Brain Damage Control: Viva Peron!
America’s medical pot pioneer weighs in on California’s dispensary scene.
Mon, Apr 12, 2010 2:57 pm
One of the architects of California’s historic medical marijuana bill, Dennis Peron championed medical marijuana a generation before it became legal. He was also founder of the groundbreaking San Francisco Compassion Club in 1994. I caught up with him as California gears up for a battle for adult recreational use in 2010
What triggered the transition in you, from being in the Air Force during the Vietnam War to leadership in the medical-marijuana fight?
The easy answer is “I got busted” – and every time I got busted, I got mad, and every time I got mad, I focused on something constructive to do with the anger … like running for California governor (garnering 100,000 votes), writing Proposition P, the 215 initiative, or starting a dispensary and a movement.
The more complex answer involves the intense pain and anguish I felt and encountered, first in Vietnam, and later as the AIDS epidemic ravaged my community. Time and time again, I saw marijuana assuage searing mental torment and wracking physical pain. As John Lennon sang, “Whatever gets you through the night is all right” – and marijuana sure helps a lot of people through the night, whatever their ailment. So for goodness’ sake, let’s get this simple hemp painkiller legalized!
As the co-author of Prop. 215, what’s your take on the crackdown on those dispensaries making a profit? Because profiting violates the law you helped create ….
Profiting is not within the spirit or the intent of Prop. 215, and I do not support profiting in the dispensary sector. On the other hand, marijuana is a large cash crop and a commodity, so pricing fluctuates. The law of supply and demand is always at play – some years, the harvest is better than others; some seasons, supplies dwindle drastically till the next harvest comes in. At such times, prices will surely rise. I guess what I’m getting at is that the issue of profit vis-à-vis the medicinal-marijuana trade is relative and not always so clear-cut. I would have to know much more about the finances of the individual dispensaries to give you a more informed answer here.
You’ve said that all marijuana is medical. Would you expand on that concept?
I always knew all uses of marijuana are medical. Marijuana may be used for the treatment of disease, the relief of pain, and for healing purposes, including the relief of asthma, glaucoma, arthritis, anorexia, migraine, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, nausea, stress; as an antibiotic, an anti-emetic and/or as any healing agent, or as an adjunct to any medical procedure for the treatment of cancer, HIV infection and so on. By definition, marijuana provides efficacy to such a broad spectrum of human maladies and conditions – from anxiety to HIV infection and heart disease – that one can safely say that all marijuana is medical.
But aren’t you playing into the hands of those who claim that if marijuana as medicine were decriminalized, it would create the wedge for the decriminalization of marijuana for recreational purposes?
No … like I said, all uses of marijuana are medicinal.
Finally, what question would you like me to ask you?
“As a creative person – one on the leading edge of American culture – how has marijuana been of support to you in your continuing endeavors?”
Would you care to answer your own question?
Coming from a large family, I always enjoyed having a lot of people around – and what brings people more together than pot? Nothing. It fit so perfectly into my commune-loving, pot-loving, restaurant/resort/pot-club brain that it all came naturally. Leading a movement was never my thought, but that quote from Margaret Mead always haunts me: “Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Paul Krassner is the author of Who’s to Say What’s Obscene?—Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today. (No, it’s not a multiple-choice question.) Check out Paul’s C-SPAN appearance at http://bit.ly/46okng.
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anonymous
Apr 15 2010, 12:00 am
Silent partner
Apr 14 2010, 7:08 pm
And some of the best evidence for ending the war on drugs was given by the drug czar,Kerli by his refusal to answer questions,good solid inquiries,by the committee.
They asked him 6 or 7 questions about statistics and facts that would reveal the effectiveness of his policy,and all he
would give them is anecdotal bullshit stories of success in in Columbia or somewhere else,but nothing on success in America.
After every committee member received the same song and dance type of answers,the chairman dismissed him courteously and told him he would be receiving written questions from the committee and they expected to receive answers with facts and statistics.
And that was before 2 panels of guest speakers was allowed to speak. Nadelman of DPA was one of the panelists and you can read his opening statement at the DPA web site.
I believe Kerli ay have shot putted his bureaucratic empire into the job hunting mode.
More coverage of the hearing at marijuana.com
budded up
Apr 14 2010, 11:14 am
Puerto Rico
Apr 14 2010, 8:16 am
Chronic4201990
Apr 14 2010, 12:24 am
Also, read beyond what the history books in elementary school said. Marijuana was used EVERY DAY by our founding fathers. They did not go nuts, no one died, no one had drug wars over pot because their was so much of it, and it was LEGAL!
Pot today is looked upon by the United States population due to its misinterpretation of the drug. Marijuana can be a gateway drug for those who cannot handle getting high and being responsible. I smoke pot every damn day, I graduated third in my high school, and I sold it to make money. I have no regrets about that either. I had straight A's.
God doesn't exist. Try picking up the phone and call him. I wonder if he'll even have you over for dinner.
Putting all that crap about how Jesus says that putting anything in the body is wrong and shameful. Your full of shit and stop putting your Right Wing bullshit on High Times, you dumb fuck.
anonymous
Apr 13 2010, 8:03 pm
to last poster
Apr 13 2010, 1:29 pm
Puerto-Rico&USA Legalization
Apr 13 2010, 1:46 am
Jeremiah 17 5Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
6For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
11As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.
12A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
13O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
14Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
15Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.
16As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.
17Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.
18Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.
19Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;
20And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:
21Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
22Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
23But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
You need to read the civil code of religión to legalize.
.
Definition
The concept refers to a "transcendent universal religion of the nation" and resonates well with the functional sociology of …mile Durkheim and Bellah's mentor, Talcott Parsons. Indeed, it was Parsons who was originally intended to write the Daedalus article (Bellah 1989).
American civil religion is that it is "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation," which he sees symbolically expressed in America's founding documents and presidential inaugural addresses. It includes a belief in the existence of a transcendent being called "God," an idea that the American nation is subject to God's laws, and an assurance that God will guide and protect the United States. Bellah sees these beliefs in the values of liberty, justice, charity, and personal virtue and concretized in, for example, the words In God We Trust on both national emblems and on the currency used in daily economic transactions. Although American civil religion shares much with the religion of Judeo-Christian denominations, Bellah claims that it is distinct from denominational religion.
anonymous
Apr 12 2010, 9:29 pm
california bound
Apr 12 2010, 8:22 pm
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