Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a huge fan of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, which among other things, simply reminds me far too much of the sprawled-out landscape where I grew up - in fact, only two powerful forces in my life have ever drawn me to LA - Computer Graphics and Medical Cannabis.  At this year's annual conference for The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, I split my time between the table for Americans for Safe Access, and opportunities to socialize with patients and other concerned folks from around the country - even the world, as I met a reporter from Argentina, a father visiting Universal Studios who wanted some literature for his daughter, whom is a Medical Cannabis Patient, and made friends with some patients and caregivers who have personally been restrained by the DEA's zipties this year.

Just before the conference, many of us California Patients met up in front of Governor Swarzenegger's office in Los Angeles to rally for him to defend our rights in a day and age when the Federal government are constantly stepping in to fight the will of our state's voters.  Many people, esp CA residents, are aware of a twelve year old state law providing safe access to patients whose doctor has recommended the use of cannabis, and which our Federal government continues to fight tooth and nail by prosecuting - nay, terrorizing - patients, doctors, and dedicated caregivers.  Even some of CA's national representation failed to vote for an amendment to the Commerce-Justice-Spending act this year which would have focused the DEA and US Justice Department's energy away from fighting the will of voters in 13 of 50 states - and toward methamphetamines - on the basis that it would be "relaxing drug policy", which is of course unacceptable in a world with an ongoing methamphetamine problem.  It's nice to know that our governmental representatives routinely read the fucking legislation they vote on.

I digress.  Following our most awesome rally, a bunch of us met up at the conference hotel for a NORML cocktail hour, where I consulted with some of the organizers about the appropriateness or lack thereof of bringing a vaporizer up to the ballroom - unfortunately, Los Angeles' government does *not* view vaporisation as being exempt from anti-smoking laws, though San Francisco's Health Department has clearly stated they do.  Following a couple of drinks and some schmoozing, a group of patients congregated in a private room, comforted by a letter from the hotel assuring us that noone with a medical condition using a vaporizer would be charged a cleaning fee in a non-smoking room - many patients complained that their rooms smelled like tobacco, which has very little to do with relief of serious pain, and makes some people very sick to be around.

Much to our chagrin, though not entirely to our surprise, an LA dispensary who threw an after-party for the rally at the governor's office around 1:30pm was forcibly raided by the DEA around 9pm.  I don't think all of the LAPD officers involved fully understood what they were getting into when they volunteered to assist with this particular raid, as a huge pile of us from the conference and droves of local supporters notified by ASA's paging system showed up to scream "DEA GO AWAY!" while the staff and patients present during the raid were released one at a time.  After an hour or two, the final person was released, and an LAPD Section Chief walked up to hand us his card and say: "Hello, I am in charge of this operation for the LAPD, and we cooperate with the DEA."  Of course, that would be great if our crowd wasn't full of people from poor LA neighborhoods who can't get police coverage, while nearly twenty officers were required to fend off nonviolent protestors of an operation which the governor and city council should be opposing.

The pitiful thing about these raids is that these facilities are not a threat to the public, but they are a great source of cold, hard cash and high quality medicine for police officers who feel they can't get a share, and who probably are prevented by policy or institutionalized fear from exercising their own right to be a medical cannabis patient.  I know at least that at this raid a receipt was left for "undeclared" amounts of:

• US Currency
• Dried Cannabis
  
• Concentrated Cannabis Extracts
  

Additionally, I met a patient who was simply in the facility at the time of the raid, and had $2500 in her wallet, which was siezed with a vague promise that she would receive a receipt within 90 days.  This money is not going to become evidence in a valid case, it is a case of wholesale larceny, bankrolled by the taxpayers and executed in our name!

As we moved past this travesty - the owner said in a press conference just after the raid that he would open again the next morning - the tone of the NORML conference began to set in.  I met people working to change laws in Rhode Island, Tennessee, and a huge group from my home state of Texas!  In addition to socializing, I managed to catch a few speakers - esp a panel on medical cannabis which included several folks I work with in Americans for Safe Access.  Everyone had great things to say, but I was unsurprisingly grabbed by Don Duncan's comments about his moving from Berkeley to Los Angeles to "Open-Source"[0] medical cannabis, doing things the best way he could and being very open about how to follow suit, because he knows that no one facility can survive or adequately serve patients on its' own.

It occurs to me in retrospect that our entire trip and presence at this conference was about that very one idea - for patients from other states to watch a circle of California patients medicating, sharing, talking about dispensaries and edible products with nutrition information on the back, I realized that all of us were participating in the process of "Open-Sourcing Medical Cannabis", and I am proud to be a part of any effort that can say it has learned about information sharing from the Free and Open-Source Software movement of the past fifty years.  At that, I can't think of two communities with more in common as far as their ongoing struggle and lack of general acceptance and opposition by large corporations than F/OSS and MMJ, and this speaks volumes of the potential future in medical cannabis, as almost all of the big names in the computing field have, in the past fifteen years, entirely changed their way of doing things.  If this could happen to medicine in a similar timeframe, I might just die happy.

My only great concern of the entire weekend - except that the DEA deputized LAPD to perform a silly PR raid - was a comment from one of the NORML leaders when he spoke on the first day.  I can't directly quote the entire sentence, but the gist is that noone should want to be confined to the "boxed canyon of medical cannabis".  Of course, nor should we want to be confined to the boxed canyon of medical ginseng, but the fact of the matter is that while doctors routinely recommend the use of both and many other herbs, most of which are widely available, medical cannabis is not widely available except through unsafe channels.  Should we be required to consult with a doctor to use cannabis?  Possibly not, but I'm glad to have, and if we've got to step a bit slowly for some years on that count, it sure does seem to be helping our cause to step lively on a daily basis, to a growing extent.

Of course, I don't want to foster or feed any animosity between the "recreational" or "responsible" use communities with the "medical" use community.  I know for a fact that many cannabis patients begin treatment by unknowingly self-medicating from their recreational stash, and that acknowledging medicinal use leads much more quickly to responsible patterns of use and perception.  I think it's important for the Medical, Responsible / Recreational, and Industrial [hemp] Cannabis communities to continually work together and to stem friction.  At the heart of this issue is one of civil liberties, of individual rights, and whether you'd like to view Cannabis as competetive with Alcohol and Tobacco, Paxil and Hydrocodone, or Cotton, the fact of the matter is that people should not be prosecuted for involvement with this plant, it is not harmful, it is life enhancing.

At once the most crucial and commonly overlooked fact which is now even promoted on the History Channel is that the FDA was poorly formed for the express purpose of prohibiting use of this substance, so that the federal government would not have to go through a constitutional amendment process in order to do so as happened with alcohol, and that this publicly funded agency is today viewed as doing a very poor job of what it purports to do almost definitely BECAUSE it began as a farce, even if it today contains people who are dedicated to upholding the organization's stated ideals.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, met a bunch of great folks, and hopefully my voice was heard sixteen stories above the street in the governor's office, and in the hearts and minds of the LAPD officers who stood aiding and abetting the armed robbery of the medical cannabis community.

[0] Some people also know that I would, if making a comparison to the software world, say "Free" medical cannabis, but I'm not sure that would get the right point across. ;)