http://www.morrisanderson.com/resource-center/entry/Despite-health-care-cutbacks-many-nonprofit-hospital-executives-reap-millio/

On a related topic: Anyone notice that 40 Acres — the dispensary recently closed on San Pablo Ave near Unviersity — seems to be operating again? Or at least, dealers seem to be using that space again. I’ve seen a LOT of foot traffic in and out of that door (next to the Albatross) in recent weeks. If anything, there’s even more foot traffic than when 40 Acres was still in operation. Maybe they’re picking up former BPG clients?

 Um….

This Berkeleyside article says that BPG only made $18,083 in charitable donations in 2009 but that BPG said they made something more like $300,000 in donations:

Berkeley Patients Group took in $15 million and paid its top executives $911,000 in 2009, while only donating $18,083 to charities,

Berkeleyside’s assertion appears to be false.  BPG appears to have been honest.

I believe the confusion originates as follows:

The California Watch article, rather underhandedly, says

One area in which the dispensary appears to fall short of its public rhetoric is in its donations to local charities. While company executives have said they contribute generously to groups ranging from local libraries and schools to the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, internal documents show the group gave $18,083 to charity in 2009. In contrast, it distributed $253,433 to marijuana advocacy organizations.

So the truth is apparently that BPG did, in fact, make over $270,000 dollars in charitable donations.

Why the controversy?  Because Doug Oakley, in 2009, wrote the following, citing no source:

The group gives away about $300,000 a year to organizations like the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness across the street, summer lunches to kids at the San Pablo Park recreation center, the downtown YMCA, homeless organizations, the school-lunch program at Malcolm X Elementary School and others.

So the issue is about what kind, not what amount of charitable donations BPG made.

The only question is why Oakley wrote the word “like” rather than “including”.  Was this a misapprehension imposed on him or a mistaken interpolation or mis-statement on his part?

In any event, the group’s charitable donations were evidently in line with with the $300,000 figure they gave.

Bruce, I believe the term you’re looking for is astroturfing lackey: [ ... link to Berkeleyside op-ed piece ...]

I see that you have a free-floating insult there but I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.

Did you have one?

It would appear to me that his point is that a company that sells marijuana giving money to “marijuana advocacy organizations” is not charitable, but is closer to Big Pharma paying lobbyists.

Or do you think that Bayer paying lobbyists to promote their agenda should count as “charitable giving?”

I’m shocked…shocked!  Next thing you know, we’ll be learning of dishonest dealings at the medicinal salt licks frequented by @BerkeleyDeer!

 Bruce, please note that a medical marijuana advocacy organization is not a charitable organization. The California Watch story says BPG gave $18,083 to non-profit charities, and gave $253,433 to groups like Americans for Safe Access or NORML which are not non-profits and are not charities. Adding those figures up comes to close to $300,000 but the relevant figure really is the $18,083.

BPG has mentioned many times how much it does for the community. It does give its members lots of health and social services but it does not appear it gives a lot of money to other Berkeley institutions.

 Oh, I think I see the confusion re NORML.   See “NORML Foundation”.   If charitable donations were made “to NORML” … that’s presumably where they went.

 And if they bought everyone a subscription to High Times you’d consider that charitable giving as well.

They’re not false. Donations to lobbying groups do not count as charitable donations. Even NORML themselves apparently has no problem being referred to as a “pot lobbying group.”

http://blog.norml.org/2010/04/19/cnbc-the-marijuana-lobby-all-grown-up/

Which is a fancy way of saying that they’re lobbying for the marijuana industry.

Go read the mission statements for some other lobbying groups, and you’ll see that they’ve very similar to what NORML says their mission statement is.

It’s not a charity.

Bruce, the Berkeleyside article does not contain false statements as I have explained below. You are actually making some incorrect assumptions. 

NORML is a lobbying group. They say so on their own website.

What does NORML do?

NORML lobbies Congress and state legislatures for more rational and cost- effective marijuana policies. We provide expert witnesses for legislative hearings in support of marijuana reform legislation and to provide testimony to assist defendants charged with marijuana offenses. NORML also serves as a marijuana-law reform advocate with the media nationwide, produces a daily podcast, and maintains a comprehensive web site, which includes a 50-state legislative tracking system, where visitors can inform themselves about the issue and send a free fax or an e-mail to their state and federal elected officials. In addition, we maintain a legal committee comprised of 350 criminal defense attorneys nationwide who specialize in the defense of individuals charged with marijuana-related offenses.

Because NORML lobbies state and federal elected officials, contributions to the organization are not tax deductible.

The NORML Foundation is a support organization for NORML masquerading as a charity, similar to the way that the conservative lobbying group ALEC masquerades as a charity. When the laws surrounding 501(c) organizations in America are so lax that a hate group like the Westboro Bible Church can qualify as a “charity,” citing a group’s status as a 501(c) is relatively meaningless.

Wait! You mean people actually make incorrect assumptions … on the internet! NOOOOO!
{;~}

The California Watch article stated that BPG was a private company with gross profit of $5.7 million in 2009.

Seems like a healthy living for whoever owns this business.

I can’t speak specifically to the issue of BPG and their finances, but I can speak to the more general issue of revenues and market value of this industry. I know people a dispensary owner who also has a grow operation and it is fair to say that some are in the business for the money, others that are in it to help patients, and still others that are in it for both of those reasons as well as to try and wedge the door open to decriminalization.

I don’t make an judgements on motivations. I was born in the bay area in the 1960′s, have interesting family, and know that we do more harm than good when kids are told that all drugs are the same (psst…they aren’t and I have family case studies that have driven that painful fact home).

I have a spouse that has worked for several years in the non-profit sector (completely unrelated to cannabis) and because of that I do have a good idea that the salaries of top BPG executives (supposedly run as a non-profit) were high. What seems odd to me is that BPG clearly understood that they were in a business, but they didn’t take the legitimate business step of paying taxes like other dispensaries did. Instead, they played roulette and lost when the state told them they owed $6.2 million in back taxes. They also had to know that being within 1,000 ft of a school is like having a target on your back with the feds. I’d be interested to know the real story (not hearsay) about what led them to make these critical missteps when so many others haven’t.

Whaddysa we ask the City Council to declare that Bruce Love is really, really smart and can parse every issue and divert everyone off the central issues. Then we can start to talk about what is really bothering us and is hurting our community. 

Our very local twist on Citizens United.

I’ve found Doug Oakley’s reporting to be lacking in most respects which is why I did not get particularly upset about the police chief sending someone to his house.  Doug Oakley plays fast and loose with the facts but then claims the high moral ground as a “journalist.”  

Oh, *only* 18 grand to charity.  I wonder how much all of the liquor stores in Berkeley have donated to charity, combined.

I wonder if they ever managed to pay their 6.4 million in back taxes?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/346718-c-berkeley-patients-group-inc-sum.html

Who cares? Not the point of the article. If you compare a liquor store profits to BPG then their “take a penny, leave a penny” jar is a probably a higher percentage “donation” than what BPG gave. Just admit that you only want to get high and move on.

I discussed this on B-Side,  MM commission meetings and in letters to city council.  Of course there is resale on the street.  Berkeley allows a 2oz limit per customer per day.  Richmond city council recognized the resale problem and limits purchases to 1 oz per customer daily.

 Good point.  The idea that a nonprofit has to donate to charity is bizarre to me.  And “charitable donations”/giving to charity is usually understand to mean giving to 501(c)(3)s.  “charity” may be a vague term but as written I think this article is misleading if they did in fact give almost 300K to marijuana advocacy groups – no different than donating to the ACLU, NRA, etc

Can we make this post “sticky” so that it shows up on all articles?  Seriously….