Activist who helped legalize medical pot in California, dies

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 1:59 am, Sunday, January 28, 2018



SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Dennis Peron, an activist who was among the first people to argue for the benefits of marijuana for AIDS patients and helped legalize medical pot in California, died Saturday at 72.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Peron died in a hospital in the city.

Peron was a driving force behind a San Francisco ordinance allowing medical marijuana — a move that later aided the 1996 passage of Proposition 215 that legalized medical use in the entire state.

He argued for the benefits of medicinal marijuana for AIDS patients as the health crisis overtook San Francisco. The Chronicle said the epidemic took his partner, Jonathan West, in 1990.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Activist-who-helped-legalize-medical-pot-in-12531360.php

[EarthFirst]

1. Rest easy, friend... n/t

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Another marihuana-related death. When will we ever learn? NT

[NNadir]

3. He died of lung cancer. Inhaling burning biomass exhaust is NOT good for you. n/t

[Roy Rolling]

4. Maybe so

There are many other ways now to consume medical cannabis, vapor and edible. At the levels of cannabis medical patients need, smoking can be hazardous to some.

But it's also important to recognize the difference between smoking three joints a day versus smoking 40 tobacco cigarettes a day for nicotine addicts with a 2-pack a day habit. It's a difference of quantity, also.

[NNadir]

5. I personally knew, when I was young, people who smoked half a pack of joints...

...a day.

I wasn't impressed with their intellects.

They, of course, thought they were fine, but my feeling is that they thought so because their judgement was impaired.

I don't believe people should go to prison for marijuana, but that is different than representing that marijuana is good for you.

It isn't.

It's a pyschoactive drug.

[moriah]

6. That's some pretty intense consumption.

By normal standards of a "gram joint", that would have been more than a quarter ounce a DAY.

For a single person, by themselves? Wow, even by ditchweed standards.

[moriah]

7. Even if I defend medical use, no, burning biomass isn't good for lungs.

Correlating cancer risk is difficult because up until fairly recently most people who smoked anything also smoked tobacco. Finding enough people old enough who have only smoked cannabis to analyze cancer rates with a high enough degree of certainty is difficult.

But there are patterns of emphysema that manifest more often in dual-use of tobacco and cannabis compared to secondary (second-hand smoke induced) or patterns seem in tobacco use alone. Whether the general known effect of lowering protective enzymes in the lungs from tobacco smoke makes the areas of the lungs affected more vulnerable to damage than they would be otherwise is unknown, but it's probably safe to say cannabis smoke could cause emphysema and COPD on its own if there's a pattern almost only seen in dual-use pts.

Two good trends are the increase in potency in strains -- which would make a person who chose to combust inhale less burning biomass for the same effect -- and the increased use of portable devices to heat flowers to sub-combustion temperatures. I am not at all cool with extracts used to try to deliver via an "e-cigarette" or burning of wax/oils (dabbing) because we don't know enough and I dislike messing with a plant beyond just selective breeding/cultivation condition pressure/keeping it from getting pollinated. I am fine with edible extracts, but not inhaled ones.

Still, heating flowers to sub-combustion temperatures releases nearly all the same psychoactive chemicals that combustion does, without also creating products of combustion. Since it's so easy to find a lighter compared to investing money in a vape they msy not replace combustion, but I believe in harm-reduction promotion.

[Hortensis]

8. Thank you for your service to humanity, Mr. Peron.

He lived a meaningful life. I'd say RIP, but that may not be his wish.