DENVER -- Some medical marijuana dispensaries are allowing patients to use credit cards to charge their pot, saying it will make their stores and the neighborhoods they are in safer.

“If the credit cards take on with the customers, absolutely it'll make it safer,” said Bob Carleton, co-owner of Herbal Connections in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood.

Critics have blamed the cash-only culture of medical marijuana dispensaries for attracting crime.

Carleton’s shop has been burglarized once, and he has installed steel doors, three alarms, two surveillance cameras and bulletproof walls.

But credit or debit cards may provide the most protection.

“One of the main problems people were having with the dispensaries is this over-the-counter cash,” said Kyle Gotshalk, CEO of California-based Commerce Online, a company which is attempting to bring a medical marijuana debit card to Colorado.

The card, which has already been launched in California, would allow patients to add money from their computer or cell phone and would also function as a license and identification card.

Gotshalk said the system will also provide an electronic paper trail in an industry that is still largely unregulated.

But neighbors who live near dispensaries argued that credit cards will do little to combat burglaries that are aimed at getting marijuana from the dispensaries.

Carlos Sanz has watched three marijuana dispensaries, including Herbal Connections, crop up on his block in just six months. He said thieves are not just attracted to the dispensaries because customers carry cash, but because they want to get their hands on drugs. Sanz said the cards would probably do little to deter crime.

“[The stores] just make themselves more secure,” he said. “but everyone else out there still has that risk.”

Carleton said the biggest challenge to card use will be getting customers to feel comfortable using anything other than cash. Carleton had the credit card machine installed less than a week ago, but said he has handled few card transactions.