DECLARING SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009 AS “BERKELEY PATIENTS GROUP DAY” IN THE CITY OF BERKELEY FOR THEIR 10 YEARS OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BERKELEY COMMUNITY
WHEREAS, The City of Berkeley supports the rights of persons with medical conditions to obtain and use cannabis for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person’s health would benefit from the use of cannabis in the treatment of an illness or medical condition for which cannabis provides relief; and
WHEREAS, In 1996, with over 80 percent of Berkeley voters supporting the Compassionate Use Act (CUA) or Proposition 215, the City Council of Berkeley resolved that the City will facilitate the implementation of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which legalized and regulated the use of marijuana as medicine; and
WHEREAS, In 1997, the Berkeley City Council amended its Zoning Ordinance No. 3018 N.S. to regulate the establishment of medical cannabis dispensaries; and
WHEREAS, In 1999, medical cannabis patient Jim McClelland founded the Berkeley Patients Group to provide safe, affordable medical cannabis and other free healing services to medical cannabis patients from Berkeley and the surrounding areas, in a compassionate, welcoming environment; and
WHEREAS, In 2002, co-founders of the Berkeley Patients Group formed Americans for Safe Access, a non-profit patient advocacy group which today has offices in California and Washington D.C. and chapters in all 50 states; and
WHEREAS, In 2002, the Berkeley City Council unanimously passed a resolution directing the Berkeley Police Department not to cooperate with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in investigations of medical cannabis dispensaries; and
WHEREAS, In 2003, the State legislature passed State Bill 420, the Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMPA), codified as section 11362.7 of the California Health and Safety Code, in order to further clarify the rights bestowed by the CUA, and provide greater protection for qualified patients and primary caregivers, in part by explicitly recognizing and protecting collective and cooperative cultivation of medical cannabis; and
WHEREAS, In 2004, the Berkeley City Council amended the Municipal Code Chapter 12.26 to regulate the number and location of medical cannabis dispensaries; and
WHEREAS, In 2004, Berkeley Patients Group participated actively in the campaign for the Patient’s Access to Medical Cannabis Act (PAMCA), which was defeated by fewer than 170 votes at the polls; and
WHEREAS, In 2004-2005, Berkeley Patients Group provided funding, observers, and legal support for the ensuing recount and lawsuit, which resulted in the return of PAMCA to the 2008 ballot, the sanctioning of the County Registrar of Voters, and which was a landmark case integral to the decision of the State Registrar of Voters to decommission Diebold electronic voting machines for all future elections in the State of California; and
WHEREAS, In 2005 and again in 2007, the State of California recognized medical cannabis dispensaries as retailers required to collect, report, and remit tax on the sales of medical marijuana and the revenues derived from those sales to the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board; and
WHEREAS, In 2007 the DEA conducted dozens of raids on medical cannabis dispensaries, including a July 25 raid on the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group, a sister dispensary to the Berkeley Patients Group, in connection with which, the entire banked assets of the Berkeley Patients Group were first frozen and then seized by the federal government, said funds having been set aside to remit to the State Board of Equalization within days of the event; and
WHEREAS, In 2007, in the wake of this asset forfeiture, the Mayor and City Council of Berkeley, on behalf of the Berkeley Patients Group, called upon John Conyers, then-Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, to hold hearings into the DEA’s tactics; and
WHEREAS, In 2008, the City Council unanimously approved Resolution 63, 966 – N.S. declaring the City of Berkeley to be a sanctuary for medical cannabis and calling upon the Berkeley Police Department to uphold the laws of the State, and specifically not to assist in the harassment, arrest or prosecution of physicians, medical cannabis dispensaries, or individual patients or their primary caregivers; and
WHEREAS, In 2008, Berkeley Patients Group was instrumental in securing the passage of the PAMCA citizens initiative which had been returned to the ballot and which passed with over 62% of the vote, eliminating arbitrary limits on the amount of medicine a patient could possess, and forming a City Commission with oversight of medical cannabis dispensary operational standards; and
WHEREAS, In 2008, Berkeley Patients Group appointed two representatives to the newly formed Medical Cannabis Commission for the City of Berkeley; and
WHEREAS, In 2008 members of the Berkeley Patients Group founded the Medical Cannabis Safety Council (MCSC), a state-wide self-regulatory organization dedicated to ensuring the safety of medical cannabis from the seed to the patient, including developing accurate, reliable, reproducible laboratory tests of medicines to detect contaminants; and
WHEREAS, In Summer 2009, Berkeley Patients Group began the initial phase of becoming certified as an environmentally and socially conscious “B-corporation” scoring 133 on the initial assessment test; and
WHEREAS, Since their founding, Berkeley Patients Group has given back to the local community through donations, sponsorships and volunteerism, including to the Berkeley Free Clinic, Berkeley Public Libraries, Berkeley Warm Pool, Center for Early Intervention on Deafness (CEID), KPFA, Berkeley Food and Housing Project, Berkeley Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center, Biofuel Oasis, KQED, and many more; and
WHEREAS, Berkeley Patients Group developed the best-practices, social-service-based model for medical cannabis dispensary operations and has shared that model with activists from other cities and states who are planning to or already have legalized medical cannabis, including but not limited to Oakland, unincorporated Alameda County, Los Angeles, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Michigan, Rhode Island, the Netherlands, Germany and more; and
WHEREAS, Berkeley Patients Group’s philosophy of openly sharing their operational model has resulted in the City of Berkeley becoming synonymous across the nation and abroad with “best practices in all aspects of medical cannabis dispensing”; and
WHEREAS, In the ten years since its inception the Berkeley Patients Group has provided tax revenue to the City of Berkeley and to the state, and has employed dozens of full-time staff and provided them with a living wage, health insurance, and access to retirement savings plans; and
WHEREAS, On Saturday, October 31, 2009, Berkeley Patients Group will celebrate its tenth anniversary, having survived many challenges, advanced its mission of providing safe access to medical cannabis; and succeeded in ways both conventional and unexpected;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Council of the City of Berkeley that the City of Berkeley will declare Saturday, October 31, 2009 as Berkeley Patients Group Day.
Unanimously adopted by the Berkeley City Council on October 13th, 2009
Rob Meagher, CBE’s Founder, President and Editor-in-Chief is a 30 year veteran of the media world. His career has spanned from stints representing the Washington Post, USA Weekend, Reader’s Digest, Financial World & Corporate Finance to the technology world where he worked at International Data Group and Ziff Davis where he was part of the launch team for The Web Magazine, Yahoo Internet Life, Smart Business and Expedia Travels before starting his own marketing and Publisher’s Representative Firm. He also ran all print and online media sales and marketing for the Society for Human Resource Management before partnering with Forbes and then Fortune to create Special Sections covering a variety of topics. Rob, who started CBE Press in 2014, can be contacted at [email protected].
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