Super-Charged by Jim Rendon

Author:Jim Rendon
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2012-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Growers are finding that they not only have a voice but, as the real economic engine in this region, they may be able to actually shape the future for themselves, at least locally. Burger’s group, for example, has hired a well-known Sacramento lobbyist to push his approach in Humboldt and in 2010 raised money for a candidate for city council who lost and for the district attorney’s reelection campaign. While Burger is learning the ropes of local politics, marijuana money is already having a large impact on state politics—one that many growers here have not been happy with.

In 2010 an initiative to legalize marijuana in California was put on the ballot by an Oakland cannabis entrepreneur named Richard Lee. He was not well known by the policy groups in New York and Washington, DC, and his ballot initiative seemed to take them by surprise much as Peron’s initiative had 14 years before.

Lee came to California in 1997 from Houston, Texas, where he owned a store specializing in hemp-based products, such as clothes, oils, and soaps. When Lee moved to Oakland he began working with Jeff Jones, another early medical marijuana activist, who had opened a dispensary near Oakland City Hall. Lee and Jones were among those who would push to make Oakland friendly to the medical marijuana industry. Like Wernard Bruining, who wanted to turn Amsterdam into the Jamaica of Europe, Lee wanted to turn Oakland into the Amsterdam of America. And in a way, he has.

He opened his dispensary, The Bull Dog, in 1999. He started Oaksterdam University in 2007, where students can learn how grow marijuana, how to set up dispensaries and collectives and navigate California’s murky laws. The school occupies a 30,000-square-foot building in downtown Oakland. Under the Oaksterdam umbrella, he also has a gift shop, a head shop, a nursery that sells clones and mother plants, a glassblowing shop where bowls, bongs, and other paraphernalia are made, and even a cannabis museum. A medical marijuana patient gives people rides around nearby Lake Merritt in a Model T Ford emblazoned with the Oaksterdam logo.

Lee is a taciturn character. He wears sunglasses and when he talks, has a tendency to look down at his hands and fidget with the Velcro straps on the gloves he wears to avoid blisters from pushing the wheels of his wheelchair. Often his voice just trails off when he answers questions. Despite his inward nature, Lee has been incredibly successful here. He’s treated a bit like the mayor of downtown Oakland. When he wheels himself down the street, people wave and say hello. Many come up and introduce themselves, others stop to talk shop about grow lights and ventilation systems.

He has also used the money he makes here to jumpstart the statewide and even national debate on the legalization of marijuana. In March of 2009 Lee paid for a poll that for the first time showed a majority of Californians supported legalization. The results were confirmed a month later by a Field Poll that found that 56 percent of California voters supported legalization.

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