Waiting to Inhale Screening in San Diego

The photo is of Aaron Smith, Marijuana Policy Project Coordinator for the State of California, and Rudy Reyes, a patient activist who was severely burned in the SOCAL fires two years ago on a panel with filmmaker Jed Riffe.

The screening and discussion in San Diego last Sunday was truly awesome, and I do not use that word very often. We packed over 200 cannabis activists and patients into a 180 seat theater at the City of San Diego's Central Library. I turned away another 10-15 people because the floors and doors were blocked with people sitting or standing.

The County of San Diego is refusing to comply with either Proposition 215 or with CA assembly Bill 420. They have collaborated with the DEA in closing down all of the cannabis dispensaries, and have refused to create a state patient ID card program.

Four of the twenty-seven people that were arrested this week in San Diego in a county wide sting operation came to the screening to share their stories.

A full page article debating the county's policies under state law and the medical efficacy of cannabis covered the front page of the San Diego Herald Tribune on Sunday. That followed an in depth interview with me on Channel 4 and its sister station (NBC) in San Diego.

Now its on to screen and discuss the film at the Salt Lake Film Center February 17th.

2009 Year of Change

This is my first post since returning from Poland. I was invited by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Director, Global Drug Policy Program, Open Society Institute to screen and discuss "Waiting to Inhale: Marijuana, Medicine and the Law"at Watch Docs. Watch Docs is sponsored by the Helsinki Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Everyone I met was so supportive. It was one of the best experiences in my film career. Photos from the Q&A session:
http://domysly.blox.pl/2008/12/Jed-Riffe-i-jointy-na-recepte.html

Since my return, I produced a proposal to develop seven individual interactive displays for a major museum in the US. I am currently in San Diego for a major screening and discussion of "Waiting to Inhale." San Diego County is refusing to follow state law AB420 and implement a Patient ID program. The County has lost three appeals of their lawsuit which attempts to overturn California Proposition 215 and AB420. This screening, like the one we did in Fresno last July is a direct challenge to the recalcitrant County Supervisors. It worked in Fresno. After a lot of hard work by local activists led by MPP organizer Aaron Smith, and a series of lawsuits by Americans for Safe Access, Fresno County voted to implement a Patient ID program in 2008.