Show notes
In loving memory of Wayne Justmann, a San Francisco cannabis pioneer, HIV advocate, and longtime champion for people living on the margins.
This memorial compilation brings together every episode of Growing With Fishes that Wayne joined us on, so his words, stories, and history live in one place for the community he helped build.
Wayne’s public work was inseparable from the AIDS and medical cannabis era in San Francisco. After moving to San Francisco, Wayne was diagnosed HIV positive in July 1988, during the early years of the epidemic, when available treatments often came with brutal side effects. He spoke openly about using cannabis to help with appetite and nausea from HIV medications, and about how many people with HIV and AIDS were searching for relief and basic dignity at a time when both were hard to find.
Wayne became part of the early medical cannabis movement centered around the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, widely described as one of the first public dispensary models in the United States, where sick people could find support and access, including compassionate care for those without money. He was also vocal when access was threatened. In 1998, during legal pressure on buyers clubs, Wayne was quoted as an HIV positive volunteer willing to go to jail rather than watch the club be shut down, reflecting the stakes for patients who relied on cannabis to function.
Wayne’s name became historic in July 2000, when San Francisco launched an early medical cannabis ID card program designed to protect patients’ privacy. Reporting at the time stated that Wayne Justmann received the very first card, and described him as director of the San Francisco Patients Resource Center, emphasizing how the cards were built to protect confidentiality and reduce harassment of legitimate patients.
Wayne’s advocacy also showed up in the day to day work of compassionate care. Reporting on cannabis compassion programs in San Francisco described Wayne as a longtime medical marijuana advocate and connected the roots of compassionate care to the AIDS crisis and inadequate support for very sick people. That history includes community systems that combined cannabis access with practical support like meals, palliative care, and services for people who were struggling, including those who were unhoused or terminally ill.
Wayne was also recognized as a queer cannabis pioneer and a central figure in the overlap between LGBTQ+ liberation, HIV survival, and the fight for medical cannabis. He helped shape a patient driven model of care and access that influenced what later became legal medical cannabis, while never losing sight of the people most at risk of being excluded.
If Wayne impacted your life, please share a memory in the comments. Thank you for being here, thank you for watching, and thank you for helping us honor Wayne Justmann through these episodes and the history he carried.
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