Rec'd Episode 4: The sudden death of Compassionate Care - a podcast by The Grass Agency

Wayne Justmann is a master shit talker. He also started the first medical marijuana ID program. Wayne was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. A few years later he met Dennis Peron, who founded the first cannabis dispensary in response to the AIDS epidemic. Wayne worked closely with Dennis on the initiative that made California the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Back then, giving away free weed was just part of the business. They called it Compassionate Care. People were sick and some of them couldn’t even afford a nickel bag.

That was still true when Prop 64 made recreational use legal in California. But regulation and taxation made it next to impossible to give away free weed, and the programs that once existed to provide the stuff to the terminally ill started to drop like flies. Tracy Ryan, the founder and CEO of @MyCannakids, a cannabis tincture brand focused on serving children like her daughter Sophie, was no longer able to support families with children battling cancer, epilepsy, and other conditions.

For two years, Tracy, Wayne, and other activists and organizers railed against the state’s treatment of medical marijuana patients. In October, nearly three years after California voted to legalize, Governor Gavin Newsom gave new life to Compassionate Care when he signed Senate Bill 34. The donation of medical marijuana to the terminally ill is now legal and tax exempt. But is the spirit of compassion still alive?

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