California: a compassionate medical cannabis program for the neediest patients

After the legalization of cannabis for adults in California in 2016, New regulations and taxes have put the brakes on compassionate programs, which since 1996 have distributed free cannabis to patients who could not afford it. A bill could, however, revive these programs.

The bill in question, the SB-34 or the «Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Compassionate Care Act», would create a mechanism to exempt compassionate care programs from the cultivation and excise taxes that California has levied on all cannabis producers since 2018. It would also allow licensed dispensaries and delivery services to facilitate cannabis donation programs for patients.

Keeping medical cannabis accessible

Under SB-34, however, «compassionate» cannabis would still have to follow the traceability and laboratory testing standards of the medical and recreational markets. The few remaining compassionate programs must now pay a tax of around 25%, even though they generate no revenue.

«The purpose of SB-34 is to ensure that legalization does not kill compassionate programs and access to cannabis for low-income people,» explains Senator Scott Weiner, who introduced the bill. «When Proposition 64 [editor's note: the law legalizing cannabis in California] was passed, I supported it and a lot of people supported it. The goal was to bring the industry out into the open and have safer, healthier regulation, taxation and industry. What inadvertently happened was the imposition of about 25% in taxes on compassionate programs that generate no revenue simply because they donate cannabis to low-income patients.»

«The result is that these compassionate programs are closing and people are losing access to cannabis because they can't pay the retail price of cannabis, so they resort to the illicit market, which we don't want, or simply not able to access their medicine,» he continues. «It's a bad situation and SB-34 will help rectify it.»

The bill was passed unanimously by the California State Assembly and State Senate in early September.The bill is now on the desk of the governor, who has until mid-October to sign or veto the bill.

Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary

The bill was named after two medical cannabis activists, Dennis Peron, recently deceased, and Brownie Mary. Both pushed their activism into the open, and the California cannabis movement, in response to the AIDS epidemic of the early 90s that devastated San Francisco's gay community.

Brownie Mary Rathburn was distributing free «space cookies» in San Francisco to AIDS patients at the end of their lives, until a police raid forced her to return to her home. the underground.

Dennis Peron created California's first dispensary in San Francisco in the 1970s and is widely regarded as the father of the medical marijuana in California. He conceived and co-wrote Proposition 215, a.k.a. The Compassionate Use Act, passed in 1996, which legalized medical cannabis in the state.

For 20 years, «compassionate access programs» thrived on a widespread network of generosity that provided free cannabis to those who couldn't afford it. Under this system, growers were able to supply cannabis freely and directly to anyone in need who had a medical card.