http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarep...looms-medical-pot-experts.html?nclick_check=1
Market blooms for medical-pot experts
by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Feb. 2, 2013 11:25 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Inside the suite of a nondescript industrial park in west Phoenix, an armed security guard in a bulletproof vest guards dozens of tents filled with lush plants that supply medical-marijuana patients throughout the state.
All day long, men and women with varying medical conditions swing through the doors of the cultivation center to tend their crops, allowing fresh air to seep into the office suite, which reeks of a musky, skunklike odor. As hard-rock music blares, the growers measure nutrients, roll blunts (cigars), prune plants and prepare buds for drying.
When they need pointers on yielding the best harvest, they go to Bruce Barnes, a 32-year-old "master grower" who works for the center and specializes in growing highly potent marijuana that patients use to treat ailments ranging from cancer to chronic pain. Barnes helps patients and caregivers grow high-grade marijuana using sophisticated techniques to manipulate the plants with light, nutrients and air.
Arizona's medical-marijuana era is still young, and Barnes is one of the few expert growers in the state who works for dispensary operators or cultivation sites that stock the drug for some of the 33,601 patients who are permitted to use it under state law.
While marijuana is illegal in most states and under federal law, it is still a plant and, like any successful farmer, Barnes can simply look at one and determine its variety and health condition.
"It's like being a sommelier of wine," said Robert Calkin, president of the Cannabis Career Institute, a California marijuana school. "You have to be familiar with every aspect of the method of creating the medical marijuana. You have to be able to identify strains of marijuana, know all the different kinds, know how to grow all the different kinds, know all the different methods and know how to grade and judge the values of it just by looking at it."
At 6-foot-4 with a goatee and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that covers tattoos on both arms, Barnes presides over one of the largest grow sites in the state. Since Arizona's program is so new, the state has the potential to become a mecca for growers who can produce cost-effective plantations of marijuana that smells good and tastes better. Already, growers from other states are flocking to Arizona to sell their skills, seeing potential in this unsaturated market.
Behind the office doors, Barnes is known by some as the "marijuana king."
He can look at plants and quickly determine whether pH levels are off or if diseases are developing. In this line of work, a career is made by growing buds that can pass the muster of both discerning marijuana aficionados -- such as longtime medical-pot users and growers -- and amateur patients who seek specific strains to treat specific ailments.
"It's mentally challenging because you're not just thinking about the day," Barnes said. "You've got to be planning out the next two months, so you're constantly cloning and preparing for plants to move into flowers."
Still, he said with a crooked smile, "I can't imagine doing anything else."
Must register with state
Barnes is allowed to cultivate under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, which was passed by voters in 2010.
The law allows people with certain medical conditions, including chronic pain, cancer and muscle spasms, to use the drug after obtaining a physician's recommendation.
They must register with the state, which issues identification cards to qualified patients and caregivers, who can grow 72 plants for themselves and up to five other patients.
But by this time next year, state health officials expect most -- if not all -- marijuana cultivation to take place at dispensaries or off-site grow centers, similar to the one where Barnes works.
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