over the next 18 months. Toward the end, Harold was no longer undergoing chemotherapy or radiation. He was under hospice care and on morphine. But he still suffered.

So, in her father's last month or so of life, Friedman said, the oncologist suggested the family obtain marijuana to dull Harold's pain and help with his nausea. She won't say how the family got the drug, but it did.

"It was a shocking position to be put in, let's put it that way," she said. "Nobody should be put in that position."

The marijuana seemed to help, Friedman said. Her father regained a bit of appetite. He found a degree of mercy.

"It was a horrible, painful death, but it was eased somewhat," she said. "We wanted him to die with the least pain, and the medical marijuana was an integral part of that."

Conflict continues

Romley sympathizes with those who suffer. But he worries that some patients or doctors would misuse the law, especially given a provision in the initiative that would allow patients to obtain the drug if they displayed symptoms such as severe pain or seizures. What constitutes severe pain would be a matter for a doctor's judgment.

State Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, has similar concerns. But he's conflicted on the issue of medical marijuana. Although he worries "this is just the gateway to legalizing marijuana," Paton also has seen the drug used with medical benefits.

Before dying of cancer a couple of years ago, a friend of Paton's used marijuana to ease the suffering.

"He smoked pot because he was too sick," said Paton, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "He couldn't keep the (pain) pills down."

If marijuana is a legitimate medical treatment, Romley said, backers should seek its legalization through the health community and federal government, not at the ballot box.

"I just don't believe we decide what's good medicine at the ballot box," he said. "The vast bulk of the medical community has never pushed it to be a drug legalized for medicinal purposes."

Myers countered that federal drug laws continue to make medical research involving marijuana difficult.

And while he conceded that the national Marijuana Policy Project has broader aims with regard to the drug's legalization, he said the Arizona initiative is narrowly written with its intent solely on helping people fighting severe illness.

"There are 13 other states with medical-marijuana laws," Myers said. "None of those 13 has moved to total legalization."

(Source: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/04/18/20090418med-marijuana0418.html)

FOX News Says Marijuana Activists are "Internet Trolls"

Posted in Chronicle Blog by Scott Morgan on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:36pm

Recent months have brought an unprecedented level of positive mainstream discussion about reforming our marijuana laws. To those who've been working for decades to create a national dialogue surrounding marijuana policy, it's a sign of hope and progress. To the folks at FOX News, it's a f#$king internet prank:

President Obama's pledge to open the White House up to the public through online forums faces an irksome challenge: a plague of Internet "trolls" -- troublemakers who work to derail cyber-conversations through harassing and inflammatory posts.

The problem became immediately apparent last month when Obama held an online "town hall" forum on the economy and invited the public to post questions on the White House Web site.

Those questions, in turn, were voted on by users to determine which ones the president would answer.

Three and a half million people participated in the event, but the "trolls" had their way: Following a coordinated campaign by marijuana advocates to vote their topic to the top of the list, questions on the future of the U.S. dollar and the rising unemployment rate were superseded by questions about legalizing pot as an economic remedy.

Really, FOX News? You are so incapable of understanding our argument that you would dismiss us as saboteurs? If the mere mention of reforming marijuana laws is such a grand affront to civil discourse, let me introduce you to a few more "trolls" out there on the internet spreading crazy ideas about not arresting people for marijuana:

There's Joe Klein at Time, David Sirota at The Nation, Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post, Paul Jacob at TownHall.com, Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker, Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Debra Saunders at the San Francisco Chronicle, Leonard Pitts at Miami Herald, John Richardson at Esquire, Margery Eagan at Boston Herald and many more. If these names sound familiar to you, it's becaue they aren't trolls at all, rather they are respected journalists who are joining the national conversation about the harms of our vicious marijuana laws.

In one of Obama's recent online forums, I saw this question: "How many donuts can I fit on my dong?" That was a troll, and it got deleted. This is a movement, and it isn't going away. Our issue is bigger than the organizations backing it. It didn't win Obama's forum because marijuana reformers know something about online organizing that other interest groups don't. It won because it is this defining question that quickly separates petty hypocrites from bold leaders, that distinguishes self-evident truths from antiquated propaganda, and that pits common sense against the mindless drug war hysteria that maintains a frigid stranglehold on our political culture, rendering impotent the promise of change that inspired so many hopeful Americans to lay their hopes and dreams at the steps of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It won because millions among us have been arrested and abused at the expense of our own precious tax dollars, with no credible explanation and no honorable conclusion on the horizon. And it won because President Obama himself once spoke of the "utter failure" of these laws, only to then embrace the endless drug war death march that destroys everything it was meant to preserve.

So no, FOX News, we are not "troublemakers" at all. We are here to solve a problem and anyone who thinks there are more important things to worry about would be well advised to stop making this take longer than it has to.

Loveland, CO - Shop To Offer Medical Pot

Loveland’s first medicinal marijuana dispensary will open this week - more than eight years after Colorado voters legalized the drug for such use.

Rich Present, 37, and Drew McNeil, 33, plan to open Nature’s Medicine today at 843 Cleveland Ave.

Along with selling marijuana, Nature’s Medicine will provide a variety of alternative health-related services, such as low-cost acupuncture and massage, meditation, and a variety of herbs and supplements.

The business will also contract out for more intensive home care; and in August, a certified nursing assistant will join the staff.

“This will be a totally on-site thing,” Present said, adding that the business will have professionals on hand for walk-in services aimed at patient care.

The store will sell smoking accessories and some clothing as well.

McNeil would like to see the business as a place people can visit for a variety of things, even for tea or fresh-squeezed juice, he said.

Still, the business likely will be best known as a marijuana dispensary, featuring a locked room where state-registered patients may purchase marijuana in a variety of forms, including budding plants, baked goods and in liquid form.

Present would like to create a cooperative of legal marijuana growers through Nature’s Medicine to drive down the drug’s price for medicinal users, he said.

“If we are not beating the street ( value ) for $300 ( an ounce ), then why should they come to us,” Present said.

One ounce of marijuana at Nature’s Medicine will cost between $250 and $300 and one-eighth of an ounce will cost $50, plus standard sales tax, Present said.

Colorado medical marijuana laws state that anyone registered to use the drug can grow six plants for personal use.

However, they also can designate someone as a caregiver to grow those plants for them.

As of February, about 6,800 Colorado residents have registered as medical marijuana users; 569 of them are from Larimer County, according to information from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Larimer County comes in as the region with the fourth-largest number of people on the registry, behind Denver, Jefferson and El Paso counties.

Present and McNeil are registered users and caregivers for 20 patients.

Loveland police Sgt. Benjamin Hurr said police were consulted and this type of operation is a legal business as long as the business owners follow state and municipal laws.

Nature’s Medicine is at least the second dispensary to open in Larimer County.

One year ago, Enerchi Healing Center opened in Fort Collins providing similar services.

“We’ve seen phenomenal success with our community,” Enerchi owner Pam Fleming said, adding she has not had any problems with the Fort Collins police.

REALITY NEWS: HEMP FOR FUEL - The END of Big Oil

Excerpted from "Energy Farming in America," by Lynn Osburn

BIOMASS CONVERSION to fuel has proven economically feasible, first in laboratory tests and by continuous operation of pilot plants in field tests since 1973. When the energy crop is growing it takes in C02 from the air, so when it is burned the C02 is released, creating a balanced system.

Biomass is the term used to describe all biologically produced matter. World production of biomass is estimated at 146 billion metric tons a year, mostly wild plant growth. Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons per acre of biomass a year.

Types of algae and grasses may produce 50 metric tons per year. This biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur produced during combustion. About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas.

The foundation upon which this will be achieved is the emerging concept of "energy farming," wherein farmers grow and harvest crops for biomass conversion to fuels.

PYROLYSIS IS THE TECHNIQUE of applying high heat to organic matter (ligno-cellulosic materials) in the absence of air or in reduced air. The process can produce charcoal, condensable organic liquids (pyrolytic fuel oil), non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, and methanol. The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol production with a 95.5% fuel-to-feed efficiency.

Pyrolysis has been used since the dawn of civilization. Ancient Egyptians practiced wood distillation by collecting the tars and pyroligneous acid for use in their embalming industry.

Methanol-powered automobiles and reduced emissions from coal-fired power plants can be accomplished by biomass conversion to fuel utilizing pyrolysis technology, and at the same time save the American family farm while turning the American heartland into a prosperous source of clean energy production.

Pyrolysis has the advantage of using the same technology now used to process crude fossil fuel oil and coal. Coal and oil conversion is more efficient in terms of fuel-to-feed ratio, but biomass conversion by pyrolysis has many environmental and economic advantages over coal and oil.

Pyrolysis facilities will run three shifts a day. Some 68% of the energy of the raw biomass will be contained in the charcoal and fuel oils made at the facility. This charcoal has nearly the same heating value in BTU as coal, with virtually no sulfur.

Pyrolytic fuel oil has similar properties to no. 2 and no. 6 fuel oil. The charcoal can be transported economically by rail to all urban area power plants generating electricity. The fuel oil can be transported economically by trucking creating more jobs for Americans. When these plants use charcoal instead of coal, the problems of acid rain will begin to disappear.

When this energy system is on line producing a steady supply of fuel for electrical power plants, it will be more feasible to build the complex gasifying systems to produce methanol from the cubed biomass, or make synthetic gasoline from the methanol by the addition of the Mobil Co. process equipment to the gasifier.

FARMERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO GROW an energy crop capable of producing 10 tons per acre in 90-120 days. This crop must be woody in nature and high in lignocellulose. It must be able to grow in all climactic zones in America.

And it should not compete with food crops for the most productive land, but be grown in rotation with food crops or on marginal land where food crop production isn't profitable.

When farmers can make a profit growing energy, it will not take long to get 6% of continental American land mass into cultivation of biomass fuel--enough to replace our economy's dependence on fossil fuels. We will no longer be increasing the C02 burden in the atmosphere. The threat of global greenhouse warming and adverse climactic change will diminish. To keep costs down, pyrolysis reactors need to be located within a 50 mile radius of the energy farms. This necessity will bring life back to our small towns by providing jobs locally.

HEMP IS THE NUMBER ONE biomass producer on planet earth: 10 tons per acre in approximately four months. It is a woody plant containing 77% cellulose. Wood produces 60% cellulose. This energy crop can be harvested with equipment readily available. It can be "cubed" by modifying hay cubing equipment. This method condenses the bulk, reducing trucking costs from the field to the pyrolysis reactor. And the biomass cubes are ready for conversion with no further treatment.

Hemp is drought resistant, making it an ideal crop in the dry western regions of the country. Hemp is the only biomass resource capable of making America energy independent. And our government outlawed it in 1938.

Remember, in 10 years, by the year 2000, America will have exhausted 80% of her petroleum reserves. Will we then go to war with the Arabs for the privilege of driving our cars; will we stripmine our land for coal, and poison our air so we can drive our autos an extra 100 years; will we raze our forests for our energy needs?

During World War II, our supply of hemp was cut off by the Japanese. The federal government responded to the emergency by suspending marijuana prohibition. Patriotic American farmers were encouraged to apply for a license to cultivate hemp and responded enthusiastically. Hundreds of thousands of acres of hemp were grown.

The argument against hemp production does not hold up to scrutiny: hemp grown for biomass makes very poor grade marijuana. The 20 to 40 million Americans who smoke marijuana would loath to smoke hemp grown for biomass, so a farmer's hemp biomass crop is worthless as marijuana.

It is time the government once again respond to our economic emergency as they did in WWII to permit our farmers to grow American hemp so this mighty nation can once again become energy independent and smog free.

For more information on the many uses of hemp, contact BACH, the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp, Box 71093, LA, CA 90071-0093, 213/288-4152.

--excerpt from Herer, "Emperor Wears No Clothes," 1991 edition, p. 136

For an updated version of "Energy Farming In America," "Books In Print" lists "Ecohemp: Economy and Ecolgy with Hemp," Access Unlimited, Frazier Park, CA, 805/632-2644.

[3] The device invented was named the decorticator and in the mid 1930s it was poised to do for hemp what the cotton gin had done for cotton: create a fast and economically feasible way of "removing the fiber- bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor." ("Popular Mechanics," February, 1938)