Ganjapreneurs are cashing in on Colorado's booming medical pot business

Ganjapreneurs are cashing in on Colorado's booming medical pot business:

By Joel Warner
Published on September 09, 2009

I knock on the locked door of the nondescript one-story building not far from downtown, willing away my anxiety.

"Can I help you?" A security guard peers from behind the door, eyeing me suspiciously. He's an older guy, probably somebody's grandpa, but he gives me a look that says he doesn't have a problem tangling with a whippersnapper like me.

"I have an appointment," I stammer. I have Xeroxed medical records and $200 in cash to prove it. At that, the security guard is all smiles.

"Come on in," he offers, opening the door wide and beckoning me into one of Denver's most successful medical marijuana dispensaries.

I'm here to become a state-certified medical marijuana patient. If I succeed, I'll have access to one of the fastest-growing — and unusual — businesses around.

Colorado voters legalized marijuana for medicinal use in 2000 with the passage of Amendment 20, but until recently, the state's medical marijuana community was small and fairly inconspicuous. As of January, 5,000 people had applied to the state registry, and there were less than two dozen dispensaries selling pot.

But that's changed, thanks to the Obama administration's move in March to end most dispensary raids, as well as a Colorado Board of Health decision in July that did nothing to limit the number of patients that medical marijuana dispensaries can have. As of June 30, the Colorado medical marijuana registry had swelled to more than 10,000 applicants, with the state receiving more than 400 new applications each day. To meet that demand, at least seventy Colorado dispensaries have opened, forty in the metro area alone.

Many of these are operated by what insiders are calling a "second wave" of ganjapreneurs — savvy, experienced businesspeople and professionals. Some honed their chops running ventures that have nothing to do with marijuana; others are opportunists from the heady California dispensary scene who see a new market ripe for investment.

In the meantime, legal consultants, insurance companies and real-estate brokers are carving out their own niche, building industry-wide infrastructure for a form of commerce that never before existed....

Scott Durrah and Wanda James, the couple behind Eight Rivers restaurant in LoDo, are teaming up with Noah Westby, owner of DaGabi Cucina and Sole Coffee Roasters in Boulder, to open a Denver dispensary called the Apothecary of Colorado.

"The decriminalization of pot makes sense to us as a civil-rights issue, a medical issue and a legal issue," says James. "That's why we're looking into opening a dispensary. I think medical marijuana is the first step, and I think legalization or decriminalization could be the next step."

The trio is aiming for an up-market, professional atmosphere. "We are very proud of what has been done with the marijuana movement and the people who are involved, and we just want to create that second piece," says James. "It's the second generation of dispensaries, and we really want the 45-year-old professional to feel comfortable coming in." They plan to model their business after Harborside Health Center, an Oakland, California, operation that, with its natural-wood decor, electronic checkout counters and on-site Buddha garden, is the Neiman Marcus of dispensaries.

They won't be the only ones taking that approach; Harborside itself is coming to town.

On a recent afternoon, a well-dressed Californian named Don Dunkan stops by a vacant storefront downtown near the busy intersection of 22nd and Lawrence streets. "It's an empty canvas," he says of the 2,200-square-foot space — one that will be transformed into a swanky new breed of dispensary that will go by the name Local Product.

Dunkan is a partner in Harborside Management Consultants, an offshoot of Harborside Health Center that's branded itself the "A-Team of medical cannabis." The consulting group plans to help others launch Harborside-quality dispensaries around the country. Of the thirteen states besides California that allow medical marijuana use, the first place they decided to do so was in Colorado.

"We have been looking at Colorado for several years now, watching the scene," says Dunkan. "I would say right now in the state of Colorado, there is a vacuum that needs to be filled. It's an exciting place to be."

A day after I become a state-certified medical marijuana patient, I discover my perfect cure. It's dispensed by the Candy Girls.
(See photos of the Candy Girls)

Eventually the state will send me an official medical marijuana ID, but in the meantime, a copy of my signed doctor recommendation works the same way. So, after my appointment with the physician, I'm offered a no-pressure visit to the pharmacy room, even though I didn't make anyone at the dispensary my designated caregiver. But looking at the spread of glass jars filled with green, lumpy buds with names like Afwreck, Mendocino Madness and Green Crack, I pass. The stuff seems too traditional, too much like old-fashioned dope smoking. Now that I'm official, I want something special.

I find what I'm looking for the next day in a tidy, sunlit kitchen. Here, three women are hard at work: rolling maraschino cherries in fondant and dipping them in Ghirardelli dark chocolate, slicing up cookie pans of coconut crunch bars into bit-sized hunks, assembling confectionary boxes jam-packed with professional-looking sweets. All of it is made with cannabis-infused oils or butters.

The women, wearing matching aprons and pot-leaf bracelets, are Jennifer Hawkins, Jennifer Smith and Katie (last name withheld), but they usually go by their company name, the Candy Girls. For a while, they operated under the title Growers for God, since they believe the Tree of Life was a cannabis plant, but their customers kept calling them the Candy Girls, and the name stuck. The undertaking began less than a year ago, when the women began making cannabis-infused candies for medical marijuana patients they knew who couldn't afford to buy their own. Soon dispensaries started seeking out their repertoire of chocolate truffles, lemon pies and mini-cheesecakes.

"People who will never, ever smoke pot will eat it," says Hawkins. "It's a whole additional market of people." The candies go for about $4 each.

Now they bake up about 800 goodies a week for eight Colorado dispensaries, including a customer who drives in from Grand Junction and a Chinese restaurant in Colorado Springs that sells their medicated chocolate-dipped cherries. They obtain raw cannabis from outside growers and make sure they're covered under state law by having some of the customers at each of the dispensaries they contract with designate one of the Candy Girls as their caregiver. To keep these relationships personal, the Candy Girls hold meet-and-greets with their patients, as recommended by their lawyer, Edson.

It wasn't always like this, says Hawkins. Diagnosed with a seizure disorder, she was one of the first hundred Coloradans to get a medical marijuana card. To get it, she had to go to twenty different doctors before one was willing to help her. And she visited some dispensaries so shady that she was glad she'd brought her husband along.

Now, not only is their medicine of choice gaining acceptability, but it's helping them support their families. "From my position, we were all in a really difficult spot in life," says Hawkins, who'd been laid off from her previous job. "This became an opportunity, and everything has fallen into place."

When the Candy Girls hear I'm a new patient, they offer me a sample box of their signature specialties: chocolates, brownies and trail bars, several of which feature stickers that say "For medicinal use only." Enjoy it, they tell me, with one note of warning: No matter how good they might taste, it's best to sample one at a time.

I've never been so excited to take my medicine.

http://www.westword.com/2009-09-10/news/medical-marijuana-is...