Colorado Compassion Club
organization
The Colorado Compassion Club was a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado. It was founded in 2004 with a storefront that was opened in 2005. In 2006 it registered with the Colorado Secretary of State, making it the first medical marijuana dispensary in the state of Colorado. This planted the seed in Colorado that grew into the first state to legalize recreational use by the Colorado Amendment 64 on November 6, 2012 along with the state of Washington.
Founding
Founded by Thomas and Larisa Lawrence, the Colorado Compassion Club set a precedent that would lead to the legitimization of the medical marijuana industry. Established before Colorado HB-1284 that set forth regulations for the medical marijuana industry, the Colorado Compassion Club laid the foundation that set industry standards. Other founding members included Ken Gorman, Scott Fry and Anton Marquez.
The Colorado Compassion Club first began as an organization that strives to provide safe access to medical marijuana for qualifying patients, trained caregivers and provided resources for patients and caregivers seeking to become legal under 0-4-287 - ARTICLE XVIII of the Colorado State Constitution, also known as Amendment 20, allowing the medicinal use of marijuana for qualifying conditions. The Colorado Compassion Club was the first organization that held public meetings for people to learn more about becoming registered patients and caregivers, and with the help of Ken Gorman, found doctors that were willing to sign recommendations leading to an influx of patients and caregivers.
Legal issues
After a raid from local and federal authorities in 2004, The Colorado Compassion Club, decided the next best course of action would be to go more public in helping others and began dispensing medical marijuana to chronically ill patients on a weekly basis from the Grant Avenue United Methodist Church, followed by a permanent establishment on Colfax Avenue.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Colorado Compassion Club” as organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5148768. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2012.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Colorado Compassion Club”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Colorado Compassion Club primary sources, Colorado Compassion Club archive and Colorado research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colorado Compassion Club”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Colorado Compassion Club” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.