Peron argued for the benefits of medicinal marijuana for AIDS patients as the health crisis overtook San Francisco.<\/b>
\nDennis 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 \u2014 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.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors recognized Peron, suffering with late-stage lung cancer, with a certificate of honor last year.
\u00ab\u00a0The father of medical marijuana,\u00a0\u00bb one supervisor called him in the meeting.
\u00ab\u00a0I came to San Francisco to find love and to change the world,\u00a0\u00bb Peron said in reply. \u00ab\u00a0I found love, only to lose him through AIDS. We changed the world.\u00a0\u00bb
A Vietnam War veteran, Peron spent some of his last years on a farm in Lake County, growing and giving away medical marijuana.
Dennis Peron wrote in his 2012 book, \u00ab\u00a0Memoirs of Dennis Peron,\u00a0\u00bb that he was just a \u00ab\u00a0gay kid from Long Island who joined the Air Force to get away from home.\u00a0\u00bb
The Chronicle said he then moved to a commune in San Francisco where he befriended Supervisor Harvey Milk and began selling marijuana.
In 1991, Peron founded the first public cannabis dispensary in the country during the height of the U. S. drug war.
He and a friend distributed pot to AIDS patients, got busted several times and was shot in the leg by a police officer, the newspaper said.
The pot club served 9,000 clients before it was closed by a judge.
\u00ab\u00a0The city and the country has lost a cannabis leader who lived life on the edge,\u00a0\u00bb Terrance Alan, a member of the city’s Cannabis Commission, told the Chronicle, \u00ab\u00a0He lived his whole life on the edge, and that’s what allowed us to lead in cannabis.\u00a0\u00bb
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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http:\/\/www.sfgate.com<\/p>\n

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