When the state began approving applications for medical-marijuana users last month, officials offered no guidance about where to find pot.

Since dispensaries are not yet licensed, more than two-thirds of the roughly 3,300 Arizonans who have permission to use marijuana also have indicated they plan to grow it.

But the rest are on their own, and Scottsdale philanthropist Gerald Gaines says terminally ill patients and others are having trouble tracking down marijuana. So Gaines is launching an effort to put users and growers together.

Gaines, who hopes eventually to oversee a dozen or so dispensaries, is looking for 150 volunteers willing to be listed as "designated caregivers" for medical-marijuana users.

"We're looking at almost a year before people who are legally allowed to have medication can actually get it," Gaines said. "There's no natural connection between somebody who might be a patient and somebody who might be a grower."

Proposition 203, approved by voters in November, legalized medical-marijuana use for people with certain debilitating conditions and allowed them to designate someone as a "caregiver" to grow or otherwise obtain marijuana for them.

Caregivers are authorized to grow 12 plants per patient if the patients live more than 25 miles from a dispensary. Since dispensary licenses won't be issued until August, and it will be several more months until they pass state inspection and open for business, qualified caregivers currently are allowed to grow pot for their patients.

Gaines is offering free growing lessons to anyone interested in becoming a temporary caregiver until dispensaries open, and he hopes to connect patients and caregivers through his website (www.compassionfirstaz.com). The online caregiver network is free. Growers can recoup their costs from patients who pay for the pot.

Dispensary business

Gaines hopes to be in the medical-marijuana business for the long haul and donate millions of dollars to local charities.

A founding director of Sprint PCS, Gaines came to Arizona four years ago from Colorado, where two of his sons were involved in the medical-pot industry.

His plan is to provide start-up capital and services to get up to 15 dispensaries licensed through two for-profit companies, Compassion First AZ and Maricopa Medical Marijuana LLC.

He's advertising for managers to run dispensaries with salaries up to $160,000 a year, plus benefits. The managers and dispensary boards would donate 40 percent of the revenues, and Gaines' for-profit companies would take a percentage for providing outside services, including accounting, legal and personnel.

Gaines estimates that an average Phoenix-area dispensary, with 800 patients buying an ounce of marijuana a month, could generate $5 million in revenues each year. Roughly $2 million of that would go to charity under his model.

"I believe strongly in medical marijuana as a product for ill patients," he said. "A big part of the power of our model is giving the right to give to charity to people who haven't had that opportunity."

State rules

Arizona Department of Health Services rules will allow about 125 dispensaries statewide. They must be run as non-profits. State rules offer some guidance, but provide plenty of wiggle room.

Dispensaries must have bylaws that include "provisions for the disposition or revenues" and provide receipts and a business plan showing the facility is operating as a not-for-profit. There are no limits on compensation for dispensary personnel other than that it be "reasonable."

Gaines plans to set up a fund with the Arizona Community Foundation to distribute the dispensary revenues. Dispensary board members would decide where the money should go.

The foundation vets the charities, requires that all money go to 501(c)(3) organizations and prohibits funding to political groups.

Megan Brownell, chief communications officer for the foundation, said the agreement with Gaines is pending state approval of the dispensaries and review by the foundation's gift-acceptance committee. That committee oversees new, unusual or complicated gifts.

"In this case, it's new for us. It would be just an extra layer of scrutiny to ensure that everybody involved is in compliance with the law," she said. "Our staff did do research to ensure that these dispensaries are legal in the state of Arizona. . . . We're not going to do anything that would be in violation of federal law."

Some out-of-state dispensaries have struggled to give money away. A food bank in Oakland last year declined proceeds from a dispensary-sponsored food drive for fear that it would jeopardize its federal funding, according to a New York Times article. But dispensary donations have helped an AIDS hospice in San Francisco offset state funding cuts.

Though medical marijuana is now legal in 16 states, it remains a federal crime. Opponents of the state law say anyone involved with the industry could face federal prosecution.

Joe Yuhas, of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Association, an industry trade group, said he doesn't expect the federal government to target non-profits that accept dispensary contributions because the federal government already collects about 30 percent of revenues in income taxes. Dispensaries aren't recognized as businesses under federal law, so they can't take business-tax deductions.

"The largest beneficiary of a medical-marijuana dispensary is the federal government," Yuhas said. "There should not be a fear based on Big Brother cracking down on a community-based organization. But ultimately it's a business decision and perhaps a personal judgment."

Yuhas said he believes most dispensaries will satisfy their non-profit status by running efficient operations and offering free or reduced pot and other services to low-income customers.