Earlier this year the California court of appeals over turned the conviction of William Frank Colvin (People v. Colvin), which was a landmark case for MMJ Collectives. This appeal case basically made it clear that collective members Do Not have to physically work or donate time to “collective” operations. So just paying for medicine (as 99% of members do) is okay with the courts.
With regards to the original conviction the appeals court wrote
[The Attorney General does not specify how many members must participate or in what way or ways they must do so, except to imply that Holistic, with its 5,000 members and 14 growers, is simply too big to allow any “meaningful” participation in the cooperative process; hence, it cannot be a “cooperative” or a “collective” in the way section 11362.775 intended. But this interpretation of section 11362.775 would impose on medical marijuana cooperatives requirements not imposed on other cooperatives. A grocery cooperative, for example, may have members who grow and sell the food and run a store out of which the cooperative’s products are sold. But not everyone who pays a fee to become a member participates in the cooperative other than to shop at it.]
However, given the not-for-profit nature of this business; we still feel it is a good idea to have willing and able members (periodically) volunteer for various collective duties.