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CA celebrates ten years since Prop 215 passage legalized medi cannabis in state PDF Print E-mail
Written by Justin Baker   
The political structure was rattled by the results of that historic vote a decade ago, on Nov. 5, 1996. Ten years later, its effect continues to reverberate across the state and the nation, indeed the world.

There was a festive party in San Francisco to mark the occasion, and the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana held its Harvest Dance in Sebastopol to coincide with the anniversary of Proposition 215, the law that legalized the growing and use of therapeutic cannabis.
SPIRIT OF COMPASSION — Sympathy for “Brownie Mary” Rathbon’s arrest for giving cannabis to AIDS patients gave impetus to the move for a statewide medical marijuana. File photo.
SPIRIT OF COMPASSION — Sympathy for “Brownie Mary” Rathbon’s arrest for giving cannabis to AIDS patients gave impetus to the move for a statewide medical marijuana. File photo.
Medical marijuana is even more accepted and popular as a political issue today than when Prop 215 passed. Since federal and state jurisdictions are separate institutions, two cases heard by the US Supreme Court left Prop 215 intact. Both state legislation and court rulings have strengthened patient and caregivers’ rights. A challenge posed by the County of San Diego was brushed out of federal court and is not given much chance in state court, which gives initiative legislation significant protections.

Three at ten — Prop 215 co-authors (left to right) Dennis Peron, Dr. Tod Mikuriya and Dale Gieringer celebrated the tenth anniversary of medical freedom at a San Francisco Party.
Three at ten — Prop 215 co-authors (left to right) Dennis Peron, Dr. Tod Mikuriya and Dale Gieringer celebrated the tenth anniversary of medical freedom at a San Francisco Party.
The historic 56 percent “Yes” vote marked the culmination of 22 years of state efforts to win cannabis reform at the ballot, and the first such effort to make the state ballot since the 1972 Prop 19 campaign lost with 35.5 percent of the vote, taking nearly twice as many votes as polls had predicted. This led to the passage of the Moscone Act, that decriminalized up to an ounce of cannabis. In between, about 20 petition drives had been organized and were gathering steam in the early 1990s with a series of comprehensive California Hemp Initiative petition drives spearheaded by Jack Herer and Chris Conrad.

In 1991, San Francisco voters passed City Proposition P, to protect medical marijuana patients. Building on that victory, state legislators John Vasconcellos and Henry Mello moved bills though the capitol to the governor’s desk, which were vetoed by a short-sighted and mean-spirited governor, George Deukmejian.

With polls showing majority voter support for the reform at a statewide level, Dennis Peron and a group of Bay Area activists including Dale Gieringer, Bill Panzer, Scott Imler, Dr. Tod Mikuriya, Leo Paoli, Valerie Corral, John Entwhistle and others drafted a ballot measure to submit to voters. At the last moment, Peron substituted broader language, not the version the group had approved, leading to a break in the board and near collapse in the effort.

Activists set out to gather signatures, based out of Peron’s San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, but the pace made dimmed any hope of getting onto the ballot. Ed Rosenthal and Cannabis Action Network stepped into the void. With little time and less money, the effort was fueled primarily by volunteer energy and hope.

Fortunately, at that point Ethan Nadelmann of the Lindesmith Center (now Drug Policy Alliance) convinced two major funders that the campaign had merit. George Soros and Peter Lewis agreed to support the measure, contingent on finding a major donor from California.

Philanthropist George Zimmer stepped forward as the missing piece of the puzzle and the funding was secured to hire a professional campaign company headed by Bill Zimmerman, whose firm had a reputation for working on progressive causes.

Conrad and his wife, Mikki Norris, were brought in as campaign volunteer coordinators during the frantic final weeks of the drive. In just eight weeks, paid petitioners gathered some 600,000 signatures, while volunteers collected 180,000: Prop 215 had made the ballot.

Its opponents resorted to outrageous lies and grandstanding attacks, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein calling Prop 215 the complete legalization of cannabis, and a press conference where former US Presidents publicly denounced the measure.

Polls showed, however, that nobody expected politicians to tell them the truth about cannabis. Moreover, nearly one in three voters personally knew somebody who used cannabis medicinally and a large majority agreed that if anyone needed it as medicine — including themselves — they should be able to use it.

Prop 215’s co-proponent, Nurse Anna Boyce, made a TV ad telling of her husband’s use of cannabis before his death. Dr. Richard Cohen made another talking about how cannabis benefited some of his patients. Several nurse and physician groups endorsed it. San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan signed the ballot argument in support of the law.

{quotes}Voters issued their mandate at the ballot box to allow medical marijuana{/quotes} both in California and in neighboring Arizona that year. The AZ measure made a critical mistake by requiring a “prescription,” which comes under the umbrage of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and was subsequently quashed. Prop 215, on the other hand, merely required a physician’s written or oral approval or recommendation, which Federal courts ruled is a matter of free speech under the Conant decision.

The election victory led to a series of other state voter initiatives with similar but more restrictive language than Prop 215.

Meanwhile, state law enforcement made it a point to continue to arrest and prosecute patients and caregivers. One of the first battleground counties was Sonoma. In two high-profile cases there, patient Alan MacFarlane and caregivers Ken Hayes and Mike Foley were acquitted. Hallinan testified that Hayes and Foley were doing a public service by providing cannabis to a San Francisco dispensary.

This outcome led to the adoption of the Sonoma guidelines that served as the model for the Safe Access Now guidelines, later adopted by Santa Cruz and Humboldt county officials, that allow patients to possess half the federal dosage of cannabis, three pounds, and to cultivate 100 square feet of garden canopy.

By using flawed jury instructions based on their self-serving interpretation of the law, plus citing a conflict with the federal drug laws, DAs were able to win a few convictions. First came the Pebbles Trippet case, in which Humboldt prosecutors alleged that the patient had too much marijuana. The Appeals court held otherwise, that Prop 215 did not set a cap and therefore it was up to a judge or jury to determine what is a reasonable amount for any given patient to possess.

Shortly thereafter, Myron Mower, a nearly blind patient, was charged in Tuolumne County with growing more plants than the local government would approve. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which held that such arbitrary caps are not binding and could not be imposed on state patients.

A variety of other cases came up. In the Peron decision it was held that a caregiver must be consistent in providing medicine, that simply a casual marijuana sale was not adequate to establish such a relationship.

Seizing on that distinction, a number of cities and counties around the state began to allow the opening of dispensaries, with Oakland being the first City to regulate sales of marijuana via an ordinance.

With the 2003 passage of Senate Bill 420, by Senator John Vasconcellos and Assemblyman Mark Leno, three issues were resolved. First it created a voluntary state ID card program to protect patients. Second, it set a minimum statewide safe harbor from arrest for patients with up to eight ounces and six mature plants. Thirdly, it created limited immunity for patients from prosecution from cannabis sales, cultivation, and maintaining a place where cannabis is grown or sold.

Now the Urziceanu and Mentch Appellate rulings have strengthened that hand, and 23 cities and eight counties have licensed dispensaries. Each new generation of activists builds on the success of what has been before. This is the legacy of Proposition 215.
 
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