Inside a medical marijuana growing operation
Willie Ford, president of R. Greenleaf Organics in Albuquerque, inspects marijuana buds in the drying room at the organization's farm.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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J. Chris Romero, director of operations at R. Greenleaf Organics, inspected bud development.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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The nonprofit medical marijuana business, like others in the state, operates discreetly in an unassuming complex with small display signs.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Ford and Romero inspected bud drying and curing inside a drying room.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Jars filled with marijuana on a shelf at the R. Greenleaf Organics farm.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Ford is careful to call the product medical cannabis, not marijuana.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Romero inspected hash oil at the farm's undisclosed location in New Mexico.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Ford and Romero stood outside the grow rooms at the farm.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Wayne Brown, a farm assistant, processed popcorn buds.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Industry watchers say New Mexico, with one of the country’s strictest medical marijuana programs, provides a model for Massachusetts.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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R. Greenleaf's small clinic is on the second floor of a strip mall building. Patients have to show blue registration cards when they enter the small clinic.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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Patient Joel White (right) sniffed his medical cannabis order while chatting with Ford at the Albuquerque clinic.
Pat Vasquez-Cunningham for the Boston Globe
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