In the summer and fall of 1996, as AIDS ravaged San Francisco's gay community, Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco pastor Jim Mitulski risked imprisonment, dispensing marijuana to alleviate his sick congregants' pain before it was legal to do so.
He did this in church, right after services. "The risk was real, the spiritual intensity was real, and the tangible relief for the people who used it was real," Mitulski recalled.
It's LGBTQ History Month, and Out in the Bay this week presents a "Stereotypes" podcast episode about Mitulski and the queer-centered MCC-SF's compassionate cannabis program.
In the "Marijuana Minister" episode produced and hosted by Christopher Beale, Mitulski tells most of the story himself — in his own words