Please help Save Bernie's Farm!

Please give to the “Save Bernie’s Farm” fund to:

1. Help Bernie pay his huge legal bills, and
2. Provide Bernie with an alternative to offer the federal government, in order to prevent them from confiscating his farm.

Send checks or money orders to:
Save Bernie's Farm
c/o Paul Kuhn, Treasurer
59 Whitworth Blvd.
Nashville, TN 37205

Other ways you can help

At this point in our history, the majority of Americans support making cannabis more widely available to their chronically ill and dying friends, family and neighbors. In addition, the majority of Americans (and every national commission since Nixon was President) favor the reclassification of cannabis from a legal category that equates it with heroin (and considers it more harmful than cocaine and methamphetamine) to a category that recognizes its medical benefits and benign character. Most Americans also favor a reduction in the criminal penalties for cannabis use for any reason.

All of these opinions make abundant sense and, in a democracy, they should be given serious consideration. Here's what you can do to help make these changes in our national policies toward cannabis a reality in our lifetimes:

1. If you live in one of the twelve states states that have legalized medical cannabis use (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington), please contact your state legislators and health officials and thank them for taking a leadership position in returning cannabis to wide availability for sick and dying citizens. If you are a medical cannabis user or know someone who has benefited from its use, share that information with these officials. These legal medical cannabis programs are under constant attack and we must help protect these existing state programs. You can obtain information on your state's medical cannabis program by visiting SafeAccessNow.org.
2. If your state does not now have a legal medical cannabis program, educate yourself about whether any efforts are underway in your state to create a program and, if so, which state legislators are in favor of creating a medical cannabis program. Write those legislators to offer your support and then contact your own state legislators to ask them to get on board your state's efforts to allow cannabis to be available for your state's patients. You can get more information on efforts to legalize medical cannabis in your state by visiting NORML.org.
3. Educate your physician and other health providers on the medical benefits of cannabis. Ask them to learn more about those diseases for which cannabis use has been proven to be beneficial. You can obtain condition-specific booklets on the benefits of cannabis use for cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, chronic pain and other medical conditions at SafeAccessNow.org. You can also obtain more information from the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, from the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP.org), the GAO's review of state medical marijuana programs (PDF, 2.6MB) and from the organization Patients Out of Time (MedicalCannabis.com). You might also want to visit the web-sites for the Wo/men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, CA (WAMM.org) and for G.W. Pharmaceuticals, which has developed and is marketing the first medicines derived from whole-plant cannabis in Great Britain and Canada (GWPharm.com). Angel Raich recently fought a prominent legal battle over medical cannabis. Give your physician information from these groups and follow-up to discuss these issues at your next medical appointment.
4. Support organizations that are working to bring common sense and compassion to this issue. Each of the organizations whose web-sites are listed above are working hard on this issue and they deserve your involvement and support to make progress on this issue.
5. If you can help Bernie Ellis directly, please do so. You can send him messages of support and encouragement to his email address (tracevu@bellsouth.net). If you can help him pay for his huge legal bills and/or provide the government with a financial settlement to prevent them from taking his farm, please make a PayPal donation from this site or mail your contribution to the address given (above). Bernie has gone public with his case to try to educate Americans to the harsh realities of federal prosecution faced by medical cannabis users and providers. How much is it worth to you to help overcome this cruel and unnecessary punishment? Anything you can afford would be most appreciated and might help Bernie survive this prosecution and save his farm.