THE POT PHARMACY IS OPEN VALLEY DISPENSARY IS A FAR CRY FROM '70S `HEAD SHOPS'.

Byline: BRAD GREENBERG Staff Writer

One of the San Fernando Valley's newest medical marijuana dispensaries sits in a black stucco building, adjacent to the Xposed full nude club.

Racy business cards for the club and next-door bar, The Wet Spot, are stationed throughout the inside of Collective Caregivers pharmacy, which opened in Canoga Park in late March.

Inside is "Taylor," a tall brunette with red and blonde highlights, a nose ring and a deep tan. On a recent day, she was wearing a black Korn T-shirt knotted to reveal six inches of midriff, a belly-button ring and a butterfly tattoo on the small of her back.

Once a patient has been cleared, Taylor, who doesn't "do last names," presses a button that unlocks the pharmacy door.

They enter a temperate room with two jewelry-display cases, an ATM and a safe with 4-inch-thick steel. The dispensary sells smokeable leaves and candy edibles: Peanut Butter Cup, Cannabis Cookie and sugar-free milk chocolate candy bars. Marijuana buds come in 20 varieties, such as Tidal Wave, Train Wreck, Organic Grapefruit Haze.

The $10 candy bars, labeled "Keep out of the reach of children," have several grams of fat and half a gram of marijuana.

The leaves are grown across the state, said Brad Barnes, who identified himself as the general contractor, and cost $15 to $30 a gram.

Collective Caregivers is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., about three hours later than any other dispensary in the Valley.

Barnes insists the co-op is just for those who qualify under state law.

"You can't just say, `I want to get some bud today' and walk in here," Barnes said. "This is a medical office. It doesn't look like you are walking into a 1970s head shop: There are no beads on the wall, no orange shag carpet."

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Photo:

Collective Caregivers pharmacy, a medical cannabis co-op, opened in March in Canoga Park next to the club Xposed.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer