Inside the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club circa 1995
On Friday the 13th NORML announced the opening, in Portland, of the first medical marijuana coffee shop in America. Since then this unforgivable error has been picked up by CBS 3, Examiner.com, Canada Free Press, Daily Finance, Money Times, Visit Bulgaria, The New York Times, Passport Magazine, Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times Online, and The AtlanticWire, to name just a few.
The Portland Cannabis Cafe is most definitely not the first medical marijuana coffee shop in America.
The mother ship was the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club which opened in 1995 at 1444 Market Street in San Francisco. But even that was not the first. Its predecessor was a smaller operation, also ran by Dennis Peron, at Church and Market in San Francisco. About 1995 Fred Seike and Scott Imler opened a medical marijuana club in Santa Cruz and in 1997 Steve McWilliams and Barbara McKenzie opened Shelter From The Storm in San Diego that was in operation at least 4 years.
The Marin Alliance is probably the oldest medical marijuana club in the country that is still operating, begun by Lynette Shaw after the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club was raided in 1996.
As of this writing the New York Times has changed the title of their article and added the following note:
This post was corrected after its initial publication to make clear that the statement in other reports, that this cafe was the nation’s first to allow marijuana use, was incorrect.
Unlike NORML's club, The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club did not charge a membership fee or a use fee or require anyone to be a member of anything, except (of course) the club. Membership was free to anyone with a valid recommendation from a doctor, and cards were issued to members. You had to have a card to get in.
Patients purchased cannabis on two floors at a counter. One floor was for sativa, the other for indica. Both floors had lounge areas of various types, and there was entertainment space as well. Medicating on the premises was not just allowed but encouraged. There were 5 floors in all, with intake and the offices of Proposition 215 on the ground floor, the backroom and club office on the 2nd floor, indica on the 3rd floor, and sativa on the 4th floor.
It should be noted that on November 3rd, KDRV TV in Oregon reported the Portland Cannabis Cafe was the second medical marijuana club in that city - that another club had opened a month previous.
Updated 5:20 PM Pacific Time to add information about Lynette Shaw and The Marin Alliance, and to add the name of the San Diego medical marijuana club.
The San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club - Examiner.com | 11 Jul 09
First marijuana coffee shop opens in U.S. - The Telegraph | 20 Nov 09
Soaking up the atmosphere at America's first "cannabis cafe" - The Times Online | 20 Nov 09
Naming America's First Marijuana Cafe - The Huffington Post | 20 Nov 09
Los Angeles gets tough on medical marijuana shops - Reuters | 20 Nov 09
Students taught how to grow marijuana in Detroit's cannabis college - The Guardian | 20 Nov 09
America's first cannabis cafe open - The New York Times | 16 Nov 09
First U.S. marijuana cafe opens in Portland - Reuters | 14 Nov 09
Nations 1st Cannabis Cafe Opens in Portland - CBS 3 | 14 Nov 09
America's first cannabis cafe opens - Examiner.com | 13 Nov 09
NORML marks grand opening of Oregon's first ever cannabis cafe - Opposing Views | 13 Nov 09
Second Ore. medical marijuana lounge to open - KDRV.com - 4 Nov 09
Comments
In Oregon alone there was a MMJ cafe opened over 4 years ago. It ended up closing due to the owners problems.
For over 3 1/2 years Oregon Green Free has had a lounge and social area for it's members to use for no extra charge.
I ran a Medical Cannabis cafe in Los Angeles from 2005-2006. It was hugely popular. I was shut down by the DEA intimidation landlord letter. There have been many others in Los Angeles over the years as well... Portland has maybe the 50th cafe to open in America!
See what HYPE NORML puts out! It was their press release that everyone else picked up. How could NORML not be aware of all the other cannabis cafes that came before THEIRS. They were just doing the hype for advertising purposes, not for truth.
This adds a lot to my disrespect for NORML. If they can't sort out the facts about marijuana how can anyone trust them with our lobbying efforts?
The difference is this... you cannot buy medical marijuana at the cannabis cafe, it is free.
Mississippi,
Did you fail to note in my article about the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club that they gave away free medicine one day a week? Tuesday, as I recall.
Nov 10, I reposted most of Oregon NORML's press release on the NORML.org main page at this address: bit.ly/28CWHU Nowhere in that article is it claimed that this was the first cannabis café in America.
Nov 13, I posted a note about our talk show at the café here: bit.ly/eWn43 (I updated it on the 16th) I refer to it as "Oregon's first cannabis café", which is true, since the other place in Portland is a head shop with a smoking area, hardly a "café".
On Nov 19, our NORML press release at bit.ly/2AKaPg referenced "the state's first café catering to state-authorized medical marijuana patients."
On Sat, Nov 21, I referred to the café as "world-famous" and the "first café exclusively for Oregon’s 21,000 medical marijuana cardholders." bit.ly/8588JB
If media take "Oregon's first cannabis café", searches Google, finds no other references to a "cannabis café", and proclaims it the nation's first, don't blame us if the other cafés get the media short-shrift.
I would be more impressed if you took this opportunity to correct the record, applaud those clubs that allow consumption on premises (and particularly smoking), and champion the right of patients to peaceably assemble, to create community and family, and to realize all the benefits that come from that.
This is one way dispensaries can provide for the health and safety of patients. And a very important and real one. Instead, we have been lead down a road where judges have declared providing marijuana is NOT taking responsibility for the health and/or safety of patients.
But thanks for your defensive and confrontational response.
None of that addresses the 13 Nov 09 article I cited from Opposing Views and attributed by them to NORML:
"We’ll be coming to you on location this weekend from Oregon NORML’s first-in-the-nation Cannabis Café. (Saturday, 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific.)
While California and Colorado have medical dispensaries, they do not allow medication on site."
This article is the first instance I could find of the claim it was the only one in America and the first one. It is also claims there are none currently in California that allow consumption on the premises. There most certainly are.
While I really think it's important to draw attention to the benefits, and need, for consumption on the premises, I find this confrontational approach to be ... sophomoric.
BTY, The Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, organized in 1997 and open until it was raided Oct 2001, also allowed consumption on the premises. And this included smoking. I'm told they had signs that said "Bogart that pipe"
I've only lived in Oregon for 10 plus years. I've NEVER heard of, found after searching, or been told about ANYPLACE where i can go sit down sit down and leagally smoke without repercussion. Unless it was at a club meeting once or twice a month. This is a cafe where you can (leagally) smoke cannibis. Not to go buy or choose a strain. I believe that is the difference. Certainly, the title of "First" doesn't really matter as long as we all have the same goal in mind. Should it?
CK Jr.,
In fact, (according to the Times Online) it cost $240 per year for a membership to NORML, $100 membership fee for the club, and $5 every time you go in the door.
Other sources claim the monthly membership is $20 per month, or $25 per month.
Seems exploitative to me. No patient I know can afford to pay that and buy medicine. Besides, I hate vaporizing.
CK Jr.,
In case I didn't make myself clear, you cannot "smoke" there.
I've been going to Kind Meds Hash Bar in Encino for over well over a year.
Skunk 'bigger psychosis risk' than other cannabis types
By Michelle Roberts
Health reporter, BBC News
People who smoke potent skunk are more at risk of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia than those who use other types of cannabis, scientists suspect.
According to new research, regular users double their risk of psychosis but heavy skunk users increase theirs seven-fold.
UK experts have a theory it is down to skunk's composition - it contains more of the chemical that gets users stoned.
The work is published in British Journal of Psychiatry.
Voter Power had a place with some small fees, had to be a patient of course & they checked but did not have to belong to norml. Miss You Voter Power ...but sooo glad your on the ballot--i will be voting again.
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