Pride Month and cannabis share a history that runs through San Francisco's AIDS wards. In the 1980s and 1990s, LGBTQ+ activists caring for sick friends pushed cannabis access into the open, then wrote it into law, from a 1991 city vote to California's Proposition 215. Here is that story, where LGBTQ+ cannabis culture stands today, and practical ways to support LGBTQ+ people and businesses during Pride and all year.
Why Pride and cannabis history intersect
Pride is celebrated in June because of the Stonewall Uprising. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City, and the resistance that followed became a turning point. On the first anniversary in 1970, the first gay pride parades were held in New York and other cities, and Pride grew from there.
The link to cannabis runs through the same instincts that powered Stonewall: community care, open defiance of unjust laws and organizing that turned private struggles into public campaigns. When AIDS devastated gay communities, many of the people who fought hardest for medical cannabis were LGBTQ+ activists. For anyone curious about cannabis and the LGBTQ+ community, that history is the place to start.
The AIDS epidemic and the search for symptom relief
The first AIDS cases in the United States were reported in June 1981. Effective treatment was years away, and the illness, along with early drugs used against it, often brought appetite loss, severe weight loss and nausea.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, many patients turned to cannabis hoping to ease those symptoms. A physician from San Francisco General Hospital's AIDS program later wrote that the practice was widespread enough to prompt plans for a clinical study in 1993, and that finding a legal research supply took years. That gap between what patients were doing and what scientists were allowed to study shaped everything that followed.
Much of the care came from friends, partners and volunteers rather than institutions. Buyers clubs grew out of those networks, and they offered more than cannabis: when researchers interviewed former San Francisco club members in 1996, many described the clubs as an important source of emotional support among people who understood what they were facing.
This is history, not medical advice. Cannabis is not a therapy for HIV or AIDS, and anyone living with HIV should make care decisions with their clinician.
Brownie Mary and Dennis Peron: activists with a kitchen and a storefront
Brownie Mary
Mary Jane Rathbun, known as Brownie Mary, volunteered on San Francisco General Hospital's AIDS ward, visiting patients and carrying specimens to the lab. In the 1980s she began baking cannabis brownies for people with AIDS, eventually hundreds every few months. She was arrested three times, and her quiet defiance helped build the public support that carried Proposition 215. She died in 1999 at 77. She is one of the figures in our history of women in cannabis.
Dennis Peron
Dennis Peron served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam and became a gay rights and cannabis activist in San Francisco. When his partner, Jonathan West, was dying of AIDS, the fight became personal. Peron opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, a storefront that sold cannabis to seriously ill members years before any law allowed it, and he helped write Proposition 215. Our history of cannabis buyers clubs covers that part in detail.
City and state wins: Proposition P, Proposition 215 and the D.C. measure
- Proposition P, San Francisco, November 5, 1991: a non-binding policy statement urging California and the California Medical Association to restore "hemp medical preparations" to the list of available medicines. It passed 136,492 to 35,732, about 79%.
- Proposition 215, California, November 1996: voters endorsed the medical use of cannabis through the Compassionate Use Act, by more than 5.3 million votes to about 4.3 million.
- Initiative 59, Washington, D.C., November 3, 1998: voters approved medical cannabis 69% to 31%. But Congress had passed the Barr Amendment, which barred the city from spending money on any ballot initiative to legalize or reduce penalties for drugs, so the Board of Elections could not count, certify or release the results. In September 1999, a federal judge ruled that the votes had to be counted and the results released, though the Barr Amendment still kept the measure from taking effect. In July 2009, eleven years after the vote, the House passed a D.C. budget without the Barr language, a step toward finally letting the measure take effect.
Winning at the ballot box did not end the fight. Federal law did not change with it, and more than a year after Proposition 215 passed, the federal government sued to close six California buyers clubs. In May 1998, a court order obtained by California's attorney general shut down the largest club in San Francisco. Each step forward came over fierce resistance, a story that sits inside the wider history of the war on drugs.
How those wins spread state by state, Michigan included
California's vote opened the door. The same November, Arizona voters approved a medical marijuana initiative too. In 2000, Hawaii's legislature passed Act 228, an early medical cannabis law written by lawmakers rather than approved at the ballot box.
Michigan joined on November 4, 2008, when voters approved the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, creating the medical card program the Cannabis Regulatory Agency runs today. Ten years later, Michigan voters approved adult use for people 21 and older. As of October 2026, marijuana covered by a state medical license sits in federal Schedule III under an April 2026 federal regulation, while adult-use marijuana remains in Schedule I. Our Michigan cannabis laws page has the details.
LGBTQ+ cannabis culture today
LGBTQ+ people work throughout the legal cannabis world today: founders, growers, budtenders, scientists and advocates. The movement's roots in AIDS-era activism make Pride a natural moment to tell that story.
Research also shows why judgment-free, culturally aware education matters. An analysis of 2022 national survey data, published in 2025, found higher odds of cannabis use among sexual minority adults than among heterosexual adults, especially among bisexual women, and the authors pointed to the unique stressors these communities face. Clear information about dosing, timing and safe use belongs to everyone.
What inclusive cannabis spaces look like
Whether you are choosing where to spend your money or where to work, a few signs point to a genuinely welcoming place:
- Staff ask what you are looking for instead of assuming, and they use the name you give.
- Questions about dosing or products get answered without judgment, whatever your experience level.
- Community support is visible beyond June, not just a rainbow logo for one month.
- Policies on harassment apply to customers and staff alike, and people know how to raise a concern.
If you celebrate Pride with cannabis, keep it legal: 21+ only, no use at parades, festivals or other public places in Michigan, and never drive after using.
Open challenges: stigma, representation in leadership, workplace inclusion
LGBTQ+ inclusion in the cannabis industry looks very different today than it did when the clubs were raided, yet real gaps remain.
- Stigma: LGBTQ+ consumers and workers can face a double stigma, around both their identity and their cannabis use, which can make people hesitant to ask questions or speak up.
- Representation in leadership: LGBTQ+ representation in cannabis matters most where decisions get made: ownership, boards and senior roles, not only June marketing.
- Workplace inclusion: inclusive employers put the basics in writing, including nondiscrimination policies that cover sexual orientation and gender identity, benefits that cover every kind of family, clear anti-harassment procedures and respect for the names and pronouns people use.
- Second chances: the war on drugs left many people with cannabis records that still follow them. Our guide to marijuana expungement in Michigan explains how record clearing works here.
For LGBTQIA+ people in the cannabis industry, real allyship is measured in practices, not rainbow logos.
How to support LGBTQ+ communities during Pride and after
Pride Month 2026 wrapped up in June, and the next one arrives in June 2027. Support works best when it lasts all year.
For individuals
- Support local Pride organizations and LGBTQ+ community centers with your time, donations or simply your attendance. Ask what they need; volunteers and steady small donations often matter more than one big gesture.
- Spend with LGBTQ+-owned businesses, in cannabis and beyond.
- Learn and share the history, including the activists in this article.
- Speak up when you hear stigma, whether it targets someone's identity or their cannabis use.
- Show up after June, when visibility fades but the need does not.
For cannabis businesses
- Review hiring, promotion and benefits policies with LGBTQ+ employees in mind, and act on what you find.
- Train staff on respectful, assumption-free service.
- Build relationships with local LGBTQ+ groups that last longer than a single event.
- Measure progress in leadership and ownership, not only in campaigns.
Celebrate Pride your way; when cannabis is on the menu, enjoy it responsibly. 21+ only. Questions about products? Our budtenders at your nearest High Society store are happy to help.
