When I was younger, I had the chance to visit East Germany weeks after the Berlin wall came down. It was a surreal experience with hundreds of military guarding a boarder that no longer was recognized by anyone, including them! Their guns sure seemed real and their tanks were quite intimidating to walk by. But I stole a chunk of that wall right in front of them and it still sits on my step father's desk. There was no more border (or country) to protect. Yet military paraded tanks right down main-street at noon just like they have since 1949.

It the same situation with Marijuana today. The government, or at least some of our governments, have begun to see the benefits of Medical Marijuana. But as a patient, I sure don't want to be the one who gets shot because I walked too far behind the lines.

There are things you can and should do to protect yourself as a medical marijuana patient. The first and most important is to be very careful where you shop. Every Colorado MMC is required to capture your state issued identification and MMJ card, but most are not using a professional system to capture that data. As a result your information as a patient could be at risk.

I know that my compliant Medical Marijuana Centers needs to keep an electronic file of my license and state issued ID. This is true in Colorado and California. But they do not, and should not, keep a paper copy. None of them can not properly protect my paper data on-site. Any Medical Marijuana Dispensary is no place to store potentially incriminating information. Remember friends, this is still Federally Illegal, and while I don't expect to have the DEA at my door for my 2 oz, I don't particularly want my face on the front page of Westword for being a pothead. Careful protection of my identity, is one of the requirements I have of a Medical Marijuana Center, and the primary reason I created the company MJ Freeway. You're welcome. ;)

The first thing to ask your Medical Marijuana Center is if they are storing your information in a HIPAA compliant fashion? Ask them what company hosts their data and make them show you where the company states they are in compliant on their website (preferably the home page). HIPAA is critical because it is the only security standard that the Federal Government will recognize for patient protection. Without storing your information on HIPAA compliant servers (almost always off-site), your personal data could be at risk.

Even if the data is stored in HIPPA fashion, your Medical Marijuana information could be in jeopardy. The next biggest vulnerability is the physical data itself. The actual hard drives or paper copies. This time, I am not worried about the government (at least not in Colorado, hang in there California). Given enough time and talent, a crook could have a great time with a database full of Medical Marijuana Patients that would prefer to remain, and deserve to remain, anonymous. There are also tremendous advantages to the center owner for storing their data off-site. Advantages like virtualization -the art of working while lying on the beach thousands of miles away. But the biggest advantages to the patient of offsite storage is protection of their data from fire, physical theft, vandalism, and sabotage. Not to mention much better security because its both protected electronically, with encryption and physically to Federal standards for patient privacy.

It might seem obnoxious to ask a Medical Marijuana Center to prove their compliance system is off-site and HIPAA compliant. But it is my information that could be in jeopardy. I have done my part to make sure my data remains safe and I welcome you to shop at any MJ Freeway store particularly the ones that also follow HIPAA compliance at their facility. Look for the MJ Freeway logo on their screen and tell them Mark sent you.