Lance Scott & M.S. - How Prop 64 Crushed Cannabis Access

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Multiple State's Recreational laws have impeded cannabis patient access - California leads the way:

After the passage and implementation of California’s recreational cannabis law known as Proposition 64, many patients have been forced into a situation that nobody expected nor wanted. Access to Medicinal Cannabis for exactly that use – medicine – has been completely disrupted by the newfound desire to make money instead of heal patients with Cannabis. Lance Scott is a former E.P.A. Chemist and more with a history that’s quite intense. Recently he shared with me how Proposition 64 dried up his supply and created a nightmare for patients in need of access at affordable prices. Lance tells his story well, and he’s far from alone as tens of thousands of cannabis patients search for safe access in a market of very pricey product that was once affordable as well as given away by many compassion programs which are now unable to do so based on the current law.

“My story starts out like any eager young person wanting to change the world for the better. I started traveling to California in 1994 to visit and of course to sample the local Cannabis market. I had traveled to Amsterdam many times in college and after college. I considered myself a dedicated Cannabis Warrior even back then, but everything changed when I moved to Arizona in 2000. I caught my first case (got arrested for Cannabis) after rolling my moving van with my last harvest from Texas. I was moving to Arizona to attend grad school at the University of Arizona and made a tragic error in the White Mountains in the eastern part of the state.”

“My case led me to meet my lawyer, who introduced me to my first patient. He was a Glaucoma patient. He needed to smoke 18 grams a day to help relieve the ocular pressure in his eyes or blindness would result. This changed my life forever. I stopped being a recreational smoker and started medicating as a medicinal smoker. I only grew for patients. Eventually, I moved to Southern California in 2006 to pursue a career. During the day, I was an Organic Chemist for an Environmental lab and at night I continued my side job as a grower for my small select group of patients.”

“I raised my kid’s in a pro-Cannabis household and kept my views to myself. In 2012, things started to change. I got numbness in the bottom of my feet that eventually migrated up my right side. Confused, I started going to Doctors to get myself checked out. Nothing helped, Chiropractic care and alternative remedies – literally nothing helped. Then in 2014, I went to work on a Friday and was given a free back massage that triggered an episode. By Wednesday of the next week, I was partially paralyzed and in the hospital. This is when I got my MS diagnosis.”

“It was a huge life-changing experience. I went from a successful Organic Chemist to a disabled person going through the medical process and getting placed on disability. I thought everything was going to be OK until 2016 when Prop 64 came into my life. I read the new rules and instantly knew it was a bad deal for California. Before Prop 64, I had a wonderful relationship with Moxie. I was in their patient outreach program. I received much-needed medication every 3 weeks, which helped me out financially and physically. Prop 64 passed and all the old rules from Prop 215, S.B. 420, and AG guidelines were thrown out. When Jan of 2018 came around and Prop 64 took effect. Moxie or any company was not allowed to give out any medication to anybody. I was stuck.”

“With no choice, I turned to the same place I always turned to. The black market which seems to be the only market that makes sense for most medicinal patients that can’t afford prices, taxes, and more found after Prop 64. The local Grower I worked with before had compassion for the situation but eventually, the pressure of Prop 64 took its toll. The quality of the product went down and the trimming jobs dried up – and so did my supply. The grower had to take bigger and bigger risks and eventually could not keep up. The pressure of living in California on disability finally caught up to me. I lost my ability to take care of my kids. I got divorced. I became homeless and started living out of my van just so I can get treatment for my MS from the health care system in California. Today, I am a modern-day nomad. I travel the country looking for a new place to basically wait for my demise. I have explored Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. All these places have varied laws on the issue of Cannabis. The recreational states have forgotten about the patients that the modern movement was built on. The medicinal states are trying to profit off the sick and dying. I feel the only solution is Deregulation at this point.”

As people rush to support ‘legalization’ it’s important to remember stories such as Lance’s. There are so many patients across California that can’t gain access and don’t know how to grow which makes the allowance for 6 plants under proposition 64 rather ludicrous. After all, how many cancer patients or people with serious illnesses that were using Cannabis actually grew it and did their own extractions? Few and nowadays they’d likely be breaking a law on their own property with their own so-called ‘legal’ vegetation. When people realize the word legalization is another form of control vs. ending a prohibition that was unwarranted and found unconstitutional even by Mexico’s highest courts – they’ll understand quickly that California was a prime example of how to market a law vs. give voters the real information they needed.

Back in 1996 the Prop. 215 team that was the first to legalize the compassionate use of cannabis made sure to do so on a one-page document – the proposition was easily read by voters and they knew what they were doing. 20 years later, sadly, easily it was figured out how to deceive the public to make money off of what Dennis Peron called his ‘dream’. It worked, as Peron fought off the millions dumped into advertising from his humble room at the Castro Castle, voters were totally unaware that the law they voted for was an agreed machine that left patients in the dust. That may be a harsh way to put it, but I used to direct a compassion program that had to shut down solely due to Prop. 64. There’s no way to accurately estimate the number of patients that have perished due to going back to western medicine when they lost the source of cannabis oils and more, but the numbers are astounding and a cause for concern in the state that was once known for Cannabis love and compassion.