By Luke Netzley Pasadena Weekly Deputy Editor Photo courtesy of MCC Mar 23, 2022

Liz McDuffie

Liz McDuffie founded Medical Cannabis Caregivers in 2006 to serve as an educational and training resource for California’s medical cannabis industry.

More than five years after recreational marijuana became legalized in California, over 80% of the market remains underground, according to reports. Despite its legalization, Proposition 64 gave municipalities the power to ban the sale of weed, stunting the growth of the legal market.

It was this ruling that brought 79-year-old Liz McDuffie, founder of the Medical Cannabis Caregivers and known as the “Little Old Cannabis Lady from Pasadena,” into a five-year litigation battle with the city of Pasadena.

McDuffie was introduced to the world of medical cannabis during her time as a teacher in Germany, where a doctor recommended hashish to help aid migraines that she had been suffering from throughout her life.

As a child, McDuffie’s headaches were so severe that she would even have to push her head against her headboard to help provide momentary relief. Then, as she grew older, McDuffie’s headaches remained serious enough that they would inhibit her work, forcing her to sit in darkness until they passed.

Once McDuffie began to use hashish as treatment, the pain from her headaches eased enough that she could perform daily tasks and work without being completely debilitated.

“That’s when I actually began to read about and study cannabis,” McDuffie said. “I really wasn’t interested in having a retail outlet, I was interested in the educational part of it.”

A 50-year Pasadena resident, McDuffie, after studying on a regulated program of socialized medicine in Canada, opened a medical cannabis information resource center in 2006 before founding Medical Cannabis Caregivers, a nonprofit association that acts as a school and educational program for users of medical cannabis.

“People have been denied the medicine for over a hundred years now,” McDuffie explained. “Thank goodness over the last 20 years we’ve had considerable advancement in people’s understanding of the benefits of it, but there’s still a lot to be done, particularly in terms of educating people about the use of cannabis medically.”

Though the federal government has already seen cases such as Conant v. Walters and Conant v. McCaffrey allow doctors to approve the medicinal use of cannabis, McDuffie explained that they are not allowed to give information about dosage or acquirement and are limited in terms of the amount of research about medical marijuana that they can share with a patient.

“It left patients in a complete void, and I felt it was really important to try to improve the health care services,” McDuffie said. “My road in the cannabis industry is one less traveled in the sense that my purpose was to get access to medicine for the people for whom it was intended. They aren’t running in and out of the dispensaries, but they’re knocking on the doors of health care facilities, residential care facilities and hospices. Through my work with these health care facilities, I did get the approval to teach the regulations and to teach the health care facility operators that you can provide this medicine. The state is very supportive of you in being able to give this to your patients.”

In 2012, McDuffie established the Landmark Research Collective, a nonprofit mutual benefit corporation under the SB 420 Medical Marijuana Program to help provide participants in the MCC Medical Cannabis Practitioner Program to observe and gain clinical experience as part of their health care training.

“Particularly in health care, you have to have clinical training, and that requires working with patients,” McDuffie said. “That’s why I created the Landmark Collective to be used for that purpose. At the same time while we were upstairs with our clinical teaching collective in the back room there in an office, there was still a very large dispensary operating downstairs.”

Though the MCC never distributed cannabis, it did share a building with Golden State Collective, the dispensary located in the downstairs storefront at 50 N. Mentor Avenue, and the city of Pasadena fourth amended criminal complaint connected McDuffie with the operation.

As a result, the MCC became included in the city’s litigation of cannabis business operators, denying the MCC’s business license for five years and resulting in the loss of board members and funding.

“I really felt that what I was doing was very important and that no one else was doing it, yet it needed to be done,” McDuffie said. “After I had operated the MCC for six years without any distribution, I was determined to establish the Landmark so that I could distribute medicine and work with patients.”

When the city of Pasadena ordered the closure of the Landmark Collective based on the city’s ordinance banning the licensing of cannabis dispensaries, McDuffie partnered with attorney Stanley Kimmel, who challenged the validity of the city’s ordinance.

“He said that we can see if their ban is valid,” McDuffie explained. “He looked into it and, sure enough, they didn’t do the proper procedures. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do, to have a correct ban and indicate that without a valid ban, they couldn’t technically have stopped me.”

After five years in litigation, the city of Pasadena adopted an ordinance in 2018 that permitted the licensing of cannabis retail facilities, though the ordinance banned any pre-existing cannabis businesses from applying for a legal cannabis retail business license.

McDuffie has since legally challenged the city of Pasadena and has been joined by other collectives.

“Obviously, Pasadena’s ordinance did not represent the interest of the people when the people supported dozens of collectives,” McDuffie said. “The real story to me is how this could benefit other cities and make other city councils think about what they’ve done and if they’ve done this right. Is it really what the citizens want?”

McDuffie believes that many cities around LA County need to readdress the bans that they’ve put in place and to reassess the sentiment of their general populations regarding licensing and the sale of cannabis.

Over 130 practitioners, including nurses, chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, pharmacists and physical therapists, have completed the MCC Medical Cannabis Practitioner Program since it began. McDuffie is hopeful in the pursuit of a microbusiness license to continue the progress she has been able to make with MCC.

“We have all these wonderful products that we can’t make until we can have that license,” McDuffie said. “When you look at the overview for the MCC and what we have accomplished in terms of bringing clean green to the industry, and what we’ve been able to research and develop in terms of some amazing medicines, it’s all a good thing. And if I can get a microbusiness license, we’ll have a real clinical school, and I’m very excited about that.”

So while both medicinal and recreational use of marijuana is legal on a statewide level, each city has been able to put its own laws into place, with many in LA County supporting a ban on the product. McDuffie stands at the forefront of the fight for legalization in many of the cities across the county and will remain an active voice in support of medicinal cannabis.

To learn more about McDuffie’s story and about the MCC, visit mccdirectory.org.

 

https://www.pasadenaweekly.com/news/little-old-cannabis-lady-battles-city-of-pasadena/article_00613354-aadd-11ec-8b2e-8700f46dc293.html