I went up to The Treehouse Collective to take photos of a bunch of strains that had come in the day before. I was expecting 8 strains, but there were 12 different ones to photograph when I arrived. Lucky me!

It’s been a little while since I’ve visited my collective to do the photographing work I love so much, and it felt great to be participating once again in the collective process.

I was up till 3:00 or so in the morning processing the photos, and here’s the results.

GDP – Granddaddy Purple – Indica

Kyrptonite – Indica

J1 – Sativa

Sour Diesel OG – Hybrid (S)

Purple Urkle – Indica

Green Crack - Sativa

Blue Cheese – Hybrid (S)

Hindu Skunk – Hybrid (I)

Pineapple – Indica

Jack Herer – Sativa

ElvisWillie – Hybrid (I)

Fire OG – Hybrid (S)

I will be adding these strains to the Strains Guide at MedicalMarijuana411.com very shortly.

My work from The MMJ Lists is now becoming a part of the resources on MedicalMarijuana411.com.

I’ve been dusting off the files, photos and various materials of The MMJ Lists to move it closer to how I envision it…

Since January I’ve been taking photos at A Soothing Remedy Collective and more recently, AAC – Apothecary’s Assistants Collective, where I also volunteer as a bud-tender, front desk clerk, joint roller, or whatever else is needed while I’m there for my shift.

Monday (April 27th) I was there for the afternoon and evening shifts… and spent most of the evening rolling joints of White Widow to give away to the members.

AAC gives you a free joint every time you stop by to get your herb… it’s part of the “member-focused” approach to the Medical Marijuana dispensary movement and an effort to slow down the collective-hopping (see below) that goes on.

The Benefits of Being a Collective Member

Being in a collective creates an opportunity for them to purchase the herb for a larger number of people, lowering the prices for everyone involved…

Of course, to start, you need some people to put up large amounts of money as capital for the collective and those who keep a eye on the business side of things, making sure all the bills are paid on time and that everything is kept financially legal – like in any business.

Other people bring different talents, skills and time to the collective and get compensated for their contributions – and often it’s comes as below cost or free herb – a benefit that helps keep the medicine bills in check – all the volunteers at AAC are also medical patients.

Still other people are members of the collective who just come by to pick up their herb and they pay what is needed to help cover the costs…

All the different levels of involvement are important and needed.

But the most important part is that the goal is a sustainable model with ever lowering costs instead of a huge profit goal with ever higher investor returns and excessive wealth. A collective, like a co-op, is for mutual benefit of all it’s members…

Collective-Hopping

If you look in our local alternative magazines like OC Weekly or LA Weekly you find numerous ads for different MMJ collectives, Co-op and dispensaries – most of them (including the one for AAC – the middle ad on the left side of the image) include special offers for new patients…

I’ve been told that there are some people read who those ads and go from place to place just to get the freebies – usually without intending on returning as a regular member.

I’ve also heard many people complain about the “first time/free gift” practice and wish there was a way to end it… and at AAC they’re trying to head in that direction. It was discussed early on about giving something extra to the regulars, not just the first timers.

At AAC they’re really glad when people want to come by and check them out to see if it’s the right place for them (and pick-up the free gift). But it’s the regular members that AAC is there for – as their regular, safe and legal access to medical quality marijuana.

What Could Be Next?

I would not be surprised to start seeing limited-membership collectives, or even co-ops with a membership fee, and I wouldn’t be bothered to see either of these two developments.

In my opinion a collective works best when you have a set membership that can voice their needs and choices and be participants in the collective instead of consumers. In this way sustainable models of production and distribution can be established instead of constantly having to respond to market forces.

What I would like to see is the $100 ounce (or less for people on SSDI, SSI, and also Senior Citizens and Veterans) of high quality medical quality marijuana – not low-end leftovers – but top grade marijuana for MMJ patients.

High potency marijuana makes it possible for patients that smoke to use less marijuana to deliver a better quality of medicine to the body, reducing the hazards of inhaling the residue that comes along with smoking.

I’m hoping that we can start a new non-profit here in Long Beach to do this, but it would take a lot of people…

Until next time, best of health.

Jan 7: Working on the legal docs (site policy, copyrights, privacy, etc…) and some back-end technical stuff, and I hope to get some more strain pages done…

end of day – Jan 7: Lots of little details finished or moved forward. Legal site policy docs are posted. Little design changes and tweaks, more strain pages set-up – about 10 hours of work on this project today…

Jan 6: more update and I’m working on embeding posts like this:

Jan 5, 2009: Moved list to it’s own site (here at mmj.onehumanbeing.com), now calling it:

The Medical Marijuana Lists - Lists of names and strains of Medical Marijuana and the medical conditions they work best – Information from MMJ patients for MMJ patients and caregivers.

Jan 4, 2009: Started working on the MMJ Strains List today…

• Added the main page for The Medical Marijuana Lists.
• Typed in the list so far, almost 80 different strains…
• Worked out the wording for the individual strain pages with tabbed info sub-pages…
• Added first 3 strain : Afghani Hash Plant, Afghani Kush and AK-47 – I’m working alphabetical down my list, but I’m backdating the posts to the date of the photographs.
• Started uploading various galleries of photos.
• Played around with a bunch of templates, trying out different looks… trying to find something I like to build on and modify.

Lot’s of work to do on this project, but it’s started.