countless lives were saved by the work of dennis parone in the early days. out of that came proposition 215, the medical marijuana law passed by the voters in 1996. now this spread across the country. and we found that cannabis provides relief for people with h.i.v.-aids and a host of other conditions and, again, besides the lives that dennis saved in the early days, he continued to save lives through his advocacy for medical cannabis that really benefited patients all across the country and he created a movement. he changed history. you know, it's funny, we now have prop 64 and january 1, here january 5, we have full legal cannabis. it strikes me as ironic. you would have thought that dennis had lived to see his greatest dream. but the full commercialization of cannabis is not something that dennis supported and he did not support prop 64. his view was that it was much like his close friend and my close friend gilbert baker that created the rainbow flag, which gilbert never patented. it was old hippie ethos, shared in love and if the for commercial gain. it

and i would also like to do an in memorial for dennis parone. born april 8, 1945.he served the country and served his country in the united states army during the vietnam war. following his discharge, made his way to san francisco and settled into the castro, where he met harvey melk and was an integral part of the melk machine. whenever harvey needed bodies, he called dennis, who had, at that time, a cannabis operation, obviously not legal at that time. dennis could turn people out at a moment's notice and did a lot to help harvey. he met and fell in love with his partner jonathan west in 1990. jonathan was diagnosed with aids and was dying and dennis