HomeNewsUSA's Oldest Marijuana Dispensary Celebrates 25 Years

USA’s Oldest Marijuana Dispensary Celebrates 25 Years

The oldest continuously operating cannabis dispensary in the United States, Berkeley Patients Group, was inaugurated in 1999 – and has plenty of stories to tell.

California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996, Prop. 215, was the first law in the USA to legalize the personal use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes since prohibition took effect. But accessibility to medicines was slow to ramp up.

In late October 1999, a group of advocates opened a dispensary on 5th Street in Berkeley, known as Berkeley Patients Group, or BPG, under a miscellaneous retail sales permit. Their aim was to “create a safe place where underserved patients can acquire high-quality medicine in a welcoming, community-centric environment.”

Sadly, one of the group, founder Jim McClelland, died in 2001. But the dispensary carried on.

The road for BPG has been anything but smooth. It has been subject to a number of forced moves, raids and criminal prosecutions. After just a few months at its original 5th Street location, the city forced BPG to move into a commercial district, where it set up shop at 2747 San Pablo Avenue in 2000. It was also evicted from there by the Federal Government in 2012. The reason used – it was located 984 feet away from a French school, and Proposition 215 stipulated 1,000 feet from schools.

Without a location, it was forced to operating a temporary delivery service before reopening at 2366 San Pablo Ave, where it remains today. But even staying there was a struggle after it was discovered it was operating within 1,000 feet of a home daycare center. The U.S. attorney for Northern California’s attempt to shut it down was thwarted by the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment of 2014, which forbid the Justice Department from using funds to prevent implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

After the state’s voters passed the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, marijuana was legalized for adults 21 and older, and sales of recreational cannabis began on Jan. 1, 2018. This brought a big change in BPG’s customer demographic. But while catering to a greatly expanded potential customer base, BPG is struggling like other dispensaries given a glut of cannabis, competition and local and state taxes.

For more on BPG’s fascinating and somewhat tumultuous history, see this article on Berkeleyside.

Gillian Jalimnson
Gillian Jalimnson is one of Hemp Gazette's staff writers and has been with us since we kicked off in 2015. Gillian sees massive potential for cannabis in areas of health, energy, building and personal care products and is intrigued by the potential for cannabidiol (CBD) as an alternative to conventional treatments. You can contact Gillian here.
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