Fact: Cannabis Legalization Is Queer
Without These Legendary LGBTQ Activists, We Would Not Have Legal Cannabis Today. Period.
Should we even be surprised at how many people are upset about this WeedMaps post? 🤦🏽♀️
Pride Month is the perfect time to remind everyone that cannabis legalization was driven by several LGBTQ activists…which is something to celebrate & be grateful for!
Except that some people want to deny this truth and get upset about it.
Thankfully, the truth doesn’t care about your feelings.
Facts are facts, so today I’m delivering a heaping helping of Truth.
It is no coincidence that the LGBTQ rights movement, the AIDS epidemic, and medical legalization efforts all began together in the 1980s!
Here are (just) three of the LGBTQ activists that we can thank for cannabis legalization.
Yes, there are more, and you should educate yourself on them, too…scroll down for links.
Robert Randall
The first is Robert Randall, who pioneered the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program put forward by the FDA.
Randall’s law case in the 1970s paved the way for medical marijuana usage. He was charged with a crime because he was growing weed, but appealed.
He argued against the charges, saying that his cultivation of weed was medicinal—to help with glaucoma related pain.
When he won the case, it not only set legal precedent, it also established for the first time a Federal organization that actively investigated the medicinal benefits of cannabis.
Like it or not, we all owe Randall a big thank you.
Dennis Peron
Often referred to as the “Father of Medical Marijuana,” activist Dennis Peron made it his mission to make cannabis available to people suffering from the AIDS epidemic.
Motivated by love for his partner, who passed away due to AIDS, Peron understood firsthand how essential cannabis was for alleviating the struggles of the terminally ill, including helping with wasting syndrome, anxiety & depression.
His work ultimately led to the legalization of medical cannabis in California with the passage of Prop 215, or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which allowed patients and their caregivers to possess and grow cannabis for medical use.
Brownie Mary
Joining forces with Peron, Mary Jane Rathbun, known as the legendary Brownie Mary, had already started her advocacy work in the early 1980s.
Working with AIDS patients as part of The Shanti Project, Rathbun was secretly distributing thousands of pot brownies to patients who could benefit from the healing properties of weed.
She was later arrested in 1992 for distributing the infused brownies, but Peron made a point of using her story to draw more media attention to their legalization efforts….which was ultimately successful! 🙌
For the full story, I highly recommend you read Home Baked: My Mom, Marijauna, and the Stoning of San Francisco, by Alia Volz.
We read it in the Higher Learning Book Club, and I can tell you it’s so worth the read.
And if you join, you can watch all of our recordings from the Home Baked book discussions—including a Q&A with the author herself!
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Remember, I’m just here to give education. I don’t want to fight. I don’t care about how you feel or what you think on the topic.
I am just here to give facts. Facts over feelings.
Without the LGBTQ community, we would not have legal cannabis today. Period.
With no pharmaceuticals on the market initially for AIDS patients, people figured out quickly that pot was helping to improve AIDS patients’ quality of life…which gave these legends all the motivation they needed to drive legalization forward.
You can learn more about the queer activists that advanced legalization and who are continuing to fight for the cause today here.
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