There are risks to opening a Legal Dispensary.

Although we already assessed the risk to be minimal, you still could lose everything you own to Federal asset forfeiture and spend a long time in jail if you are prosecuted.

Whether that happens to you depends on a lot of factors. Many people have been in the business for a long time and have never been arrested. You have better chances of being shut down by the IRS for tax problems rather than having the DEA come in and shut you down. Your chances of getting arrested and prosecuted depend on a number of things:

• How careful are you in your behavior? Do you tell all your friends about your wonderful new dispensary? Do you sell to anyone who comes along? Do you leave incriminating evidence laying around where it can be freely observed by others?

• What is the attitude of your local police toward dispensaries? If they don't like dispensaries, they often don't have any problem calling the DEA to bust people they don't like.

• How big is your operation? The DEA and the local police have limited resources. You can expect the biggest fish in the pond to be the most current target.

• Chance and dumb luck. People have gotten busted because a simple, ordinary electrical appliance shorted out and started a fire -- which brought the fire department -- who called the police – who called the DEA.

Even if you do everything right (or as right as you can), there is always a chance that some odd event will happen and the DEA will show up at your door.

Need it be said? Talk to a good lawyer before you begin. Make sure you know what you are doing, and that you have a carefully thought plan for dealing with the risks.

Assess the Local Situation

Do an assessment of the attitudes toward legal dispensaries in your chosen community.

• Have others tried to open legal dispensaries in your area before? If so, what happened?

• How do the local police react to dispensaries?

• Has the issue come up with your local city council or county board of supervisors? What happened?

• If someone got shut down, why did they get shut down?

Learn from the mistakes of others. If others have tried to open dispensaries in your area and failed, figure out why. Learn to "fly under the radar". Don't do the things that got other people in trouble.

Become a Patient

Aspiring marijuana entrepreneurs opening a legal dispensary must meet one very important condition before opening a dispensary: they have to be a legal patient in the state in which they wish to operate. If you want to distribute legally, you have to obtain it legally, which means your doctor must prescribe you medical marijuana.

Heres how:

• Get a copy of your medical records from the last 3 years. You need 3 documented visits with your qualifying condition.

• Go to your local medical marijuana doctor. Google "medical marijuana doctor + your city" to find out where

• Obtain a recommendation from the Clinic.