3 Green Thumbs just wants to help

When it came to opening a medical marijuana dispensary, the owners of Cheney's 3 Green Thumbs had two goals in mind - to relieve the pain of individuals suffering from various maladies, and to do right by the community where they would be located.

Dennis Turner and Michael Schofield, two of the dispensary's "green thumbs" opened for business in January in the Farmers and Merchants Center at the corner of First Avenue and Cheney-Spokane Road. So far business and the reception from the community has been good.

While Washington's medical marijuana industry is not nearly as regulated as the recreational marijuana industry, Turner said they built 3 Green Thumbs to recreational standards, utilizing the same elements like product testing and safety systems requirements.

In fact, walking into 3 Green Thumbs is more like walking into a doctor's office than a store. Customers enter a waiting room and approach a glass-walled reception counter where they sign in and provide their medical marijuana card as well as other applicable information.

Patients are checked through a state database to make sure they are approved to use the drug. Once confirmed, they are admitted to the product room through a locked door - one individual at a time.

Once through the door, the similarity to a doctor's office evaporates. Either Turner or Schofield will meet them and ask them questions about themselves and their ailment.

Patients are shown counters that contain marijuana in a number of forms from the traditionally-smoked flowers to creams to soft drinks to edibles. Patients can also buy ingredients for cooking marijuana.

"Some people like the coconut oil," Turner said. "They like to make their own stuff."

3 Green Thumbs also carries smoking implements such as pipes and e-cigarettes. Turner said their product is locally made, including upcoming goods from Cheney producer and processor Pure Joy, and the dispensary also displays artwork by local artists.

Schofield said patients use marijuana for pain relief from illnesses ranging from bone cancer to lupus, multiple sclerosis and chronic arthritis. And while people might think of marijuana use as occurring more among the college-age crowd, both Schofield and Turner said most of their patients range in age from 40 – 70, are female and come from all over Eastern Washington.

Turner and Schofield said they work with patients to provide the proper strain of marijuana that will meet their medical needs and also suit them personally. Strains that may have the right amount of the pain relief chemical may be too high in the psychoactive element, and vice versa. Schofield said they also make sure the patient is comfortable and fitted with the proper intake method, noting in some cases while edibles are easier to take, they run a risk of potential bad episodes if overused.

"It's not as simple as 'what gets me stoned?'" Schofield said. "That's why we want to give them all the information they need before they walk out the door."

Both men are college graduates, Turner from "The" Ohio State University while Schofield is an Arizona State University Sun Devil. Both are family men, and both come from a background where family members battled illness and ended up using alternative methods of pain relief.

Both also plan to be involved in Cheney through volunteer efforts and community events, not as forums to advocate for medical marijuana use, but to be part of a community that has extended an open hand to them.

"We have hearts and believe in community," Turner said.

"We're just family men trying to make a difference," Schofield added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].