Free cannabis came before legal cannabis. Gifting joints or edibles to sick people who, being sick, couldn\u2019t afford to buy \u2014 and couldn\u2019t find relief anyway else besides someone else\u2019s compassion \u2014 was central to the ethos of the early marijuana legalization pioneers.<\/p>\n
And free weed for some was a boss three-dimensional chess move: busting a career waitress in her\u00a060s known for handing out weed brownies to dying AIDS patients<\/a>\u00a0was, for the prohibitionist establishment and for law enforcement, almost as bad a look as\u00a0busting a pot dealer with a lover dying of the same disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is how medical marijuana became a thing, and providing space for sick and disabled people to come and smoke weed \u2014 weed quite often given to them, poor people on fixed incomes \u2014 is how retail cannabis stores began. And so one \u201cfunny\u201d thing about legal, recreational commercial cannabis was that it made\u00a0free cannabis illegal, or at least cost-prohibitive.<\/a><\/p>\n Charging tax on medicine given away for free was one reason why Dennis Peron, the aforementioned healer-dealer, opposed 2016\u2019s Adult Use of Marijuana Act 20 years after being central to the passage of the country\u2019s first medical-marijuana law, 1996\u2019s Compassionate Use Act. Once legalization kicked in, giving free cannabis to the indigent and ill \u2014 a practice known as \u201ccompassion<\/a>\u201d \u2014 without paying tax on the \u201csale\u201d became an outlawed act (although compassion was already on its way out in an increasingly commercial medical-marijuana<\/a>\u00a0industry).<\/p>\n Almost three years after voters approved legalization, lawmakers have re-legalized compassion. Earlier this week,\u00a0among other cannabis-friendly bills passed by the state Legislature<\/a>, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law\u00a0the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Act<\/a>\u00a0(the latter is the aforementioned brownie-provider). Sponsored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill allows cannabis providers to gift certain products away to certain people without paying California cultivation and excise taxes, which can exceed 25%.<\/p>\n The most rewarding legislation lifts up people who are struggling. It was an honor to author #SB34<\/a>, which ensures that low income people with serious health conditions like #HIV<\/a> & cancer can continue to access medical #cannabis<\/a>. https:\/\/t.co\/maW0O2ghCr<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) October 16, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The California cannabis industry has been clamoring for tax relief since before the first legal gram was sold. High tax burdens are seen by many as the chief driver behind high prices at legal dispensaries \u2014 where $20 grams and $75 or $80 eighths are not uncommon \u2014 and why California\u2019s underground cannabis economy\u00a0is still estimated at four times<\/a>\u00a0(or more) the size of its legal weed marketplace.<\/p>\n But the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Act is more a throwback to those bygone outlaw days. Various cannabis compassion programs, including the\u00a0Sweetleaf Collective<\/a>, which still doles out cannabis to AIDS and HIV sufferers in San Francisco, and\u00a0Operation EVAC<\/a>, which provides the same to military veterans with PTSD and other afflictions, are now re-legalized. And, the hope goes, there\u2019s now encouragement for more, similar programs.<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades, compassion programs have played a critical role in helping low income people with serious medical conditions access their medicine,\u201d\u00a0Wiener said, according to High Times.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAccess to medical cannabis has allowed so many people living with HIV, cancer, PTSD, and other health conditions to survive and thrive. Taxing programs that give away free medical cannabis, and thus have no revenue, makes no sense and has caused far too many of these programs to close. SB 34 will allow compassionate care programs to survive and serve those in need. Many people will be healthier as a result of today\u2019s action by the Governor.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you support free cannabis for people in need?<\/p>\n The post Cannabis Compassion Is Re-Legalized<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Free cannabis came before legal cannabis. Gifting joints or edibles to sick people who, being sick, couldn\u2019t afford to buy \u2014 and couldn\u2019t find relief anyway else besides someone else\u2019s compassion \u2014 was central to the ethos of the early marijuana legalization pioneers. And free weed for some was aContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5846,148,11208,50,3789,9114,1752,12705,5293,53,3169,151],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39042"}],"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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39043,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39042\/revisions\/39043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Cannabis Compassion Is Re-Legalized<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"