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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Weed Week: San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2024

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club was one of the first marijuana dispensaries in the country. Its members were people with AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses, and inside the club had stages, TV lounges, puzzles, and other things that would bring people together. Today, we meet the unexpected mix of gay rights organizers and cannabis advocates behind the club, and we hear about their unorthodox route to opening it – including why they tried to get busted by the police.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Buying marijuana these days, it's pretty easy, at least in California.

0:08.5

Cannabis dispensaries, they're kind of like corner stores around here.

0:12.1

It feels like there's one on almost every block.

0:14.5

Inside, there's bright lighting, glass cases filled with all sorts of brands wrapped up

0:18.5

and cool packaging.

0:19.9

There's even a cannabis concierge to help you out.

0:22.7

You can be in and out in 10 minutes.

0:24.6

It's almost like buying a bag of chips.

0:27.4

One of the first cannabis dispensaries was located in San Francisco,

0:31.2

and it was a completely different experience.

0:34.2

It opened before it was legal to sell pot.

0:36.6

And I imagined it as this small underground operation, but it was completely the opposite.

0:43.9

We got a 30,000 square foot, five-story high-rise down at Van Essen Market, a whole glass front.

0:50.8

This is John Entwistle.

0:52.4

He helped open the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. The club was this

0:56.3

member's only dispensary that sold medical marijuana. The membership was made up of AIDS and

1:01.5

cancer patients, people with severe medical conditions. It opened in 1991, and at the time, the

1:08.2

club really wasn't a secret. We grew to 8,000 people.

1:11.6

It never took very much room to buy and sell pot.

1:14.5

You just meet a little counter and a scale, a couple of people in a row,

1:17.6

but took 30,000 square feet was the party space.

1:21.0

We set up stages, we set up, TV lounges, big tables, puzzles, things that would bring people together.

...

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