The Tokin' Joint
Inside the Cannabis Cultivators' Club, the granddaddy of medical marijuana
establishments, the air is smoky, the light subdued, and the members are
well high

Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Joseph Scully wakes up each morning to wan light seeping
in from a flyspecked window. The room he inhabits in a
Mission Street flophouse is about the size of the master
bedroom closet in a suburban tract home.

It's so small that Scully can either sleep on a mattress
on the floor, or he can sit in a chair. When he wants to
sit, he has to make room by leaning the mattress against
the wall.

At night, mice swarm through this dank, dirty room he is
forced to call home.

``I hear them talking to each other,'' Scully says.
``Then they eat my food.''

Coloring books lie around the room in varying stages of
completion. One of the drawings, of a little boy lying
in a sick bed, has been painstakingly filled in. The
rendering is invested with special poignancy for Scully:
He has fullblown AIDS, and is afflicted with ``wasting
syndrome,'' carrying about 125 pounds on his 6 foot 3
inch frame. He has great difficulty in keeping food
down.

There is one bright, colorful spot in Scully's
monochromatic existence, however a place he visits at
least a couple of times a week. Here, he can stretch out
on couches among paintings and decorative plants and
chat with people who care about him; even, he avers,
love him. He can read, eat nourishing food, listen to
music and counsel other people who are sick and
impoverished.

He can also smoke some of the best marijuana in North
America. As much as he wants, actually.

This is San Francisco's Cannabis Cultivators' Club: a
rambling Market Street pleasure dome decreed by medical
pot pasha Dennis Peron.

There is nothing remotely like the CCC with its
thousands of members and daily onsite smoke ins in
the United States. The only comparable venues are the
hashish bars of Amsterdam.

Clients start lining up in front of the fourstory,
slightly ramshackle club every weekday shortly before 11
a.m. They are a diverse group, ranging from grannies
hobbling along on canes to SOMA club waifs with pierced
eyebrows and tattoos, from buttoneddown investment
bankers to hardscrabble street alkies with gin blossoms
stippling their faces.

At the CCC, people who have physicians' recommendations
can buy hemp legally, and many, like Scully, choose to
smoke their purchases on the premises. It's all possible
because of Proposition 215, last year's medical
marijuana initiative drafted by Peron and passed by
California voters.

Established members merely flash their club I.D.s and
traipse up the stairs to the two common rooms on the
third and fourth floors. (The third floor is nonsmoking
for tobacco, at least and the fourth floor is for
smokers.)

Applying members must fill out a form and provide the
name and phone number of their recommending physicians.
Every recommendation is vetted to confirm that it is
from a licensed California physician, Peron says. Once
the diagnosis and recommendation are confirmed, a photo
is taken and an I.D. card issued. The new member is then
free to join the party upstairs.

Because that's what it is: a pot party. True, the
revelers are sick. But once they've inhaled a fat doobie
or two, they seem to forget the most onerous symptoms of
their ailments. The rooms ring with raucous laugher and
earnest conversation. Upstairs, the lighting is subdued,
the air obscured with smoke. The nexuses of activity for
both rooms are the counters where the marijuana is
dispensed. It is passing strange to see marijuana sold
as openly as JuJuBees and Milk Duds at the local cinema.
What's even odder is the professional packaging Peron
has developed for his wares.

The pricey California ``sinsemilla'' buds are purveyed
as ``Phoenix Brand'' pot in small cartons that look like
cigarette boxes. The cheaper Mexican marijuana is sold
in ``Amigo Brand'' boxes.

The club peddles three grades of Mexican weed, ranging
from $15 to $25 per eighth ounce. The three grades of
California buds go for $55 to $65 an eighth.

Jolly volunteers all members sell the marijuana to
the members crowding around the counters. As they work,
they pause often to take robust hits on their joints or
pipes. At other nearby counters, marijuana cookies,
brownies and tincture are sold to clients who are
disinclined to smoke.

Ilia Koo, a 76yearold jazz enthusiast from Harlem,
works at the nonsmoking room's cookie counter.

``I first smoked pot in 1934,'' said the ebullient Koo,
huffing on a ``fattie'' joint of California bud. ``They
called us vipers back them. Marijuana was an essential
part of the jazz scene it was considered stylish and
elegant, not dangerous.''

Koo's career as a dancer left her with painful muscle
and tendon damage. She says she smokes pot every day.

``You build up a tolerance to it,'' she acknowledged.
``You get used to being high that's your natural
state. But it's not like people who smoke regularly are
dingbats. They tend to be very creative. And as far as
pot causing an inability to function, that's ridiculous.
I function very well. More than that I feel great!''

Koo notes the tincture (which is taken in drops,
dissolved in water) and baked goods are in highest
demand during the flu season.

``When there's a virus going around, you see a lot of
sore throats,'' she says. ``People want to avoid
smoking. The high isn't as intense when you eat pot, but
a lot of people prefer that.''

Many of the club's onpremises smokers are of the
bohemian stripe. Suits and yuppies tend to buy their
weed and leave, presumably to partake in their own
homes.

``You look around here, and you see a lot of sick, poor
people,'' says Peron as he walks the floor. Members come
up to him to shake his hand or importune him for a
loan so they can buy one of the club's special $3 bags
of Mexican weed. He usually obliges.

``And let's face it,'' Peron continues. ``Some of us
don't look so good. Poverty and illness do that. But
we're not apologizing. So some people think we're freaks
who cares? We have a right to our medicine.''

Small wonder Scully finds comfort here. In addition to
the suffering caused by AIDS, he is still recovering
from a motorcycle accident last year. He hunches over
severely, his neck wrapped in a brace. His pain is
constant and excruciating. He has prescriptions for
about a quarter grain of morphine a day, but he doesn't
like to take it because it makes him groggy.

``The club is more than just a place to buy pot,'' he
says. `The people, the surroundings they help keep me
alive.''

Talk to any of the people lying back in the easy chairs
and lighting up, and you'll hear two themes endlessly
repeated. The first: Without marijuana, they couldn't
live productive, painfree lives. The second: God save
the Cannabis Club.

``The marijuana is definitely therapeutic,'' said club
member Leslie Body. ``But it's really secondary to just
being here with people who understand your situation. I
lost three friends to AIDS. One of them committed
suicide because of the pain, loneliness and fear. We all
have stories that are hard to tell and hear we've all
lost friends. The fact that you can just come here,
relax and be accepted is what it's all about.''

Thirdgeneration San Franciscan Milahhr Kennah says the
club is both a sanctuary and a clearinghouse for
information.

``It's a place to learn about new therapies,'' he said.
``We know more about our diseases than most doctors
we have to, because our lives are at stake. So we have a
smoke and share our knowledge. People come away feeling
better, and maybe they've learned something that will
improve their health and extend their lives.''

Artist Hazel Rodgers, 78, cheerfully admits she's in
lousy health.

``I'm the original bag lady,'' she laughs, referring to
her colostomy bag and urine bag. ``I've had two breast
cancers. I have glaucoma, neuropathy and diabetes. But
as long as I smoke enough marijuana, I can function.''

Before she discovered marijuana, Rodgers said, she used
to drink vodka to alleviate her pain.

``Don't need it now,'' she declared. ``I even feel good
enough to work. In fact, I'm writing a book. Here's the
title of the last chapter: `How Pot Has Affected My
Life.' '' Peron has been constantly in the news since
last year, when his club was busted by state narcotics
agents. The case was split into two parts, criminal and
civil, and the civil trial began last week in San
Francisco. The criminal trial is expected to take place
this fall in Oakland, but the state's case appears
weakened by the current legal status of medical pot.

Peron, in any event, doesn't appear unduly concerned
about his looming court dates. He recently announced
that he intends to run in the for governor in the
Republican primary against Attorney General Dan Lungren.
If he does go to jail, he says, he can handle it
it'll be nothing new. He served about 12 months in 1977
and 1978 for pot sales. ``The last time I was
incarcerated, I started the jail's gardening program and
ran the library,'' says Peron, a slight, short,
whitehaired man who has been described by more than one
person as elfin. ``I also registered 300 inmates to
vote. You can do positive things even in jail.''

Peron is an unregenerate monomaniac. He lives, he freely
admits, to promulgate the idea that pot is medicine. At
a Sacramento law enforcement summit called by Attorney
General Dan Lungren earlier this year, Peron stood at
the door of the conference, collaring sheriffs, district
attorneys and state and federal drug agents as they
walked in. He chided them; nagged them; engaged them in
discourse and debate; told them jokes.

A few were hostile and some were exasperated, but many
were amused by some, it seemed, grudgingly fond of
Peron. He has a gift for disarming adversaries that is
partly pure con man, partly truebelieving zealot.

Peron says the inspiration for the CCC was his lover,
Jonathan West, who died of AIDS in 1990. ``I saw the
misery he was in. I saw that marijuana was the only
thing that gave him relief from his pain and stimulated
his appetite,'' Peron recalls. Whenever he talks about
West for long, his voice is liable to crack.

Since then, Peron has devoted his life to dispensing
medical marijuana. He was going great guns last summer,
selling pot to patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and
other ailments, when he was busted. Buoyed by the
passage of Proposition 215, he reopened his club in
January.

Peron's role and demeanor have undergone some changes
since 215's passage. He is less the tothe ramparts
firebrand these days and more the congenial host. For
the moment, at least, he has won. The prospect of
another bust from either the state or the feds is
remote. His main task, he says, is to make sure his
clients are happy.

Today, the club boasts about 6,000 members. It is open
four hours a day on Monday through Thursday, and eight
hours on Friday. Between 500 and 1,000 people pass
through its portals each day to buy an eighth ounce or
more of pot. There are other cannabis clubs in
California, such as Flowers Therapy in San Francisco and
the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, but they are
much smaller than the CCC. The club's very success
requires certain precautions. No one denies that some of
the people smoking in the common rooms are emotionally
precarious. Some members are withdrawn, hostile
perhaps deranged. Acknowledging this reality, several
staffers specialize in security. They patrol the
premises, nipping trouble in the bud, so to speak,
before it gets out of hand.

The security staff is led by Wayne Justman, a beefy,
52yearold former bar manager.

``Considering everything, we've had very few problems,''
said Justman. ``Part of it has to do with the fact that
the people who come here are looking for peace and
tranquility, not trouble. Also, we have strict rules
against alcohol and illegal drugs. I've been in the bar
business, and I know from personal experience that
alcohol leads to trouble. Pot doesn't. The only
substances you can legally consume here are marijuana
and prescribed medicines.''

Justman added that the lowkey approach favored by
security staffers also helps keep things mellow.

``The emphasis is on compassion, not confrontation,'' he
said. ``We aren't out to bust anybody's chops. We know
what they're going through we just want to help and
make sure nobody else is hassled.''

Neither Justman or Peron are particularly eager to
discuss in detail another security problem that
accompanies their spectacular success: the money. Or
more precisely, the money and the pot.

On an average day, the club will sell five pounds or
more of marijuana in oneeight ounce bags. For the best
weed, Peron will pay up to $5,000 a pound; he retails it
for roughly $8,500 a pound. Even good Mexican pot
wholesales for $1,000 or more a pound, and is meted out
to clients at $2,500 and more a pound. Virtually all of
the club's transactions with both growers and buyers
are conducted in cash.

That means that tens of thousands of dollars flow
through the club each day. Even the most naive flower
child would have to concede that skimming is at least a
possibility in such a situation but Peron says every
dime is plowed back into the club, citing his modest
lifestyle as evidence. The Internal Revenue Service has
reportedly looked into the club's operation, but it
refuses to comment on the status of any investigation.

The cash and pot is transported to and from secured
rooms via a cart and special staff contingents. Scores
of eyes watch the transport cart as it makes its
circuit. Peron says the money is quickly taken to
another building somewhere in the city cash backlogs
are not permitted to accumulate at the club.

While members don't seem to particularly care what Peron
does with the money as long as they get their marijuana,
some do fret about the degree of security or lack of
it.

``You look at the money changing hands, you see all that
pot, you just hope nobody tries anything,'' said one
member. ``I think it's on everybody's minds.''

Peron said security is as comprehensive as it can
possibly be, given his diligent commitment to
nonviolence. Besides, he points out, the police are
never far away. And he's got a point look out the
windows on the Market Street side of the club, and
you're liable to see a parked police cruiser somewhere
along the curb.

``They're always there,'' Peron says, lifting a shade.
``Don't ask me why.''

Perhaps the strangest thing about the Cannabis
Cultivators' Club is its aura of permanence, of
rootedness. It somehow feels like it's here to stay. And
that, perhaps, is Peron's greatest accomplishment. He
has made the open commerce and public consumption of
marijuana commonplace. Spend much time at the club, and
it begins to drone and drowse rather than scintillate.
It seems more and more like your neighborhood tavern and
less and less like a cuttingedge sociological
phenomenon.

``How I envisioned it is how it turned out,'' says
Peron. ``It's the place for people who don't have
anywhere else to go. It's kind of a miracle, really.''

© The Chronicle Publishing Company