A Different Kind of Reefer Madness

Proposition 215 hasn't made it any easier for medicinal marijuana users.

It's just changed who the dealers are.

By MAJA HANSON

When Todd McCormick was arrested last week and charged with cultivating
more than 4,000 marijuana plants at the home he rented in BelAir,
Richard Cowan, former national director of the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws, called him a hero.

McCormick reportedly was growing marijuana for buyers' clubs around
California; growing pot for the ill and dying. He even was experimenting
with different strains of cannabis, trying to create symptomspecific
plants: specialized highs for all of life's lows. McCormick's amateur
agribusiness isn't heroic. It's exploitative and selfserving, as are
the buyers' clubs that have sprouted up across California. Smoking pot
helps me control my epilepsy. I take prescription medication that
doesn't always control the auras or sensations that warn me of an
impending seizure. Every so often, I smoke pot to dissolve those
migraines and floating sensations. I have no idea why it works, because
there's no body of clinical research to explain it. I discovered this
drug on my own. My doctor is supportive, but like me, he is uncertain
about the law and not willing to put his approval in writing (for
whatever that would be worth.) When Proposition 215 legalized the
medicinal use of marijuana last year, I was relieved. Finally, I could
get occasional relief from my own backyard, without fear of prosecution.
Finally, I wouldn't be subsidizing gangs and drug cartels. With the
passage of Proposition 215, I could throw a few seeds in the sunshine
and remove myself from the drug economy. I was wrong. A world of buyers'
clubs has sprouted up in California, offering relief at the same prices
an illicit dealer would charge. MSNBC recently ran a flattering feature
on San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club founder Dennis Peron. I had mixed
feelings when I saw that. I was glad that a man with national
recognition and clout is legitimizing medical marijuana. And I was
profoundly disappointed that he saw an open marijuana marketplace as the
perfect solution. A new pot economy is sprouting up. Proposition 215 has
resolved nothing. Peron has some small protection in his fame. But if I
plant a seedling, does my landlord risk losing everything in asset
forfeiture? I can't play fast and loose with someone else's property.
Will my confession about marijuana use come back to haunt me? Pot is
Peron's business. For me, it's like a bottle of aspirin: there if I need
it, although I don't usually. I don't want to dedicate my life to reefer
activism; I just want to grow a plant or two without fear. Medical
marijuana legislation has not helped me.

Activists like McCormick and Peron are pushing in the wrong direction.
In seeking their own glorification, they aren't helping the rest of us.
Marijuana needs no storefront or street corner. It requires no club. But
if I grow marijuana, I endanger my freedom and the freedom of others.
I'm stuck and frustrated. With the passage of Proposition 215, I
believed common sense had come to California. I thought, wrongly, that
both Republicans and Democrats would seize on this opportunity to
relegate marijuana to the garden, where no gangs with guns, activists or
entrepreneurs were waiting to take their cut. But asset forfeiture laws
and everyday uncertainty ratchet up the risk of growing a few plants for
personal use. So some Californians are willing to pay people like
McCormick to take risks for them. Forget all the talk of cloning and
strains and complex growing systems. Pot thrives on sunlight and soil
and water. If pot is truly legal and I have a few seeds and some time,
marijuana in California is literally dirt cheap. Why pay the $60 or so
that buyers' clubs charge for their eighthofanounce baggies? For
production costs? Production would be free if I felt safe in planting my
own garden. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, Gov. Pete Wilson and other state
officials should support a person's right to garden on a small scale
without fear. I would gladly call Peron and McCormick heroes if they had
lobbied law enforcement officials for a fair and clear interpretation of
Proposition 215, an interpretation that protected individuals' rights.
Instead, they just stepped into the drug dealers' shoes and
congratulated each other. Pot is not so crucial to my health that I must
use it. And I cannot in good conscience support these new pot pioneers.
I'd rather wait. When the time is right and California law enforcement
officials come to their senses, I'll throw a few seeds in the dirt, reap
a harvest that's free and live a little more comfortably.

Maja Hanson Is Journalist in Santa Barbara

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