I sent this to MPP when they were seeking ideas to promote medical pot
when Proposition S was just a twinkle in Mark Leno's eye.  Chad
rejected my proposal, saying it was just too much, more than they
wanted to do, but when S passed, he and other 'activists' who do
nothing but raise funds for themselves, smoke pot with Woody
Harrelson, and have private parties AKA fundraisers that patients
can't afford to go to.

AFAIC, if you aren't actually growing/distributing pot to patients,
you are of no use at all.  All the Acronymically-Enhanced Community,
like ASA, NORML et al, need to stop preaching to the choir and do
something.  If pot were legalized, they would be like Deadheads after
Jerry died.
CA
Elizabeth:


I can't review any letters of inquiry until after February 10, as I am
busy processing first-round grant applications. I will contact you
regarding your inquiry during the week of February 11-15. Thanks.


Chad




Dear Chad:

Thank you for responding so quickly.  I read the webpage but I am not
certain if a paper version of the proposals was required, or if
fax/email was sufficient.  This morning I sent a letter with the
following, and hope that it reaches you  by the deadline, just in
case.  In this morning's SF Chronicle, there were two articles which
demonstrate that my suggestions are truly timely and should gain
approval of the local authorities.  Our local political scene is
undergoing a great deal of, how shall I put this, upheaval, and so
this is probably the best time to bypass the usual stonewalling  our
bureacrats are so noted for.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c..581.
DTL
can be used to support the need to renovate SF Landmarks for the
people, not the corporations.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c..529.D
TL
shows that we are in desparate need of more shelter space, and I
intend on continuing to remind those in authority of the dire need for
safe space for women; the stories of abuse and terror will no longer
be silenced by indiffenence, if I have anything to do about it.

Sunday, January 13, 2002

Elizabeth Frantes

297 Corbett

San Francisco, CA 94114

efrantes@hotmail.com

(415)263-6144 VM(415)284-4621

Objective: Operating capital for computer system, office space to
propagate documents, to attract investors and donors for the Green
Angel Sanctuary (attached), first proposed to Supervisor Mark Leno of
San Francisco during the hearings for the Medical Cannabis Sanctuary
Proposal, later passed 11-1 by the Board of Supervisors.

As soon as space and office equipment can be secured, the proper City
agencies, departments, and miscellaneous bureacracies can be
contacted, as well as the Internet. The local dispensaries and growers
will be included as they see fit. The first action will be to set up
potcomsf.com, to help organize and co-ordinate efforts to raise funds
and interest in the general public. Federal, state and local
authorities will be invited to "oversee" what we are up to because
everything we do will be to demonstrate that cannabis users are, in
fact, very nice people who really want to help themselves, each other,
and the community. We will have no secrets. As cultivation is
normalized and the City becomes a producer of cannabis for the rest of
the State of California's citizens who do not have access to the best
medical cannabis, the building will be used as a "commercial bank",
which was its first use. This will be a place for everyone who favors
the decriminalization, use and cultivation of cannabis. The City is
said to be a World Class City, and we need a World Class Cannabis
Center, to celebrate our Sanctuary. Organizations targeted will
include the Department of Public Health, whose director, Mitch Katz,
MD, prescribes cannabis for his patients at the City's newly renovated
Laguna Honda Rehabilitation Hospital, the university of California,
San Francisco, various women's organizations and animal rescue groups,
as well as members of the Irish-American Community interested in the
renovation of one of the most significant monuments to Irish San
Franciscans.

This organization is collective, rather than corporate, in structure.
Success will be measured by results, and since the nature of this
business is untested and untried, it is in our best interests not to
focus on internal structure until further development, since things
can change radically within a very short time period (as the dotcom
boom/bust showed San Francisco recently).


My agenda has different facets, based on what I witnessed in my years
in the City and my experiences with CHAMP, who saved me in my time of
troubles. I am of the underclass, those most despised by the current
administration of Washington and unwanted by the economy of today. I
was a professional student for many years, studying criminology, fire
science, psychology and theology. I began my career as a wannabe
academic late, after being hired by, and harrassed off, the San
Francisco Police Department in 1982. Cannabis was never an issue with
the SFPD, they have always been "cool" about it. I was unable to
complete my studies due to lack of funds, and am ineligible for the
Jesuits, because I am a person of the female persuasion. I am
currently trying to survive in an increasingly hostile and threatening
economic environment, and this proposal will not only solve my
problems in that area, but will provide employment and generate tax
funds, as well as provide more and better medicinal cannabis at lower
prices. I'm more of an Idea Person, a Generalist, and delegate
authority to those who have the ability to do certain specialist
tasks.

Since this proposal is at the very beginning stages, there is no board
of directors. As the project develops, members will, by the nature of
their interests, expertise, and ability, "find their own level." The
operating principles are Share Your Surplus and Clean Up Your Own
Mess.

Essentially, I am seeking "seed money" to begin assessing the needs
and interests of the community, and hope to, by using the 'net and
being located in Everybody's Favorite City, to expand to the world at
large. I have discussed my proposal with many people within the City's
Cannabis Culture, and so far have received positive feedback and a
great deal of interest in how this could be implemented. I want to
demonstrate that you can do well doing good, and use the profits of
cannabis capitalism to help make a difference for the good of all of
us, not just the wealthy. If you could see the misery in the City of
St. Francis, you would weep at the tragic irony of it all, and in my
opinion, cannabis may be the only cure available.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Frantes

Presented to Supervisor Mark Leno

Preliminary Proposal: Green Angel Sanctuary

Elizabeth Frantes

It is proper that San Francisco becomes a sanctuary for the use of
medical marijuana. Since the passage of Proposition 215, The City has
been showing the rest of the state how to do it, despite attacks from
a misguided State Attorney General, since replaced. From all accounts,
our system of ID cards and clubs has been successful, as the members
of the Board of Supervisors are aware. Because of the current
administration in Washington DC, however, we are in a state of siege,
and it may seem prudent to withdraw any further expansions of medical
marijuana, but this would not be in keeping with the nature of San
Francisco politics and community. It would be easy to back down and
allow the Feds to shut the clubs down, or choke off the supply of
medicinal quality marijuana to the dispensaries, and thus, the
patients. Because no one has seen fit to deal with the evidence and
remove marijuana from the Schedule, we are still in a legal grey area.
Certainly it is absurd to have a herb that has never, in the history
of medicine going back at least 5,000 years, killed anyone, or even
caused a person to require emergency medical treatment. Expecting our
Congresscritters to do anything useful or sensible would appear to be
more than they are capable of, so it falls upon local officials to
help them deal with reality.

Because Prop 215 did not specifically address the cultivation and
distribution of marijuana, that is the "weakest link" that has made
equal access impossible. The Supremes have interpreted the law (thus
far) so that while it is OK with them for a legal patient to grow,
possess, and consume, it cannot be legally bought and sold. Although a
rational person would see that this was the clear intent of the law,
the legal nitpickers say Nay. Not all patients can grow their own;
cultivation of medicinal quality marijuana is not all that easy, and
not every patient has a place where s/he can grow. Because the
suppliers are essentially criminals, the price of marijuana in the
clubs is kept artificially high due to the competition with the
illegal market. As such, the prices are high, and many patients simply
can't afford it. It's much better to smoke smaller quanities of higher
quality marijuana, but it's expensive. Edibles are also very
expensive, due to the high price of marijuana. So many patients may
have a "right" to use it, but they can't afford it, and even if you do
have Medi-Cal, you have to pay for it out of pocket. The end result is
that only the well-to-do have defacto access, while the poor and the
homeless do not. If the dispensaries are closed, those patients who
have no place to grow will be completely cut off.


As long as we are talking about sanctuary, women in The City are in
terrible need of it. There have been some cases of women killed in
domestic violence situations, who did seek legal help, but had no safe
place to go. Women are routinely denied shelter space, and homeless
women are attacked at will, with little or no police attention. The
SFPD is notoriously abusive to homeless women, and will not even
bother to investigate attacks on them, and of course, if a homeless
woman complains of being attacked, she is immediately blamed for it.

When does male violence against women stop being our fault? When a
woman is abused at home, she is asked, "Why don't you leave?" And go
where? Women are trapped by the lack of affordable housing, and there
aren't any safe havens. Women are subjected "second hand violence"
from roommate's abusers and the roommates themselves. The shelters are
hellholes, and women are attacked in them, by staff and male
"clients". Single women without children have the least amount of
resources, and as such are under constant attack. There is not enough
space for all the women, and the men are aware of this. Women are
undercounted in homeless surveys, because it is far too dangerous to
"present" as homeless where homeless men congregate--the sexual
predators patrol for lone women, and so it's far safer not to access
"services". A free lunch isn't worth getting stalked and raped. If the
woman complains about harrassment and attack, she is told, "why don't
you get a man to protect you?" I have been told by City workers that
single women without kids don't really need help; after all, they can
get support if they are nice to a man, or men, and if they aren't
nice, well, they deserve rape and harrassment! It's not just in
Afghanistan where the abuse of women is so normalized that men feel
it's their right to have access to women; that meme has infected many
in our society as well. The situation in the SROs is horriffic. They
are full of parolled sex offenders, and in fact, Todco hires
ex-offenders to work in them, and Todco even admits that many of their
employees "in treatment" are drug dealers and users. These are the
SROs that the PAES program tries to force GA recipients into, it
should be noted.

Even if a woman manages to get away, she can't bring her pets along,
and it is common for an abuser to torture and kill a woman's pet. Only
the Episcopal "Sanctuary" (the staff were notorious, dealing drugs,
attacking women, and that's where one of the pimps got his staff)
allows pets, and they can stay only 90 days maximum. Sometimes pets
need a sanctuary, too, and there is no place for them to stay
temporarily. All a pet owner can do is surrender her pet, and since
the SPCA is pretty much a "Willie Brown" place (don't bother trying to
get your pet in there if you have to give it up, unless you have a lot
of money), and SFAC&C does have to euthenize animals they can't place
(You know, it is considered to be inhumane to not take care of an
animal, so if they can't treat or place it, they don't toss it back on
the street, they kill it humanely. With humans in SF, the unwanted are
dumped back on the street and die horribly, by inches, humanity
stripped away, torn at by the predators. I'd rather be a homeless dog
in this town than a homeless woman. I'd rather get a nice shot than to
be raped to death and left to die, like that homeless, unnamed woman
who was found at St Patrick's two days before Xmas last year).

The Human Rights commission decided that transgenders must be allowed
to use women's shelters, so there is even less space available than
before. I specifically addressed the lack of services for women to
George Smith in that asinine "Redesign the Shelters" scam, so they
bloody well know about it. Even almost all of the shelters are for
men, and men are the problem attacking both women and TGs, it's the
women who had to give up our scarce space to accomodate TGs. Why not
simply take some of the space away from men, or better yet, create
more space for women? The Sheriff's Department didn't let the TGs into
the women's side; they created more space for TGs. I'm sorry, but if
you have a functional penis, you shouldn't be sleeping with and
showering with women, many of whom have been repeatedly victimized by
males, and some males simply pretend to be TGs to get into women's
shelters. Why can't we have any safe space? Why is it men always have
to take what little we have away from us?


What I do NOT understand about City leaders is why so little shelter
space is available, why homeless are blamed for not going to shelters,
when they are already full. Face facts, there is no way that we can
provide housing for all, in this overpopulated city, there isn't space
for all in the state, or the nation, for that matter. The idea that
somehow people can find jobs and housing, and that homelessness is
temporary, is absurd. We are going to have to deal with changing a few
paradigms here, and change our ideas of how to house and employ all of
us. Speaking of absurdity, it's pretty loonie to insist that all
"employable" people work, when we don't want 100% employment. It's
also absurd to only provide housing, healthcare, jobs, and services to
only those poor who were foolish enough to have children they can't
support, so that those responsible enough not to breed are denied any
help at all. After all, if it wasn't for overpopulation, we wouldn't
have much of a homeless problem, don't you think? Or don't you? It's
cheaper, and safer, to provide housing to single adults than families,
and after all, it was The Children who created the criminal problems
in projects and formed gangs that made life miserable for all. Notice
the difference in the "Pink Palace" before and after families were
housed there. I've observed that our Health Comission, with the
approval of the Board, has completely ignored Proposition J in favor
of a rip-off insurance scheme, "Healthy Families" which discriminates
against those who do not have children, which is the vast majority of
those in need of health insurance in The City. I'm sorry I haven't
seen any of the Board at the Health Comission meetings, where I have
addressed this issue.

I have personally had some bad experiences at the cannabis clubs with
men who routinely harrass women. In fact, many women don't come to
support services and other events because of this. The Woman's Support
Group at C.H.A.M.P. has been the most helpful to me in my time as a
patient, and was the inspiration for my proposal. The group was formed
when women patients complained of the abuse and ignorance of the men,
as exemplified by their conduct, such as crowding out women whenever
food is offered. It's a great group, and we all seem to get along
well, much better than when in a co-ed situation. Because women are
fewer in number at the clubs, partially due to the atmosphere,
behavior sometimes gets to "lowest common denominator" and a hostile,
abusive atmosphere results. I don't like to dress up or wear makeup
when I go; it's just too creepy being stared at and called
"sweetheart" and worse.

This proposal is about debt consolidation. We need some communal
growing space. We need safe space for women and pets. We need to keep
the prices of medicinal grade marijuana low. We also need more stuff
to do in the interests of harm reduction. We need to create jobs.
Here's how to do it all.

Give me the Hibernia Bank on Market Street to convert to a
multi-purpose building. I have loved that building as long as I have
lived here, and it saddens me to see it sit there idle, with graffitti
on it, pigeons defecating at will. At least when the SFPD was using
it, it was kept up. The location it is in is in need of some positive
influence, which, under my influence, we will provide. And how!

The building is perfect because it is defensible, and designed to be
difficult to break into. As such, it is ideal for a large-scale
commercial cannabis cultivation enterprise, which would be a grower's
co-op. Marijuana will not be bought or sold, but every member will
receive a percentage of the crop, to do with as they wish. Due to the
economics of scale, prices can be reduced to below "market rate",
since the usual precautions against detection don't apply and we will
be operating openly, under the watchful gaze of whatever law
enforcement agencies care to look. In fact, I much prefer scrutiny by
law enforcement, because I don't want to work with anyone with a
criminal history. Of course, each co-op member is free to do whatever
she wishes with her part of the crop, with the understanding that
anything sold to the legal dispensaries will be at cost plus a markup
for labor, thus providing the highest quality of cannabis to be sold
at the lowest prices to members. This will, of course, result in the
money going to local growers, all patients, instead of Mendicino
County and British Columbia. I don't see why we shouldn't get the
money and pay taxes on it. It would take some months to produce a
return on the investment, but it is quite easy, as other local growers
have found, to quickly begin earning money on the crop if you work
hard enough.


After restoration to as close to the original state as possible, with
full historical research into the building and the Hibernians who made
it, the main bank area could be used for several purposes. Many of the
women in the support group have interests in cottage-industries
related to cannabis and hemp, and the building can be used as work and
market space. Because the building would not be a dispensary, and no
buying or selling of cannabis permitted, IDs would not be required,
and tourists and others would be more than welcome to come in and
spend money. My first commercial product would be a hemp jungle
hammock, for use by campers, urban and otherwise. Some of us are
interested in hemp clothing and accessories, and this is something
that is easily marketable. Smoking apparatus, especially easy-to-use
volatilizers (this is much safer than smoking. The cannabis is heated
to below the burning temperature of cellulose, and the resin is
vaporized, producing a much less harmful method of ingestion), are
legal ways to raise revenue. I suppose the store could be called "The
Stoner Image".

Computers are an integral part of the plan. To provide security and
entertainment, a website featuring real time streaming and a chatroom
will be based there--potcom.com. This way, if the DEA wants to see
what we're up to, all they have to do is log on! Let's show them how
harmless we are. This would help us market any products, as well. Many
patients have no access to computers, and this would be a needed and
useful service to provide.

In the evening, the room would be used as a "smokeasy" or
"bring-your-own-bud" cabaret, based on the tradition at C.H.A.M.P. on
Saturday nights of dinner and entertainment. Different sorts of
entertainment would be provided, which would also give performing
artists another needed resource (artists love us stoners--we're a
great audience, we love everything), and would be in the best
interests of harm reduction. No EtOH or hard drugs allowed, and
because it is not a dispensary, patients can bring family and friends.
No one under 18, of course! Running a cabaret would provide more jobs,
and would be quite the tourist attraction. After all, didn't Da Mayor
brag about how The City is where you can come to feel naughty, or
words to that effect? And after all, aren't there also patients in
other states and countries who should have a safe place to smoke, too?
Oh, I would imagine that perhaps some folks might actually get a hold
of cannabis to smoke for recreational purposes, but if that is the
worst harm, and the Feds seem to think so, well, then, that's not much
of a problem. As any cop or ER nurse can tell you, it ain't the
potheads that cause the problems.

At night, the building will be used as a sanctuary for women and pets.
This would reduce the strain on the shelters by providing another
space, and for women who just need a place to stay for a little while
could be easily accomodated. Sometimes, all a woman needs is a safe
place to go until tempers go down, and if they had somewhere to go, a
fight can end before anyone gets hurt. I've heard so many stories of
abuse in the meetings, and I know how much this would help a lot of
women.

For women patients, "transitional housing" could be made available,
sort of like a cannabis convent (What the Christian Brothers are to
Napa Wine, we would be to marijuana). This would be a small private
room, and each woman would contribute part of her income as rent.
There are such programs out there already, but far too few. Women
would be required to do all maintenance and rehabilitation of the
building, which would be great job experience as well. Learning how to
restore old buildings is a job that is personally and financially
rewarding, and this would be a way to apprentice women to the building
trades, since I would, of course, ask for help from certain trade
unions. Another possible source of revenue and jobs would be to
provide animal care services, such as dog walking, grooming, and
bathing, as well as shelter.

I am working on developing a more formal proposal that will include
possible sponsors and investors. Because this is a project that will
ultimately be self-supporting, by producing medical marijuana and
other products and services, I am not asking for a handout. I am
asking for some support in creating jobs, shelter, and harm reduction.
Seems to me that this is a win-win-win situation, even if the Feds are
trying to play chicken. Face it, California has been told we're on our
own if anything bad happens here, so why not let the Feds know we
prefer to handle this on our own, too? I am aware that facing charges
is a possibility, one I am personally ready to risk. After all, if
they arrest me, they have to put me on trial, and if they do that, I
have an audience, and they still have to convict me.


Yeah, like that scares me, after what I've been through in Willie
Brown's San Francisco.

"It isn't very pretty what a town without pity can do"

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