i live ina small town in az. our city will not grant a business license for a diapensary to open. that is all thatis saving us. in april most cities will have shops open. most already have locations
websites and an answering machine explaining that april is the grand opening. however if you get your card before april you have authorization to cultivate. and if you stay on top of renewal you will retain the auth' until you lapse your renewal.
so it is up to the cardholder to determine the
extent of their capabilities at this point.
get on it people. after april, if your address is
within 25 miles of a dispensary, you will not be able to cultivate. period. i however, living in a small town that is ultra conservative, will likely
be able to grow indefinately.

I also see that many "care clusb" are setup just to grow pot and sell it to patients. Most pot is from California where they own a grow op. 1 shop in Mesa acutally forces you to sign them your rights to grow so they can grow plants (regular street grade ****) and sell it to you.) they even buy it on the street and mark it to 15-20$/gram and chumps but it thinking it's medical Med marijuana. I've called ADHS a few times about people who have 150-200 plants and I never get a reply.

Rico may I reinterate, you're an idiot.

I live in Mesa. there are places that are growing plants and selling Marijuana under the protection of a MMJ card. all of the places I have looked at are hydroponic shop owners from California. They group up with a Arizona card holder and bring stock in from California and sell it at a extreme profit. They claim it's a "donation". whatever you call it, you are selling it. NO DISPENSARIES should open. Patients should be able to grow thier own from seed and or/obtain clones to grow. Right now. clones are the big market for the people out there. 20-30$ each and i know people who have a few 100 clones for sale. California dispensaries are already operating in Arizona, if you like it or not. Compassion clubs are selling thier products for a "donation". Nobody is enforcing the Medical Marijuana laws. Local police say it's a DHS problem. DISPENSARIES SHOULD NOT OPEN. They have set the open price for meds at 20-30$/gram already and they are not even legally operating yet.

Rico, I'm not surprised to hear you admit that you have started and sold 3 large businesses. I've tried to just ignore the bad part of this, but can't. OK here's the math behind some of our laws. The fed's have already determined that anything 100 plants or over is on their target list. They can and will raid a facility that has more than 99 plants. Call it caregivers, compassion clubs, dispensaries, it doesn't matter. They lump it all together. So a person that has 5 patients, a spouse with a card and holds one themselves would be allowed to grow 60+12+12=84, well under the federal limit. It has been hoped that by keeping the caregivers within this range that it will help them to avoid the problems with the fed's. I know that testing equipment is expensive and I'm sure there's a lot of cost involued with sterile enviroment and sample testing. But touchstone can answer that better than me, but even just off the top of my head I can't see it being done for $5. Sorry that's the old accountant in me. And as others have stated, there is a need for some dispensaries, it just shouldn't interfer with my ability to medicate by having one open, or the ability of a patient to chose a more personal relationship with a caregiver, that someone with only 5 patients can give. If we are to be the model, then lets be it. People should have choices. Look at how many choices a pregnant mom can chose from to have her baby. Water birth at home, in hospital, with a mid-wife or the full hospital with doctor, etc, etc,. Dang this is just getting a little THC, and everyone's acting like it more than childbirth and we can't be trusted to make up or own minds.

$35 to have Cannabis tested is rediculous. This would keep testing open only to Dealers as patients could never afford it. $5-10 and you would have all the patients doing it. Much better business model. But what do I know, I only started and sold 3 large companies in my day.

Good morning Debbie Lee Brown.
I think that if you're growing your own, for your own consumption, and are not trading with others, one test should be all you need and we would be happy to give you that at no charge as a one time offer. 602-374-5011 ask for Vic

The good thing about dispensaries is that they offer products that one could not generally make at home,i.e. oils,tinctures,balms et cetera,made more for people that cannot or will not put smoke into their body.So they,the dispensaries, do have some good uses....

Just a few more words regarding your previous post to me. As far as the MMJ community needing a unified,idea, method, voice or procedure, I want to point out to you that AA is a world wide organization operating under donations. They hold regular daily, weekly even hourly meetings worldwide.They have a huge, but unknown number of members. They do have yearly conventions and a governing board made up of members from within the group. If that can all be accomplished by a bunch of drunks, Imagine what a motivated group of caregivers could do, or is that what's scary for you?

Hi there Touchstone, A bit surprised since I was already quoted a price of apx. $35. to test an indiviual sample, so I see that's something else going to be made non-affordable to those of us with such low-incomes. Here's the thing. I've read the stat's. I know that the AVERAGE card holder is a male, over 40, who suffers from chronic pain. Most of them can still work, and do. They can, and will pay the prices that the dispensaries are going to charge. What I'm saying is what about the rest of us? Those who's lives are so destroyed by their illness or condition as to make even just getting out of bed in the morning a chore. Our incomes range from 250.00 to the most I've seen is 1070.00 per MONTH. How do we afford what we so badly need to aid us in just trying to get a measure of normalcy to our lives. And your statement on the e-coli and medibles is just plain silly, They don't require testing backyard garden grown vegetables for e-coli, why would they for this? And there is a division already set-up to handle anyone wanting to package and sell mediables, I believe you will find that it being food, will fall under the county heath dept's food ordinance's. I would welcome visiting with you, sitting down and discussing this. However as you yourself pointed out, your way is one way, but not the only way. My only real problem with the dispensaries is that I know the laws of non-profit corp's and take no comfort in hearing that they will be one. Everyone else has been mistaken into believing that it somehow means that people can't be making alot of money off of this. They can and they will. All I'm saying and have been from the start is IF this is really for those with Cancer, Lupus, Degenerative spinal diesese,Wasting syndrome, how can you ever expect us to pay the kind of prices that we have already been told they will be charging. And if it's not for us and we can't obtain any through this program, then all this is, is a sham of a bunch of people using us for sympathy to open their doors to a new business that doesn't serve the people they said they were there for. I don't know if you've noticed, but I have, that my suggestion, even though it's number one and by a long shot, has been compeletly ignored. I think that Dir. Humble is afraid to even open that door, which is a shame, because I don't think that there are as many people that will want to go through all the trouble and waiting that it takes to grow their own. And last but not least, what difference does the testing make to me, really? I've never claimed that I would get the same potency, all I've ever said was that what I could grow myself would be better than going without any and being forced to continue to destroy my liver and body with the pain medication that is available today from the doctors. Or worse yet, force me to go to the drug cartel and give what little money I do have to the same people I (and the state of AZ) hold responsible for killing my son. Most of us don't want to do "business" with criminals. Please don't force us to. If your invitation is still good, please send me a phone number or address and allow me time to get with others and be able to represent some other opinions,since I know that mine is just one, but one of many.

Hi Debbie, I'm from the testing side and our only real concern is how do we convince everyone that testing is important! If it was just for the money, we would charge $110.00 for potency testing like they do in Calif. We're trying to figure out how cheap we can test and still keep the doors open. It's not about us, it's about the patients. If we could get our message to every care giver and individual growing, we wouldn't care if dispensaries opened or not. We can't figure out how to do that, and being able to put the message into 124 dispensaries is very do-able for us. Also, they seem to understand that if anything goes wrong, the nay-sayers and the press could have a field day with it and that could put them out of business, and that motivates business people. We haven't even begun to address coliform and especially e-coli testing for those who make medibles. Can you imagine the press feeding frenzy if people start getting sick from coliforms? We want this to succeed and feel the best way to do that is some kind of uniform testing and the easiest way to achieve that is through the dispensaries.

But not the only way.

We don't endorse hydro or soil growing. For us, it's the plant. If your happy with your medicine, that's great!
We know that different concentrations of THC, CBD, & CBN make a big difference to the medicine and it can be customized toward the patient. If you have migraines, one variety will work better. If it's chronic pain, another would be better. To us, it's always about the patient, not the money.
We would love to have you come down and visit the lab at your convenience. Not to persuade you, but to help all of us figure out how to make the community better and stronger.

Yes touchstone they will have the money to hold meetings etc. That's because it'll come from people who can't even afford the gas or bus ticket to get to the meetings, And getting 124 people to agree is just as hard as getting say any given 20 or a like group of 2000. Stop trying to present things as if they are facts. As far as testing "easier and cheaper for the dispesaries", the bottom line is that no matter who does it, the patient will be "paying for it" in the end. And we've already heard of the only lab that does it here. Same price for us as them, or where they not going to use the only independent lab there is?? going to test it themselves were they?? And as far as quality goes. You get what you pay for as they say. Most of us are not looking for and can't afford the "dro", we are quite happy with something much, much cheaper, that doesn't cost $30 for just one bowl. It's hard enough fighting the hydro community that try's to make ppl think that the only way to grow now is under such a regimented system that starting costs are in the 1000's,and that a plain old soil grow isn't sufficent. Again stop trying to present facts that aren't in evidence. So which are you someone ready to open up a dispensary or someone from NORML who sold us all out?

Touchstone - spoken like a true capitalistic wannabe Dispensary owner who will be charging $400 oz

What the MMJ community needs most is a unifying; Idea, method, voice, procedure, etc. 124 dispensaries would be a lot easier to get a consensus from than 2,000 caregivers. In addition, dispensary owners will have the financial means and motivation to hold meetings, exchange ideas, advertise etc.
As far as the 'quality' goes, will each caregiver require testing of their patients medicine or would that be easier and cheaper for dispensaries? Because of the sheer volume that dispensaries would have, they would be in a position to bargin for quantity discounts. Because all of the medicine would funnel through 124 locations instead of thousands, medicine concentrations, pesticides or lack there of, molds, fungus, etc data would be easily available and more convenient for the patients.

Excellent points here.

Dispensaries are fine as long as The People can grow their own if desired. If you can't grow or don't want to then the prices at the dispensaries will be kept low if we are allowed to sell or barter our excess to other patients.