BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- When Martin Nickerson opened Northern Cross Collective Gardens (NCCG), a medical marijuana collective garden, he had the health and well being of his patients in mind. Operating under the jurisdiction of State Law Rcw 69.51a, his Bellingham, Wash. location is supported by over 1300 patients, many of whom are disease suffering and seek the protection of the state's newly implemented medical marijuana legalization laws to use cannabis as a natural source of medicine.