Written by Back in 1996 when California’s Cannabis Compassionate Use Act passed, known as Proposition 215, a self-professed “gay hippy outlaw” who pushed to legalize marijuana in response to the AIDs crisis was facing charges of criminal conspiracy, possession, and transportation. That August, famed Dennis Peron had been forced to close The Cannabis Buyers’ Club, This was California’s first dispensary other than an upstairs gig he once ran at a restaurant back in the 70’s – Peron didn’t step into the scene as a spokesman, he lived for legalization of the plant.
Cannabis history is important and needs to be preserved. Through compassion like the current 2021 Holiday Giveaway, we honor legends like Dennis and the huge crowd that was behind the efforts of Prop 215 legalization. While one man’s name has been well known – it took a village to make California’s legalization happen back then – just like it does now in getting products out to patients in need.
The Era of love that’s came and gone – but the legacy lives on:
The cover photo of this article shows many that are still here and part of a team that’s now gone, may they all rest in peace. As California braced itself for the recreational law known as Prop 64 in 2016, right after the 20-year celebration of Prop 215, cannabis compassion was prohibited. Suddenly, out of nowhere, compassion providers that roamed the lands providing oils and care for those in need were in jeopardy of facing much more than the thought of federal prohibition.
The state’s voters decided that a new law should replace what Peron and company worked so hard on – the Compassionate use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. “It’s all Medicine,” he said in one of his last addresses to the public at the Emerald Cup in 2016. Regardless of what the Godfather of Cannabis Compassion wanted, the votes were tallied, and a highly controversial new law went into a place that to this day has limited access to medicinal patients. It’s also created a wave of taxation that’s caused many patients to be unable to afford dispensary prices.
There’s a lot written about the authors of Proposition 215 in California and about Dennis Peron himself – but what many have missed is the fact that it wasn’t just this person often in solitude that created a wave of love – and anyone that has ever met him knows that he was a humble person that reserved speech unless it was necessary, often saving negativity and promoting what was positive. In my most memorable encounter with him, while on the compassion road, including his advice that Cannabis Compassion isn’t convenience – that it’s love. He told me that “nobody ever left Market street without a joint”.
Now that may seem minimal now with the amount of cannabis available but back in those days, a free joint was comparative to me handing someone a bottle of oil in 2021.
As he sat and ate some Chinese soup while checking out some compassion products I had brought back in February of 2017, a discussion ensued that came with even more advice that to this day I live by. Dennis Peron was shot in a raid at one point and it caused his speech to be a bit impaired, while I tried to hear every last word he had to say, his injuries sustained in the War on Drugs as well as his late-stage illness coupled with a timid mannerism made it a challenge to understand. But, almost all of it had to do with the current recreational law and what it would do to the people.
It was like a prophet of cannabis speaking when I look back on this meeting, every last warning he gave to the people came to pass. Currently, California’s legal cannabis industry is in an all-out professional type of protest due to a Boston Tea Party type of situation but nobody is dumping weed in the bay. It’s all about the high rate of taxation without appropriate or proper representation – also a warning given by the legend Peron “The taxes will make it so patients can’t get medicine” he told me.
Although things have changed in California and beyond since Dennis passed away in January of 2018, we got compassion back through THC products’ dispensaries due to the hard work of many people in gaining the passage of the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Compassion Act known as SB34.
As for our compassion program, we moved over to Hemp and continued the giving. In 2022 things will change again as Hemp has just been regulated in California under AB45, making the future uncertain regarding the provision of products to patients in need. While we await regulations that address this and how the state will regulate the Hemp side of things which allows the other cannabinoids in dispensaries – we honor the legends by continuing to help as many people as possible.
2021 Holiday Compassion Giveaway:
Over the last ten days over 2500 products have been sent around the nation to individual people and entities to give away – either online or to their organizations as part of a Holiday Compassion effort for patients in need. So many are having difficulties financially whether it’s CBD Gum and some topicals or tinctures, people that have nothing right now or have to use what little they do have in the coffers for Christmas love this type of break.
Rocky Mountain Bob’s Gum is a hit all over the country once again and several other companies have joined them like DBC Infused, LightSource CBD, Grandma Bs Relief, Zero Point Extraction, Boulder Creek Technologies, AeroSourceH, and others – we’re not here to advertise for them – it’s all about love and care. Our goal is to give out a total of 5000 products as we divert quite a bit to other large organizations.
We have several more sponsors coming into play over the next week, allowing us to give away over 1500 more products, so we decided to add 1000 of our own wholesale CBD: CBG Lotions and Freezes. It’s about the love and care for others; this is how I was taught, and it didn’t start with Peron.
I got my first dose of ingested oil from a roommate who lived on hardly anything, and I couldn’t even understand him well as he was from Korea. I thought he was telling me I couldn’t eat at all when he was saying “Cannabidiol” – I was using CBD ingested and didn’t know it and at the same time was ingesting THC raw. Then, a compassion provider brought me oil to help me quit a boatload of pharma drugs I was on just for seizures alone. Compassion is how I fought Cancers and lived, it’s imperative we continue as people and as an industry.
I was a Compassion patient. The legacy of the legends must live on; it matters.
-Mike Robinson, Cannabis Compassion Provider, GCRC Founder
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