| Brad Kava/Santa Cruz Patch |
| Each of these “tombstones” represents one of hundreds of WAMM patients who needed marijuana for medicinal reasons. |
The first thing that visitors to the ninth annual WAMM Festival saw on Saturday was a mock graveyard. Hundreds of tombstones memorialized critically ill patients whose lives were helped by medical marijuana.
The visual gave a message to the hundreds of people who strolled through San Lorenzo Park in Santa Cruz for the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana‘s annual festival, reports Brad Kava at the Santa Cruz Patch. That message was that critically ill people need help from cannabis, which remains illegal for any purpose at the federal level, despite having been legalized for medicinal use in 16 states.
Speakers including former Grateful Dead road manager Rock Scully linked the festival to the Occupy rallies which also took place in the same park.
“The change has begun and we’ve got to keep it up,” Scully told the crowd. “You guys are doing great. All the little Occupations everywhere. Don’t forget. Occupy the cannabis, or whatever you call it. We can show them that we can still do it right in this country.”
Famous venture capitalist Roger McNamee, whose firm Elevation Partners funded Facebook early on, was there with his band Moonalice. Elevation partners has $1.9 billion of investments including high-profile investors like U2 vocalist Bono.
“But the shaggy frontman singer looked nothing like the clean-cut pictures on his investment website,” Kava wrote.
McNamee opened Moonalice’s set by signing “It’s 4:20 Somewhere,” which he said was at one million free downloads on the Internet.
WAMM is cited by many industry observers as an excellent example of a state-compliant medical cannabis collective. WAMM says it’s not only the the first medical marijuana collective in Santa Cruz; it also says it’s the first in California and in the United States.