Remembering San Francisco

(The Golden Age of medical marijuana dispensaries is now over. But what happens now for medical marijuana patients? Mike Malott, one of the owners of Safe Harbor dispensary in Lansing, writes about his experiences in San Francisco when the state went through a similar shut down of dispensaries and the parallels with Michigan's current situation)

Monday, Aug. 29 — The recent ruling by the Court of Appeals has brought back concerns forme of a recurrence of what I experienced back in San Francisco in1996.

Back then California had an Attorney General by the name of DanLungren. Lungren was openly and adamantly against the medicalmarijuana issue then going on in California. We had managed to putmedical marijuana on the ballot in California. At that time I wasworking for a man named Dennis Peron. Dennis was the main personbehind drafting this proposition known as the “Compassionate Use Act”or Proposition 215. He was also the owner of the San FranciscoCannabis Buyers Club, which was a five-story building right on SanFrancisco’s main drag, Market Street. There we openly distributedmarijuana to people who had a recommendation from a doctor, or couldpresent documentation that they had cancer or AIDS.

We had the full support of every bit of San Francisco’s governmentagency, even police. Back then there were no medicines available tohelp AIDS patients and in many cases marijuana was the only thingavailable to improve their quality of life and “wasting” syndrome. Theclub also made a place where everybody could socialize because in mostcases this was the only family these people had. Many had been turnedaway from their families for having AIDS or being gay. Anotherbeneficial practice of ours to the community was donating every dollarbill and all change we took in. Usually adding up to in excess of$10,000 a week being donated to local AIDS charities.

We had going on three years of uninterrupted service to the communitybefore Lungren raided and closed down our club. That night, I’ll neverforget. More than 10,000 people joined together that night, allholding candles and marched in protest all the way down Market Streetfrom the Castro to the Embarcadero. What a sight that was.

But the following weeks were the most tragic. Patients were now forcedinto the street to obtain their meds. As a result of this, crimeskyrocketed against those sick and dying patients. There was a highrate of hate crimes committed against gays and AIDS patients. Manypatients were actually murdered for simply trying to obtain meds.Every day the papers echoed about crimes being committed within thecity against patients. What better targets for criminals than sick anddying people?