How do I become a Supporting Member?
BCC supporting members make an annual $95/yr donation. A member who cannot afford to make this contribution may be a granted supporting membership based on our compassionate care program guidelines. Once you have made the decision to become a supporting member, be prepared to fill out three forms and sit for our admission interview. The admission interview takes 5-10 minutes and allows us to best understand how we may serve you. A copy of the admission interview is available by clicking here. Once the interview is completed, you will be issued a supporting member card and all the benefits of being a BCC Supporting Member are then available to you. You will never pay more than $10/gram again and still support our compassionate care and research programs.
Who owns B.C.C.? (answer stolen from the Foundation Group, www.501c3.org)
Everyone and no one is the correct answer. A public benefit nonprofit corporation has no owners whatsoever, only stakeholders. A stakeholder is not an owner, but rather someone who has a stake in the successful operation of the organization. Stakeholders could be members of the nonprofit, or even beneficiaries of the nonprofit’s activities. One thing stakeholders have in common: they have no legal ability to profit personally…hence, nonprofit. A nonprofit corporation is formed to carry out a public purpose, whether that be religious, educational, charitable, scientific or whatever. It is prohibited from acting in a manner that result in private increment (profit) to individuals. How can that be? Someone has to own it, right? No, not really. The nonprofit organization is not “owned” by the person or persons that started it. It is a public organization that belongs to the public at-large. The parties responsible to operate the organization for the stakeholders are the members of the board of directors. Also, a nonprofit corporation cannot be sold. It is simply not possible. If a public benefit nonprofit corporation were to “close down”, or dissolve, the board of directors of the nonprofit must distribute all of the nonprofit’s assets to another nonprofit corporation after all debts have been settled.
“No one…and everyone!” Hopefully now, it is much clearer what we mean.
What do you mean when you say B.C.C. is a California Registered Charity?
In common usage, the term "charity" refers to an organization that performs charitable programs or sets aside any fund to be used for charitable purposes. California common law defines "charitable purpose" to include relief of poverty, advancement of education or religion, promotion of health, governmental or municipal purposes, and other purposes that are beneficial to the community. B.C.C.'s charitable purpose is to provide medical cannabis to patients with valid physician's recommendations regardless of the patients ability to pay. We are proud to say that we have never turned away a patient in need. In fact, for every ten supporting members B.C.C. has on it's roles, we are able to provide free cannabis on a year round basis to a member who otherwise couldn't afford it. We also conduct cannabis research on behalf of the collective's members and the community. These objectives in concert with B.C.C.'s public benefit status have allowed B.C.C. to register with California Registry of Charitable Trusts. Wanna check up on us? Check on us here.
How do I qualify for the Compassion Program?
To qualify for the compassion program, you must first be a regular member in good standing with a valid physician's recommendation. Once you have a valid physician's recommendation and have joined the collective, you may apply for the compassion program with our intake coordinator. Member's who request assistance from the compassion program are then interviewed and scored based on the severity of their illness, poverty levels and participation within the collective. Most compassion program applicants are awarded donation free supporting memberships. This effectively lowers the medical cannabis donation rates to under $10/gram. These applicants include Section 8 housing recipients, food stamp recipients, people on disability, people who meet federal poverty guidelines and others. If the lower donation rate is not sufficient support, B.C.C. provides free medicine to a fixed percentage of patients on a year around basis. Applicants who require free medicine are triaged into this program with the patients receiving the highest triage scores medical priority.
Why no credit or debit cards?
According to the debit/credit industry, the average cost of a debit or credit card transaction in the United States is 2% of the total transaction value. B.C.C. maintains such narrow operational margins that giving 2% of every debit or credit transaction to a bank affects our ability to conduct our compassion and research programs. Do you really want to give the banks more money? They don't want to give you any. In any case, in order to accommodate patients who wish to use a debit or credit card, we hope to be installing an ATM machine in the near future. Proceeds from the ATM machine will be used to support both the compassion and research programs. Expect to see the ATM by the beginning of March 2012.
Why does BCC do it's own lab testing?
BCC sees laboratory analysis of cannabis as more than just a way to prove whose medicine is clean and whose medicine has the highest level of THC, CBD and CBN. While these are important pieces of information, they are just the tip of the iceberg. BCC believes that by conducting frequent analysis of our products we can also use the data to help improve our farming techniques and plant quality. For example, by testing a control group and a study group at 6, 8 and 10 weeks in flower we can see if a change in farming technique or feeding affects a given crops THC, CBD and CBN levels. This is just one example of how a collective may use testing to better understand the growth and development of the cannabis plant. Collecting data on this scale is not feasible using outside labs. With most labs charging over $100 per screening and BCC wishing to conduct over 100 tests a month, the only way BCC can afford to gather data sufficient to our purposes is to do it ourselves.
Doesn't doing your own testing invalidate your results?
No. Long ago, the scientific community recognized that the validity of lab results is not dependent on who conducts the research but on the transparency and accurate implementation of the research protocols. Lab results are validated when the same results are reproduced outside the lab in question using the same techniques and protocols. In order to assure the accuracy of BCC's results, BCC regularly confirms the accurracy of it's lab values by seeking independent confirmation of our results from outside labs.
