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Joe Airone\u2019s voice drops when he speaks about the consequences associated with suspending the operations of the Sweetleaf Collective, a California cannabis compassion program he has run for more than half his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is literally a life or death issue,\u201d he says. \u201cOn my project, we have a patient pass [away] every two to three months. I\u2019m concerned that we\u2019re going to see that mortality rate increase. I\u2019m not comfortable with that. I\u2019m not cool with that. Not on my watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Airone, and many cooperatives like his \u2014 which supplied free cannabis though California\u2019s previous medical marijuana system \u2014 have been forced to close as of Jan. 1<\/a> due to uncertainties around taxes, laws and licenses. This complicated web of new laws and emergency regulations, among other things, is preventing licensed retailers from \u201cproviding free cannabis goods to any person.\u201d Today, programs that have provided marijuana at no cost for decades are at a standstill.<\/p>\n When medical marijuana began in California, it did so under Proposition 215<\/a>, otherwise known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. The vote to allow state protections for possession and cultivation of cannabis by a patient or their primary caregiver was born from an authentic desire to provide cannabis to those who needed it the most. In 2004, a second law, SB 420, recognized the right of patients and caregivers to collectively or cooperatively cultivate medical marijuana together. While many dispensaries used this model to provide cannabis for cash under a non-profit dispensary arrangement, others took it as a way to supply cannabis at no cost to severely ill patients who could not otherwise afford it.<\/p>\n For those true compassion programs, the new regulatory model for medical marijuana in California \u2014 passed through the legislature in October 2017 as three bills now under the collective regulatory umbrella known as the Medical Cannabis and Adult Use Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA<\/a>) \u2014 has done what law enforcement and the federal government has been unable to do in more than 20 years: put an end to cannabis donations in California. The compassion programs have stopped providing medicine and no one, including the legislators or state agency tasked with implementing the new regulatory program, knows what comes next. In the meantime, patients in dire need have no way to obtain medical marijuana that can help them improve the quality for life in what is, for many, their final days.<\/p>\n Until recently, Airone has never had much of an online presence, out of necessity. He founded Sweetleaf Collective<\/a> in San Francisco in 1996 shortly after the passage of Proposition 215 and is right behind the Wo\/Men\u2019s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM<\/a>) as one of the oldest medical marijuana suppliers in the state.<\/p>\n When I speak with Airone, over the phone rather than in person because he has come down with a cold, his rapid and passionate speaking style is interspersed with coughs. The cold is his body\u2019s way of slowing him down, he acknowledges, but there isn\u2019t much time to take a break.<\/p>\n California cannabis is moving forward like a self-driving car and the difference between having a seat onboard or not is just about as complicated as letting technology take the wheel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Airone calls himself a \u201cradical activist\u201d and tells me he has spent time in the Eureka, California jail, defending the redwood trees as a part of Earth First<\/a> protests. The idea to start a service devoted to providing free medical marijuana came from his association with a program called Food Not Bombs<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Food Not Bombs, it\u2019s a really interesting model,\u201d he says. \u201cThe model is taking surplus from the grocery industry \u2014 surplus that they can\u2019t sell, so it\u2019s seen as waste, but it isn\u2019t really waste \u00a0\u2014 and they would redistribute it to people who needed it most.\u201d<\/p>\n He then decided to apply the Food Not Bombs structure to marijuana. The structure also gave him the most legal protection he could by making a \u201cmedical necessity<\/a>\u201d argument that had been defensible in court. \u201cI knew that there was a surplus in cannabis that wasn\u2019t being used and it was being thrown away or people were doing burn piles, and I was like, \u2018Let\u2019s take this surplus and let\u2019s get it to the people who need it most,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThe people who would need it most would be low-income people that are terminally ill.\u201d<\/p>\n At that time, the fledgling medical marijuana industry was still in a very precarious place. The federal government was threatening to revoke the licenses of medical doctors who recommended their patients might try cannabis<\/a>, and dispensaries and buyer\u2019s clubs were being shutdown. In addition, Airone explains, the California state government also \u201cwasn\u2019t at a point where they felt they should stand with this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n The program Airone started in 1996 has grown over the years though partnerships with cultivator donors, but has continued to not accept any payment for providing and delivering marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no reason to exchange money, we get the product for free, we\u2019re volunteers,\u201d he says of the arrangement. \u201cWhen we started, all I was getting was leaf. We had five patients and I was giving our patients a half ounce of leaf every month.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a patient package. We provide 1 1\/2 ounces (40 grams) of marijuana per month. We deliver to our HIV\/AIDS and cancer patients every 4 months so they receive 6 ounces (160 grams) at a time. This is a picture of how much we deliver. Each patient receives over one pound (almost half a kilogram) of flowers a year. With California\u2019s current cannabis legislation, we are no longer allowed to provide this medicine to our patients. @sweetleafbayarea #CompassionSaves #SweetleafCollective #SweetleafBayArea #CompassionProgram #medicalmarijuana #cannabis #marijuana #patientshelpingpatients #cannabiscommunity #medicalcannabis #cannabisnews #cannabissaves<\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Sweetleaf Bay Area<\/a> (@sweetleafbayarea) on Jan 3, 2018 at 12:25pm PST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n When Sweetleaf stopped supplying marijuana on Jan. 1, the day legal sales of recreational marijuana began and new medical rules were put in place, it was giving each qualified person who enrolled \u2014 anywhere between 125 and 150 patients in the Bay Area \u2014 an ounce and a half of flower per month. The program was all word-of-mouth and qualification meant you were both low-income and terminally ill. Last year, they gave away 100 pounds of cannabis for free.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have these HIV and AIDS patients who are living in San Francisco on $1,000 a month, which is just insane,\u201d Airone says. \u201cOf course they have no ability to purchase cannabis. They\u2019ve never even stepped into a dispensary because there was no reason for them to go in there, they couldn\u2019t afford anything.\u201d<\/p>\n In February, Khurshid Khoja, a principal at Greenbridge Corporate Capital in Sacramento, authored a letter to the Bureau of Cannabis Control\u2019s<\/a> Chief Lori Ajax on behalf of WAMM (the nation\u2019s oldest operating medical cannabis collective that survived a federal raid in 2002<\/a>, but stopped providing free marijuana in January) and the Battlefield Foundation<\/a> (a non-profit devoted to serving veterans), attempting to explain the roadblock for California compassion programs.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you know, under existing law, California Business and Professions Code (\u201cB&PC\u201d) Sec. 26153 of MAUCRSA prohibits licensees from \u2018giving away any amount of cannabis or cannabis products, or any cannabis accessories, as part of a business promotion or other commercial activity,\u2019\u201d the letter reads. \u201c16 CCR 5411(a) prohibits licensed retailers from \u2018providing free cannabis goods to any person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Plus, Khoja explained in the letter that California\u2019s new tax code imposed weight-based cultivation taxes \u201con all regulated cannabis harvested for the commercial market\u201d and an excise tax \u201con all regulated cannabis sold at retail.\u201d In addition, two stipulations in the tax code, 18 CCR 3700 and 3701, create \u201cpresumptions that such taxes are due even in cases where cannabis is donated for compassionate purposes and an actual sale does not occur.\u201d<\/p>\n For collectives like WAMM, Battlefield Compassion and Sweetleaf, this means they would still be required to pay taxes on a product they are giving away for free. This act is something that they, as true non-profit entities, simply do not have the funds to do.<\/p>\n WAMM political History: Here is a picture of the protest that occurred after the #WAMM garden was raided. The founders Valerie and Mike Corral were arrested for providing medicine to sick patients, many which died due to the lack of medicine. The support of patients of all ages, races and diagnosis all formed together to fight the government and won. This led to prop215 (legalization) and is a perfect example of what people united can accomplish. #wamm #prop215 #protest #themovement #noindustry #love #civildisobedience #united #organic #compassion #fightwarnotwars #leaveusalone #nomoredrugwar<\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by WAMM<\/a> (@wamm_collective) on Jan 20, 2017 at 1:44pm PST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \u201cThe early result of implementing these laws and regulations and has been that licensed retailers and cultivators have had to choose between maintaining their licenses and livelihood on the one hand, and continuing to practice the principles of compassion that are the very foundation of all medical cannabis laws everywhere,\u201d Khoja\u2019s letter reads. \u201cAnd regardless of whether these licensees choose to donate cannabis to these patients, or sell it to them for a penny, state laws still forces cultivators to pay the cultivation tax on all cannabis grown for such purposes, and requires distributors and retailers to collect and remit excise taxes on the full retail value of donated cannabis, regardless of the price paid by patients in need.\u201d<\/p>\n To fight back, the non-profits have formed a California Compassion Coalition<\/a> with an aim to bring back their programs. The state\u2019s general cannabis advisory committee has voted to create emergency regulations to allow these types of programs to continue in the new marketplace. The coalition has a meeting set with the Bureau of Medical Cannabis on April 3.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve asked for a grace period for operations,\u201d Anne Kelson, an attorney at Kelson Law Group, says, noting although the timeline for any action remains unclear, an in-person meeting with the Bureau is a huge victory. \u201cCertainly [the meeting] signals a health of the agency itself\u2026\u00a0 It\u2019s a winning issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Kelson\u2019s understanding of what\u2019s next seems just about as clear as the answer I received from Bureau spokesperson Alex Traverso over email.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cAll we can really tell you at this point is that we\u2019ve heard quite a bit from folks who want to see regulations change to allow for these programs to continue as they were prior to regulations going into effect,\u201d Traverso wrote. \u201cOur Cannabis Advisory Committee has been looking at the issue quite a bit and will likely be providing the Bureau with recommendations as we work toward implementing permanent regulations in the next couple months.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the wilderness right now in terms of how to help these patient bases which have been relying on these programs until January,\u201d Kelson says.<\/p>\n Airone says that he doesn\u2019t believe that the state made compassionate cannabis programs illegal under the MAUCRSA on purpose. \u201cWe believe that this is an oversight,\u201d he says. \u201cMost of the lobbyists and the people who have been talking to politicians, they all have money and nobody really knew that there was a whole true class of non-profits that were strictly dealing on a donation basis and giving [cannabis] away for free.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, it seems both legislators and activists are on board for solving the problem, but are unsure how that will actually be done. Kelson and Khoja both agree that the excise tax probably doesn\u2019t apply to compassion programs. In addition, a bill is moving forward in the legislature<\/a> that could phase out cultivation taxes for a three-year period. One real solution, Kelson says, could be allowing these non-profit programs to pair with dispensaries that are already commercially licensed. An arrangement like this would eliminate potential barriers for these programs, such as the costs associated with tracking and tracing all of the marijuana, as well as legal security and storage requirements.<\/p>\n Other solutions presented by Khoja include only taxing the actual sale of cannabis and acknowledging compassion programs should not be defined under the law as commercial entities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got boots on the ground,\u201d Airone says. \u201cWe\u2019re not just how I was twenty years ago, a little radical activist. No, we\u2019re having meetings with politicians. [The issue is] obviously really meant to get solved because it\u2019s all just happening very rapidly.<\/p>\n \u201cThis coalition really has come together quickly. A lot of us, since we were just doing compassion, we hadn\u2019t really networked,\u201d he says. \u201cIt seems like everybody who\u2019s making money, they know everybody else who\u2019s making money and they all have big parties and stuff and they talk about which one of them is going to be the first weed billionaire. We never had those kind of compassion parties. We probably should [and say] like, \u2018Who is going to be the most compassionate person this year?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you think California\u2019s free weed programs should be shut down?<\/p>\n The post Free Weed: The Potential Death of California Cannabis Compassion<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Joe Airone\u2019s voice drops when he speaks about the consequences associated with suspending the operations of the Sweetleaf Collective, a California cannabis compassion program he has run for more than half his life. \u201cThis is literally a life or death issue,\u201d he says. \u201cOn my project, we have a patientContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":24879,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,3789,1046,3790,53,139,3791,2662],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24880,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24878\/revisions\/24880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Beginnings of Authentic Compassion<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nFlowers Not Bombs: The Sweetleaf Collective<\/h4>\n
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An Oversight<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Free Weed: The Potential Death of California Cannabis Compassion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"