We Won! Medical Marijuana Cards Go from $142 down to $66 Bucks!

*ASA Helps Avert Crisis in the ID Card Program! *
/*Victory due to grassroots pressure*/

Dear ASA Supporter,

Over the past two months, ASA has been hard at work to halt the proposed
fee hike in the Medical Marijuana ID Card program (MMIC) from $13 to
$142 from going into effect on March 1, 2007. Because of ASA's work and
mounting pressure from the grassroots and public officials, the
California Department of Health Services (CDHS) decided yesterday not to
implement the proposed fee hike! Instead, a more modest fee increase to
$66 will be implemented on April 1, 2007 ($33 for MediCal patients).

Have no doubt about it, this victory was due in large part to the
tireless work of many patients and advocates since late last year to
reverse the unreasonable fee increase proposal. ASA, in coalition with
Safe Access Now, California NORML, Drug Policy Alliance, and Marijuana
Policy Project, used various tactics to ensure the enormous ID card
increase would not go into effect:

* Supervisors across the state were lobbied to write letters to
CDHS. County Supervisors that wrote to CDHS Director Sandra Shewry
include: Ross Mirkarimi
<http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/Mirkarimi_DHS_Letter.pdf>
and Gerardo Sandoval from San Francisco, Ed Robey and Anthony
Farrington from Lake County, Paolo Maffei from Tuolumne County,
Tom Tryon from Calaveras County, and Mike Reilly from Sonoma County.

* We issued alerts to urge Governor Schwarzenegger and CDHS Director
Shewry not to implement the fee hike. And, thanks to a huge
response from you and the activist community, more than 1,000
people contacted their offices, including more than 500 letters
sent through ASA's website.

* ASA worked directly with Assembly Member Mark Leno's office,
keeping his staff up to date on our progress and strategizing with
his staff on ways to make the ID card program succeed.

While ASA is dissatisfied with any fee increase -- we will continue to
work to further decrease the amount patients have to pay for better
protection -- this more modest increase is a huge victory! It is
important now to encourage Boards of Supervisors in counties that have
not yet implemented ID card programs to implement immediately, so that
there is equal protection across the state regardless of where one
lives. Check here
<http://www.dhs.ca.gov/hisp/ochs/MMP/County_Programs_&_Business_Hours/CoProgBusHrs.pdf>

for a list of counties with programs.

Fighting for a more reasonable medical marijuana ID card fee is just
part of ASA's California Campaign for Safe Access
<http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?list=type&type=255>. Some
other facets of the campaign include working with dozens of localities
to develop regulations for dispensing collectives, answering hundreds of
legal calls from patients monthly, fighting for patient rights in the
courts, and organizing grassroots activists statewide to implement safe
access locally.

We need your help to continue our work to protect patients in
California. I would like to ask everyone to take a moment right now to
make a sustaining monthly pledge to defending safe access. Your monthly
pledge of $10, $25, $50, or even $100 will let us know we have the
resources to keep fighting for you! Please visit ASA's website
<http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org/donate> right now and make your
pledge. We will put it to work in the California Campaign for Safe
Access today!

Thank you for your support,

Kris Hermes

--
Kris Hermes
Legal Campaign Director
Americans for Safe Access
http://www.SafeAccessNow.org
1322 Webster Street, Suite 402
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510-251-1856 x307
Fax: 510-251-2036
Email: kris [at] SafeAccessNow.org

“The activists vented their outrage at the fee hike, which they indignantly noted was an serious medical conditions who are scraping by on disability or another form of public increase of 1,000 percent. "They're creating two different classes of people, those who can afford to buy the protection and those who cannot," says Shona Gochenaur, executive director of the activist "group Axis of Love. The increase prices out people with assistance, she says.” Eliza Strickland, SF Weekly February 7th

"We are sympathetic to the needs and concerns of patients in San Francisco, but there's something larger going on, and we need to asses the needs of patients throughout the state," says Kris Hermes, legal campaign director for Americans for Safe Access. "If San Francisco pulls out, it endangers the stability of the whole state program, and it also sends a message to other counties that it's OK for them to not comply." Eliza Strickland, SF Weekly February 7th , 2007



My lover received the fund raising letter that was basically the article posted here by Americans for Safe Access in the email today and I found it in response to an article I wrote on Indybay celebrating this enormous people’s victory. Here is my response:

Destablizing the status quo is sometimes what it takes to make change. I would submit it is always a necessary ingredient. Risking some privilege to help defend justice for those in the margins and having a deep sense of compassion is a key value of mine. However, politically its also a necessary counterbalance for legislators seeking to find compromises. Without people demanding a guaranteed national income in the 1930’s we would not, for instance, have a Social Security System. It is a rare City Hall that welcomes poor people lobbying for themselves and it’s even rarer for poor people to feel entitled to go to City Hall and knock on the door and say “These are our ideas and we want you to hear us out and make change.”

This could be an occasion for fund raising letters but instead of fund raising, I watched as Axis of Love trained low-income patients to be successful lobbyists. I have watched as Axis of Love has given away compassion instead of looking for money. "This effort took a year of lobbying with many patients spending many hours on the effort- we could not pay them for their time if we wanted to, instead we grew the kind of community we could stand to live with and be proud of." sates Mira Ingram campaign director of Axis of Love

Surely progressive policy makers saw the need for reform and stood as allies to patients- two weeks ago at a rally Dale Gieringer of CANORML and Bruce Mirken of MPP came to a rally for and by patients supporting ‘verifiable recommendations” or a reinstating of the SF card program, whether or not they agreed with either of those proposals. What more they did behind the scenes I am not sure of although I am clear they were allies to this struggle. Surely political groups such as the Harvey Milk club also supported the effort and various compassionate collectives supported the effort. In the end it was patients lobbying for patients in coalition with allies reminding people of how this movement began – with people dying from AIDS, that won the day.

I am a disability advocate, in a wheelchair myself for the long haul and my cousin, Daniel Berent died of AIDS. I cannot tell you how many of my friends died in those horrible plague years. I will not let history be rewritten- not of the movement, not of the victories won in it- where the people are written out of it. The people I want advocating for patients are those people: people with AIDS, in wheelchairs, with service animals, on SSI, or working and figuring out how in the world to pay for medicine along with the enormous expenses that go along with being disabled. Many do this while sick, in pain and/ or homeless (dancing backwards in high heels as well to quote the old quote). Many do this because they know someone else too sick or impaired to do it.

I am grateful that Shona Gocheanuar remembers, keeps the faith and works with patients doing work that few others can do- the work of building a people’s movement- which is of course, where it belongs.

Soon you’ll be hearing from the women’s group of Axis of Love asking you to join them in a victory celebration in this Month of Women, – where they create the community they always do and compassion reigns.

We always eat well- and we always share what we have. In the spirit of compassion that is our best and shining legacy – we only ask that you do the same.

I don't think having to pay an increased fee OF $66 is a victory, it's a step in the right direction, but Untill it is less that present fees i would not call it a victory IMHO

About 6 years ago, the local sherriff in Mendocino co., issued cards for $10. He did that price for about 4 years, until the county and state took over. So, if the Sherriff can do it, why can't the state?

but i deal with many people who would be completely fucked if we didn't do this work.... and get this gain. and so , despite the fact that I am an anarchist and my girlfriend is an anarchist we go to city hall and lobby- in fact we spent all day there today trying to keep the dispensaries open because of regulations- negotiating... bit by agonizing bit.

i could say so much more but the cops read this board too- sigh.

your right of course/ what can I say. but let me say- this was a crisis averted and there are so many of them....look out for the next Axis of Love newsletter for more information