Warning: Don’t Get Greedy
Before you begin reading, be very aware that if you are thinking of obtaining a doctor’s letter for marijuana in Washington State, make sure your documentation will stand up in court. Is your doctor reputable? Are your medical records legitimate? Keep your karma in order here when messing with this stuff: moving from the black market to the gray market (medical marijuana) is still a brand new concept. Always remember: marijuana is illegal at the Federal level. Keep it low-key and don’t abuse it.

Taking the Medical Pot Plunge
And now, on to the story of a middle-aged suburban white guy who got fed up with getting ripped off and, realizing that a chronic ailment he suffered from might qualify him to sign up for medical marijuana, took the plunge and signed up for the goddamn legal stuff.

Up until 2009, my mindset was that medical pot was for people with AIDS, cancer, M.S. I figured pot was so scarce that these folks needed it most. In 2009, after paying another forty-five dollars for another bag of low-grade bunkweed, I had a revelation. What better way to end prohibition than to get folks with non-fatal qualifying conditions, like me, to sign up for medical pot?

And think of how disruptive it is to the economy to have citizens squandering their time running all over creation wasting their money on “whatever.” And risking jail time. Lunacy. Now I go once every two months to buy my medicine, saving two precious commodities for me: time and gas. At the collective, I have my choice of a variety of products, at reasonable prices. The lungs appreciate knowing what they’re taking in — through a vaporizer, of course. (See “Dangerous Pot Smoking Paraphernalia” on page 11).

From Broker to Consumer
When I packed up and moved to Seattle in the Eighties, I purposefully gave away my triple beam scale and left the drug trade as a broker forever. This is great advice for kids: “don’t sell drugs.” It served me well — except every single time that I bought drugs.

I never stopped being a consumer of marijuana, and I sure have plenty of boring stories about buying pot around Seattle for twenty, forty, ninety dollars at a time. The bottom line: buying marijuana on the black market is a rip-off. The seller is getting ripped off, the buyer is getting ripped off and the government is getting ripped off. Only the growers and high-level distributors make any real money, but of course they face the risk of nightmarish jail time.

When prohibition ends, consenting adults will purchase their marijuana at government-regulated stores (or they can grow their own). In the meantime, in Washington State if you suffer from any number of ailments that marijuana helps ease, you can get a Doctor or even a naturopath to sign a letter authorizing you to possess and grow pot.

Your Mystical Journey
Here are the steps to acquiring Medical Marijuana in Washington State.
1. You need proof that you have visited your doctor for a qualifying condition. The State’s definition of qualifying conditions is broad.

A compassionate doctor will most certainly sign your Washington medical marijuana certification if you suffer from Asthma, Arthritis, Cachexia, IBS, Cancer, HIV, MS, Epilepsy, Intractable pain, Glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, Hepatitis, Anorexia and Parkinson’s disease. I’m going to throw Migraines in there too, although that one would be categorized in the end as “intractable pain.”

2. Have your doctor fax you the medical records proving that you made a visit for your qualifying condition. For example: if you last visited your doctor a year ago for your relevant condition, request that they fax you over your last year of records. Efax.com works well for this. It costs a little money, but I wouldn’t recommend doing any confidential business like this through Kinko’s. Remember, keep a low profile.

3. Prepare your paperwork for the THC Foundation in Bellevue and fax it over; soon after, they will call you to make an appointment. Mary Jane has verified the respectability and professionalism of THCF; that’s why we mention them here. It’s a non-profit.

In April, Governor Gregoire signed a bill allowing naturopaths, physician’s assistants and others to write recommendations for MMJ, so look for more entries in this growing field. Pick someone respectable. For example: Dr. Gil Mobley, MD, makes medically-defensible marijuana recommendations. The law takes effect June 10.

4. Visit the THCF Washington branch. There’ll be a brief orientation, followed by a private visit with a doctor for a discussion. He will then almost certainly sign your letter: if they’d felt otherwise, they wouldn’t have scheduled an appointment for you in the first place. The cost of the visit to THCF is $200, unless you plead poverty and qualify for their sliding-scale fee structure.

I dislike the plastic sterility of Bellevue, but went on over there anyway, to the THCF offices at a nondescript strip mall. The folks working there were very nice and casual. A wide variety of people were waiting there — some middle-aged white ladies, a young couple who looked like they were dragging grandma in there, a very sick and decrepit old woman with a walker and an oxygen tank, a few young “dudes,” some folks who looked like they drove a long way from the far reaches of rural Washington State. The atmosphere was relaxed.

Eventually I was summoned to see Dr. Orvald, a gray and distinguished Presbyterian sort of gentlemen of about 70. We discussed my condition briefly and seriously. He told me he thought that medical marijuana, if administered properly, would indeed benefit my condition.

Then he signed my letter. The staff made copies and did some paperwork. They took a photograph of me for my THCF ID card. And I was on my way. Was there about an hour and a half. Nobody at THCF tells you where to go after you get your letter: you are supposed to figure that out yourself. Maybe copies of this magazine lying around the waiting room will steer folks right in the future.

5. There is no “Green Card” in Washington: you really just need the letter. THCF will send you a laminated photo ID, too. There is no registry for Medical Marijuana in Washington like they have in Colorado or California; the state has no record of what you are doing, for now. A rule of thumb, though: you are leaving a paper trail. But the way I see it is this: to hell with leaving a paper trail, my paper trail proves that I’m all-in on this prohibition fight. I’m proud of it.

Finding a Patient Network
6. Fax your doctor’s letter, along with your State ID, to your friendly patient network. I chose Green Buddha; there are many others. And note that these places insist on being called patient networks, not “dispensaries.” It’s a legal thing.
(Do not under any conditions deal with anyone posting on Craigslist. Okay, I feel like I’m lecturing some newbies here — educated people should already know this, so I apologize.)

7. A few days later your chosen patient network will call you back and you can make an appointment. (Or maybe they won’t ... maybe they feel your materials are too sketchy. Try someone else.)

8. Go to your patient network and buy your medicine.

Avoid Jail
When transporting your Medical Marijuana back home, make sure to keep it in a locked container, for legal reasons.
Good luck, and remember: if you are lying or gaming the system or using false documents, your status as a Medical Marijuana patient is not going to stand up in court.

by Ray Lee Marx - ray@wildworldnews.com

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This story originally published in Mary Jane Magazine #1, Spring 2010.