The modern cannabis market and its sleek dispensaries, brand collaborations, and Green Wednesday promos for infused pre-rolls feel far removed from the world where activists went to jail for baking weed brownies for the terminally ill. However, the roots of today’s booming industry are deeply intertwined with a pivotal moment in public health history: the AIDS crisis.
The efforts of activists in the 1980s and 1990s not only transformed public perception of cannabis, but laid down the infrastructure and ethos that continue to shape today’s legal cannabis world.
In the early years of the epidemic, people with AIDS confronted not only a devastating viral disease but also harrowing side effects from emerging treatments. Those afflicted often endured loss of appetite and wasting syndrome, increasing their suffering and ability to fight the disease simultaneously. Cannabis showed real promise to help, but was illegal at the federal and state levels with hefty penalties thanks to the War on Drugs. Despite this, communities and activists came together to build informal networks and collectives to distribute cannabis as a life-saving medicine.
A Fight that Began with Compassion
There was nothing abstract or academic about this activism—it was literal survival, as the government and the medical infrastructure failed to respond effectively despite the devastating loss. In the United States, 100,777 people died of AIDS between 1981-1990, with one-third of those happening in 1990 alone.
Something had to be done, so groups like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) challenged the inertia. San Francisco‑based Dennis Peron, who saw firsthand how cannabis eased agony for his partner and friends dying of AIDS, became a driving force in the movement throughout the 1990s. Joined by other notable activists like Mary Jane Rathbun, aka Brownie Mary, he helped draft California’s Proposition 215, the landmark medical cannabis …
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Author: Alexa Oliphant / High Times
