Doug Fine found the farm he'd be researching for the 2011 growing season at a board meeting of a local cannabis trade group called MendoGrown. Its purpose, according to Matt Cohen (the head of MendoGrown), is to bring about capitalism to a legitimized cannabis market. The (for now) nonprofit, share-the-wealth board members and growers believe their model will provide the best, most consistent, and most reliable medicine for patients. MendoGrown has "cousins" in states where medicinal cannabis is also legal. Aaron Bluse (friend and colleague of Cohen) is an independent franchise owner of a publicly traded, multistate cannabis dispensary chain called Altitude Organic Medicine located in Denver, Colorado. Bluse told Fine in an interview, "I'd like my grandkids to know me as a legitimate, honest businessman. American from the ground up."
MendoGrown and Altitude Organic Medicine represent the future for the post-Drug War cannabis market. "When alcohol prohibition ended on December 5, 1933, there were brewers and distillers ready to go the next day," said Cohen. Fine added to Cohen's observation, "One day's bootleggers are the next day's San Francisco Giants billboard sponsors."
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