Thinking about opening up a legal cannabis store? It would probably be a fantastic idea, more so now than ever. There is now close to 1 million medical marijuana patients in California alone, which is 3 percent of the entire state's population, estimates NORML.

Chronic pain is the number one medical reason accounting for the majority of all cannabis patient recommendations. Studies from numerous sources have shown that marijuana is especially effective for neuropathic pain, a condition that afflicts 7 to 8 percent of the entire population.

Patients who use cannabis to mitigate pain commonly report a significant reduction in their usage of other medications, especially prescription opiates which many complain cause negative side effects.

The patient figures above numbering over 1 million in California alone are an exponential increase from earlier years - 75,000 in 2004, 150,000 in 2005, and 275,000 in 2007. Because California's law is older and has more liberal criteria, patient figures there are likely to be much higher than reported figures, states NORML. Patients have been doubling almost every year, and this is in line with patient figures in other comparable states that offer wide access to medical cannabis stores and dispensaries.

Patients demand safe and legal access to cannabis. With patient demand growing far quicker than the amount of dispensaries that can keep up with it, patients fear they may have to go the black market to get the medication they need. A cannabis store provides a much needed service in protecting patients and their rights to safe and legal access.

Dispensaries also provide numerous different types of legal medical marijuana, all used to treat various ailments. A patient can go inside a dispensary and choose up to a hundred different types. There are also edibles, tinctures, sprays, and several more methods of ingesting cannabis and knowledgeable people there to educate them. There is no way a new patient could do this on his own.

A dispensary provides medication 24/7 and the patient does not have to worry about using alternative means of procuring what they need in an unsafe manner. Most dispensaries have the latest technology, cameras, security measures and even security guards. Patients can feel safe in having a choice of readily and widely available medication by visiting a dispensary.

Ron Hyman, the state's registrar of vital statistics for Colorado, knows that the influx of medical marijuana applications his office receives daily has to cease eventually.

Last month his office received over 100,000 applications to start a dispensary, over 99 percent of which were denied because they were filled out incorrectly. "We are aware of people moving to Colorado because of this," he says.

Ever optimistic, Hyman looks forward to the day when his office's storage closets will finally be free of dispensary applications for the marijuana business. "That will be a day to celebrate," he says. And he's sure it's coming. After all, he repeats, "There's only five million people in the state," and sooner or later people will figure out how to fill them out correctly.

We are in the infancy stages of the legal medical marijuana business. Only 1/3 of the states have it legalized for medical use.

Patients are starting to flock towards marijuana for medicine and the number has been nearly doubling every year. Opening a cannabis store will be a sizzling market for the next 10 years for anyone who gets into it now.