Medical marijuana patients in Highlands Ranch have a safe place near home to procure their medicine.

Dr. Eric Hatch opened the first legal dispensary for medical cannabis in Douglas County three weeks ago.

Hatch is a chiropractor and member of Cherry Hills Community Church and volunteers at his daughters’ school.

As part of Hatch Wellness Center, his dispensary is more than a glorified head shop with medical marijuana.

Hatch is joining his chiropractic, massage and acupuncture modalities with this legal medicine to provide a full range of healing for patients.

While doctors of chiropractic cannot sign paperwork to get patients onto the state registry, Hatch can be designated as a patient’s caregiver, which opens the option of cultivating the crop.

Hatch started thinking about opening the dispensary after his sister, a card-holding patient, expressed concern about the situations where she had to get her medicine.

“You’ll have to get it for me,” she told Hatch.

“It was just like getting street drugs,” Hatch recalls.

His experiences led him to offering the service in a professional doctor’s office setting. He spoke with several attorneys and learned the laws governing dispensaries. He’s made contacts with growers, although he said that took time.

“One patient told me not to worry,” Hatch said. “Once the growers knew I was here, I’d start getting calls.”

As Hatch finishes that sentence, his office phone starts ringing, and not a full minute goes by between calls.

He chuckles.

“See? They know me now.”

Prices will depend on suppliers, but Hatch wants to keep prices low, and will offer discounts to patients that list him as a caregiver. So far he has five.

Hatch will not keep stock or cash in the office overnight, to avoid thefts like the one in Boulder, where the alleged thieves were caught and the product returned to New Wellness Clinic.

Douglas County has 218 patients on the state registry, representing 3 percent of the patients in Colorado.

Denver, Jefferson, Larimer, and Boulder counties have the highest percentages at 13, 11, 10 and 9 percent, respectively.

As of May 31, 7,630 valid cards were issued in Colorado, a renewal rate of about 58 percent.

The medical marijuana law, Amendment 20, passed in November 2000, legalizing marijuana for medical use, setting limits on conditions, and creating a registry at the state Department for Public Health and Environment for patients and caregivers.

Caregiver cards were dropped in 2004.

Changes to the rules will be discussed at a day-long July 20 meeting at Turnhalle on the Auraria Campus.

For more information on the meeting, see www.cdphe.state.co.us.

For more information on the dispensary, visit www.hatchwellness.net.