The Decade of the Cannabis Club by Dale Gieringer, Phd Nothing Has Done More to Advance Bers
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—24— O’Shaughnessy’s • Winter/Spring 2007 The Decade of the Cannabis Club By Dale Gieringer, PhD Nothing has done more to advance bers. He denounced Peron for serving as the federal govern- the availability of medical marijuana non-medical users and ignoring standard ment dug in its heels than the advent of so-called “cannabis procedures for non-profit organizations. and fought to frustrate buyers’ clubs.” While state medical “The only ‘haphazard... for profit’ buy- any move to legiti- marijuana laws like California’s Prop ers’ club in the state is the high-flying mize medical mari- 215 have relieved the legal jeopardy of Market Street circus,” Imler wrote to the juana. On December medical cannabis users, they have not San Francisco Chronicle. 30, 1996, Drug Czar created a legal distribution system to Barry Mc-Caffrey actually deliver the medicine. The 1996 Generation joined Attorney Gen- The first true distribution system The Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Co- eral Janet Reno and arose when Dennis Peron established operative was originally started as a de- HHS Secretary Donna the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers livery service by Jeff Jones, Matt Quirk Shalala in denouncing Club in the summer of 1993. Modeled and Andrew Glazier. In March, 1996, Prop. 215 as contrary loosely on Amsterdam’s coffee houses, the Oakland City Council approved a to federal law. Given Line outside S.F. Cannabis Buyers Club when it reopened the club sold marijuana to anyone with resolution endorsing medical marijuana, the prospect of federal in January, 1997, reflects pent-up demand by medical cannabis users. It had been closed since an Aug. 4 raid by a doctor’s note showing medical need. and in particular commending the ac- opposition, state legis- It claimed legitimacy based on a popular tivities of the OCBC. On July 4, the state narcotics agents. The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Co- lators were reluctant to operative and new clubs in the city stepped into the breach. initiative passed by city voters in 1991 OCBC formally opened to the public in attempt to create a legal — “Proposition P”— that instructed an upper-floor office at 1755 Broadway. distribution system. picture of its indoor garden. The message local law enforcement to not arrest and Under the leadership of clean-cut Jeff McCaffrey and Reno threatened to became clear that clubs were at risk if prosecute medical mariuana users. Jones, the OCBC continued to make a penalize doctors who recommended they had gardens onsite. The result was The SFCBC launched a movement. favorable impression on public officials. marijuana by suspending their fed- to force gardens underground and keep In 1992, Santa Cruz became the second In addition to providing cannabis, the eral prescription-writing licenses. This prices at black-market levels. county to approve a medical marijuana OCBC issued photo ID cards so that would have been a terrible blow to Prop With few exceptions, clubs had to initiative, Measure A. Activists had members didn’t have to carry their doc- 215 had it not been for a lawsuit by rely on a network of underground grow- rallied around Valerie Corral, who suc- tors’ letter of approval on their person. Marcus Conant, MD, and co-plaintiffs ers, some with small gardens or co-ops, cessfully battled criminal charges for (OCBC staff would phone the doctor’s (including Valerie Corral) which won a others with industrial warehouses. Thus cultivating marijuana to control her office to confirm the applicant’s status federal injunction protecting the right of an enduring illegal taint was left on the severe epilepsy. In the Spring of 1993 as a patient.) In time the OCBC cards doctors and patients to discuss marijuana medical marijuana market. Corral and her husband, Mike, expanded came to be accepted by Oakland police, as a treatment option. Proponents continued to explore their home garden, located on remote as well as by many other cannabis clubs In the heady days immediately after ways of providing medical marijuana le- property in the Santa Cruz mountains, lacking the resources to develop their the election, many activists sought to fol- gally within the strictures of federal law. to provide for a growing circle of own ID system low Den-nis’s example. Some who did However, all such efforts were doomed mostly terminally ill people. The Corrals In August 1996, California Bureau of so were surprised to find that local law by the DEA’s refusal to issue the required organized the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Narcotics agents raided the San Fran- enforcement was not as tolerant as in San permits under the Controlled Substances Medical Marijuana (WAMM), the first cisco CBC, taking cash, marijuana, and Francisco. Scores of growers were ar- Act. The DEA turned down permit medical marijuana cultivation collective records on more than 11,000 members rested for marijuana cultivation that they applications from Robert Schmidt, in California. Members would take —while carefully leaving the campaign mistakenly believed to be legal because proprietor of the Genesis 1:29 club in turns tending the crop or doing other office intact. it was for medical use by others. Zealous Petaluma, and Johann Stahl, a prospec- chores, in return for which they received prosecutors could short-circuit any hope tive hemp farmer in Mendocino. a share of the medicine. In a pattern that would be of a Prop 215 defense by turning a case An alternative to DEA-licensed WAMM eschewed buying or selling repeated, the raid did not put over to their federal counterparts. grows was proposed by San Mateo marijuana, thereby avoiding the taint In Placer County, Bill and Peggy Rid- Supervisor Mike Nevin, who suggested of the illicit market. It served only the an end to cannabis clubs, but dick, both in their 60s, were convicted having the county hospital distribute most seriously ill patients. It attended to rather caused their profusion on federal charges after claiming that marijuana that had been confiscated by the health and welfare of its members elsewhere. the several hundred plants they were the police. This alternative was rejected through social, medical and spiritual growing were for Peron’s club; they due to the irregular quality and doubtful services. were sentenced to 30 months in prison. purity of illicit cannabis. In January 1995, Scott Imler, an ac- In a pattern that would be repeated, the raid did not put an end to cannabis B.E. Smith became another Prop 215 In 2002, San Francisco voters ap- clubs, but rather caused their profu- martyr after announcing his intent to proved Proposition S, calling on the sion elsewhere. For a couple of weeks, the Trinity County Board of Supervisors city to investigate ways of establishing the Metropolitan Community Church to grow a field of medical marijuana. a legal distribution system. After much stepped in to allow emergency distribu- Smith, an outspoken Vietnam vet, was discussion, a Prop S task force failed to tion to AIDS patients. Peron’s old space arrested on federal charges and sen- find a practicable solution. at 194 Church St. was resurrected by Vic tenced to a maximum sentence of 27 Although it did not legalize distribu- Hernandez, who opened a new dispen- months by Judge Garland Burrell, who tion, Prop 215 did offer two possible sary known as CHAMP (Californians found him “beyond rehabilitation.” legal defenses for medical cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems). Another victim of the federal jug- providers. First, insofar as it allowed A club in the Mission district, Flower gernaut was Bryan Epis, who along patients and caregivers to grow, it Valerie Corral of WAMM and Assembly- Therapy, was launched by John Hudson, with David Kasakove hoped to follow presumably allowed them to grow to- man John Vasconcellos at the first meeting Leslie Thomas, Beth Moore and others Peron’s example by starting a patient gether collectively. This was essentially of a task force that drafted legislation to who had worked closely with Peron. co-op garden in Chico. Epis was ar- the WAMM model. It was difficult to “clarify” Prop 215. The group’s draft, In Marin, Lynnette Shaw established rested on federal charges and sentenced implement in practice, however and revised by law enforcement lobbyists, the Marin Alliance for Medical Mari- to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to could only serve a limited number of became Senate Bill 420. juana in a comfortable, out-of-the-way grow more than 1,000 plants. Like other patients (WAMM has never exceeded federal arrestees, Epis was forbidden to 300 members). tivist who had been associated with both office in the town of Fairfax. mention medical marijuana at his trial. San Diego activist Steve McWilliams Dennis Peron and the Corrals, opened The specter of federal arrest would con- tried to emulate WAMM by establishing the Santa Cruz Cannabis Buyers’ Club. Ramifications of Prop 215 tinue to haunt medical cannabis growers, a cultivation collective known as Shelter Like the SFCBC, it sold marijuana from The new law created by Prop 215 providers and users up to the present day. from the Storm, first in Valley Center, clandestine growers to patients who explicitly protected doctors and their A group of activists committed to and then in San Diego. He was arrested could show medical need. patients, but it provided at best vague “working within the system” held a strat- three times by local police. Imler soon moved on to Los Angeles and tenuous moral protection for those egy session in Santa Cruz in October, A second alternative for providers to work for the Prop. 215 campaign. In who grew and distributed cannabis. 1997 The group included Scott Imler was to claim that they were “primary October ‘95, with backing from Peron, Specifically, it authorized possession and Jeff Jones, Valerie Corral, and Lynnette caregivers” for their customers.