PORT ANGELES — The storefront is, by any standard, obscure.
No neon signs, or any sign for that matter, mark its location, and two streetside windows peer into an office that would make a minimalist grin with approval.
For the three men who run Olympian Canna LLC — the North Olympic Peninsula’s first established medical marijuana dispensary — a little discretion goes a long way.
“I’m walking a thin line,” CEO Richard Pharr acknowledged.
The 31-year-old Port Angeles resident opened the dispensary at 303 Tumwater Truck Route with his two employees, Kiah Roberts and Rob Johnson, on Dec. 1.
Their goal is simple, they say: Make marijuana easily accessible for those in need of relief from their ailments.
“There’s no reason those people have to suffer,” Pharr said.
Typically, the drug is used to ease physical pain or increase appetite. One customer even found it helped reduce “full-body convulsions” that kept her from getting a full night’s sleep, Pharr said.
“The lady nearly hugged me to death,” he said.
Pharr said he sees about six to 10 customers a day, all of whom are members of the “collective.” In all, he said, he has about 60 to 70 members, including a handful of growers.
He said he pays a 1.8 percent state service tax on the transactions. He doesn’t pay sales tax, he said.
Each member, including the three operators and a handful of growers, have been authorized to use marijuana for medical purposes by a physician, Pharr said.
While Pharr — who occasionally winces with pain caused by a construction site accident — and his employees are no more than middle-aged, their customers tend to be of an older generation, he said.
That was reflected last Thursday afternoon when one member, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran, and a 59-year-old woman looking to sign up walked in.
Wearing a green and purple rain jacket, a green hat stuck with a POW pin, a tucked-in red shirt, and a trimmed, gray mustache, Emmett Gillespie said he uses marijuana to alleviate back pain caused by a logging accident in the 1980s and post-traumatic stress resulting from his service in the Army.
Before, the Port Angeles resident said, he was taking Percocet.
“I just got tired of it,” he said. “I just wanted to take care of it on my own.”
The woman, a Sequim resident who declined to give her name, said she has been using marijuana to alleviate pain from an “incurable disease” for four years.
“I took Oxycontin,” said the woman, dressed in casual work clothing. “But I didn’t like to drool.”
The dispensary is by no means unique. Similar operations have been set up under essentially the same blueprint across the state in the wake of the voter-approved Medical Marijuana Act of 1998.
But their legality is under constant scrutiny, and a few have been raided by police in other cities such as Spokane and Tacoma.
While the act allows patients — given the OK from a physician — to procure or grow marijuana to ease their ailments, it doesn’t provide for the self-styled dispensaries.
It even says that providers of marijuana, known as caregivers, can grow the drug only for one person at a time.
The operators of Olympian Canna, while acknowledging the tightrope act they are performing with the law, believe it’s worth the risk.
“There are a lot of sick people out there, and they don’t have a lot of money,” said Roberts, 41.
He emphasized that the establishment tries to charge less than “black-market prices.”
Pharr declined to say exactly how much is charged, but he said their prices are at or below other dispensaries, which typically charge $15 a gram.
When customers come in, their authorizations are checked with their physicians. (Pharr said he turns people away if the ailment doesn’t seem legitimate, such as toe pain.)
They then sign an agreement citing a member of the collective as their caregiver, procure the drug from that person and end the agreement as they leave.
That way, the caregivers are never growing for more than one person at a time.
Whether that’s enough to avoid being shut down will depend on local authorities.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly couldn’t be immediately reached for comment, but local law enforcement don’t appear too concerned about the new business.
Police Chief Terry Gallagher said he doesn’t plan to take any action against the dispensary. He said that shouldn’t change as long as the drug is going to be people authorized to use it for medical purposes.
“I have not met Mr. Pharr ,and I have no reason to be concerned with him at this point,” Gallagher said.
“My position is, until the Legislature clears up the law on marijuana and/or causes it to conform with federal law, this is not an issue that the police should be trying to resolve,” he added.
Gallagher said he has not received any complaints about the operation.
He also reiterated that if federal authorities take action against the dispensary — marijuana use for medical purposes is still illegal under federal law — the Port Angeles Police Department would assist them “to the degree necessary.”
Ron Cameron, Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team member and a chief criminal deputy with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, is also taking a similar approach to the issue because of ambiguity in the law.
“We don’t want to be politicians. We want to be cops,” he said. “Give us a clear direction, and we’ll go out and do it.”
Pharr said he has been having trouble keeping up with demand and is considering starting his own “commercial growing operation” to meet it.
While state law includes a 60-day supply limit, typically defined as 15 plants, authorized users can grow more than that if OK’d by their physicians.
Pharr said he has that authorization and is willing to grow up to 99 plants. (Any amount over that could bring harsher federal penalties, he said.)
No marijuana is grown at the dispensary, and no more than one pound is stored there at any time, Pharr said.
Cameron and Gallagher said they couldn’t say what they would do if he grew that much marijuana, since the number of plants isn’t the only factor they look at.
For example, Cameron said, he will take the use into consideration.
He said he visited an elderly woman’s growing operation that included 24 plants but didn’t take action because she was using the drug for a debilitating disease.
“It was clear that this was a sick lady,” Cameron said.
Pharr said if he does start a growing operation, he would seek an agricultural permit from the city and insist that it be inspected by police.
He said he would let them have access to a live feed of the operation.
“I’m trying to build a relationship here [with authorities],” Pharr said.
To contact the dispensary, phone 360-452-2255.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
