Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jan 2003
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2002 New Times Inc
Author: Elizabeth Frantes
Bookmark: (Cannabis - California)


Cheap Weed For The Masses!:

WTF is up with SF Weekly and medical pot [Dog Bites, Jan. 8]? "High Quality"
was one of the worst examples of yellow journalism you've spewed, and you've
spewed a lot. 

The main problem with Proposition S is that it is just talk. Because federal
oppression remains unchallenged by local and state officials, patients must
pay prices that are far too high due to artificial scarcity (one reason that
business may not be "brisk" at Mission Street Caregivers is that several
clubs have lower prices and a wide selection as well). All of the clubs,
however, must get their supplies from the same vendors who sell to the
"recreational" market, such as your anonymous writer "Morbidund Orbidund"
(it should be pointed out that the poorest patients do resell pot, because
they simply have no other way to obtain medication), and this means that the
prices are far too high for the most impoverished, and most needy, patients.
So if you are not wealthy or "connected," you have no de facto access to

The clubs can't just give away product they have to purchase at "street"
prices. All of the vendors are unprotected by Proposition 215, as a recent
appellate court decision stated. That means that the city cannot "go into
the business" of cultivation. Only patients can grow, and their caregivers.
Pot clubs and vendors are not patients or caregivers. 

That is why I proposed to Assemblyman Mark Leno et al. more than two years
ago that the city help patients set up grower co-ops, since it is ridiculous
to assume that all patients, or even many of them, are willing or able to
grow pot, since not everyone has a back yard, a spare room, and the money to
invest in a decent growing system. We are talking about a weed that will
grow easily outdoors in our climate, so there is no reason not to produce as
much as we can, by whatever means necessary. 

There is no need to "compete" with current vendors. The market for marijuana
has been there for thousands of years for a reason -- it works. Those who
wish to continue with their current suppliers are free to do so, after all.
If the wholesale price of cannabis drops, this will make the real criminals
lose interest in the market, and there are some truly evil people out there.
The DEA continues to bust vendors, and many S.F. distributors have proven to
have less than honorable intentions and shown a complete lack of interest in
cooperating with each other, to the point of narcing out their competition. 

The city has empty greenhouses, buildings, and rooftops that could be used
for cultivation of high-quality medicinal pot, from each patient according
to ability, to each patient according to need, and the patients must control
the means of production. 

This is the only method that can work for the duration of the war on drugs.
But it is unpopular, since most of the self-declared leaders of the
"cannabis community" are more interested in controlling the market and
keeping their profits high. It would seem that Leno et al. are more
interested in publicity and votes than providing medication to patients.
Outside groups such as Americans for Safe Access and the Marijuana Policy
Project are moving into the city and dictating terms and conditions to
supervisors, and no one is bothering to ask us patients what we want or
need. Vendors, club owners, and former club owners should not be in a
policy-making capacity either, because of the obvious conflict of interest. 

The city is unique, and those who didn't vote for Proposition S should not
be in control of "implementing" it, even though, for all intents and
purposes, they are doing nothing about it, and will do nothing about it for
the foreseeable future, even though it passed by a much larger margin than
Prop. N. 

Elizabeth Frantes

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