One potential pot shop in Arizona would teach customers how to cook marijuana into treats like cookies and "potcorn." Another envisions offering massages, yoga classes, and marijuana meals to go, while a third wants a simple pharmacy-like shop next to an AIDS treatment centre. That's just the beginning. Now that Arizona voters have narrowly approved a ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana, state officials are preparing for a green rush of sorts. They expect to be inundated with up to thousands of applications from would-be marijuana dispensaries, and with only 124 spots approved state wide, the majority will have to be turned away.

"Most other states, you hang out a shingle and you're a dispensary," said Will Humble, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services. "I want to avoid those kinds of abuses." Arizona's medical marijuana measure won by just 4,341 votes this month of more than 1.67 million ballots counted, making the state the 15th to approve a medical marijuana law. Arizona officials are hoping to avoid the problems they perceive in other states, including California, where patients are reported receiving a pot recommendation from a doctor for having a headache.