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Vice Blog

WEED DEALINGS - MENDOCINO FARMERS COLLECTIVE

Explicit rights are not an explicit concept in the medical cannabis industry. The legislation of SB 420 was primarily concerned with patients' ability to have access to cannabis. How patients went about utilizing their ability to have access to medicine wasn't explicitly dictated, nor were explicit parameters made to ensure that a patient had access to medicine. So, if you open up a newly legalized chain of supply where existing illegal chains of supply already function what do you think happens? Nothing really changes, because it creates a stalemate of sorts, save for the graces of folks like Marv Levin from the Mendocino Farmers Collective.

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When government hasn't told anyone how to go about getting their medicine it's a messy road to medicating. There are arrests, convictions and appeals; forward-thinking government officials; public voting; dispensaries that often feel like trap houses; and flying under the radar. In this environment the people who work to institute lasting changes have to be patient, well-tempered, and willing to take a certain amount of risk. And then in Marv's case he also has a passion for organizing folks, and a passion for knowing more, and a passion for sharing his ever-increasing knowledge with the folks he gets organized. All that is very important, because without folks like Marv who work to change the situation, it would remain an illegal market turned kind of legal.

Marv and a handful of other Mendocino farmers and community members created the Mendocino Farmers Collective (MFC, no relation to Duck Down) in 2009. Their aim is to supply patients with medicine, and to ensure that their medicine is of the highest quality, cultivated according to specific purity standards, and comes from farmers who are dedicated to helping people. They work with community organizations such as the local Hepatitis C clinic with whom they shared the proceeds from the Emerald Cup. Where government hasn't dictated how these organizations should be run, Marv and the rest of the MFC have stepped forward and provided an example of one way to run a legal operation that should be a welcome addition to any community.

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In order to deal with the MFC you have to be a medical marijuana patient. If you don't already have your 215 card they can help you find a doctor and see if a medical cannabis recommendation is right for you. If it is, you simply sign up with them and you enter a different world of marijuana. No FREE GRAMS BUDDY, no WAIT IN THE ANTEROOM, no NO HATS, no NO CELLPHONES, no SLIDE YOUR PAPERWORK UNDER THE BULLETPROOF GLASS. And most importantly, no mystery medicine. What the MFC offers patients is transparency, and access to the information that is revealed in said transparency. When you join the MFC you're becoming part of the future of patients' ability to have access to medicine. It's taken some time, and there have been casualties along the way but the end result is what we see here. With this collective you can find out when your medicine was harvested, find out which anonymized farmer (farmer's government names are kept private) grew it, find out what symptoms it treats best, and on and on. The MFC can answer any question you have, and the amount of information they have will leave you asking even more questions. For instance, I found out that juicing small buds and leaves is a very effective way to administer a dosage of medicine without the psychedelic high. Marv also told me that he often drinks a tea which has a slight calming effect and helps him sleep.

The MFC isn't for everyone though. But that's OK because they don't have to be. Marv told me explicitly that they're not there for people who are just looking to get high. If those folks want to come to the MFC for their medicine the MFC will be happy to help them, but they're doing something that is more closely tied to the proliferation of medicine. The MFC is about teaching patients how to understand the medicine better, use it effectively to treat their symptoms, and ensure responsible cultivation and distribution. And that's an important distinction for them to make.

You have to keep in mind that Mendocino is a county that has found stability and prospered because of marijuana. People who live here are constantly surrounded by it. So, it's tough to be in Mendocino for long without getting an idea that there's a lot more to marijuana than we previously imagined. The MFC represents the proliferation and acceptance of what is commonplace in Mendocino. While much of the rest of the country may have smoked the marijuana grown here over the least 40 years, very few of us saw what the world of cannabis actually was. Very few of us understood anything about this plant beyond its capacity to alter your mindstate. Unfortunately, while the culture wasn't able to represent itself the government was pushing false accounts that demonized marijuana. So, as medicinal marijuana is being carried into the graces of the rest of the country by the MFC and folks like them it's a matter of lifting the Emerald curtain, revealing the depths of this lush mountain life, and getting people to see the sea around the pearls.

ZACHARY G. MOLDOF

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