Marijuana Co-op Leader Steps Down

An official of a medical marijuana shop on Front Street will soon leave the organization.

Douglas Lanphere, the director of legal affairs for Cooperative Patients’ Services, Inc., will step down at the group’s next board of directors meeting, he said in an email.

He hopes giving up his position will quell fears the public may have about his criminal record. “This resignation of duties should satisfy any concerns the citizens and city may have into the directors of CPS,” he said.

Lanphere was convicted of several drug-related felonies. To read more about them, .

Also, as time goes on, the co-op needs less of his help, he said.

A judge recently ruled the location could dispense marijuana to its medical card-carrying members from its strip mall suite on Old Town Front Street.

“The immediate legal matters are fulfilled, and inasmuch, my legal duties and requirements are diminishing,” he wrote in an email.

To read about the court decision,

His medical condition also make his participation difficult, he said.

Lanphere did not give details on his medical condition, though he was prescribed marijuana to treat migraine headaches, according to the Press-Enterprise.

Lanphere was one of the co-op's founders. It started early in 2010 under the name “Qualified Patients Resource Center.” Lanphere was then the director of operations, he told the Press-Enterprise.

Later, the group got another business license under its current name.

The group is fighting a legal battle with the city, which aims to close the co-op for violating a citywide ban on dispensaries.

The co-op is not a dispensary because it acts as a mediator of trade of marijuana for money between its patients, the shop’s officials said during a previous interview.