Fred Gardner (activist)

Fred Gardner is an American political organizer and author best known for his opposition to the Vietnam War and his writings about the medical marijuana movement in the United States.

In the fall of 1967 Gardner, with Donna Mickleson and Deborah Rossman, started a coffeehouse in Columbia, South Carolina, that became a hang-out for GIs,[3] an alternative USO called the UFO (United Freedom Organization).

[4][5] Gardner covered the court martial of 27 GIs charged with mutiny at the Presidio of San Francisco in October 1968 and wrote a book about the case, The Unlawful Concert, published by Viking in 1970 and reissued by Gryphon Press in 2005.

[citation needed] Gardner also helped expose the hidden ownership of Erhard Seminars Training, and Eli Lilly ’s strategy of marketing Prozac by publicizing the prevalence of clinical depression.

An offshoot of O’Shaughnessy’s, Project CBD, expedited demand for and production of CBD-dominant cannabis in the U.S. Gardner is a frequent and long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser.