How Sweetleaf Joe makes cannabis compassionate

Joe Airone, known as Sweetleaf Joe, has been in the compassionate cannabis business since 1996. As the founder of Sweetleaf Collective, a donation-based charity based in San Francisco, Airone has dedicated his life to providing low-income terminally ill patients with free medical cannabis – no strings attached.

When Airone founded Sweetleaf Collective, it provided access to the facility for five AIDS patients. It now provides cannabis to 150 patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and other diseases and has given away over $2 million worth of compassionate cannabis over the past two decades. Airone and his team bike-deliver cannabis directly to the homes of patients, many of whom are housebound.

Unfortunately, the road to success was paved with a few obstacles. As he discussed in the first two episodes of the Weedmaps docu-series Uprooted, when Proposition 64 legalized recreational use in California, it ultimately made cannabis less accessible, particularly to medical patients. The same medical patients who found relief with cannabis after it was legalized for medical use under Proposition 215 were suddenly unable to purchase it when Proposition 64 came into effect, as inadequate licensing created a limited supply and high price market. Cannabis became too expensive for many, and medical patients undeniably suffered.

“A big thing [Prop 64] What they didn’t address in the drafting is the difference between commercial and non-commercial cannabis. So we found that to give away compassionate cannabis, we now had to pay taxes,” Airone explained in Uprooted. “Legalization made compassion technically illegal.”

Medical patients have been at the forefront of the community since the dawn of California cannabis history, leading to a major split when Prop 64 was passed. The collectives that had been able to provide compassionate — or free — cannabis to the sick in the 1990s were no longer able to operate, and some never reopened. I sat down with Sweetleaf Joe to discuss how cannabis regulations have evolved since Prop 64 and where changes still need to be made.

“Legalize Compassion” for patients in need

Airone has lobbied alongside other compassion programs, working with State Senator Scott Wiener to introduce SB 829 in 2018, a proposal designed to allow authorized retailers to resume providing cannabis to medical patients free of charge. The proposal was defeated despite a 90% yes vote in the Senate. “Some of these compassion programs that I know of have worked with cancer patients and their patients have died, and that’s something I don’t believe [Governor] Jerry Brown became clear when he signed this veto. He signed patients’ death certificates,” Airone said.

Fortunately, some progress has been made in recent years to ensure medical patients are prioritized within the current California legal system.

SB 34, called the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Act, was signed into law in 2019 and served to pave the way for compassionate cannabis to flourish again by forgoing its taxes. This joint effort by advocates like Airone and California lawmakers is the first step in creating a cannabis economy that is accessible to all.

Nonetheless, the years between Prop 64 and SB 34 left a lasting impact on medical patients and the organizations that serve them. According to Airone, his experience as an advocate and owner of the Sweetleaf Collective can be broken down into two distinct time periods: pre-Proposition 64 and post-Proposition 64. “Before Proposition 64, we were involved in the supply chain and we touched the facility. We would go to the Emerald Triangle, mostly Humboldt, and we would pick up large donations and bring them back to San Francisco. We would then pack everything up and bring it to our patients by bike.”

“Now, after Prop 64, we are not allowed to touch any plants. There is no non-profit license in the California licensing structure, so we’re essentially a patient organization now. We no longer touch the facility, but we work with approved partners throughout the supply chain,” Airone explained.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has also prompted a relocation of operations for the Sweetleaf Collective crew. “Our patients are mostly HIV/AIDS patients, some of them cancer patients, and some of them have HIV and cancer… We have some patients [whose] The immune system is so weak that their doctors won’t allow them to get the vaccine.”

“I want to give Padre Mu a big shout out. They’re a stock delivery service in Oakland,” Airone said. “Now when COVID hit we had worked with Spark and done freebies at their pharmacy. We realized we couldn’t ask our patients to leave their homes and go into public spaces…I’m not aware of any of our patients who have died due to COVID, but I thank the universe for Padre Mu for delivering our patients did, and they certainly did.”

“And [the owner] Aren … He’s personally made hundreds of deliveries to Sweetleaf pity patients and that’s just another aspect of our industry, it brings together all the right people, all people with hearts,” Airone added.

He is optimistic that the commitment sector will continue to boom in the coming years, despite the difficulties that the pandemic has brought. Between Sweetleaf’s lighter project, which pays taxes on an eighth of the weed for a pity patient through lighter sales, and the most recent five-ton project, Airone is busy. Already processing its first £500 bulk donation, Team Compassion is working to get leftover flowers from a range of growers through the supply chain and into the hands of patients.

“Our biggest hurdle is the financial resources. We’re trying to raise more funds right now, we’re looking for sponsors, we’re looking for retailers who want to sell our compassion product,” Airone said. The goal is to ultimately donate £10,000 or five tonnes of medicinal cannabis, equivalent to four months’ supply per patient per trip. “So instead of seeing her 12 times a year, we see her three times a year. I’m all about efficiency, my mind works in systems. I find that the more efficient we are, the more good we can do, the more access we can create.” Ultimately, this is Airone’s main philosophy: access is everything.

“Together we save lives. Every damn day.”

You can donate to Sweetleaf Collective through PayPal.

Photos by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps