If you reside in a legal recreational or medicinal cannabis consumption area perhaps you should take a moment to contemplate how “all those dope stores” you hear in frequent negative snippets of conversation may have ended up on the corner. It has been a mighty struggle to legalize both medicinal and recreational cannabis. Many have suffered and died in the struggle to legalize medicinal cannabis which until 1937 was legal in the United States where it was widely used in home remedies in patent format that totalled over a hundred. Then in 1937 The Marijuana Tax Act in the United States criminalized marijuana possession and Big Pharma thrived which has “invented” synthetic cannabis to peddle.
Dennis Peron (1945-2018) is one man that propelled Californians to approve Proposition 215 legalizing medical cannabis in the state of California.
Peron served two years in Vietnam and as a Bronx Italian gay not content with the troops using booze as a forgetful drug smoked cannabis for the first time in his life changing its trajectory. Bringing three pounds of cannabis back from Vietnam to his new home San Francisco the rest was history.
An openly gay man in San Francisco Peron established a small pot shop after his return from Nam. Then escalated to a more commercial Cannabis Buyers Club (CBC) in San Francisco selling cannabis with enormous success. All that was required was a physician’s note describing your illness. CBC was an entertainment venue, a party site and a pharmacy. Sort of like a Studio 54 for medicinal cannabis users.
It was the death of his partner who relied extensively on cannabis to combat and assuage the effects of AIDS and the harsh drugs initially administered to control it. Peron pushed forward through prosecution and political wranglings over the years to be an advocate for the use of medicinal cannabis although an investigating undercover detective swears in an affidavit he saw CBC buyers with pounds of cannabis.
Despite Nixon, Regan and Bush as American presidents declaring a war on drugs California approved Proposition 215 legalizing medicinal cannabis on 5November1996.
Peron’s battle is a fascinating mix of politics (many different ways), homophobia and by today’s retrospective analysis sheer, stupidity and cruelty in the era of the “Gay Plague”.
An unanswered question is where did all the money go from CBC cannabis sales? Law enforcement never managed to find it. You may be tempted to ask was Peron a clever entrpeneur or a compassonate crusader or a bit of both?
Directed by Kip Andersen and Chris OConnell.
Showing in theatre in Toronto 25May2024.
For further detail on the Film Festival see insideout.ca
RKS 2024 Film Rating: 89/100.
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