—16— The O’Shaughnessy’s Reader • The Prop 215 Era Dennis Peron and the Passage of Proposition 215 In the spring of 1996 The New Yorker assigned me to write a piece about Proposi- assassination of Milk and Moscone by tion 215, the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for medical use in California. The “These macho cops just can’t a former policeman named Dan White piece was supposed to run the week before the election or the week after. It was stand the idea that a skinny took away his highest-ranking allies and spiked at the last minute, according to my editor, Hendrik Hertzberg, at the urging little faggot won’t fold up and turned the local political landscape into of “Tina’s guru on drug issues,” a man named Mitch Rosenthal. “Tina” was the top a cratered wasteland as the 1970s came editor at the magazine, Tina Brown, who now runs the Daily Beast. go away because they say so.” to an end. Mitch Rosenthal, M.D., runs the Phoenix House chain of treatment centers and And then came the epidemic. has made many millions of dollars thanks to marijuana prohibition.When Gen. Barry Mackavekias’s testimony was thrown Marijuana and AIDS McCaffrey retired as Drug Czar in 2000, he went to work for Rosenthal, pushing out after he blurted, in the presence of Dennis says he decided to change his treatment as an alternative to incarceration. witnesses, that he wished he’d killed Per- Village Voice tactical approach —to stop crusading The ran a much-shortened version of the piece on November 12. on so there’d be “one less faggot in San The New Yorker paid me a $3,000 “kill fee.” Here’s the story spiked at Dr. Rosenthal’s for legalization and to concentrate on Francisco.” Dennis received a lighter behest in the fall of ‘96. Most photos by David Smith and yours truly, Fred Gardner making marijuana available for those in sentence as a result of this outburst, and medical need— as his longtime compan- wound up doing seven months in jail. The founder and maitre’d of the San ion Jonathan West was dying of AIDS Twenty years later, at the height of Francisco cannabis buyers club, Dennis in 1990. “Jonathan was taking many the campaign to legalize marijuana for Peron, has been challenging the mari- prescribed drugs,” Dennis recounts, “and medical use, Dennis would goad Dan juana laws by direct action since 1969 there were severe side effects, from nau- Lungren, the zealous Attorney General, (when he came back from Vietnam with sea to loss of appetite. Marijuana was the into a self-defeating tantrum at a press 2 lbs in his Air Force duffle bag) and only drug that eased his pain and restored conference. Recalling Mackavekias’s by legal and political means since 1970 his appetite and gave him some moments outburst, Dennis said, “These macho (when first he was busted). of dignity in that last year. And of course cops just can’t stand the idea that a Dennis simply refused to accept that I had hundreds of friends with AIDS who skinny little faggot won’t fold up and anybody could tell him he didn’t have a relied on marijuana for the same reasons: go away because they say so.” right to smoke this plant. “And the right “THE ISLAND,” Dennis Peron’s pot-friendly appetite, relief from nausea, relief from to smoke it means the right to get it,” he cafe at 16th and Sanchez, 1974. pain, to be able to sleep.” would argue, “which means people have On the night of January 27, 1990, a to have the right to grow it and sell it.” would soon turn into a legendary salon. squad of San Francisco police depart- Now 51, Dennis is still the perfect He ran a restaurant in the Castro district, ment narcotics officers came to the house Puck —clever, mischievous, light on “The Island,” where pot was always and busted Dennis for selling pot. As his feet. He’s from the Bronx originally, in the air —and could be purchased in Dennis tells it, “There were four ounces grew up on Long Island, one of five kids the flat upstairs. Harvey Milk used The of Thai weed in the house and it was in an Italian-American family. His mom Island as campaign headquarters when Jonathan’s. I wasn’t dealing at that time was a housewife, his dad an accountant he ran (unsuccessfully) for State Assem- because taking care of him had become employed by the city of New York. bly in ’76. Tony Serra, the flamboyant my full-time job. He was very thin and Dennis was a natural salesman. As a criminal defense specialist, was paid a he had KS [Kaposi’s Sarcoma] lesions delivery boy he won the trip to Miami retainer to stand by for action. on his face. that Newsday used to give for selling Dennis got to know thousands of peo- “The cops made AIDS jokes and they the most subscriptions. Dennis was not ple on a first-name-only basis. This was a made a big production of putting on above appealing to a prospect’s compas- security measure. The phone would ring their rubber gloves before tearing up sion by going door-to-door on cold, rainy and Dennis would say, “I know so many the place. When they saw the picture of nights. “People would buy a subscription Judies. Are you the Judy who works at me and Harvey [in which the two young just so I would go home and go to bed,” Wells Fargo or the Judy who works at men are hugging] they went into a ha- he recalls. the aquarium?” rangue about “that fag.’” Dennis says he Dennis first came to San Francisco en I covered one of his trials and was recognized one of the cops as a former route to Vietnam in ’67. He was stationed struck by how many people waved DENNIS, WHILE IN JAILE, organized an initia- bodyguard for Moscone. “I told him, outside of Saigon when the Tet offensive hello as Dennis walked down Van Ness tive campaign to make marijuana arrests ‘Great job you did protecting George.’” began. His unit was pinned down for a Avenue. Of one passerby I asked, “Is she lowest priority for the San Francisco A vision of the cannabis buyers club Police Department. week. It was during this time, he says, a customer or a friend?” Dennis lilted, came to him later that night, Dennis says, he had his first experience as a gay “Oh, you know, friends become custom- Dennis had gotten involved in electoral as he was lying on a cement slab at the man. Later, on leave in Thailand, he ers, customers become friends.” politics working on his friend Harvey Mission Station. “The cops were coming befriended some locals who took him “One less faggot...” Milk’s campaigns for supervisor in by and banging with their nightsticks to the mountains where, coming around The SFPD narcotics squad did not find 1973 and ’75. Milk was elected to San and yelling, ‘Hey, Peron, we’re gonna a pass onto a broad plateau, marijuana him charming, in fact they regarded Den- Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in ’77, get you!’ grew as far as the eye could see. nis Peron as a walking, talking affront. becoming the first openly gay elected -of “And I was thinking about Jonathan An anti-war drug During one raid on his Castro St. flat — ficial in the country. The Island had been all alone and without any marijuana. Dennis came home saying, “I want to widely known as “The Big Top”— Peron his original campaign headquaters. And I was thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be great dedicate my life to world peace.” He had was shot in the thigh by an officer named While in jail Dennis drafted and orga- if there was a place where he could go stacked the body bags. And he was a true Paul Mackavekias and arrested along nized a signature-collection drive for an and be among friends?’ Jonathan had hippie, convinced that marijuana was with his diverse crew. initiative declaring, “We, the people of the KS on his face and I was thinking, inherently —due to its calming effect on The ensuing pre-trial hearing, involv- San Francisco, demand that the District ‘He wouldn’t be ashamed here.’ And the the individual and the sharing ritual as- ing multiple defendants, took four Attorney, along with the Chief of Po - place in my dream was the buyers club.” sociated with its use— an anti-war drug. months. (The court stenographer became lice, cease the arrest and prosecution of Jonathan West died in September 1990, In the ’70s and ’80s Dennis was busted a good friend of Dennis’s). Mackavekias individuals involved in the cultivation, two weeks after testifying at Peron’s trial for selling pot more than a dozen times, and the other SFPD narcotics officers transfer, or possession of marijuana.” that the confiscated pot belonged to him. and after every bust he would resume who testified had to endure many days Aptly named “Proposition W,” it passed At the end he was down to 90 pounds. selling out of his living room, which of jive comments from Dennis’s friends. in 1978 and Mayor George Moscone “Doesn’t that tell you something?” says directed the police chief and district at- Dennis. “He lived to testify at my trial torney to not arrest or charge individuals and then he let go of life.” in possession of an ounce or less.