We won! Mark Leno's office Announce's Fee Decrease for State Medical Marijuana Cards

Assemblyman Mark Leno's office announced late yesterday that the Department of Health Services has agreed to reduce the fee increase to "$66 dollars for the state portion of the ID card, down from the proposed $142 dollars, with the Medical patient paying only $33 dollars.

With the possibility of a state card increase of $125 dollars, regardless of ability to pay, necessary to pay back a loan taken from vital health and human services budgets that was borrowed from to instate the card program activists for the medical marijuana community were rightly terrified of the results. "We imagined People with HIV/AIDS, the very people who started the Medical Marijuana movement in the state, locked out of dispensaries, unable to take their AIDS cocktails, which are so toxic, without throwing up vital nutrition. We imagined a crises of conscience and to people's health and well being. We imagined people dying or going to jail for no good reason." states Mira Ingram, campaign coordinator for Axis of Love and long term AIDS activist.

Shona Gochenaur, executive director of Axis of Love drew together patients, disability advocates, progressive marijuana policy advocates, AIDS activists to ask for the city of San Francisco to reinstate the much more affordable city card program- a program which would cost under $30 dollars rather than $175 a year. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi wisely proposed the change in an early effort to save lives, save the city money in useless prosecutions and save wasted healthcare dollars as disabled people went into healthcare crises.

However, if San Francisco pulled out of the State card program, other marijuana policy advocates feared the state card program would fail, leaving patients unprotected from arrest as law enforcement "checked" doctors notes. Mirkarimi's office received many emails predicting the failure of the state system if San Francisco pulled out.

"You cannot have two classes of marijuana patients- one who can afford protection and ones who cannot- in the City which is the birthplace of the Compassion movement. We started the movement here because people were dying throughout the 1980's and 90's We cannot forget their legacy. " states Gochenaur.

The new fee for Medi-cal patients will be $33 dollars, remaining affordable to many, with seniors and veterans however still scrambling to pay the more expensive fee because they receive federal rather than state's benefits.

"As a community, it is our job to help raise money for the seniors in our community." stated a disability activist at an Axis of Love meeting yesterday.

Activists chanted "Where is the Love" at a protest at SF General Hospital last week as they demanded affordable state cards. Krissy Keefer , former Green Party candidate for Nancy's Pelosoi's congressional district, answered " The Love is right here. San Francisco is always a role model of compassion for the nation"

It turns out Keefer was right.

Without Mirkarimi's bold move and Axis of Love's galvanizing patient terror and outrage into action the poorest of the poor and sickest of the sick would be locked out of the clubs come June.

"Mark Leno's office truly worked to find an answer that worked" states Gochenaur.


"As county after county began to consider pulling out of the state
medical marijuana ID card program, it was clear to all involved that the
fee increase at the $142 level would have ended the program. We simply
could not allow patients who depend on medical cannabis for pain and
nausea relief to be put at risk of mistaken arrest or detainment by law
enforcement," said Assemblyman Leno. "I would like to thank Department
of Health Services Director Sandra Shewry and her team for their
responsiveness to our effort to keep the ID card program intact. Clearly, a crisis has been averted."

What is needed now is for patients to sign up for the program to ensure that the loans taken from other health and human services can be repaid and that the system stays financially viable.