I'm sure one of the experts can better help you... but in the meantime as a delivery patient you will need your authorizations ready for when the driver arrives. There are plenty in the area... (Seattle) you can also check here for more info : thestranger.com/green

Your questions go to the core of this dispute. What happens when Federal law makes a substance illegal but a particular state does not? This issue is why our Governor has reservations about the medical marijuana legislation passed this week by the Legislature. But, I'm not qualified to comment specifically on the legal ramifications of all this.

Other than the obvious potential legal issues damn little. Use a vaporizer or eat it. Tinctures are a good way too. Smoking has its potential drawbacks but I enjoy it so I do it. Even the far too often touted loss of short term memory is far over blown.

No, not at all. The fact that the law in this state is flawed, the fact that there are plenty of folks exploiting the holes in the system, and the fact that many dispensary operators are shady characters looking to make a profit over rendering compassion does not relegate "medical marijuana" to being a "big wink-wink."

There are plenty of legitimate patients in Washington State that are greatly benefiting from the medical marijuana law in this state.

As annoying, even disillusioning, as it may be that there are so many people willing to suck legitimacy out of the medical marijuana system out of offering and purchasing bogus medical recommendations for medical marijuana, the people who actually qualify still deserve to have safe access to medicine.

I agree that the prime motivation for a dispensary operator appears to be profit. Of course, we can't find anything even remotely like profit incentives in the vast mainstream medical industry, right? Yes, those pharmaceutical companies are all forced to be non-profits, right? The entire medical industry is operated out of compassion, no?

Give me a break.

Right now, under the flawed, vague, and imperfect I-692 medical marijuana initiative structure, qualified patients are gaining safe access to a variety of medical marijuana strains and they are able to avoid the black market. That is what the voters wished for when they voted the initiative into law.

Some other folks are also gaining access to pot, which is available in every neighborhood in Seattle anyway. Big deal.

Let's compare the medical marijuana industry to the actual medical industry...

Every year thousands of Americans die from overdoses or other effects of pharma-drugs.

Pharmaceutical drug abuse is, according to our illustrious drug czar, the leading drug abuse problem in the United States.

So, the medical marijuana industry is safer than the mainstream medical industry, even with the lack of regulation and structural maxims everyone seems to think are so critical.

I have lost all faith in medical marijuana as policy. I think the answer is total legalization.

However, in my opinion, compared to the rest of industry in America, where corporations can pollute the air, the land, the water with impunity, or sell us nutritiousness slop while marketing it as food, medical marijuana is no more of a wink-wink than any other industry.

All the answers so far are great and I completely agree that very sick people benefit from medical marijuana use. And I think your attitude is great because I completely refuse to game the system as well. "Unfortunately" I'm not sick enough to need any fun/scheduled prescriptions.

I think it's becoming sort of silly that if you want to smoke pot while living in Seattle (and don't know a lot of people), by far the easiest path to good shit is a doctor's office.

I'd be very nervous if I were in the dispensary business for a lot of reasons, one of which being the fact that maaaaybe there aren't 120+ dispensaries (from a Seattle Times article on 1/29/2011) worth of people who legitimately should be smoking pot for medical reasons in the city of Seattle.

And this doesn't even consider the fact that people can legally grow their own 60 day supply for free. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the guy paying 6 figures to fight cancer is looking for a way to spend less on prescriptions...

Really interesting article actually:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014078275_marijuana30m.html

Ironically, that's a very Republican philosophy. One in which I'm sure the Republicans would never go for. Of course, similar words could be said for us pro-choice liberals out there. We all make a state vs fed argument when it sways in our favor.

Dude. Don't know what to tell you. We're in Washington. You're most likely not going to get any Mexican skank up here. That's more in Arizona, So-Cal, Texas or NM. Buy local from people who grow who aren't associated with gangs. Not so hard to do in Washington State.

There may be little or no risk other than those associated with getting arrested, and those associated with abuse, if the user is ingesting by eating, by tincture, or by vaporizer.

Cannabis is non-toxic to the human body and there is no threat of overdose.

Any mood altering substance can be abused by those persons seeking a convenient escape from reality, or looking to use pot as a tool of avoidance. Sometimes people use substances to help them avoid an emotionally challenging situation, confrontation, or personal issue. Certainly, cannabis can be used this way by persons who exhibit addictive personality behavior and who are prone to substance abuse.

Those smoking cannabis can suffer the effects of smoke, which usually amounts to bronchitis with cannabis smokers. Cannabis does not seem to cause emphysema, like tobacco does. The hot air and particulate matter can be damaging to lung tissue. Those who utilize a vaporizer will get none of these drawbacks of smoking.

There is conflicting science on cannabis and cancer, with some studies showing an increased incidence and others showing just the opposite. Several recent studies suggest a strong anti-tumor property in THC, an active ingredient in cannabis. Some people suggest that cannabis is a potential cure for cancer, but the federal government prohibits most scientific research.

There are also studies that suggest a causal link between schizophrenia and early marijuana use. If that is true than I would have to be an exception.

By conventional standards, the health risks associated with chronic marijuana use are reasonably mild compared with substances such as alcohol, tobacco, or pharmaceutical drugs. That said, those health effects are very real to any persons experiencing them.

Your best source for that information is an MD or ND. If you can't afford a doctor's appointment, your best bet is to Google.

That's a good point. Prohibition does put thugs and gangs as elements in the supply chain. The best way to avoid subsidizing terrorists and other gangsters, including those in "the government", is to liberalize the laws to allow regular people to participate.

In WWII, the US was cut off from international supplies of hemp for rope and sail canvas. The Navy had a movie with the slogan: "Hemp for Victory" to encourage domestic production.

Get your medicine from a trusted supply. Know your dispensary and dispensaries should get their supplies directly from domestic growers.

There are patients who need and benefit from medical cannabis. Drug warriors are gaming the prohibition system in order to benefit themselves.

That good suggestion generally describes the political system which is the foundation for western civilization, economic progress, and political stability. The Roman Republic had a common law system called "Jus Gentium" (law in common to all nations). The feds could enforce just those laws in common to all nations in their system. Back then, each city-state had it's own god, customs, and laws. People could choose between them by where they lived.

Inevitably situations arose through international trade, when a merchant from one city-state would do business with a merchant from another city-state. Suppose they had a dispute--which set of laws would govern--the laws of the city-state of the seller, the buyer, or the laws prevailing where the transaction took place? The romans resolved this by federal judges, who would decide cases based on the laws in common.

Unfortunately this system was limited to merchant law, but theoretically should have been extended to all law. For a discussion of this and related issues, just Google "Henry Sumner Maine" and "Ancient Law". His books are available online, for free. Chapters 3 and 4 and particularly relevant.

Unless Americans learn from history, America will decline, as the British and Romans declined previously.

Buy local.

It makes a lot of people stupid. It makes them emotionally and affectively disconnected. It flattens out your personality, no highs, no lows, just humming along without reactions to anything. In young people, this can interfere with their development; when they stop smoking, they're the same "emotional age" as when they started, and have to catch up.

I'm going to get a ton of downvotes for this, but I don't care. Maybe it's not true for everybody, maybe it's not true for you, but it absolutely is true for an awful lot of pot smokers.

Every co-op I've gone to required me to allow them to call my doctor to verify that I was indeed her patient and that I had a recommendation.

For my first recommendation, I went to a "pot doc" but he required 3 visits of chart notes related to my qualifying conditions. Since then, my primary care physician has given me a recommendation for as long as I have migraines and degenerating disks, especially when I reported no side effects, unlike the narcotic pain relievers I was taking.

As for pot culture being showed, I don't care. I'm proud of our culture and I've seen how assimilationism is absolutely the wrong tactic. We should, instead, show the diversity of our culture better. We need to show not just the kids in Bob Marley shirts, but the grandmas and the conservatives as well.

A little elaboration for whats been mentioned. We have all experienced short term memory issues when being medicated. The thing about that is it depends on what can be your main method of remembering stuff. If we remember things more in a picture style. Thats why we can't see something right in front of us when there looking for say our keys after it has been shifted or moved and can still be in plain site. Our ability to remember the details of that picture can be impaired since remembering where things as were put our keys for a short period doesn't make it into our longterm memory. Something that is generally reserved for longterm memory such as where my friend lives can easily be remembered because my association with that memory and always needing to be able to find his house from now on. Im sure my annoyance and frustration of being lost helps with that. Some people use a emotional element to remember things this of course can be decreased or increased depending on the strain you are medicating with at the time
Of this is they tested long term habitual smokers and found there short term memory ability was the same as non smokers after only 28 days of being smoke free. So feel free to not medicate when you dont need it and then when its time feel free to medicate again, your brain will be just fine.

As was mentioned the smoking into your lungs aspect is probably the most unhealthy part we have found and that can be mitigated through vaping or eating.

In the beginning it was setup for sick people. There are those who may have taken advantage of the system in place. Really though I find working with members in our community everyone actually medicates for a reason. Some folks its previous injuries, others its the stress of there everyday lives. Many conversations I have started with so called stoners usually begins with the premise of getting stoned or high. Then during the conversation I find out why they medicate to begin with. Many of them its stress, cannabis has this amazing ability to regulate the endocrine system allowing our bodys to physically deal with the stress better. Many people who have been smoking cannabis for years have been medicating for real reasons, just no one put it into that context for them to understand it. The real difference now is that they can actually pick the right strain for there pain or condition. There is even a difference in the affects the strains can have if you have ADD or ADHD. To determine if a shop is legitemite or not ask them about your condition and see if they have anything intelligent to say. If they dont spend what you feel is a realistic amount of time understanding what you have going on. Try some place else.

Most marijuana that is bought for recereational use in Washington comes from California or British Columbia. It's true that some BC growers have been known to do business with Mexican gangs, and that some growers in California get violent when protecting grow sites, but it's certainly not always the case.

The only way to remove all doubt about your pot coming sans violence is to buy locally and inform yourself. Know your dealer, don't deal with people that are not ethical, and ask them about their sources. Without getting too nosy about specifics, of course.

Each one of those shops, even the ones with the splashy ads, does have some seriously heavy duty sick patients.

Enough said? Not really. There's a huge amount of what in the real world is called fraud going on. It's tolerated because the law is fairly nebulous, and because locking people up for pot is just as immoral as getting an authorization for your "chronic anxiety".

I've tried to have a conversation about this with a couple of different provider shop owners, and they all get this kind of defensive tone, going on about how they only sell to legit medical patients. Whatever, man. As long as they don't sell to any children. Oh, and your honesty is good. Don't lie just to kick it.

i don't know the answer to your question.

i can tell you that the first year i got all the way from one harvest to another without buying pot from a dealer it felt GREAT.

Cooking with vapo remains is the way to go. In fact, I don't cook with anything other than it. It seems like a huge waste of primary material.

My experience shows that if you need 2x as much vapo remains than primary, you are hitting the vaporizer too hot. Remember, a vapo exhale should show barely any cloud. If you are getting a smoke like exhale, your vapo is too hot.

I have found that 1/3 to 1/2 as much vapo than primary is the way to go.

For best results I do the following:

In top part of a double boiler place ground up vapo remains and butter. Melt over medium-low heat for 2-3 hours. Transfer butter to small metal bowl. Cover with foil. Float bowl in a crock pot half full of water. Place crock pot on low and let the bowl cook for 6-8 hours. Strain your butter after if you wish.

There is some pretty decent science-based information compiled by the California Society of Addiction Medicine available here.

i have no idea what you people are talking about

Large pots (keg-cooler-sized) are great for the partial sun back yard, you can move them around to follow hot spots through the day and move them behind camouflage if you need to.

I like to grow them mixed in with tomatoes for cover.

Make sure u get ur supply from medical Local growers is the best way to deal wit this

Short-term memory impairment. Seriously!

But most damaging are the effects of smoking on the lungs. The only good thing one can say about cigarettes is that some of them are filtered. Smoking a joint or out of a pipe is extremely harsh on your lungs. Eating it would seem the best route. Using a vaporizer would be next best.

It takes about twice as much vaped weed to get the same effects. So 1/4 vaped to 1 stick of butter. It also gives the baked goods a more "burned" flavor, so it's tastier to bake things with a strong flavor or lots of spices. Cardamom is particularly good at masking the flavor.

I have known several people who collect there Vap leftovers and turn it into butter. It just takes more of the stuff to get the effect you want. One thing that comes up is since your using leftovers of many different strains the alternating levels of THC and CBD molecules will tend to give a more overall some even describe rolling effect.

If a cop knocks on your door you quickly, loudly, and politely ask if they have a warrant.

If they don't, you tell them to go fuck themselves and to come back with one.

If they do, you open the door, ask to read it, and fully comply.

The only exception is something called exigent circumstances. Best explained by Wikipedia, but long story short, if they think a life is in danger or have reason to believe a serious crime is going on, they are kicking down your door if you don't open it. You will get warned several times though.