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Medical cannabis in California wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for Ryan Landers. The Sacramento activist helped to develop the laws, policies and realities of medical marijuana in a career of activism that spans more than a decade. He was there to help roll Proposition 215 into motion in 1996 and had a significant hand in crafting SB 420 in 2003.

"I live the cause," he said. "When I'm not out testifying or counseling or negotiating for the cause, I'm just home and sick."

He's a 15-year survivor of HIV/AIDS, a personal fact that he doesn't usually publicize partly due to prior experience.

Landers, now 37, became a member of Californians for Compassionate Use in 1995. CCU is the group behind the successful Prop. 215 ballot initiative that won state medical legalization.

"When we got started, the public perception was really different," Landers said. "As we were collecting signatures, people were shocked. 'What do you mean you want to change drug laws?'"

As a volunteer, Landers ran information tables and collected signatures at California colleges, the Capitol, bookstores and food co-ops. “The press was giving us coverage every night, and I started appearing on TV,” Landers said.

Prop. 215 landed on the 1996 ballot and swept through into law on a 55.6% margin.

Landers is no stranger to news cameras and microphones. His media skills made public figures of his friends Steve Connell and Jacqueline Mahone, who testified beside him for years. He has also worked extensively with activists like East Bay resident Dr. Frank Lucido and Sacramento attorney Joseph Farina, to whom Landers says he probably owes his life.

Getting a tattoo at 16 changed his life forever. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1995.

He started medicating to help deal with the nausea and pain that the HIV virus and medication brought with it. Cannabis helps relieve his neuropathic pain and allows him to eat and keep food down once a day, even though he hasn't been hungry in 15 years.

Landers' activism reads like a history of medical pot. He testified in the California State Legislature against SB 535 (1997), SB 847 (1999), SB 848 (1999), and SB 187 (2001). He helped to author a revised version of SB 187, which went on to become the successful SB 420.

In appearance, Landers is not what you'd expect when you think of a cannabis activist. He keeps his hair cropped and short, reminiscent of his service with the Navy during the first Gulf War, and stays snappily dressed in three-piece suits on a normal day of business. He looks nothing like Tommy Chong.

The medical cannabis cause wound up making Landers a parent. As he was working with teens at risk of expulsion for cannabis use, he took two kids under his wing and eventually officially adopted them. David, 23, and Nate, 24, both graduated with their senior classes. More recently, they made him a grandfather at 37.

"In the end, that's why I could never walk away, when I thought about how many lives in the community could stand to benefit from this," Landers said. "If what I was doing was dangerous, or if it were wrong, I wouldn't be doing it."

(This story was written by former Sacramento Press intern Cheyenne Cary.)