The AP is reporting on the Granny Purps dispensary in Soquel, in Santa Cruz County, California, which is offering a free joint to all patients who bring in four cans of food for a local food bank. Patients are limited to just three joints a day, however, making a potential dozen cans of food donated for every patient. The food bank, The Second Harvest Food Bank, has noticed the increased donations from the cannabis community. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel:
In all, Granny Purps handed out 2,000 joints to dispensary clients and collected 11,000 pounds of food, a large and exceptional contribution for a business of its size. “We look at pounds donated per employee, and Granny Purps, with about eight employees, received the amount of donations that we’d expect a business with 30 to 40 employees to get,” said Danny Keith, chief development and technology officer at Second Harvest.
Some patients were bringing in far more than the minimum donation, such as the Sentinel’s report of a patient who brought in a five pound bag of rice. Growers were also donating some of the marijuana to be rolled into the giveaway joints. But there is still one aspect of the story that disturbs me…
When the Second Harvest barrels were first put out at the dispensary in November, donations were trickling in. After word of the promotion spread to the dispensary’s 1,900 patients, the employees at Granny Purps could barely keep up with the flood of food, and even reduced the minimum amount for the promotion from four cans of food to three.
“We only had the barrels out for three or four days before the incentive was announced, and I think our patients would have come out even without the incentive. We have an incredible group of compassionate patients,” [said Nancy "Granny Purps" Black,] “… I love that our patients are so compassionate. When we told them that we were doing this, their response was amazing.”
The Sentinel explains that the free joints regularly cost $10. Really? Ten bucks for a joint? Let’s see, I can go buy a dozen cans of peas for less than a buck a can, turn them in at Granny Purps for $30 worth of joints? Who wouldn’t be compassionate?
2,000 joints handed out is $20,000 worth of product Granny Purps could just give away without feeling any hurt on their bottom line… do you think maybe these dispensaries are marking up the prices just a little too high? Maybe those barrels could’ve remained out for truly compassionate donations AND Granny Purps could have cut a $20,000 check to the food bank?
I’m happy the food bank got all that food. I’m happy that the Granny Purps patients could get joints for a more reasonable cost of $3-$5 worth of canned food instead of $10. But I’m disappointed that prohibition still exists and patients have become accustomed to paying so much for marijuana. Remember, this is medicine that they’re allegedly collectively cultivating and cooperatively distributing.
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“Maybe if I’d ever read a story about a dispensary that had donated 10% from the sale of every joint to the Prop 19 campaign, instead of the scores of stories I read about dispensaries with “No on 19? propaganda on the displays, I’d not be so skeptical.”
That is a very good point. I also wish that NORML would pay a lot more attention to Sensible Washington’s upcoming initiative. We need volunteers, backers, etc.. Soon signature gatherers.
This (like last year’s I-1068) is the most liberty based proposal that the USA has witnessed. I haven’t read what is exactly being proposed this year, but based on what was proposed last year, I expect good things.
Russ, I want to work with you on a way to get a banner or link ad up for them.
Thanks for all you do bro!
“Maybe if I’d ever read a story about a dispensary that had donated 10% from the sale of every joint to the Prop 19 campaign, instead of the scores of stories I read about dispensaries with “No on 19? propaganda on the displays, I’d not be so skeptical.”
Russ, GREAT POINT BRO!!!!!!!
Fair enough.
I avoid that word, ‘compassion’ like the plague now. It seems to me it’s come to be associated with medicinal cannabis in that those who use it are using it to manipulate people into believing their use of cannabis is medicinal when, as Russ said, “…you and I both know that the majority you serve are people who, like me, are just healthy folks who like to smoke pot.” This is a very dangerous misconception. You may be safe from the repeal of laws enabling the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes in California, but this misconception is probably the biggest problem for other states (and countries). I think it was wise of you, Russ, to point out how it might be a good idea to start thinking about distancing yourself from that ‘compassion’ concept now.
I think this thing about money is a big problem. If only cannabis were difficult and expensive to produce, it would have been legal long ago by now, like whiskey. Hell, even if it were as difficult to make as potato vodka (moonshine), it would have a better chance!
¡Ay caramba!
For the umpteenth time:
I’m not criticizing the food drive – it’s good people got food.
I’m not criticizing the free joints for food – it’s good people got cheap medicine.
I’m not criticizing the publicity for the dispensary – it’s good that people see us in a charitable light.
I’m criticizing two things: the use of the word “compassionate” and the retail price of a joint.
Re: “compassionate” – I am not saying that people giving food aren’t compassionate in doing so. I’m not saying that people offering joints to gather food aren’t compassionate in doing so. All I’m saying is that the “compassion” gets a whole lot of help from the “hey, I can get $10 worth of joints for $3 worth of food” for the food giver’s and “hey, I can get tens of thousands worth of earned media exposure in a crowded dispensary market” for the joint giver’s enlightened economic self interest. NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT, but it’s just not purely compassion, OK?
Re: the retail price of a joint – I am only somewhat blaming the dispensary here. They have overhead. Rollers gotta get paid. Budtenders gotta get paid. Rent gotta get paid. Taxes, utilities, licenses, attorney fees, I get it.
But the biggest element of the $10 joint price is still the illegality that prevents growers from utilizing economies of scale to mass produce product for sale. I’m not even talking about WalMartization – what “little grower” wouldn’t want to be able to have a 4,000 sq ft greenhouse if he could have it legally and hire people to help him out with it?
$10 a joint is ridiculous when even an overtaxed pack of 20 cigarettes is $5-$10 (25-50 cents a cig). Yes marijuana requires more careful tending than tobacco, but certainly larger grows, more labor, and automation should get the current price, which is 200x-400x what a cigarette costs, down substantially.
Personally I don’t think a joint should cost more than a beer. Maybe a beer is $10 at the stadium or the club (or more!) but at the store it’s not.
So, please, stop trying to demonize ol’ Russ here for not having a 100% glowing review of the dispensary food bank story. I think it is a great story, too, I’m just not so naive as to think those people were donating 12,000 pounds of food out of pure compassion…
BTW- Im from Santa Cruz, miss it dearly!
Sometimes I wonder if the constant criticism of those just trying to do good is about ratings, or is it something else? I don’t see how this dispensary did anything but good!
BTW JW, I agree with you on this brother! You and Dennis are doing a good thing!
I’ll tell you something else which occurred to me later: somewhere it said 2,000 joints had been skinned up and handed out. OK, so nature’s bounty provides the raw material so abundantly it’s embarrassing to apply monetarist principles to it, BUT who paid for the joint rollers’ time? It takes me a good quarter of an hour to twenty minutes to skin myself up a nice fatty for an evening’s relaxation once the kids are in bed, but even if you take out 90% of the time I spend on the evenings’ ritual, it still takes a lot of time to roll 2,000 joints. Who paid for it? What’s the minimum wage in California now? How much time would reasonably expect to spend rolling 2,000 joints? Why should the work of whoever went to the effort to skin up these joints be ignored? Where can I get a nice big chunk of some Californian’s time like that – for free?
For the first time since I have joined these conversations I am personally and deeply offended. I thought I was doing some good for our community and here I was the whole time screwing it up for the very same people I thought I was helping. Should I just quit then? Close up shop? Apologize for all the harm?
Sometimes, in order to get the mainstream to look at us differently than they have been programmed to, we have to do our goodwill work out in front of god and everybody and if that seems a little self serving then mission accomplished. Could it be that you don’t get to see all that we do because we do most of it privately, just because it needs to be done, and not as you say just for the glory?
“…$10 for a joint. $35 for an eighth. Really? That’s “reasonable”?”
Yes, unless you’re upset about living under capitalism, the price is set by the market. As long as prohibition plays a role in the process of production, and to be realistic it’s probably the most significant factor, you will have to pay for it.
To be realistic, again, it’s not really reasonable to expect the price of cannabis to drop, in any case. Its cost is what the market allows and as long as an economy is based on capitalism and market forces you will pay what people can afford. Although I haven’t lived in America for a long time, judging by the standard of living I see from indicators like e-bay, medical services, etc. I think $10 for a good stone is, as the dispensary manager above points out, quite reasonable. How many people would complain about spending $10 on beer, wine or spirits to get shit-faced (if you’re into that kind of thing)? From what I can see, it looks like a pretty good deal to me.
Presumably, your objection, as I understand it, would be something like, ‘God makes it free of charge for everyone and no-one deserves to earn too much for making it available to everyone.’ Yes, I agree with you in principle, but I grow my own, so I circumvent the economics. There’s nothing stopping anyone else from doing the same thing (except the law, and we all know about that) and if the cannabis is intended for medicinal application, then self-grow is the best option, anyway. If you’re too lazy or stupid or frightened to grow your own, then get in line to answer to market forces. If you just haven’t got enough time, then you’ve probably got a job which will allow you to indulge yourself to the tune of ten bucks a day, haven’t you? If you’ve got such a job and you just don’t like paying, then you’re probably a mean person and you probably deserve the angst market forces cause you.
“…the majority you serve are people who, like me, are just healthy folks who like to smoke pot.”
This is the danger you need to worry about and concentrate on. It represents a real danger of backlash, if not in California (or other legal medical states) then on a grander scale, well beyond the US. A lot of countries, e.g. Ireland and Israel, are in the process of legalising cannabis for medical purposes. If they get the idea you’ve put into black and white above, then you make the struggle for patients less fortunate than yourselves more difficult that it was for you. Considering you enjoy a standard of living which enables you to spend $10 on a joint without really losing too much sleep over it, that’s hardly fair, is it?
Take a look at the big picture, Russ.
Having said that, I must admit I couldn’t be more supportive of your aversion to the word, ‘compassion’. What a load of scrawny old bollocks: the compassionate capitalist; makes one wonder how appropriate it is that the lead in cannabis legalisation should be taken by the US, where capitalism and democracy have so dramatically proven themselves to be incompatible. That’s apart from the history of prohibition and US role in coercing it to be embedded in international law. Never mind the ‘compassion’, it’s the DEA and corrupt politicians trading shares in and accepting gratuities from, for example, the pharmaceutical and incarceration industries which should be demanding (y)our attention.
Matthew 6:3
“But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”
And wash your face when you’re fasting. And don’t pretend you’re making a big sacrifice when you aren’t really. And don’t forget how lucky you are. As far as I can see, Granny Purps hasn’t transgressed these guidelines too much. But I’m not on the ground there, so you obviously know more about it than me. Would be interesting to learn what others think.
Phil, there is only one thing I am skeptical of – price: $10 for a joint. $35 for an eighth. Really? That’s “reasonable”? The check for $20 G’s just represents the 2,000 * $10 price for joints. You had no problem letting $20,000 worth of product out the door. Unless those 2,000 joints cost you substantially less, in which case, how much are you marking up the cost of a joint?
I’m happy patients got to get medicine at a reasonable price.
I’m happy needy families will get some food.
I’m even happy a dispensary got some positive publicity.
All I’m saying is that “compassion” isn’t exactly the word to describe someone who figures out that $10 worth of canned food will get them $30 worth of marijuana. It’s just good economic sense. Compassion is when people drop off that canned food for the needy expecting nothing in return. Compassion is when a business takes some of its profit and donates it directly to food banks without fanfare. (Direct donations of money to food banks often help them more, as they can pool large donations to buy food in bulk.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with turning weed into food and food into weed (though a friend remarked, “What a great way to turn food stamps into weed!”). I apologize if you felt insulted. You are right; you made a splash here when your competitors didn’t and a food drive is a noble endeavor. But since you aren’t the oldest or biggest player, it sure does help the bottom line to get some free national publicity, huh?
I guess I am just tired of the word “compassion” being tossed around by people selling weed at prohibition prices. Sorry. Mother Theresa had compassion. Jimmy Carter exhibits compassion. People volunteering at animal shelters exemplify compassion. And before you go there, yes, I know, there are many truly sick and disabled people who, without you and the many other dispensaries out there, would not have access to medicine, and, yes, you and others give away a whole lot of medicine to some of these people.
But you and I both know that the majority you serve are people who, like me, are just healthy folks who like to smoke pot. People who paid $35/eighth to underground dealers who told us the price was high because of the threat of arrest. So why is the price still high now?
Maybe it’s unfair of me to be venting this on you, Phil – I really don’t know you. But after a year of dreaming of a post-legalization California, riding the highs of >50% statewide polling on a legalization initiative, only to see it dashed by greedy growers and dispensaries who liked their $35/eighth profit margins and didn’t want to see it become $35/ounce, I’m just a little skeptical of the compassion industry right now.
Maybe if I’d ever read a story about a dispensary that had donated 10% from the sale of every joint to the Prop 19 campaign, instead of the scores of stories I read about dispensaries with “No on 19″ propaganda on the displays, I’d not be so skeptical.
Just break down for me the justification for a $10 joint and a $35 eighth. We both know cannabis grown indoors, especially in large-grow conditions, can be produced for $15-$25 per ounce. Outdoors it’s five to ten times cheaper. How does a $25 ounce become a $300 ounce in a non-profit cooperative or collective model? Are commercial rents that high in Soquel?
Well first off the sentinel isn’t very accurate The number of cans needed was never less then four. The maximum number of cans per day a patient could bring in was changed from 20 to 12, the lady brought in (2) 25 pound bags of rice and I have picture to prove it.
You assume that it would be easy for us to write a check for 20 Gs? What buisness has an extra 20 G’s laying around after their first 6 months, Besides it WAS about being compassionate. People who could not afford a 10 dollar doobie or a 35 dollar eighth were able for just a few dollars, afford the Meds they needed, and help out their community.
Most of the product that was given away was grown by the collective, or donated and but we did roll over two thousand joints and give them out as incentive. Is there another dispensary that was as creative or succesful? and 10 bucks for a joint is pretty reasonable, in comparison to some of our competitors.
I guess a person witha negative point of view can find the negative side of anything. You write for NORMAL and yet you are skeptical of a Dispensary that shows more compassion, and has done more for their community then any dispensary in the county of Santa Cruz, all in the first 6 months. There are 7 Dispensaries in Santa Cruz County, we are not the biggest, or the longest running, but you have heard of us, becuase we cared enough to make a difference in our community. Before you write like you know whats going on down here in California, maybe you should come down and check it out. ANYONE can sit behind their computer and write prose and lines and say they are making a difference. Here we are giving away Medication to people that need it and helping to raise food for needy families, and you are skeptical of Us?