Obituary – San Francisco Chronicle: Richard Lee, Oaksterdam University founder who paved the way for legal weed, dies at 62 | Cannabis Law Report | Where to order Skittles Moonrock online
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When it opened in 2007 as a cannabis-focused trade school,Ā Oaksterdam University in Uptown Oakland had all the attractions of a major college campus. There were two coffeehouses in funky little storefronts, a gift shop offering logoed sweatshirts, student union, museum, bike rental and glassblowing shop ā and a founding president, Richard Lee, who was as eager as an incoming freshman.
Lee, who had used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury during his previous occupation as aĀ roadie for Aerosmith, was the perfect ambassador for the responsible use of marijuana, which he required to ease chronic pain. He also had the right combination of erudition, determination, a self-effacing sense of humor and the boyish good looks ā complete with bangs ā to be the face of the nationwide drive to legalize marijuana.
āThe university is a political institution. Its mission is to legitimize the business and work to change the law to make cannabis legal,ā he told the Chronicle in 2008, in an interview for an innovators column called Bright Ideas.
Leeās mission is still not fully accomplished, but Oaksterdam is still at the forefront. He retired in 2012 after fourĀ federal agencies raided his apartment on LakeĀ Merritt,Ā his office at Oaksterdam, and his ancillary businesses, confiscating everything but the furniture.
He was never charged, and the university quickly reopened, but Lee said he had become a target for law enforcement and felt that both he and the university would be continuously harassed.
Eventually he moved home to care for his aging mother in Houston. He died July 27 at a hospital there, according to Oaksterdam Chancellor Dale Sky Jones. The cause of death was metastasized cancer that had gone undetected and spread throughout his abdomen, Jones said. Lee was 62.
āRichardās courage to fight when it wasnāt easy, when it wasnāt safe and when few others dared, led to a domino effect of change that we are still witnessing today,ā Jones said. āHe didnāt wait for the system to catch up. He worked relentlessly to make it right.ā
Lee was already an Oakland operator, with two coffeehouses that served as marijuana dispensaries and a pot-growing business on the side, when he hit on the idea to open a school that taught aspirants what heād learned on the ground. The light bulb moment came from a sign that read āCannabis College,ā which he had seen at the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam.
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https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/richard-lee-oaksterdam-founder-dies-20826290.php
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