One group at this year’s HempCon was the Green Alliance of Patients and Providers (GAPP). GAPP president Dan Halbert and company are working tirelessly to safeguard your rights to medical marijuana!

On January 26, the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance that, if effected, could force hundreds of collectives to relocate or shut down completely. Those collectives that did survive may be forced to adhere to highly restrictive new rules. Among other provisions, the ordinance threatens to: severely limit patients’ selection by requiring that dispensaries grow product on-site; otherwise restrict patients’ access to medicine; increase prices; ban smoking on location; and favor some dispensaries over others.

To protect medical patients’ and collectives’ state rights guaranteed under Prop 215 and SB 420, the GAPP is:

• working to introduce a referendum that would require any new ordinance to be voted on before coming into law
• gathering resources to draft a fair ordinance to present to voters
• actively recruiting new members and setting up petition signature centers at dispensaries
• exploring options for filing another lawsuit demanding equal treatment under the law
• planning to recall politicians who don’t support patients’ rights
• running an ongoing PR campaign to improve public perception.

GAPP needs your help to fund a referendum! If you support patients’ rights to medical marijuana, please donate what you can. GAPP also needs new members to participate in major organizational decisions. Top contributing members join GAPP’s Board of Directors.

For more information on these and related matters, visit thegapp.com.

This is one of many gems we stumbled upon at HempCon 2010!
We’ll be posting more HempCon news, photos, and more throughout the week, so make sure to bookmark this site and keep checking in.