SF Buyer's Club: Case Files, Smith

CASE FILE: Steve Smith and Michael Petrellis
by James Rutenberg


The Washington D.C. Cannabis Buyers' Club, with 75 members 
and 350 on a waiting list, was founded in 1992 by ACT-UP 
members Steve Smith and Michael Petrellis. Both men, themselves 
HIV positive, have learned firsthand that marijuana helps fight 
off the agonizing, nauseating effects of AZT, the widely used 
AIDS drug.

"That particular fall, during the dry [scarce, pot-wise] season 
of October and November, Michael and I were kind of joking about 
how everything was dry and that we needed to form a cannabis 
buyers' club," said Smith, who at the time was serving on then-
candidate Bill Clinton's campaign team as an advisor on AIDS 
issues. "We went out and tried to drum up all of this publicity 
and the cops never came."

Smith says that if it weren't for marijuana, he might not be 
alive right now: "When I started on AZT, I had real problems 
with nausea and losing weight. One day a friend said, 'Here's 
a joint. Try it and see if it helps you.' It was really useful 
and I ate and I started putting weight back on."

If Dennis Peron in San Francisco epitomizes the hippie faction 
of the buyers' club movement, Petrella and Smith typify the 
pragmatic, AIDS activist side. They even publish out a do-it-
yourself kit with advice for other buyers' clubs.