This week at Tribeca Film Festival, the LGBTQ+ rights documentary Cannabis Buyers Club debuted for the first time.

The Tribeca Film Festival this week included the global premiere of a documentary film series on cannabis activist Dennis Peron. Cannabis Buyers Club had its international debut on Monday. Dennis Peron, a marijuana reform pioneer, is the subject of a four-part documentary series called Cannabis Buyers Club, named after the private community he founded in San Francisco.

The narrative of Cannabis Buyers Club revolves on one of the twentieth century’s most significant LGBTQ+ rights battles. When his community is destroyed by a new disease and the government does nothing to stop it, Dennis Peron, a rogue cannabis dealer, becomes the leader of a movement to help, cure, and fight back.

Despite the fact that the government and local law enforcement are vigorously clamping down on the drug trade, Peron, a Vietnam veteran, opens a private cannabis club to treat medical conditions ranging from AIDS to glaucoma. This is a comprehensive narrative of how marijuana was ultimately recognized for its many medicinal benefits, eventually leading to national legalization campaigns.

The first episode takes you back to Peron’s time as a young soldier in Vietnam, when he was first exposed to cannabis. Instead of imbibing alcohol, which he referred to as a “war drug,” whenever his battalion was given any downtime he would consume cannabis.

The four-part documentary series was directed by Kip Andersen and Chris O’Connell. The duration of the first of four segments is 49 minutes. 

Dennis Peron, known as the “father of medicinal marijuana,” co-author Proposition 215. When Proposition 215 passed in California in 1996, it was the first time any state had approved medicinal marijuana.

In 2010, Peron had a stroke, which left him with serious communication issues. In his last interviews before his death in 2018, Peron was able to recount his life story to filmmakers.