Life, Liberty, [and the Pursuit of Happiness]: Medical Marijuana Regulation in Historical Context
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Life, Liberty, [and the Pursuit of Happiness]:
Medical Marijuana Regulation in Historical
Context
LEWIS A. GROSSMAN*
ELECTION NIGHT IN A MARIJUANA SUPERMARKET
It was 7:45 p.m. on Election Day, 1996. The thousands of people assembled in
and around the Cannabis Buyers Club (CBC) on San Francisco's Market Street were
eager for the polls to close in fifteen minutes so they could start smoking weed.'
The crowd had gathered for a victory party celebrating the expected passage of
California Proposition 215, the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996. If
enacted, this initiative would be the first state law in the United States to legalize the
use of marijuana for medical purposes. Dennis Peron-the founder and director of
the CBC-would later remember: Our freedom itself was on the ballot .. .. The
entire planet was watching. 2
Many of the partygoers had been ready to light up triumphal joints for hours, but
Peron pleaded that they keep their pot in their pockets until 8:00 p.m. Although polls
showed broad support for medical marijuana, Californians overwhelmingly opposed
recreational use of the drug. Peron later explained, We just didn't want .. . live
television pictures of folks 'getting high' being the last thing people saw before
going out to vote.3
In each of the two previous years, the California legislature had passed a bill
legalizing medical use of marijuana, only to see Governor Pete Wilson veto it. Peron
had thus decided to take the issue directly to the people. He had co-drafted
Proposition 215, an initiative immune from gubernatorial veto, and started the
successful drive to obtain enough signatures to get it in on the ballot. The measure
explicitly recognized that Californians had a right to obtain and use marijuana for
medical purposes when a physician recommended they do so for treatment of
* Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law. Ph.D. (History) Yale
University; J.D. Harvard University, B.A. Yale University. This article will appear in substantially similar
form as a chapter in the author's forthcoming book with Oxford University Press titled CHOOSE YOUR
MEDICINE: FREEDOM OF THERAPEUTIC CHOICE IN AMERICA. The author thanks the many colleagues who
offered comments on this article at the 2018 Health Law Professors Conference, a 2018 Princeton
University Law and Public Affairs Workshop, the 2018 American Society for Legal History Annual
Meeting, and a 2019 Seton Hall Law School Faculty Colloquium. He is also grateful to Allen St.-Pierre of
NORML and Steph Sherer of ASA for providing their insights and access to their archives. The author is a
part-time Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP. This article does not reflect the views of the firm or its
clients.
I DENNIS PERON & JOHN ENTWISTLE, MEMOIRS OF DENNIS PERON: HOW A GAY HIPPY OUTLAW
LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IN RESPONSE TO THE AIDS CRISIS loc. 3708 (2012) (ebook).
2 Id. at 3706-08.
3 Id. at 3730.
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Life, Liberty, [and the Pursuit of Happiness]: Medical Marijuana Regulation in Historical Context
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