Chris Shott
Washington City Paper
Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn and wife Stephanie Kahn have a simple plan for bankrolling their controversial proposed medical-marijuana facility on Blair Road NW. “We plan on financing this from our personal life savings,” he says.
How much are we talking? Well, that’s a bit, um, hazy at the moment.
The biggest expense will likely be the price of the herbal remedy itself, according to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which both Rabbi Kahn and fellow aspiring dispensary operators with the nonprofit District of Columbia Patients’ Cooperative have toured in preparation for creating their own facilities. DeAngelo tells City Desk, “Out of every dollar we take in, about 62 percent of that goes to paying for the actual medicine. The balance of that goes towards paying our rent, our payroll, our insurance—all the other typical expenses that a business has.”
While not a single legal pot plant is yet in production in the District, thus making the budgeting process quite difficult for would-be sellers, we can safely assume that all other costs aren’t even the half of it. That said, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed medical-marijuana regulations at least provide specifics about some of the other start-up costs:
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