Archival Spotlight: “Leaf Me Be” (The Patient’s Lament)
Step back into a time when navigating the medical cannabis landscape felt less like visiting a wellness clinic and more like walking a legal tightrope.
“Leaf Me Be” is a poignant, satirical blues-folk music video produced by Don Bernard for Union Local 13, the historic first-ever cannabis workers’ union. Through a clever play on words, the song’s central hook—“Leaf me be… but don’t leaf us out”—serves as both a plea for personal autonomy and a collective demand that cannabis workers and patients not be left behind by society.
The video chronicles the exhausting reality of the pre-legalization era: storefront dispensaries targeted by raids, small-scale legacy farmers incarcerated, and desperate patients forced onto the street only to end up in county jail cells. Ultimately, “Leaf Me Be” stands as a vital piece of advocacy art, documenting the exact systemic failures that united early industry workers to organize, unionize, and fight for the legal protections enjoyed today.
Watch the full historical music video below.
Here is the audio only version of Leaf Me Be (The Patient’s Lament).