KITCHENER - A new marijuana dispensary has opened up in downtown Kitchener, trying to fill a void in the black market ahead of legalization.

La Rouge, the latest in a string of cannabis shops that have popped up around Waterloo Region in recent years, is doing brisk business as the only walk-in dispensary operating locally after a police crackdown last year.

But its not looking for publicity.

A small sign off its Queen Street address directs customers to a side entrance. A young female clerk waits at a desk at the top of two flights of stairs explaining that only members can enter.

To get a membership, you need identification and to fill out a brief form. Inside, there's smoking equipment, Bob Marley T-shirts and eight varieties of marijuana for sale for between $10-$15 a gram.

La Rouge's manager declined interview requests to talk about the illegal business, which opened up a few doors down from another pot dispensary, Medit8, which recently closed.

Dispensary operators around the province are facing uncertain times as marijuana legalization looms in October. Some complain they're being locked out of a market they helped cultivate, albeit illegally, while the government aims to cash in on regulated pot.

Ontario's attorney general has made it clear - all non-government storefront shops selling marijuana will remain against the law, even after pot is legal.

That local dispensaries continue to pop up in defiance of the law frustrates Sandra Thornton, the founder of Kitchener's first compassion club for people with medical marijuana prescriptions.

Her club, which had about 700 members, closed down after a warning from Waterloo Regional Police last year.

She's angry people with legitimate medical problems, from cancer to chronic pain, have lost their support network while others continue to cash in on the still-contraband recreational market.

"My members are not happy. They're desperate. They destroyed an entire community and opened it up to people who are just trying to make money," said Thornton, who closed Organix Compassion voluntarily last March.

Most dispensaries, unlike compassion clubs, don't discriminate who they sell to, she said. And they don't offer the same kind of expertise for medical marijuana users who need help treating their conditions, she said.

"The people I dealt with were in it to help people. They weren't in it to make lots of money," Thornton said.

"My people were doing it for a whole different reason than what these (licensed producers) or people out on the street are doing it for."

At one point last year, there were as many as five illegal cannabis dispensaries operating in the region. Most closed after getting warnings from police, but one - Green Tree Medical Dispensary on King Street in Kitchener - was ultimately raided after it refused to close.

As the dispensaries have closed down, cash-only delivery services have sprung up in their places - advertising their varieties online and promising one-hour delivery.

"I'd be willing to bet that's where 90 per cent of my members have gone," Thornton said.

She argues the federal government's system for medicinal marijuana - requiring a doctor's prescription and sold through licensed producers who ship to your door - doesn't work for many medicinal users.

That system is plagued by chronic shortages and lack of choices, she said. Most of her club's members would prefer to be able to smell and touch their marijuana before buying it, she said.

Thornton thinks, in the rush toward legalization, medicinal users have been forgotten. They've become an after-thought in what's expected to be a billion-dollar recreational market, she said.

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"The medicinal patients have been left to rot. Nobody seems to care about them," she said. "It's a scary time for them."