Get Baked Sale offers marijuana munchies
More than 25 local cannabis businesses hosted a bake sale Saturday, complete with “medical” marijuana-laced munchies.
The first Get Baked Sale, held at the SOMAS treat Food Park on 11th Street, included food trucks and booths lined with all sorts of wares — including Doritos, Chilean empanadas, ice cream sandwiches, pancakes and macaroons — for holders of medical marijuana cards to sample. The event featured cooking demonstrations and food-pairings with marijuana edibles. The pointy green leaves symbolic of the plant were rife on clothing, posters and stickers.
“This is truly the crumbling of an archaic symbol,” said Steve Medina, stirring cannabis sugar into a cup of coffee. “As the walls and legal limits have come down, the cannabis market has blossomed. It’s liberating.”
The sale comes as marijuana advocates move toward legaliz- ing recreational use of the drug with a ballot initiative planned for November. But possession of marijuana is still a federal crime, and even in California, it is only legal for medical purposes. Otherwise, possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana is an infraction, and larger amounts are considered a misdemeanor, accompanied by up to six months of jail time. But the legal ramifications of hosting a potentially illegal event didn’t perturb event organizer
Morgan Kelly.
“Everyone came prepared, and the planning went smoothly,” Kelly said, noting that there were no police officers at the event. “We knew the laws, followed them completely and had permission from the (city) health department. Only card-holders can purchase products, so we made sure to have two doctors on site for those who did not have” a medical marijuana card.
Tucked behind a transparent shower curtain, doctor Vanessa Niles did medical evaluations and approved on-the-spot cards. The line for her booth snaked around the corner. According to the evaluation form, people suffering from any number of maladies, including HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, severe nausea, arthritis and “any other chronic or persistent medical symptom,” could receive a card.
“People are not interested in getting high,” Niles said. “They want pain relief. It’s the idea that cannabis can be a special medication for disease. I give a dosage, and I will even draw a picture of a cookie so they know what portion to take.”
Keith Lucero, 58, from West Portal, said cannabis helps manage his arthritis pain. His opinion of marijuana as medicine was influenced by his father’s slow demise from cancer in the ’90s.
“This is just the beginning,” Lucero said, eating a chocolate chip cannabis pancake. “It would have been nice to have these products for my dad all those years ago. Many people think this is just a recreational drug, but it’s not. It’s a medicine, too.”
Local cannabis business owners echoed the sentiment. Many of the products sold were labeled by the symptoms it would relieve, the amount of cannabis it contained and a suggested serving size.
Kim Geraghty, who started Madame Munchery in January 2014, said labeling and testing is the secret to a medi- cally sound product.
“Seeing it treated as a legitimate product is so awesome,” she said. “We want to be legal and transparent, which is why we have all of our macaroons’ potency lab tested. It’s a beautiful thing, not some sketchy back-alley thing. It really has an important impact on people’s lives.”