There’s a young woman with a French-tip pedicure and a toddler on her hip. Next comes a 20-something data analyst in pain from an infection. And a 60-year-old guy limping around in what appears to be a medieval torture device screwed into his leg in an effort to re-fuse shattered bones.

They all came to the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation’s Wheat Ridge clinic one morning last week seeking the same thing: medical marijuana.

Odds are they’ll get it. First off, they’ve been highly screened. Secondly, a whole lot of people in Colorado are getting medical marijuana these days: In the past year, the number of people on the state’s medical-marijuana registry has nearly tripled.

And in a development that has health officials on edge, a growing number of those on the registry are men under the age of 30, diagnosed with severe pain. At the end of last year, that category accounted for 18 percent of those on the registry. Now, they make up 24 percent.

The explosion of consumer demand for medical marijuana has spawned concern among some but represents opportunity for others to move medical marijuana into the mainstream.

“It’s a growing area, a growing field,” said Brian Vicente, director of Sensible Colorado, a pro-marijuana advocacy group.

By summer’s end, there could be as many as 60 medical-marijuana “dispensaries” in Colorado, according to the founder of Colorado Medical Marijuana, which catalogues the dispensaries on its website.

The founder, Todd, asked that only his first name be used because he straddles two worlds — the marijuana business and the real estate business.

From bright, modern offices atop a Panera sandwich shop near Park Meadows mall, Colorado Medical Marijuana walks potential patients through the process of finding a doctor and registering with the state — for $235. The state registry fee is $90.

This month alone, Todd said, he expects to serve 100 clients. “We’ve been growing exponentially.”

With a degree in business and an entrepreneur’s zeal, Todd may be a symbol of the emerging marijuana industry.

“The guys who were drug dealers and such, they’re phasing out and dropping out,” he said.

At the same time, medical clinics are sprouting across the state, offering massages and holistic healing seminars along with marijuana.

Pikes Peak Alternative Health and Wellness, Colorado Springs, is one of those places, said co-owner Carrie Davis.

Davis and her husband sell brownies containing 12 to 33 grams of marijuana, depending on the dose a patient needs.

Under Amendment 20, passed by voters in 2000, dispensaries can sell marijuana to anyone on the medical- marijuana registry who has designated them as their “caregiver.”

To keep up with demand, the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, which operates the Wheat Ridge clinic and 13 others in nine states, has hired nearly 40 new employees around the country this year and expects to add more, said founder Paul Stanford.

THCF opened its first clinic in Colorado in June 2006, Stanford said, and had 700 cardholder patients then. Now, the clinic claims about 2,800 of the state’s 8,918 registered medical- marijuana consumers.

Ask three people what is driving this surge of demand for pot prescriptive and you’re likely to hear three different answers, which most likely will fall into one of three categories:

• Society is just more willing to accept and tolerate medical marijuana.

• Recent court rulings, and the Obama administration’s stated intent not to interfere with state medical marijuana laws, have caused doctors and others to relax a bit and come out into the open.

• People are gaming the system.

Sensible Colorado’s Vicente falls into the first camp.

“Doctors and the public have become more educated, realizing marijuana has real medicinal value for certain individuals,” he said.

It shouldn’t surprise anybody, Vicente said, that younger people are leading that acceptance.

State officials are more skeptical.

“We have things that concern us, but not the resources and maybe not the authority to look into them,” said Dr. Ned Calonge, the state’s chief medical officer.

The state tried and failed last month to put the brakes on the medical-marijuana growth industry by limiting to five the number of patients any designated caregiver could care for.

The health department has signaled it hasn’t given up. Officials now have in their sights doctors who may be approving medical marijuana for patients who don’t meet the qualifications, Calonge said.

Doctors do not prescribe medical marijuana and cannot dispense it. But Amendment 20 requires a doctor’s signed referral, signifying a patient has one of eight specific medical conditions, including severe pain.

Once they’re on the registry, how patients get marijuana is up to them.

The state doesn’t make public, but does monitor, the names of doctors who sign referrals. And there are doctors whose names come up often enough to cause concern — like the one who signed 200 recommendations in a day.

Laws intended to protect patient privacy prevent state health officials from sharing those concerns with the state medical board, Calonge said.

“The issue is to figure out how we can meet the requirements in the constitution and investigate or report cases where we are concerned that there are physicians who may not be meeting the standard of medical care,” Calonge said.

In the meantime, cities and counties may take on the issue of regulating or restricting the flow of marijuana. The town of Breckenridge declared a moratorium on dispensaries after one business applied to open one. The town is now wrestling with how to regulate operating hours and proximity to such areas as schools.

Vicente foresees more efforts like that, and he thinks reasonable people can find common ground.

“We can agree that we don’t want (dispensaries) near schools or day cares, there has to be some degree of common sense and restraint used in advertising, that sort of thing.”

Staff writer Claire Trageser contributed to this report.

Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com