There's a new dispensary in town

Oct 02, 2009 (Times-Standard - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- HCSR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The Eureka area has its first medical marijuana dispensary.

Sitting just outside city limits on Harrison Avenue, across the street from the Dental Arts Plaza and Coast Central Credit Union, the Hummingbird Healing Center recently opened its doors without much fanfare. With a county business license issued in August for a "Holistic Health Care Services" storefront proudly displayed on the wall, the receptionist explained that the Harrison Avenue office is simply the point of intake.

The dispensary, she said, is located in another building nearby.

Over at the dispensary, the center's co-founder, Karla Ritter, explained that the dual locations lower the impact on surrounding businesses and also ensure that those who arrive at the dispensary are bona fide members of the center, having already had their Proposition 215 recommendations verified.

While the center is the first in the Eureka area, it promises not to be the last. An application for a dispensary within city limits has already been submitted to the city's planning department, and others have expressed interest in opening in unincorporated areas of the county that surround Eureka.

"Obviously, Eureka patients need convenient access to their medicine," Ritter said, adding that in the 17 days since it's opened, the Hummingbird Center has signed up 139 members.

But, she was quick to add the center offers a lot more than just medicinal marijuana.

"It's unfortunate that cannabis as a medicine has been separated from all the other healing herbs," Ritter said, adding that Hummingbird is really a "full-service" healing center, offering a wide variety of healing herbs with plans to have a herbologist on site twice a week for consultations.

But medical marijuana is clearly the primary draw. In the office on Harrison Avenue, stacks of the West Coast Leaf newspaper sit on a table, offering full-color pictures of marijuana plants. Next to the newspaper are cards and fliers for the Cannabis Protection Union, an organization offering discount legal help in exchange for a monthly fee.

In the dispensary itself, a dry erase board lists the offerings of the day: "U.K. Cheese," "Grapefruit Diesel," "Trainwreck," "Christmas Tree" and the strain of the week: "Gunk." The marijuana is priced at $15 a gram and $295 an ounce, with a note that an 8.25 percent sales tax charge is included in the price.

A brochure notes the center also offers some discounts to veterans, seniors and disabled and low income patients, while offering a special 10 percent off on the second and fourth Thursday of every month.

Ritter was quick to say the center also offers medical marijuana in other forms, including brownies, peanut butter truffles, cannabis oil and even lozenges.

"There are so many folks who don't want to smoke their medicine, or just can't," Ritter said.

As a part of a medical marijuana subcommittee, Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace said he toured the Hummingbird Healing Center as a part of his and Supervisor Jimmy Smith's efforts to research the issues associated with medical marijuana.

Lovelace said he likes the fact that the center has separated its intake and dispensary operations to minimize neighborhood impacts.

"It kind of makes sure there's no window shopping," Lovelace said, adding that he was also reassured by the efforts the center makes to ensure patients' recommendations are valid. "They make sure they've engaged the recommending physician to make sure the recommendation is valid."

Lovelace said the largest concerns he's heard from his 3rd District constituents involve grow houses and their neighborhood impacts, but that he hopes any ordinance enacted by the county would be comprehensive and cover all possible issues.

"We're trying to figure out what we can do just to ensure that people have safe access without causing harm to their neighborhoods, without creating nuisances in

commercial zones and without leading to abuse," Lovelace said, adding that he and Smith are still in the midst of collecting information and likely won't report back to the board for some time.

It seems the subject might soon be broached in City Council Chambers as well.

Despite an anti-dispensary public perception, Eureka Community Development Director Kevin Hamblin said the city currently has no policy governing the facilities.

"With regards to medical marijuana dispensaries, we don't have any ordinances that cover that," Hamblin said, adding that they currently fall into a "use not in code" designation and therefore require planning commission approval.

In fact, Hamblin said, the city received a text zoning amendment that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries in the city's hospital and medical zone.

The application for the amendment was submitted by a representative of the Horizon Nonprofit Collective, which operates a dispensary in Sacramento.

As to the public perception, Hamblin said he doesn't know where it came from.

"I don't know how they would have perceived that -- we've taken no stand one way or another on the issue," Hamblin said. "In fact, this application coming before us will be our first chance to address the issue."

Meanwhile, sitting just outside city limits, Eureka's policymakers have a sort of litmus test set to play out before their eyes in the Hummingbird Healing Center.

Ritter said the center is currently working with the county, and will follow any regulations that are put in place. Currently, the center buys medical marijuana from its members who cultivate more than they need, and then sells it to other members as a mutual-benefit not-for-profit collective.

The center has guidelines -- including prohibiting members from using or consuming marijuana on the premises, that only patients consume the center's products and that patients be respectful of each other and the center's neighbors -- to attempt to mitigate any potential impacts.

For Ritter, the center is a personal endeavor, and she said she just really wants to see it succeed. She said it's named after her husband, Zan Ortiz, who passed away recently.

"It feels like there's an amazing amount of him in here," she said, adding that the center is also operating in memory of co-founder Ryan Estes, who also died recently. "We're really just trying to make this a nice, comfortable place."

Thadeus Greenson can be reached at 441-0509 or tgreenson@times-standard.com

To see more of the Times-Standard, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.times-standard.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Times-Standard, Eureka,
Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints,
email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send
a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee
Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

More News:   Market Updates | Stock Alerts | All Trading News | Stock Index