We’re not supposed to have saints in the weed world.
No holy figures. No marble statues. Just resin-covered rebels, faded legends, and outlaws in baggy jeans with a joint behind the ear and a dream in their pocket. But Richard Lee… Richard was different. He was our saint. A wheelchair-bound prophet in the East Bay who didn’t ask for permission to change the world — he rolled right in and started doing it anyway.
Richard Lee is dead, and I’m still trying to understand what the hell that even means.
I remember walking into Oaksterdam University in 2010 — the 53rd class — with a head full of smoke and a heart full of questions. Back then, the idea of “cannabis college” felt like something out of a Cheech and Chong fever dream. But there we were, getting real education, talking tax code, terpene profiles, and the Constitution. And looming behind all of it — not with ego but with purpose — was Richard.
He had the look of a man who knew he was running out of time but planned to do something unforgettable with every ticking second. Eyes sharp. Mind even sharper. A disabled activist from Texas who had the balls to open a cannabis trade school a stone’s throw from federal agents, daring them to give a damn.
He called the bluff. Again and again.
He spent his money, his reputation, and his body pushing for something too simple to be revolutionary: cannabis freedom. And not just the freedom to smoke — the freedom to grow, to build businesses, to organize politically. He saw weed as both a plant and a platform. And when people say he “founded Oaksterdam,” it sounds too soft, too clean. He forged it. Out of steel and stubbornness.
I still remember sitting in that classroom, the faint hum of grow lights above, scribbling notes while guest lecturers talked about hydroponics and legislation. It felt revolutionary, because it was. Richard made it so. He gave us the green light to stop hiding, stop whispering, and start building a damn future out of the ashes of prohibition.
And let’s not forget 2010 — Prop 19. He threw himself and his fortune into a battle California wasn’t ready to win, but someone had to try. Because trying is what Richard did. Even in defeat, he gave us the roadmap.
He never stopped moving forward, even when his body couldn’t.
It’s easy to romanticize someone in death, but with Richard you don’t have to. The facts already read like myth: paralyzed from a workplace accident, he becomes a cannabis crusader. Opens the first modern cannabis college. Funds a statewide legalization initiative. Gets raided by the Feds and just keeps going. Who does that?
Richard Lee did.
And now the rest is up to us — the students, the believers, the growers, the fighters, the ones who sat in that same classroom and felt the call. He didn’t ask us to worship him. He asked us to get to work. So let’s get to fucking work.
Rest in peace, Richard. The movement has lost its godfather, but the harvest is still yours.
And me? I’ll never forget you. Oaksterdam 53rd class, 2010! You changed my life.
Thank you.
Keep it weird,
~-JohnsJoints
“Keep the faith”
