Dope on a Rope, hippie chips, even a university that teaches cannabis cultivation.
In California, marijuana isn't so taboo.
It was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, and in the November 2010 election,
it may become the first state to legalize it for recreational use.
But, believe it or not, it seems that California already has a thriving cannabis culture.
My journey into this controversial culture began in San Francisco's Historic Hate District,
the epicenter of the 1960s hippie movement.
I met with Don Sanford Freel, a former hippie who used to live here, and who agreed to show
me around some of his old hangouts.
This is a great place for music and weed, right here.
Now a professor of sociology and anthropology, Don explains how the marijuana scene has changed
since the 1960s.
This is where you come into a concert and you have 10,000 people and spoke in marijuana
and doing whatever they were doing and dancing, and the whole scene was right here.
This is the ground zero.
The music, the sex, the drugs, consciousness was changing, and the generation was responding
to the changes.
And now you have young people that are coming here and expecting to find that, and it's
been gone for 40 years now.
So they wind up living in the woods.
So there's much more anger, I think, and so there's smoking weed, but who knows what
else.
It was back in the 60s, too, but it was psychedelics, which can do horrible things to people, but
I just didn't experience the anger that you feel right now.
The mental health system.
Even as Don was explaining the current problem of mentally ill and drug addicted homeless
people living in the park, we were interrupted by a drug deal going on completely out in
the open.
Sir, can we ask you a question?
She's doing a documentary on marijuana today.
Right.
As opposed to back in the day.
And I was here back in the day.
All right.
Give me a second.
I'll be free to talk in a minute.
All right.
Cool.
Okay.
Business.
He's got a, he has a joint, he has a lid with him, or a baggy from a marijuana, and
that's...
Is that pretty common?
That's pretty common to see here?
Yes.
That's very common to see here.
You know, as I said, this time of day, there just isn't that much going on, but later on
it will be.
But I mean, he seems open enough to have an interesting conversation, but he's got big
buds there.
So we'll see.
He's doing business right now.
After finishing his business, the dealer returns.
Why do you think?
And I never occurred to me, but if you go down and buy weed at a medical marijuana
clinic, or you can buy it here in the park, why would someone choose the park?
You know, it's like buying gasoline.
You have a gasoline 2.99 on this corner, right?
Yeah.
And then you have gasoline that is like 2.06 on the next corner.
Yeah.
What do you do?
Your waste time going to the gas station that's 2.06, or you get the gas station there.
Yeah.
You're here.
I'm here.
I'm here, right?
Yeah.
You know, people do that.
And it's not just San Francisco where marijuana is so out in the open.
At a comedy club in Sunnyvale, just one hour south of San Francisco, there's a whole show
about it.
The Marijuana Logs features Tony Kameen, Rob Cantrell, and Dan Gabriel, three comedians
who aren't shy about declaring their love for the bud.
We're excited about marijuana.
Marijuana pleases us.
And as the title of this show suggests, we're here to talk about marijuana.
We're here to think about it, to hear stories about it, to learn about it, to understand
it, to buy it.
And by it, we mean marijuana.
You know, why write a whole show about marijuana?
I think pot is sort of borderline risqué.
It's not, you know, it's like the breasts of sexuality where like, who doesn't really
like breasts?
You know, who doesn't really have the problem with pot, but still it's a little, just, you
know, just enough risqué.
How many people here think that marijuana should be legalized by applause?
Wouldn't that be sweet if we could legalize marijuana by applauding?
But for some people, like anti-marijuana activists Ron Kirkish, the possible legalization of
marijuana is no laughing matter.
I don't care what the pro-pot forces say.
When you talk to the prisoners, when you talk to the people that have quit drugs, and I
all say it started with marijuana, that's the truth.
They don't want to believe that, and they don't want you to believe it, but that's the truth.
My opponents say, oh, it's a, no problem drug, that's not true.
It's not true at all.
Of course you can.
Of course you can.
But those are legal.
Yes, they are.
And unfortunately, look at the damage alcohol and tobacco are doing to our society today.
Is that what we want to do, add another one?
Is that really the right way to go?
Still, there are others who disagree.
Alex Woon started the San Jose State University chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policies,
a group fighting to fully legalize marijuana.
I know a bunch of people who come to Americans for safe access, and they don't have a medical
car, but they say they only have a few months to live.
They have either cancer or HIV or AIDS, and if it helps them be able to function and live
out the rest of their life, they should be able to.
One of my best friends has epilepsy, so if he doesn't vaporize in the morning or doesn't
eat an edible night before, then he will have a seizure the next morning.
It kind of sucks, but that's the reality of it.
It's estimated that over 200,000 Californians now have a medical marijuana card, but anti-marijuana
activists say that they're not being used legitimately.
Less than 2% of the people that smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons use it for that reason.
All the rest are using it for recreational use.
They'll say they're sick, they've got a bad back, they've got a, they hurt their leg,
or they've got writer's cramp or things like that, or they've got anxiety.
That's the biggest one.
I've got anxiety.
I have to take a test today.
I'm nervous, and so they want to go and use that as a ruse for smoking marijuana.
And that's what I'm against.
It's not FDA approved, and you have people out there that are criminals that are trying
to sell it and make a buck and poison our kids.
It's all part of the drug culture that they have.
Buy this stuff, it's good for you, it's medicine, it's all garbage.
But according to Woon, it's not garbage.
It does not cause cancer, it does not cause nearly as much harm as previously stated.
It's never caused a single death alone.
There are some pundits that say, well, if it does become legalized, then our children
are going to be affected.
They're going to be exposed to this double weed, but I think we really need education.
Yes, that's the main thing we need.
Education is going to really shape how our children view marijuana.
We have tobacco education, we have alcohol education, I don't see why we don't have marijuana
education.
Hopefully, California can be used as a model for the rest of the world that marijuana is
not harmful.
We legalized medical marijuana in 1996, and since then, the number of dispensaries has
grown from less than 100 to over 1,000.
There are even delivery services for patients too ill to leave their homes, like MedEx and
San Jose.
MedEx deliveries, Daniel speaking, how can I help you?
Can I get your doctor's recommendation number, please?
I went to their headquarters to speak with Daniel Hovlin, president of the company, about
the medical community's role in the fight for fully legalizing marijuana.
We're fighting for the same thing if you think about it.
The communities that are saying, we want to protect our kids, and that's exactly what
we want to do.
Through control and regulation of this industry, it'll be the same as a pharmacy or a liquor
store or a tobacco industry where kids aren't able to get that, and so you go through, well,
of course, they're able to if they go through the wrong means, but to go to a liquor store
and try and buy alcohol, for example, or go to a pharmacy and try and get a prescription
that you don't have, of course, you're not going to be able to get it without proper
identification or with a recommendation or a prescription, for example.
So there's lots of institutions, medical institutions that have been established, and we could be
viewed as the same.
So I don't think that it's going to really hurt the industry or it will hurt the people.
Suffering a deficit of more than $20 billion, it could be a profitable move to legalize
marijuana.
It's estimated that over $1.3 billion in taxes could be made in the first year alone.
I went to downtown Oakland to find out what the people of California think about this.
It's already almost legalized.
You couldn't ask anyone if it was legalized now.
People weren't really, it's kind of hard.
The boundaries just need to be a little bit more clear.
It's a great thing.
I'm looking forward to it happening.
I think it will happen.
I think it's good for the city.
I think it's good for the state.
I don't know what they've put into marijuana, but there's something they put in it and
it's a stench, and the stench is horrible.
And they don't seem to realize they're walking around and it smells.
I don't think it's the right time to legalize it, partly because of all the drug trafficking
that goes on in our border, and so I would be scared that more violence would occur.
When people passed the peace pipe, it wasn't tobacco at first.
It was marijuana, and other naturally, you know what I'm saying, natural substances
before it was this chemically processed tobacco, you know what I'm saying, it was marijuana.
So I feel like, you know what I'm saying, if they legalized it, it would create a lot
more stability in America.
I think the tax revenue on that could be pretty lucrative, especially for a state that's
sort of suffering financially.
I don't know.
It makes good sense.
And it's California.
It's all gone, you know?
There may as well be one thing that everybody else in the world thinks about California.
That's actually true.
So no matter what the outcome of November's election, it seems like marijuana has already
become deeply implanted in California's culture.
I picked up the San Francisco Weekly today, and it's all about drinking, and then you
have some green relief stuff going on, you know?
And you're best.
You know, it's actually ready, I mean, whether it passes or not on paperwork, it's there.
