Valerie Corral was a guest on our show and spoke about Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, or WAMM, as part of my interviews with Wendy Chapkis and Richard Webb on their book, “Dying to Get High”.  Now Valerie is facing the loss of the land and the WAMM collective.

News & Culture | WAMM founders Valerie and Michael Corral face the loss of their land and the end of a dream
But as of July this past summer, the land that the Corrals called their home for over 20 years is slipping away. Because of a perfect storm of factors—plummeting donations to WAMM, the DEA raid of the property in 2002, death and taxes—Valerie can no longer afford to stay in her home, and WAMM is losing its iconic garden. “I’m exhausted,” says Valerie. “I’m losing my land, the place I thought that I’d be buried.”

Though the situation is complex, Ben Rice, an attorney who has represented the Corrals for the last 15 years, blames the situation solely on the federal government. Without the DEA’s continual assault on California law, medical marijuana organizations would not be raided, would not spend their savings on legal defense and would not lose precious donations due to spooked members. “WAMM is sort of the soul of the medical marijuana community,” says Rice. “This never would have happened if the feds had taken the time to look at what WAMM was about and who Mike and Val were.

“For them to lose this property—they’ve given everything they have to WAMM, and this is what they get for it. It’s so, so sad.”

There is something seriously wrong with this country when a selfless person like Valerie, who at great legal risk to herself gives her whole life to helping patients, is persecuted and bankrupted, but then executives of the Big Three US automakers are each flying a private corporate jet to Washington to ask for taxpayer bailouts, when all they’ve done is act completely selfishly as they’ve mismanaged Detroit to near bankruptcy.

Police: Sex offender at WAMMFest didn’t commit a crime – San Jose Mercury News
Authorities confirmed Monday that a convicted sex offender was in charge of the children’s play area at the annual WAMMFest in San Lorenzo Park during the weekend, but said the woman did not commit a criminal act at the event and no reports of inappropriate behavior have been filed.

The fact Patricia Babiana Mince, 48, is a registered sex offender surfaced after WAMMFest, an event designed to advocate medical marijuana. The festival drew about 2,500 people Saturday and is organized by the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

“It’s unfortunate,” WAMM co-founder Valerie Corral said. “It’s a terrible thing to have happen for everyone. It changes the tenor of everything.”

Corral pointed out that Mince has paid her debt to society and that she wasn’t directly supervising children Saturday. Mince was in charge of the children’s game booths, a job that largely involved cleaning and setting up the games.

“She wasn’t in a position where she was in any violation,” Corral said, adding that no single WAMM representative is left alone with children during the festival.

A Santa Cruz police detective on Monday looked into Mince’s possible interaction with children at the festival and determined there was no illegal conduct, Clark said.

Mince was convicted in 2000 of misdemeanor child molestation and providing marijuana to a minor, according to public defender William Weigel, who represented her. The victim was a 15-year-old female San Lorenzo Valley High School student, according to Sgt. Robin Mitchell of the sheriff’s Sex Crimes Unit. Mince served local jail time, was released and is no longer on probation but was required to register as a sex offender.

It’s unfortunate that with all the good work Valerie and the people of WAMM do for the medical marijuana community, an incident like this scares the public and taints the community with scandal.

It’s also unfortunate that our society has become so extreme when it comes to the issue of sex offenders.

I’m not trying to defend Ms. Mince.  A woman in her forties fooling around with a 15-year-old girl and giving her pot is absolutely indefensible.  However, this woman, with a conviction and her name and face on the Megan’s Law database, in a public park with other volunteers setting up and cleaning a game area for little kids, was hardly a danger to anyone.  Her profile doesn’t strike me as one of a predator who would snatch up a toddler and run away.

I bring this up because it isn’t too hard for me to imagine a “Megan’s Law” being instituted for drug offenders.  Imagine your name, face, and address on a searchable internet database for your felony drug conviction.  Imagine neighborhood associations passing out fliers with your face and “DRUG OFFENDER” plastered on every telephone pole.  Imagine that you were caught, convicted, and served your time, and were clean of all drugs and attending rehab and therapy, and yet in every aspect of your life, you are punished, ostracized, and possibly harassed, beaten, and killed for your mistake so many years ago.

I’m not saying we don’t punish sex offenders.  I’m just saying that we don’t offer much nuance of what “sex offender” is.  There are the truly sick pedophiles who hurt little children and can never be cured, and I’m OK with life sentences and no parole for that.  But then there are people like a friend of mine who at age 20 had a 15-year-old girlfriend, whose parents were OK with the relationship, until they broke up and then they pressed charges.  Now my friend, who served time, admits his mistake, and would never even touch an adult woman without permission, but is not allowed to be alone with his own toddler nieces and nephews, and must remain celibate for the first six months of any adult sexual relationship, and must immediately tell any new girlfriend about his conviction.  But he, the sick pedophile, and this Ms. Mince, who falls somewhere in-between, are all branded “SEX OFFENDERS”.

Council OKs smoking pot in WAMM tent – San Jose Mercury News
SANTA CRUZ — Medical marijuana patients will once again be allowed to smoke dope in San Lorenzo Park this Saturday, after city leaders temporarily lifted a smoking ban to allow for a festival celebrating the medicinal herb.

The decision came after testimony from more than 20 patients who reasoned and pleaded with the Santa Cruz City Council to allow them to inhale their medication while partaking in Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana’s annual WAMMfest. Some accused council members of growing old and more conservative, while others said Santa Cruz was losing both its compassion and its weirdness.

The catch, however, is that the ban was not lifted for the entire park. Instead, those with a medical marijuana identification card only will be allowed to smoke inside a tent designated for that purpose.

Council members approved the proposal on a 5-1 vote, with Councilwoman Lynn Robinson voting against the measure and Mayor Ryan Coonerty absent.

Robinson said she does not like making exceptions to rules that the city requires everyone else to follow.

Imagine if you were in charge of a city park and there was a festival going on, but before anyone could enter, they were tested to see if they were on any painkillers like oxycodone or acetominophen, or on any mood stabilizers like Prozac or Xanax.  And if they were on any of these drugs, they’re not allowed to attend.

Councilwoman Robinson believes that WAMM was asking for an exception to a rule that everyone else follows.  But that rule was a rule against smoking in the park – tobacco or cannabis.  Since there is no “medical tobacco”, then the ban was against “recreational smoking”.

WAMM didn’t ask for that; they asked that their members would be allowed to be and get medicated.  Everyone else who goes to that park is allowed to be under the influence or take their legally-ingested medication; why should medical marijuana patients be any different?  If a healthy person was at the event and got a headache, they’d be allowed to take an aspirin in plain view; why can’t the legal medical marijuana patient take their medicine?

Again, it’s that untenable dichotomy between “legal sick person” and “illegal healthy person” when it comes to marijuana, and the patients have to fight and scratch and beg to be allowed to medicate hidden from view in a tent, lest sensitive public eyes unwittingly see someone smoking weed.  Until marijuana is legal for all, patients will continue to be “separate but equal” in public accomodations.

Council could lift smoking ban for pot fest – San Jose Mercury News
The smoking ban in city parks could be lifted for the second time since it passed three years ago, as city leaders are considering allowing medical marijuana patients to light up during a festival at San Lorenzo Park at the end of the month.

“It’s not like a recreational marijuana event,” said Councilman Mike Rotkin, who supports the temporary lifting of the city’s 3-year-old ordinance that bans smoking in parks.

“It’s not a smoke-in, it’s not like the 4/20 thing up on campus,” Rotkin said.

That April 20 event attracts thousands of people to Porter Meadow at UC Santa Cruz each spring to celebrate the so-called 4/20 cannabis culture holiday.

Instead, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana would like the ban lifted so its 200 members can self-medicate while they enjoy the organization’s annual festival. Wammfest, a medical marijuana, hemp and music festival, is scheduled for Sept. 27.

“As patients, its really important to have access to the medicine in the most indiscreet and reasonable fashion,” said Valerie Corrall, co-founder of WAMM.

The item will be considered on the City Council’s consent agenda today. The council unanimously approved a similar temporary suspension of the smoking ban for last year’s event.

A closed tent will be available at the festival for those who need to administer their prescription drugs, and no pot will be for sale or distributed, Rotkin said.

Santa Cruz police reported no problems with last year’s festival. But after Measure K was passed with 60 percent of the vote in 2006, Santa Cruz police are forced to make adult marijuana-related crimes on private property a low priority.

Remember when people were allowed to smoke cigarettes in airplanes and elevators?  Now you can’t smoke a cigarette in a public park, but you can smoke marijuana!  What a country!

Seriously, though, this is a wonderful victory for Valerie and the movement.  Police will always tell you our cannabis community events are by far the most peaceful scenes they have to patrol.  A reporter asked police at the Seattle Hempfest, with its 150,000 people how it compared to patrolling Seahawks or Mariners games where beer is served, and the police said Hempfest was “a Girl Scout camp” compared to policing half the number of beer drinkers.

And while I support perfectly healthy people smoking weed in the park, there is no doubt that many patients would have no possible way to enjoy a nice sunny day in nature without being able to medicate.  Life is tough enough when you have a debilitating injury or illness – letting them smoke cannabis in the park is the compassionate thing to do.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-08-04

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-08-04.mp3)

Today’s Stash features part three of my interview with Wendy Chapkis, Richard Webb, and Valerie Corral on the book “Dying to Get High”, which chronicles medical marijuana in California from Prop 215 through the advent of Corral’s WAMM collective (Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana).  Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2 from last week.

Kris Krane joins us from Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) to relay the sad news that the Higher Education Act was reauthorized along with its Aid Elimination Penalty.  Learn how that affects college students’ financial aid and the incentive to join the military instead.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-07-28.mp3)

Oh, we’re creeping up on August and that is going to be one jam-packed month for me.  Road-tripping to Seattle for the Hempfest, then back to Portland, on to Boise on my way to Denver for the Democratic National Convention (I’ll be covering the convention as a credentialed blogger for another site I contribute to, Pam’s House Blend.  If you’d like to click over there and drop a donation for our travel expenses, that would be way appreciated.)

Today I’m speaking with Wendy Chapkis and Richard Webb, authors of the new book “Dying to Get High”, which examines the issue of medical marijuana and asks why getting high in and of itself isn’t considered a medical benefit?  They also profile Valerie Corral of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a patient collective that operates without commerce, and she also joins us on the conference call.  This interview will be aired in three parts, starting today.

Then I’m speaking with Kevin Hoover, the editor/publisher of the Arcata Eye in Arcata, California.  Kevin recently interviewed the Deputy Drug Czar, Scott Burns, as the ONDCP set upon Arcata’s burgeoning grow house industry to stage a photo-op of medical marijuana gone out of control.  You can read Kevin’s interview at the Arcata Eye.  We’ll divide this interview into two parts, starting today.

That’s plenty to get ya started.  We’re still running the Pass the Stash contest – what’s your story of being busted with the smallest amount of weed?  You could win the “a/k/a Tommy Chong” DVD.