Cannabis has been completely legal in California since January 2018, and yet many of the patients who previously received donations from growers to treat their diseases have no longer access to this medicine.
That is why in a joint effort of many organizations, Governor Gavin Newson signed the act known as Dennis Peron & Brownie Mary Act, whose principle is to support programs for the use of compassionate medical cannabis. The law is bringing this back to legality.
What is it about? For more than 20 years, low-income patients could access these programs of compassionate medical cannabis whose priority was to provide medicine to those in need who covered through donations of products.
However, as of the launch of Prop 64, the establishment of taxes on all figures within the industry caused the closure of these programs.
Consequently, many patients were affected in their health and many cannot afford the prices of products in dispensaries. Likewise, not all counties in California have accepted business within their territory, therefore, they have to resort to the black market to self-supply, and in the minority of cases, get what really serves them.
“Since the law was passed, we stopped receiving donations from growers who can go to prison for helping children with complicated diseases,” said Forest Hurb, director of the Caladrius Network, a nonprofit organization that helped more than twenty children with epilepsy in Northern California.
For him, “it was an action pending by the state, since the face of legalization was sick children.”
State lawmaker Scott Wiener says it makes no sense to collect taxes on associations that give medical cannabis for free.
“For decades compassionate programs have played a critical role in the donation of medicine to people with low resources who suffer from serious medical conditions, in addition, he said” taxing programs that give cannabis for free and, therefore, have no use , it makes no sense and has caused many programs to close. “
Activists expect the Dennis Peron & Brownie Mary Act to keep alive the true roots of the cannabis industry in California. The name is a tribute to the pioneer of the medical cannabis movement in California, Dennis Peron.
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