By Lauren Felechner
Published: October 14, 2009
Categorized in | Local News, News
By Lauren Felechner
Daily Titan Staff Writer
Top quality marijuana grown for medical patients at Go N' Green. Photo courtesy of Keith Hyatt
Obtaining a medical marijuana card nowadays is as easy as making a doctor’s appointment. Dispensaries and doctor’s offices are popping up all over Southern California to help those in need.
Just like anything else, there is a method to the madness of receiving a medical marijuana card and where to buy your weed, said Joffran Gonzales, a volunteer in a collective in the Los Angeles area.
“A collective is a group of people, including the patients, where everything is donated. There are no transactions. The money is donated from the patients, and the marijuana is grown by the volunteers within the collective, unlike a dispensary,” Gonzales said.
The difference between a dispensary and a collective is that there is no salary at the collective for the people volunteering. The marijuana and money is “recycled,” according to Gonzales. Through a dispensary, the employees are able to buy their weed from outside sources, bring it to the dispensary location and sell it to their patients. A similarity between the two is that both locations require a doctor’s recommendation from the patient and identification of some sort, Gonzales added.
However, patients like Jody Robinson, a mother of three and a businesswoman in Costa Mesa, visit a dispensary to buy medicine. Robinson, who is going through menopause, suffers from psoriasis, acid gas reflux and a lack of sleep. She sought out a medical marijuana card to ease her pain and help her sleep better.
After finding a local doctor’s office online that aids in the process of getting a medical marijuana card, she paid $150 and received her card the same day.
“It was a very professional doctor’s office; it was like a regular office,” Robinson said.
Robinson has found a blend of marijuana that is a good balance for the symptoms that she was experiencing. She said she buys enough to last her a week, at either $20 per gram; however, Robinson also said she sometimes stocks up with “quantity discounts” for $60 per eighth.
“It’s like street prices but quality marijuana,” Robinson said.
The dispensary makes it possible for not only their patients to smoke the marijuana by selling pieces and bongs, but they also sell baking accessories if a patient wanted to bake their marijuana into food instead, said Robinson.
Caitlin Hardesty, 21, an employee of a beauty supply shop and a resident of Irvine, needed her medical marijuana card for her anxiety and insomnia.
Hardesty found her doctor’s office in Long Beach through word of mouth. She paid $200 for her license and needed to show proof of her symptoms to obtain one.
“I was taking Ambien at the time for my insomnia, so I had to show the doctor my prescription I had for that,” Hardesty said.
Hardesty also explained that she was told to never come with someone in her car to the dispensary to purchase her marijuana and to put it in the trunk right when she got to her car to avoid it looking like a drug deal if she were to get pulled over.
According to Robinson, after a year, the card will expire, but if a renewal fee is paid, much like a driver’s license, the medical marijuana license will be good for another year.
Both Robinson and Hardesty agree that it is a very easy process to obtain a medical marijuana card.
“Any individual that is over 18 and suffers from a myriad of medical conditions ranging from asthma to anxiety can be evaluated by a licensed physician to receive a medical marijuana recommendation,” Gonzales said.
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a drug deal, really?? more like if you DO get pulled over with less than an ounce, you can get a ticket if you don’t have your card or rec with you…. it’s under the same penal code as having an open container. open containers are also easy to obtain…
“Possession with intent to sell any amount of marijuana is a felony under Health and Safety Code 11359. Police often charge intent to sell if they see such indicia as: scales, cash, multiple packages, ‘commercial’ packaging materials, ‘excessive’ quantity, pay-owe seets, address books, pagers, etc”
i know someone in chronic pain and the pharmaceuticals make them sick more than better. They have tried every pharmaceutical for their condition (arthritis) the meds they are prescribed by a traditional doctor makes him nauseous every single day. pot does not.
one of these days everyone will agree it is actually safer than alcohol (ethanol is literally poison, THC is not)….and in california, to say medical marijuana is easy to obtain is obvious. So is Prozac, Paxil, any other SSRI’s. with both pharmaceuticals and med pot, all you have to say is that you have some kind of pain that can’t be alleviated. Just that anti-depressants are corporately run and pot is at this point is federally illegal.
I have never tried the stuff but the pain in my hand and thumb bones are just to much now and everything else that I ‘ve been issued by Doctor’s causes me to have very bad acid reflex. Today I will look into this alternative method of relieving my agony. I hope it is affordable for a senior citizen on a fixed income. Any recommendations are appreciated.
Grandma1924: I would suggest you use either topical applications directly on the joints that hurt, and/or the use of tinctures or “medibles”, edible items prepared with cannabis.
Unfortunately, California isn’t organized to help low-income people. You might be able to call several of the dispensaries or (better yet) a co-op, and may be able to receive your medicine at a reduced cost.
Good luck, I hope you are able to utilize a wonderful herbal remedy to improve your quality of life.
This article is completely wrong. A doctor’s statement or recommendation is NOT a marijuana card or a license. The only Medical Marijuana Card that exist in California is the States Medical Marijuana ID card and its not easy to get as you suggest. Yes, a doctor’s office like Medicann may send you a plastic card but that’s just so you don’t have to carry a big piece of paper with you to a dispensary once you’ve established a relationship with a collective.
Writer please do a little more research into the medical marijuana program and stop trying to hop on the MM bandwagon.
Also regarding helping low-income people… THAT’S WHAT A TRUE COLLECTIVE IS FOR!!!! In my opinion 95% of all collectives in California are illegal. They were mostly street drug dealers or people with money who had the resources to jump on the bandwagon and open a shop. Under the true spirit of SB42 & Prop 215 a collective donates its medicine to its patients at little to no-cost from medicine grown by members of the collective. Poor people are not paying $65 for an eight because 1.) They cant afford it and 2.) Most urban minorities in California still don’t realize the benefits of eliminating the black market mentality of marijuana in their neighborhoods.
Please I have seen on the news that the doctors at MediCann Inc will recommend marijuana use for patients as young has 5 years old. What a shame without even taking the patients vitals signs MediCann already new how to treat a 5 year olds problem marijuana. Now tell me you agree with that if you do you are worse than the doctor that give it to him…
Mr. Tanner,
Perhaps you should do more research yourself. Like I said, obtaining a medical marijiuana card was very easy. But I also brought documentation from my doctor showing my symptoms as I don’t think any doctor would provide this service to just anyone.
And in your opinion 95% of all dispensaries are illegal? What are your credentials if you don’t mind me asking?
To be clear, this is about allowing patients with a doctor’s recommendation to join a collective in order to access medical marijuana.
This is not “legalizing marijuana” any more than getting a doctor’s prescription for opiates would “legalize opiates”.
If someone fakes symptoms to get a recommendation, it’s fraud. If a doctor knowingly recommends medical marijuana to someone who doesn’t really qualify, its malpractice. If a dispensary sells to someone other than a “legitimate patient” with proper documentation, it’s still illegal.
Marijuana, like many substances, has both a medicinal and recreational use – the trick is to make the medicinal use legal and available to those who truly need it, while preventing wide scale recreational abuse.
If you are curious about the proliferation and location of medical marijuana doctors and dispensaries in your area, try web directories such as weedneedz.com
please help me get one i really need it i have a sleeping disorder, migraines, arthritis in my hands, i see and hear things that arent really happening, i have ibs and i vomit every single day, and im only fifteen years old this isn’t a joke i’ve had to take adult medication for all of these symptoms since i was five years old!!!!!!
please i know that this is the only thing that can help me right now, i know this because every medication i have ever been on i have become immune to in less than two weeks PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i can’t take this pain forever i’m very close to just ending it all for good! please i really need hepl can any body hear me
“Prescriptions” for medical marijuana are easy to get? Hardly compared to how easy it is to get prescriptions for other, harder, more dangerous pharmaceutical drugs.
Recently, I went into the doctor with a sprained shoulder. After a quick x-ray, which showed no fractures, etc., he (without me asking) quickly wrote me a prescription for 30 Vicodin.
Thinking about it later, I realized that I could’ve been faking (I really wasn’t though) and would’ve still walked out with 30 Class III narcotic pills. My uncle who has severe migraines, however, had to provide copies of his many MRIs and extensive medical records documenting his disease before a doctor would prescribe him medical marijuana.
The irony is that eating the whole bottle of Vicodin would’ve surely killed me, but eating an entire crop of marijuana wouldn’t have. (Still, I wouldn’t recommend it.)
That said, I’m much more concerned about the dangers of prescription drug abuse than I am about the abuse of marijuana, but I’d never argue that we should curtail the prescribing of narcotic painkillers out of fears of abuse. After all, it’s not the pain patients’ problem, but rather the individual addict making the bad choices.
One marijuana cannot be presribed, only recommended to a patient. People fake injurys all the time to get pain killers but does that make it okay for people who do the same thing with marijuana? Considering it is not regulated or tested no one knows what side effects it will cause in the long run. If you look at Medicann they are the largest providers of MMJ and I wonder how many people faked it to get a rec from them. Anyhoot that is my two cents…
how can i geat a license to sell pot.
what if you do not have insurance? can you still go see a licensed physicion?
If anyone could tell me how I could legally be able to use Marijuana in the state of Florida, I would be greatfully indebted.A good lawyer might be able to help. My mother took my daughter from me by using my marijuana usage against me. I suffer from terrible anxiety, shingles, herpes,asthma, depression from the constant tourment my mother is compelled to do because of her sick twisted nature that wants MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGTHER. I have tried legal alternatives and even perscribed benzos but they truelly make me sick. Right before I almost got My daughter back My mother became completely relentless and I had a vicious attack of shingles up and down my body. Marijuana was the only thing to stop the pain. I lost the case because of it. I did everything that was court ordered for me as a parent with excellent reviews. I want my daughter back so bad. I need advice on how I can prove I really need to be able to use Marijuana. ThankYou!!!
Not to mention the affects it has on the surrounding people. I live in an apartment above someone who smokes med marijuana. There is nothing wrong with him. Really. I’ve seen him, he parties with his friends with it all the time. the smoke leaks into my apartment through crevices. there are children living here. Read about the affects. It is NOT better for you and it IS addicted and dangerous to inhale esp second hand. STOP THIS NONSENSE. It should only be given out to people with cancer or recovering debilitating diseases. F’ing narcissistic, don’t care about anybody else people.