Pot Pride | high times

More than any other major city in America, San Francisco has always been at the forefront of cannabis use, from the beats and poets who smoked mezz in the North Beach “beat scene” of the 1950s to the openly stoned hippies in the Haight in the 1960s. Ashbury. Cannabis use in the “City by the Bay” continued with the pioneering use of medical marijuana in the Castro District to treat people living with HIV and AIDS, leading to the establishment of the first dispensaries in America. San Francisco also pioneered the provision of consumption lounges for pharmacy customers, offering cannabis patients and weed lovers a place to consume in a relaxed, safe environment.

High Times Magazine, June 2023

Big top pot

Marijuana has always been an important part of gay culture in San Francisco, but in the hedonistic, liberating days of the 1970s, it was purely for pleasure. By 1980 the very first AIDS cases were reported in the city. By the mid 80’s AIDS had become a real crisis in the SF gay community and thousands of men were infected with HIV (the virus that leads to AIDS) and the development of ‘wasting syndrome’, too Called cachexia, which is characterized by an involuntary loss of body weight with persistent diarrhea, weakness, and fever.

But hope came with Dennis Peron, who started trading weed from his apartment in the Castro, known as the “Big Top Pot Supermarket.” In the mid-’80s, Peron’s partner, Jonathan West, was diagnosed with HIV and cannabis helped West deal with the symptoms. Apparently, weed’s appetizing phenomenon was useful in combating AIDS wasting syndrome. People with AIDS want to avoid or delay the loss of appetite due to wasting because it is a calling card for the body to shut down.

West died of AIDS in 1990 and was supported by San Francisco’s pro-medical cannabis initiative Proposition P in 1991. Peron opened America’s first public medical marijuana dispensary, Cannabis Buyers Club (CBC), on Church Street in the Castro in 1994. Peron later moved the club to a more prominent location on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, where it was raided and became the subject of headlines and controversy in the mid-’90s.

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Peron was a co-author of California’s Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. In August 1996, then-California attorney Dan Lungren authorized a raid on the CBC Pot Club and Lounge in what some said was politically motivated. Lungren’s cynical ploy didn’t deter voters, as Prop. 215 passed on November 5, 1996 with 56% of the vote, making California the first state to officially legalize any form of cannabis.

In October 2003, the California Senate passed Bill 420 along with Section 33 of the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Act, which provides guidelines for regulating medicinal cannabis dispensaries.

David Goldman, President of the Brownie Mary Democratic Club of San Francisco, and his husband, Kenneth Michael Koehn, Secretary of the Brownie Mary Democratic Club, recall the revolutionary days at the CBC.

“In 1994, Michael and I began attending the Cannabis Buyers Club at 194 Church Street in San Francisco, which was a very pleasant experience,” Goldman said. “I know that, Dennis [Peron] always wanted to have a safe consumption space for people to socialize. And so Dennis realized that there needed to be a safe space for consumption and that motivated him to start at 194 Church Street.”

Goldman explained that about a year later the club was moved to 1444 Market Street, in “a four-story building, which represented a great advance in the use of space and the number of people that could be accommodated therein.”

“We started going to the CBC lounge on Market Street every Friday after work,” he said. “They had two different floors for the cannabis; On one floor there was higher quality cannabis that they called either “A-plus” or “A-double plus” – they didn’t give them strain names back then. And the patients could hang out there, and they offered snacks, and people sang and played music. It was a very chilled, chilled vibe; a wonderful way to spend our Fridays after work.”

Koehn added a sobering look at those uncertain years.

“There was also an element of fear in pharmacy lounges at the time,” Koehn said. “The fear of being caught, that the AG [former Attorney General Dan Lungren] would raid the pharmacy. We weren’t there personally when there was a raid in 1996, but every time you were there there was a fear hovering over you that this might be the day the trouble starts.”

Ultimately, Goldman associates positive memories with Peron’s club.

“There was a sense of community at the CBC because in the HIV era there was a lot of overlap between the gay community and the cannabis community and we were able to connect and connect with each other,” he said.

Vapor Room / Jen Siska Photography

continuation of the tradition

The SB-420 legislation of 2003 paved the way for benevolent bud entrepreneurs like Martin Olive to open his groundbreaking medical marijuana dispensary called the Vapor Room, which still exists today.

“We opened in late 2003 in the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco,” Olive said. “I used to work in another pharmacy before and it was like a lot of pharmacies back then, most of the lounges were just folding tables and plastic chairs and weren’t very comfortable for people.”

Olive said he furnished the Vapor Room with 1970s furniture; large plush sofas, colorful pyrex ashtrays and wood paneling.

“We made it like your cool uncle’s basement apartment. And it was a hit! It really was the first of its kind in San Francisco, along with the CHAMP Pharmacy there was a beautiful lounge.”

CHAMP opened at the Market Street location following the departure of the CBC in 1998 and closed in 2002. With the opening of the Vapor Room, Olive wanted to build community through cannabis.

“We had set up a few tables, so it was about 1,500 square feet, not particularly big, but big enough,” he said. “And [the lounge] really created a community aspect; Medicinal cannabis was this great unifier of all different types of people.”

Even after Vapor Room was forced to change locations, Olive adapted and made the lounge experience even better.

“Because of some city regulations, we had to move to the building next door in 2006-2007,” Olive said. “We took this opportunity to up our game a bit, so we created a French café/pharmacy atmosphere; Marble tables, nice wooden chairs, with really nice muted color palettes. It was a bit more sophisticated than the typical lounge. We had volcanoes on every table, bongs, fresh water, hot tea and things like that. So we’ve given people more than just a place to access medicinal cannabis, we’ve given them a safe, clean and comfortable space in a community environment.”

Although medical marijuana continued to make great strides in San Francisco, this was unacceptable to the federal government.

“In 2012, we got caught up in a Department of Justice crackdown on pharmacies across the state of California and were evicted without much sympathy,” he said. “Leaving Lower Haight was a heavy loss for the community, not only for the patients but also for the local businesses who were supported by the 300 to 400 people we brought to our pharmacy every day. That’s why I think pharmacy lounges are so important because they really support the neighborhoods they’re in.”

Over half a decade passed before Olive revived Vapor Room.

“When we finally reopened in 2018, we found a location in a ‘corporate corridor’ downtown where Twitter, Uber and Dolby are located. So we definitely miss the small business aspect of the Lower Haight community, but it was there. It’s about 700-800 square meters and we make it work, with a few benches for people to smoke on. We have a beautiful location; It’s nice, clean and fresh with a big window and lots of sunlight and plants.”

But the fact that the club is in a business district means people don’t generally hang out all day.

“It’s more like people on their lunch break or at a meeting,” Olive said. “They come in to buy a joint, take a few hits and go. It’s usually between five and 15 people hanging out and chatting. And it’s a really good community vibe because you’re basically sitting right next to another person who’s using cannabis, whether they’re a stranger or not, so you’re friends by default.”

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The ongoing transformation of societal consumption

Goldman and Koehn have seen the pharmacy lounge landscape change over the years.

“After the CBC closed, we didn’t go into the dispensary lounges until at least 2006, when I became a medical cannabis patient, because I was already using it medicinally and wanted access to the highest quality cannabis,” Goldman said. “We noticed that each lounge had a different atmosphere. Lounge 847 above the Green Door, on Howard Street in SoMa [South of Market district]was our favorite lounge and easy to get to.

“Lounge 847 opened in 2012 and Michael and I held meetings there for Americans for Safe Access and the Brownie Mary Democratic Club. We had a lot of politicians visiting there and they were impressed that we had such a great space for meetings.”

The Green Door is currently closed but may reopen pending a multi-million dollar renovation.

“I’m glad we have a variety of lounges in the city, but most new pharmacies don’t get a lot of business, so the lounges go unused because they’re not being used, which is a shame.”

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A commonality

For Olive, the most important aspect that a cannabis lounge should offer is a comfortable and safe atmosphere for everyone.

“There is no room for bigotry, racism or classism in this concept,” he said. “You can have your fancy Apple Store-style pharmacy and lounge, but if you don’t make the ordinary men and women on the street and low-income people feel comfortable and safe and comfortable there, then you can you are doing something wrong.” . A lounge aims to contribute to the culture of the cannabis community where people meet. The only thing they all have in common is their love for cannabis, that’s the key element.”

As for next steps, Olive wants to go back to the future.

“Think of what the lounge is for in the midst of all the spreadsheets and margins; to provide high-quality weed for people to use for relief of various symptoms, be it for symptoms or just to make them feel better about their everyday lives,” he said.

This article was originally published in the June 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.