Pot clubs. They’re boring. You go in, you buy some pot, you leave. For all the clamor a new medical cannabis dispensary’s opening receives from jumpy John Q. Public, with a few notable exceptions, most we see these days resemble dentists’ offices, not dens of iniquity (and, we suspect, the drugs in dentists’ offices are more fun, if you’re into that kind of thing).
Know what’s even more boring? Reading the list of citizen complaints San Francisco’s medical cannabis dispensaries have generated over the past few years.
SF Weekly recently asked the Department of Public Health, which oversees the city’s dispensary program, for a compendium of recent problems with the city’s cannabis collectives. And we received it: A grand total of 11 complaints on file over a five-year period, according to the documents we received from our public records request.
Medical marijuana advertising is taking off, propping up the fortunes of ailing media companies that have seen income from other business sectors plummet in the recession.
Advertisements offering free edibles for new patients and products such as “super silver haze” are helping to keep the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly and East Bay Express in business. Similar ads have even started cropping up — tentatively — in more staid publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ads for pot are growing so fast in part because they face fewer regulations and restrictions than marketing materials for cigarettes and alcohol. The only real regulation is one requiring the ads to warn customers that they need a doctor’s recommendation.
“Marijuana advertising is a small percentage of our total advertising — we wish that we had more,” said Mina Bajraktarevic, advertising sales manager at the Bay Guardian, whose back page has become a wall of green with medical marijuana advertising.
“We’ve been involved in this for years,” said Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the Bay Guardian. “We haven’t heard any complaints.”
Not all media companies are comfortable with pot ads, and some have equivocated about whether to accept them. Some advertisers were waiting to see the outcome of the vote Nov. 2 on Proposition 19, the state pot legalization bill, before agreeing to take money from the burgeoning industry.
Ten years ago most medical cannabis clubs were intentionally low-key and relied only on word of mouth. Being illegal, they were inconsistently tolerated by the authorities.
Now, with rapidly liberalized enforcement policies, the most successful medical cannabis businesses are the ones that get their brand name out to the public. Dozens of the businesses are racing to capture the pot-smoking community’s mindshare, and are pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into local media this year to do so.
“We probably spend around $2,500 to $3,000 a month on advertising,” said Kevin Reed, president of the Green Cross, a medical cannabis dispensary on Market Street between Eighth and Ninth streets. “We’re in a world where you’re competing with all these fly-by-night businesses who don’t have to follow the rules — they’re not regulated.” Until recently, more than half a dozen dispensaries had failed to register their businesses with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
One of the pioneers of pot advertising was KUSF Radio. Four years ago, the station, run by the University of San Francisco, had a Green Cross-underwritten public-service announcement that ran on 90.3 FM.
But sometimes it’s hard for pot clubs to buy ads; several have lined up ad agreements only to have them retroactively rejected.
In May, Facebook canceled the Green Cross’ existing advertisements on the site. MediCann, a group of clinics specializing in medical marijuana evaluations, also had its Facebook ads snuffed.
In August, the Green Cross paid in full for a slot on a huge electronic billboard on Interstate 280 at the Serramonte Shopping Center in Daly City — only to see it taken down a day later.
The circumstances surrounding that reversal were not quite clear. SF Weekly ran a blog post suggesting the ad was taken down because its content was objectionable. But a spokeswoman for the mall, Cherie Napier, said that the real reason was that the billboard was only permitted to run ads for products or services sold at the mall. The marijuana ad, she said in an e-mail, “would have been a violation and could have resulted in a $10,000 fine from the state.”
Aside from the weeklies, the medical pot business supports a whole genre of “cannabis friendly” magazines, such as West Coast Leaf and Kush.
“We don’t do general newspapers or anything like that,” said Adrian Moore, director of operations at 7 Stars Holistic Healing Center in Richmond.
Bigger news outlets don’t appear ready to take advertisements for marijuana, at least not yet.
To what extent can marijuana be advertised? Kris Hermes, executive director of the Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, called advertising for the drug a First Amendment issue.
“Our rough position is that we’re in favor of patients finding out how to access medical marijuana,” Hermes said. “We encourage local governments to figure out ways of allowing advertisements that aren’t counterproductive to [get to] the members of the community.”
San Francisco officials want to keep a record of all suppliers of medical marijuana dispensaries, an idea that has some members of the pot community fuming.
“If there is a list, it’s available to the public, and it’s available to the feds,” said Kevin Reed, a member of The City’s Medical Cannabis Task Force and owner of the Green Cross, a medical cannabis delivery service.
Reed said most members of cannabis collectives and cooperatives grow small amounts of pot in their homes, warning that a city record of their names and addresses could be accessible by anyone — including federal law enforcement officials or criminals who rob grow operations.
Despite statements by the Obama administration that it would not go after medical marijuana dispensaries that comply with state laws, cannabis supporters say such raids have continued, and Reed remained wary about a public record of growers.
“It just goes against everything that we’re doing,” Reed said. “What we do is federally illegal. As long as The City is offering patients no protection, it’s just absurd.”
According to a written statement from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, officials announced at a May 20 task force meeting that they “anticipated maintaining a record of all sources/cultivators for each [dispensary].”
Public health officials would only answer questions about this proposal in writing, and a spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether the list would be publicly available.
The statement noted that the department, which issues permits for medical cannabis dispensaries, is tasked with ensuring that the cannabis such dispensaries cultivate and distribute is in compliance with state and local laws.
There currently are 26 permitted dispensaries in The City, and nine more have applied for permits.
Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, the director of environmental health, said such dispensaries get their products from “diverse sources” and that the department needs to ensure those sources are legal. California law requires that marijuana distributed by medical cannabis collectives or co-operatives be cultivated only by their members, and not for profit.
“Over the past few years, there has been a proliferation of cultivation in many San Francisco neighborhoods,” Bhatia said. Some of these sites violate city planning and building codes, and create fire or hazardous materials dangers, according to his statement.
“The department’s overarching aim is to steer [medical cannabis dispensary] practices towards conformity with California and San Francisco law,” Bhatia said. “In this way, we reduced the likelihood for MCDs of community concerns and criminal prosecution.”
The idea is apparently just in its formative stages, however, and no decision has been made.
“We are open to alternative ways to ensure the safety and legality of cultivation,” Bhatia said. “We will be discussing this with the dispensary community.”
Community activist and task force member Stephanie Tucker called a public list “a deal-breaker.”
“DPH historically has always been very good at protecting safe access, and balancing that with public safety,” Tucker said. “Obviously, as a community, we have concerns about that information becoming public.
HIGH TIMES will return to San Francisco June 25 & 26 to host a medical cannabis competition like no other. Join the world’s premier marijuana magazine in the City by the Bay where the best medicinal marijuana, hashish and edibles will be crowned!
Don’t miss your chance to take in a mind-blowing two-day expo, cultivation, legalization and activism seminars, and of course a very special VIP party.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health, which licenses and polices the city’s 26 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries, announced on Friday that it will ask every dispensary to provide a list — with names and addresses — of every grower with which it does business.
The result would be a disaster for the city’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, according to Kevin Reed, president of the Green Cross medicinal cannabis delivery service, reports Chris Roberts at the S.F. Weekly.
“It’s unacceptable,” Reed told the Weekly. “It would be a disaster.”
The list of grower names and addresses is needed, claimed Rajiv Bhatia, head of DPH’s Occupational & Environmental Health, for safety and legality reasons.
“DPH is trying to ensure that permitted MCDs [medical cannabis dispensaries] comply with all state and local laws,” Bhatia said. “By ensuring this, the industry will be best situated to be protected from code enforcement and criminal prosecution.”
Kevin Reed: “It’s unacceptable. It would be a disaster.”
But that isn’t sitting so well with the city’s medical marijuana growers, who have noticed the increasingly threatening nature of letters of U.S. Attorneys in medical marijuana states. All that saber-rattling by drug warriors within the Obama
Administration doesn’t exactly make turning over a list of names and addresses seem like the best idea ever.
According to Reed, the list would push legal operators underground while doing nothing to change the habits of illegal cultivators.
And if the list were publicly available, it could be used as a “shopping list” by rip-off artists, thieves, and, of course, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), since the feds still consider cannabis illegal, even for medicinal purposes, regardless of state laws.
“There’s no way anyone on the city or state level can provide us protection from the federal government,” Reed said.
Theories regarding why the S.F. Health Department is suddenly concerned about whether dispensaries comply with state and local law — more than a decade after the City By The Bay passed its Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary Act — include taxes, police, and in industry takeover, reports Roberts at the Weekly.
Reed said he believes the DPH wants a list of all the city’s legal growers so that it can eventually tax them. But the city also wants addresses of grow sites located outside San Francisco.
Some growers believe the DPH is being strong-armed by the S.F. Police Department.
And then there are the conspiracy theorists who say the stricter regulations would make it easier for a few mega-operators to take over the medical marijuana industry.
“I understand DPH’s frustration of being thrust into the middle of this confusing and contradictory system, but there is way too much risk to force full transparency in cultivation,” said Brendan Hallinan, an attorney handling permitting for medical marijuana dispensaries.
“After the federal government specifically told Oakland ‘no way’ on their permitted-cultivation sites, it is ridiculous to ask SF MCDs to go right ahead and do the same thing,” Hallinan said.
A judge on Thursday ordered the California Highway Patrol to return two pounds of marijuana seized during an arrest in August 2010.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge John Spaunor ordered the police to return the personal property of Kevin Smith (not the famous movie director) of Sacramento after the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office dismissed DUI and marijuana possession charges against him, reports Tom DuHain of KCRA.
Charges were dismissed in March after experts agreed that Smith did not have sufficient THC in his bloodstream to cause impairment, according to defense attorney Alex Veylupek.
Smith has a rare medical condition that caused him to black out behind the wheel as he was driving on Fair Oaks Boulevard last year, according to Veylupek. Smith also has a doctor’s authorization for up to three pounds of medical marijuana, the attorney said.
In court on Thursday morning, the judge asked members of the D.A.’s staff if they had an opinion about returning the marijuana. Veylupek said he objected to them being asked, rightly pointing out that the D.A. no longer had standing in the case, since charges were dropped.
The ruling is good news for patients who need to transport their medical marijuana, according to Ryan Landers, a member of the Compassionate Coalition, a medical marijuana advocacy group in Sacramento.
“I’m glad the judge followed the law and applied it accordingly and that he took the time to look into the truth,” Landers said.
President Obama’s fund raising drive continued in San Francisco on April 20 with a financial pow-wow at the St. Regis Hotel downtown. The President was met by some 75 medical marijuana protesters who had arrived at 7 a.m. at 3rd and Mission. The protesters were carrying homemade signs and chanting that the President has turned his back on the medical marijuana community.
“We’re here because Obama hasn’t provided safe access for patients that need their medicine. Raids are continuing on dispensaries,” David Goldman of Americans for Safe Access explained over his coffee cup.
“The IRS is putting pressure on the banks that do business with anyone in the Medical Marijuana community,” Goldman told Toke of the Town. “The IRS is also disallowing expenses to be used as deductions. No sane business can operate without allowing deductions.”
Toke: What would you like President Obama to do?
“Reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug,” Goldman said. “Then be consistent with what he said in his campaign. That he wouldn’t go after medical marijuana patients. The opposite is true,” Goldman said clearly.
Clint from Colorado Springs was walking into Peet’s for coffee when he noticed the protesters.
Toke: May I ask how you feel about medical marijuana?
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” the clear-eye Colorado man muses. “Do I think there are applications for marijuana for people who are in pain and suffering? Absolutely. But do I think that there are individuals taking advantage of the system? Yes.”
Toke: Personally, where do you stand on the issue of legalization?
“I know it works in Colorado Springs for some people. But I like things to be black or white. Either make it legal or not. I don’t like the ambiguousness of the issue.”
A couple of veterans held signs garnering the attention of the national media present. One of the soldiers mentioned that even though the Veterans Administration has approved medical marijuana for returning vets who are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the Feds will not allow for those veterans to use marijuana medicinally. If they do, they stand to lose their benefits for using an unapproved drug.
Even though the government has okayed your use?
The unnamed veteran of three tours just smiled and said, “Crazy, huh?”
The morning commute communicated its approval with honks and shouts by the supportive cars and trucks passing by. Others had no idea that the President was about to speak across the street at the St. Regis and wondered why there were so many hippie types up so early.
By the time the president and the big black SUVs pulled up to the side entrance, he was in and gone before he had a chance to read a sign.
But Greg of ‘Black and Brown Just Cannabis Policy’ is hopeful.
“We met some new friends and talk to some people about the issues,” Greg said. “We’re serious. President Obama is forgetting who got him there. We’re just not potheads. We’re patients. He needs to keep his commitment to us. For many people, it’s life or death. The president needs to be as serious with us patients as he is with raising money.”
END OF STOCK SALE!! All 10*gs are now 8*! Both 8*gs are now 5*!! Don't forget about our edible specials & glass… wp.me/p1r6rh-1bG1 year ago
END OF STOCK SALE!! All 10*gs are now 8*! Both 8*gs are now 5*!! Don't forget about our edible specials & glass specials! Stop by before 10p 1 year ago
