What are the Cannabis Buyers Clubs Ive been hearing about?
Cannabis Buyer’s Clubs (CBC) provide marijuana to individuals with a medical need for the drug. They are illegal in most states. Proposition 215 — passed in California — protects the CBCs in that state. CBCs are not new. In the past twenty years there have been numerous instances of individuals banding together to form medical marijuana “clubs” in order to ensure a continuing supply of the drug. What is new about the current CBCs is their brash nature. Many of these cannabis buyer’s clubs are offshoots of the AIDS Buyer’s Clubs started by ACT-UP in the 1980s to help AIDS patients obtain expensive and/or not yet approved medications. Ironically the federal government is indirectly responsible for the current CBCs. Following the closure of the Compassionate IND program in 1991, many individuals were angry and frustrated with the federal government’s constant refusal to help people medically obtain marijuana. The first CBCs were an open act of civil disobedience. Many local governments
