A couple of months back, I decided Tucson was beginning to suck a little more than Phoenix, at least by one measure, because we didn’t have any fun and exciting medical-marijuana clubs or pot superstores or other places to celebrate our newfound MMJ-ness. (See “Phoenix Doesn’t Suck,” Nov. 3.)

All we had were a few sign-wavers and some dingy clinics.

Well, things have changed a little since I wrote that. We might not have any superstores, but we do have a few spots where patients can get meds; caregivers can get patients; and everyone can get some information.

Want to know how to make hashish and get some free MMJ out of the deal? Tumbleweeds Health Center can hook you up. Opened two months ago by two Cali transplants, the health center on East Broadway Boulevard takes a one-stop shopping approach to MMJ. They offer certifications, classes on growing and cooking, explanation of rules, and personal consultation on whatever MMJ topic you need to explore.

Co-owner Kim Williams grew up in California’s Napa Valley, the heart of wine country. The 41-year-old suffers from fibromyalgia, scoliosis and pain from car accidents, but she didn’t get a medical-marijuana card until 2005, nine years after MMJ came to California.

Williams has lived in Tucson and the Phoenix area off and on for 20 years. When Arizona voters passed the Medical Marijuana Act in 2010, she decided to come back. She and her partner (in life and at Tumbleweeds), Dana Rae Zygmunt, originally planned to open a dispensary in Colorado, but they came here instead when Arizona became an MMJ state.

Then Gov. Jan Brewer threw her wrench in the works. It seemed there would be no dispensaries—until Gov. Jan saw the light last week and halted her incessant legal wrangling. The state’s nearly 18,000 patients are still stuck in limbo, many of them wondering where to get medication without dispensaries.

“When we moved here, we were kind of stuck looking on Craigslist,” Kim said.

So she decided to get a lawyer and consider options. The Tumbleweeds paradigm seemed perfect—it is not a dispensary or a club. There is no membership fee covering the cost of medication. All medication transactions are cost-free, and either patient-patient or caregiver-patient.

The daily tuition at the center is $55, for which you get a consultation, a lecture, a demonstration (on Jan. 14, it was hash-making), access to the library and free meds from another patient or caregiver.

“We’ve seen patients exchange 3 to 4 grams of medication,” Williams said.

Several MMJ strains are available, including sativa strains for keeping your eyes open during the day, and indica-leaning ones to close them if you suffer from sleep disturbance. The center website lists the indica strain Kryptonite, Green Crack (a sativa-heavy hybrid), Blue Dream (sativa, a Mr. Smith favorite), outdoor Blue Dream, Pineapple OG (another sativa strain) and Afghani Goo (indica).

If you aren’t certified for MMJ, Tumbleweeds can help you there, too. You can make a doctor’s appointment through the website for a $150 certification.

A key goal of the health center is to connect patients and caregivers, and, ultimately, to connect patients with medication. So on Saturday, Jan. 21, the center will host a 1 p.m. meet-and-greet to launch a planned networking service for patients and caregivers. The event is open to the public.

Williams and Zygmunt hope to cultivate Tumbleweeds into a full-service health center where people can get free MMJ after paying for health services such as massages, yoga classes or acupuncture.

So it seems we are moving along nicely toward less suckage here at the base of the black hill. Methinks we suck less than Phoenix again. As it should be.

For more information, visit www.tumbleweedshealthcenter.com; call 838-4430; email thctucson@gmail.com; or stop by 5301 E. Broadway Blvd. Tumbleweeds is open 5 to 9 p.m., Thursday and Friday; and noon to 4 p.m., Saturday. If those hours don’t work, call for an appointment.

This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.

More fun than FarmVille, more interesting than that Facebook friend you don't really remember from high school.

10 replies on “Open for Business”

  1. Thank you so much for this write up, I will be checking this place out as soon as possible. With all I am reading about things like eliminating ethnic studies and allowing concealed weapons in bars and ‘transparent’ boards not posting their spending of taxpayer money online, it is always nice to read some good news about this crazy place we call home. So thanks you again for that.

  2. Mr. Smith your assessment of the MMJ community is so off base I have to respond. Tucson is not Phoenix (thank god) and our clinics as you call them have been doing a very good job of providing high quality medicine at a fair price and they are not dingy. I resent the fact that you are doing a flak’s job in promoting one clinic that is not a dispensary but a marijuana provider from an out of state entity. Tumbleweeds is not on my radar, I have not been there personally but be careful in promoting something that you have not fully researched.

    Remember what happened with Helen of Troy and to beware of Greeks bearing gifts. This place is probably legitimate but how can you an anonymous reporter even know this? Have you talked to any patients, caregivers or suppliers to see how this place is run. I want to know what the CBD level of their medicine is and if it is not at least 1% they are growing hydroponically which is toxic for our environment, our bodies and our souls. Just because you embrace high THC, love the bud do not assume anything for the rest of the patients. I hope you retract your negative comments about the other clubs since you are opening the Tucson Weekly up to libel charges. Grow up Mr. Smith and start using your real name and stop hiding behind an anonymous name. I do know your identity and you are a 30 something slacker basically with no real knowledge (except learned on the street) about cannabis.

  3. Excellent article and I keep hearing about this club so I’ll check it out. I would just ask that you refrain from using words like “pot” in your article since that’s the quick and lazy way to stereotype marijuana and the police love you for that. Every headline I read goes for the quick and lazy way and I expect my TW to not go there. Also why call medicine “Green Crack” that is horrible and I wish Tumbleweeds would stop calling medicine a name that is a popular cocaine derivative that has decimated our African American inner cities. Be respectful of patients and the medicine and “Green Crack” has no place in the lexicon.

  4. I don’t know Mr. Smith or were he gets his information. The language he uses is way out there. Maybe he’s trying to be creative, I don’t know.
    One thing I do know is that Dispensaries charge way to much for their RX product, so you will never find me there.

  5. @ MJ’s Little Sister – Yes, I have kinda struggled with the tone of this column. I’m a little uncomfortable with mixing the medical and vernacular references to MMJ, but I am reading it on websites – not making it up. I’m here to largely write about what’s out there, while adding my own (not the Weekly’s) take on things.

    @ Truth Teller – I am not and don’t claim to be comprehensively covering the entire MMJ community in Tucson. I am writing about the portions with which I intersect. You can’t expect a 30-something slacker with no knowledge to single-handedly cover everything MMJ-related in a city of 1 million people. I try not to generalize, but sometimes I do. For that, I apologize. If anyone out there wants me to write about them, they can send me an email. I’m pretty easy to find. Maybe I could write a profile of you, Truth Teller. Let’s get your experiences out there – maybe they’re different from mine.

  6. Hi Mr Smith, promoting cannabis medicine as “crack” is not only unprofessional, it plays into the hands of anti-cannabis people. It is one thing to call it green monster or OG kush but crack refers to a much more dangerous and destructive substance. As John Stewart once said, “the problem with the cannabis movement is that it’s run by potheads.” As for another reference I heard about not using the term ‘pot’, I have to disagree. The term Marijuana is much more ignorant and racist than pot. Maybe we can call it what it actually is someday….Cannabis.

  8. “Green Crack” is a strain of medical marijuana. Get off your high horses you uppity hippy stoners.

  9. I went over to this new clinic and was very disappointed because they wanted to charge me $75.00 for the “medicine” and really? Come on call this what it is a hook-up and just because you call yourself a caregiver not a pot dealer doesn’t change the facts this place is just a front for folks to get their marijuana or medicine. Charging $75.00 for 4 grams of cannabis works out to over $500 an ounce and the street stuff (which is exactly the same strains) is only $250.00 an ounce. Someone needs to report Tumbleweeds for exhorbitant prices but they are just making the almighty buck the only way they know how by selling weed as medical marijuana. Not one of their green containers full of “medicine” is labelled so it’s buying a pig in a poke. Please stop promoting this place they use sign spinners and are charging too much to promote their bottom line — the almighty dollar.

  10. The silly names these strains have are a barrier to some people, but here’s a secret. Those names are just a code. Pretend it’s latin and forget the source of the names. They’re referring to particular growth lines, and when a well educated grower with good equipment uses high quality seeds that have been stabilized for quality, that grower can produce a product of generally equal and high quality medicine. That medicine will fall into three general categories: sativa (daytime), indica (for at night) and hybrid, which can be anything from 50% of two strains to 80%-20%, so they’re often the most interesting to try in terms of finding help with lots of symptoms at the beginning. But if “Lemon Haze,” for example, deals with your [pick a symptom] well, then “Super Lemon Haze” is probably also going to do well. “Purple Haze,” on the other hand, will have some flavor and result differences, but will still be somewhere in the same general area of taste and effect. There’s a code to these names, and learning something of them makes it easier to evaluate what the various caregivers and folk have to share. And you need to do your OWN evaluation — what works for me with nerve pain just doesn’t always work for my friend with other pain issues. So it’s a very individual situation, and each individual has to work to find out what’s best for them. Learning the rather silly names is just part of the process, part of the vocabulary of the medicine, just like doctors and educators still use latin names to distinguish pharmaceutical, plant and animal sorts. Consider it just another level of learning curve — a code that’s not very secret at all. There must be a half a dozen sites that go into this whole topic much deeper. ProCon.org is the most balanced site to discuss general mmj matters, but it’s just one of many good sites out there. Go wandering and learn. Try to enjoy it. Life is hard enough as it is — this medicine is supposed to make our lives better. Works for me.

Comments are closed.