Recently there have been changes to the medical marijuana programs in Washington State and Oregon following the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes in both states. But the way medical marijuana advocates are reacting, you’d think the entire medical marijuana programs had been repealed.

Most recently in Oregon, House Bill 3400A passed, which mandated some changes to the medical marijuana program. Drawing the most ire is limitations on the total number of mature cannabis plants that may be grown at one garden.

In Oregon, a third-party, the grower, may grow marijuana for the patient, leaving the caregiver free to just care for the patient. Each of those growers could be designated by up to four patients and each of those patients could have six mature plants grown for them. Thus, a grower could produce 24 plants for four patients.

But then growers started exploiting the loophole that multiple growers could be growing at one location. Next thing you know, there’s a headline about Oregon’s largest medical marijuana garden cultivating 624 mature plants for 104 patients by 26 growers on one property.

As a bonus for lousy publicity, it also turned out they were exploiting another unique aspect of Oregon’s law, the fact that out-of-state patients can get a card. Those 104 patients supporting a marijuana farm were all from California, mostly Los Angeles.

So this House Bill 3400A has set a maximum limit: 12 mature plants in residential zones and 48 mature plants in non-residential zones, regardless of the number of patients. And if you’re currently growing one of those marijuana farms, you are grandfathered-in to keep twice those limits: 24 mature plants in a residential zone, 96 mature plants in a non-residential zone.

Oh, how the medical marijuana advocates have screamed about this. Patients will be hurt! Access will be restricted! Really? We’re restricting existing residential gardens to the original four-patient limit and existing non-residential gardens to what four growers could have produced for four-patients each, setting new residential gardens at the two-patient limit and new non-residential to an eight-patient limit, maintaining hundreds of storefront dispensaries that will remain tax-free and gave them the right to remain even if a school moves in next door, and patients can still possess 1.5 pounds of marijuana… and patients are going to suffer? My God, how do they ever get by in Vermont or Maine?

But the real wailing is in Washington State, where they can actually point to some deeper cuts. Where possession was once 1.5 pounds, it’s now just 3 ounces. Where they could grow 15 mature plants, they can now grow only 6. Where they used to shop at hundreds of tax-free dispensaries, they’ll now show at dozens of I-502 shops charging a 37 percent excise tax.

To a mild degree, I understand the anger. Taxing medicine is pretty Scroogian. Losing 60 percent of your plants sucks. Losing 87.5 percent of your possession sucks. But the thing that sucks worse than all of that is continuing the arrests of roughly 5,000 healthy marijuana consumers a year for misdemeanor possession.

There is a “first, do no harm” mentality when it comes to some medical marijuana advocates. In a sense, with them our freedom as healthy cannabis consumers is held hostage to the ideal of a perfect medical marijuana program. Yes, they’ll tell you, of course we support marijuana legalization for all people… but only if it doesn’t change medical marijuana one iota.

Of course, that’s impossible. Legalizing marijuana changes everything about medical marijuana. Legalizing marijuana actually calls into question the whole premise of medical marijuana. Why did we legalize medical marijuana? Because prohibition existed that would arrest sick people who had no choice but to use marijuana. Now that threat of arrest is gone… so what exactly are we exempting the medical users from anymore?

There’s also the inherent untenable idiocy of pretending there exists two different products: medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. This wasn’t so obvious in Colorado, where medical marijuana was limited and recreational marijuana just adapted within the medical program. But in the Pacific Northwest, where patients were allowed to possess a pound and a half of usable marijuana and grow over a dozen plants and shop at a plethora of untaxed dispensaries, legalizing recreational marijuana with a one ounce limit and no home grow and just a few over-taxed retail outlets made the medical marijuana program stick out like Darth Vader at a Klan rally.

Some medical marijuana advocates like to pretend that Pacific Northwest medical marijuana was cruising along just fine, beloved by the public and tolerated by legislators, and would have continued to exist untouched if only those meddling kids and their recreational marijuana hadn’t come along. But it wasn’t; cities across both states were banning dispensaries because of their obvious winking and nudging about the true medical need of their customers, legislators were hankering for a crackdown on the most obvious abuses, and the public was growing weary of massive unregulated marijuana farms.

There were serious changes coming for Pacific Northwest medical marijuana before legalization, but legalization shone a spotlight on just how much medical marijuana needed to be reined in. And even with all these changes, Washington State drops from first to just sixth place out of twenty-five medical marijuana states in cultivation and possession limits. It’s one of only 13 of 25 states that allow home growing. It’s got more mature plants than all but 3 states, and a doctor can recommend more. It’s got greater pot possession than all but 5 states. It’s one of only 3 states with voluntary registries. It’s got the lowest price per ounce, even with tax, than all states but Oregon. Washington patients can form 4-person co-ops and grow 60 plants, unlike any state.

I can think of a whole lot of states that wish they had a medical marijuana program as devastated as Washington’s and Oregon’s.

I’m taking some heat from people who find my analogy “prohibition : Civil War :: legalization : Jim Crow” to be offensive. It probably is to some people; I’m a healthy, able-bodied, cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle-aged, middle-class, tall, overweight, educated, married Caucasian American male. I could only have more privilege if I were rich, had kids, more hair, and believed the Bible.

I think people who know me can best judge my character and understand my intentions. I believe that Jim Crow was legalized bigotry; I’m trying to express how I feel the law treats cannabis consumers in a bigoted fashion and I can think of no other analogy that better fits the definition. I did not mean to offend you. I only intend to provoke people who don’t understand that this fight isn’t about ending the criminality of a plant so much as recognizing the civil rights of my community. Perhaps my perspective as a privileged white guy who should feel eight-foot-tall and bulletproof in America makes me hypersensitive to the minor oppression I have faced.

I understand the analogy is not accurate in degree, but I believe it is accurate in some similarity. Yes, being a stoner under prohibition is, at worst, a “3” on the imaginary ten-point scale of oppression, and I suppose living as a black person under Jim Crow must be an “8”. I don’t think there needs to be a balancing test when we discuss ending oppression and recognizing civil rights, or else we’re all going to have to preface every discussion with “It’s not as bad as what happened to the…” I don’t know, pick, which oppression cranks it up to “11”, the Holocaust, the genocide of Native Americans, the Great Purge by Stalin, the Crusades, slavery under the Pharoahs…?

Neither is the comparison exactly complete. I’ll readily admit we cannabis consumers still get the right to vote, drink from the same fountains, and aren’t being lynched. To the degree the Jim Crow analogy fails, I apologize for the offense I caused.

However, there are many ways in which the analogy holds. Jim Crow was legalized bigotry against people based on the melanin content of their skin. Today’s marijuana legalization maintains legalized bigotry against people based on the metabolite content of their urine.

We cannabis consumers have been, and continue to be, victims of unjust laws.

“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail

We still suffer from code that prosecutes and persecutes us, the minority group that produces and consumes cannabis, that is not binding on the majority group that produces and consumes ethanol, nicotine, caffeine, barbiturates, benzodiazepenes, hallucinogens, opiates, and any number of other substances, including sugars and fats. (Guess which item in this paragraph has never killed anyone?)

We can be legally denied employment and removed from current employment merely for being who we are. No, not high on the job, but merely having the metabolites of cannabis use in our bodies while working perfectly sober next to employees nursing hangovers and gulping pills, metabolites that only prove who we are, not how we behave or the value of our character.

If we’re in an accident, who we are is used to deny us unemployment and workmen’s comp and insurance benefits we worked and paid for.

We can be legally segregated into lesser colleges or denied college admission because who we are disqualifies us from certain scholarships and financial aid.

We can be legally separated from our children by family courts when an ex-spouse uses who we are as a reason to deny us equal parenting.

We can have our children taken from us by the state and be prosecuted for endangering their welfare for who we are.

We are actively denied our First Amendment rights of free exercise of religion if our sacrament happens to be kaneh-bosm or ganja (but not ethanol, ayahuasca, or peyote).

We are actively denied our Second Amendment rights, since the federal Gun Control Act forbids selling guns and ammo to “known drug abusers” (Oxy and Coors don’t count).

We can be denied medical treatment, like life-saving organ transplants, just for who we are, absent any evidence our marijuana use risks organ rejection (in fact, recent studies suggest THC may help ward off organ rejection) or we are forced to choose to reject who we are in favor of taking much more harmful and toxic pain medications.

We can be denied federal Section 8 housing based on who we are, and be screened to determine denial of welfare benefits based on who we are.

We are restricted to only traveling to certain places where our kind are welcomed, using certain routes to avoid profiling by law enforcement agencies who can use who we are as reason to arrest us for endangering the public, even when there is no proof we’ve done so, and to steal our money and possessions, even if they never arrest us for any so-called crime.

We can still be imprisoned and forced into indentured servitude if we venture outside the very narrow bounds of conduct our kind are allowed, like being seen as who we are by the public or by daring to set foot on federal property.

I can understand why many will read all this and just sputter, “But nobody chooses to be black! You’re choosing to smoke pot!” and that, of course, is true. But nobody is born religious; it is foisted upon that person at birth, sometimes, but maintaining that identity as a religious person is an active choice, not an innate characteristic. One chooses to remain Catholic or one can choose to leave the Church. So it is being a cannabis consumer.

So why do we allow legalized bigotry against cannabis consumers, but not Catholics? “What about the children?” may not be the best response in this context, and irrelevant since we’re talking about adult rights. “What about the workplace?” rings hollow when the workplace is hopped up on stimulants, drowsy from antihistamines, hungover from ethanol, and taking multiple 15-minute breaks to dose nicotine. “What about the roadways?” makes no sense when we still allow taverns with parking lots and maintain that up to .08 BAC, we have to prove you were too impaired to drive. “What about public health?” is laughably irrational when we can smoke a cigarette while idling our car at the McDonald’s drive-thru.

Imagine for a moment, now that marriage equality for gays and lesbians is recognized, if that was accepted as legal, but it was illegal for the couple to be seen in public displaying affection. Imagine workplaces could legally choose to discriminate against gay people (and I know this is still true in many places); however, there was now a test all workers would be forced to take that would prove if they were gay. Imagine that having a previous conviction on your record for sodomy, even though it’s legal now, could be used to deny you a job or student financial aid. Imagine being told you can’t buy a gun because you’re gay. Imagine needing a liver transplant, only to be told you need to remain celibate for six months to qualify, because you are gay. Imagine we’re back to having only some states where gay marriage is legal, but this time, gay married people can be arrested and imprisoned in the non-legal-gay-marriage states for merely being gay.

No analogy is absolutely perfect. Sexual orientation is innate, pot smoking is not, but both have a sort of “coming out of the closet” aspect to them. Religion and pot smoking are both lifestyle choices, but pot smoking’s not also a belief system (for most). Blacks, women, LGBT, the disabled, and Native Americans have all suffered far greater injustices than pot smokers, I concede that.

My point was that we may be legal, but we’re far from equal. I’ll use that from now on, if only to avoid having to battle the online outrage machine.

UPDATE: The story has since been changed to “Police: Couple found abusing drugs with baby at Burger King”, opening with “A couple was arrested after they were allegedly found abusing drugs at a Burger King with a 5-month-old baby.” But the URL is still http://fox59.com/2015/07/01/police-couple-found-high-on-marijuana-with-baby-at-burger-king/ just so you know… –“R”R

It’s all in how you tell the story, the order in which you lay out the facts. The emphasis you give to irrelevant parts of the story in favor of giving the critical news the short-shrift. In the hands of news writer for a FOX station in Indianapolis, it’s amazing what you can do.

First, start with a sensational headline, like this:

Police: Couple found high on marijuana with baby at Burger King

Next, make sure your lead paragraphs accentuate the danger to the children from these monsters who dared to be parents grabbing munchies at the Burger King:

A couple was arrested after they were allegedly found high on marijuana at a Burger King with a 5-month-old baby.

Melanie Jayne Smith, 35, of Marksville, Louisiana, is charged with neglect of a dependent, obstruction of justice, possession of paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.

Murl Tyler Jr., also of Marksville, was charged with neglect of a dependent.

Holy crap! Melanie and Murl were so high it was worthy of “neglect of a dependent” charges? Just how diggity dank is this Indianapolis marijuana, anyway?

The story continues with the details of the arrest. They were busted at this Burger King for causing problems with some of the other customers. Huh? Are we sure this wasn’t synthetic marijuana or bath salts or something?

When the cops arrived on the scene, Murl is in the back seat of the pickup with his 5-month old baby and his pal William (c’mon, probably “Billy”,) is in the front driver’s seat. As cops try to talk with Murl, they report that “he did not know where he was at or what he was doing” and he “was also having trouble talking and sitting up.”

OK, was this edibles these guys had eaten? Too much extract? Loaded up on RSO?

Next, Melanie comes out of the Burger King and gets in the passenger seat. She then tells the cops she’s going to be sick and runs back in to the Burger King. A female cop follows and catches Melanie flushing pot down the toilet. When Melanie’s brought back to the car, she, too, is slurring her speech and unable to stand.

So you’re probably thinking at this point what I’m thinking. Let’s not delay this any longer than the original story did, which was this bit buried in the 11^th paragraph (emphasis mine):

The officers spoke with [William], and he told police that he had smoked marijuana and he had a stash in his boot. He also told police that [Murl] and [Melanie] had also smoked and they had taken pain pills “all day.”

OH! OK, so this couple was so whacked out on oxy they were neglecting their kid… and they happened to be pot smokers. Funny how that headline wasn’t “Police: couple found high on pain pills with baby at Burger King”, ain’t it?

Well, not really, if you’re a FOX station in Indiana dependent on pharmaceutical advertising revenue.

It’s Tuesday, June 30, which means when the clock strikes midnight, Oregon marijuana prohibition is over. The legalization we passed last November as Measure 91 takes effect on Wednesday, July 1.

It’s going to be a busy day for me. I have plenty of local and national media interviews to respond to today, including a press conference at ACLU of Oregon headquarters, a sit-down with a reporter from the HBO series “VICE”, and an appearance on “Who’s the Ross?”, a local late-night comedy program.

Most of the media inquiries are regarding our planned celebration tonight on the Burnside Bridge (#BurnsideBurn), the central point in Portland that defines our east-west and north-south borders. The spot is perfect for a post-legalization selfie with the iconic neon “Portland Oregon” sign in the background.

Our new legalization law allows adults over 21 to share marijuana and plants with one another, so long as there is no consideration (sales, barter, trade, promises, anything) for the exchange. So we’ve encouraged those adults who have an ounce or less to bring it and share with others. We’ve also encouraged medical marijuana patients to bring marijuana to share; they are still allowed to possess up to a pound and a half of usable marijuana.

Consuming marijuana in public, however, is still illegal and subject to a ticket from police. While we’re not encouraging anyone to break the law, I won’t be surprised if some people do.

This is our way of solving what our legislators referred to as the “immaculate conception” problem: marijuana becomes legal on July 1, but there is no legal outlet yet for anyone to purchase it. Thus, our legalization incentivizes a) buying marijuana from the black market, b) getting a medical marijuana cardholding friend to divert marijuana from a dispensary, or c) driving across the river to Vancouver, Washington’s, legal pot shops and violating federal law bringing it across the border.

Our legislature is currently working on some bills to address “immaculate conception”. One bill would open up the existing medical marijuana dispensaries to all adults starting October 1. Adults would be barred from purchasing edibles, tinctures, and extracts, though, and would be limited to purchases of just one quarter ounce per day. The good news is that Measure 91, our legalization initiative, doesn’t authorize the taxation of marijuana until January 4, 2016, giving us three months of tax-free marijuana sales.

Another couple of bills the legislature has cooked up would address the tax issue. One would set a temporary recreational-only tax at the medical marijuana dispensaries of 25 percent starting January 4, 2016, and ending December 31, 2016. Another bill would set the permanent sales tax at recreational stores, expected to open in late summer 2016, at 17 percent for the state and up to 3 percent local sales tax if approved by voters.

While I’m thrilled that I will go to sleep tonight in my own bed no longer a criminal in my home state, there is still much work yet to be done. We are just experiencing the end of our Civil War over marijuana and now we begin our Reconstruction. Just like those early days of emancipation, we are about to experience our Jim Crow phase of marijuana.

We may be legal, but we’re still far from equal. Beer drinkers aren’t fired from their jobs because a piss test proved they drank on the weekend… but we are. Cigarette smokers aren’t losing parental rights or facing child endangerment charges for using their drug around their kids… but we are. Oxycontin users aren’t automatically banned from purchasing firearms and ammunition… but we are. Folks who like the occasional glass of wine with dinner aren’t automatically kicked off of organ transplant recipient waiting lists… but we are. Cigar smokers aren’t forced to smoke their preferred substance only outside of public view… but we are. None of those drug users are afraid to travel anywhere but Washington, Alaska, and Colorado… but we are.

So I’m excited for legalization night, but I’m not finished with legalization. Not until we have the same rights as beer drinkers and cigar smokers in all fifty states.

I’ve been going rounds lately on social media with people who oppose the ResponsibleOhio plan to legalize marijuana in 2015. Many folks who are die-hard long-time marijuana activists hate this measure, because it limits the commerce in marijuana growing to just ten wealthy backers who’ve pledged $2 million each to the legalization campaign. People throw around the words “monopoly” (it isn’t, there are ten of them), “cartel” (it isn’t, they would all compete against one another), and “oligopoly” (market dominated only by the rich, which describes most American commercial markets) to deride ResponsibleOhio, but does that make it “not legalization”?

In 2014, the RAND Corporation produced a report for the state of Vermont. The report detailed twelve different regulatory schemes for marijuana (excluding for the moment medical marijuana – we’re talking marijuana laws for all people). Think of it like a number line or a spectrum of the possible systems that could be implemented for cannabis. It starts from the most-repressive regime to the most-free when it comes to marijuana. Here’s what they concluded:

1) Prohibition = weed’s illegal to possess, grow, and sell. You get arrested and imprisoned for any of those activities (like 27 US states now).

2) Decriminalization = weed’s still illegal to possess, but doesn’t include an arrest and a criminal record, rather a ticket, a fine, and probable a driver’s license suspension (like 19 states now). Growing and selling are still crimes.

3) “Grow & Give” = weed’s legal to possess and grow and share for personal use, but selling is a crime (like Washington DC).

4) Collective Gardens = weed’s legal to possess and grow personally, and personal collectives can combine for growing and sharing among their members (like Spain), but no retail commerce.

5) Coffeehouses = weed’s legal to possess and you can buy it in limited amounts in retail stores, but growing is technically illegal (like The Netherlands).

6) Government Control = weed’s legal to possess and buy, but only the government can produce and sell (like Uruguay).

7) Public Authority = weed’s legal to possess and buy and the government strictly controls cultivation run under a few licensees (like a state-run liquor store model).

8) Non-Profits = weed’s legal to possess and buy and you can grow and sell it as a non-profit entity (like California, supposedly).

9) For-Benefit Corporations = weed’s legal to possess and buy and you can set up a private for-benefit corporation to grow and sell it (for-benefits exist in a few states like Vermont, they’re like non-profits in that they serve the public good, but they can make a limited profit).

10) Limited For-Profits = weed’s legal to possess and buy and you can set up a for-profit private corporation to grow and sell it, but the licenses are limited and highly-regulated by the government (like most East Coast medical marijuana states).

11) Commercial = weed’s legal to possess and buy and you can set up a for-profit corporation to grow and sell it (like Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Colorado).

12) Deregulated = there are no laws on weed (like North Korea or what an East Texas State Representative proposed this year).

For me, if I’m living at #1 or #2 on that spectrum, I will support anything that moves my state up to #3 or better. ResponsibleOhio looks like a #7 to me. For the ResponsibleOhio haters, it seems like they’ll reject anything lower than #11.

But then, I’m just a consumer. I frame my view of legalization based on the facts that 7 out of 8 arrests for marijuana are consumers, not growers, and that anything that frees the consumers makes catching the growers far more difficult. Remember, it wasn’t just less-than-one-ounce arrests and prosecutions that declined following Washington and Colorado legalization. It was all marijuana arrests that declined, because many of the probable-cause tools cops use to bust people for any marijuana crime disappeared.

Actually, it’s simpler than that. I would never join Kevin Sabet, the DEA, the Drug Czar, and all the Ohio cops, prison guards, and rehabs in voting to keep 19,000 marijuana arrests happening in Ohio next year, and the year after, and the year after that.

July 1 is rapidly approaching. The long-awaited day brings with it the promise of legal marijuana in the state of Oregon for all adults, even the healthy ones!

But where are you going to get that marijuana in Oregon? Our pot stores won’t be open for months, maybe even over a year. What good is it to free the weed if you can’t buy any?

Don’t despair, dear reader, for Portland NORML is celebrating Free the Weed Day with free weed for YOU!

On Saturday, June 27 at Noon, Portland NORML will hold our regularly-scheduled free Public Meeting at the Tony Starlight Showroom at 1120 SE Madison St in Portland. Dru West, expert cannabis horticulturalist and author of the best-selling “Secrets of the West Coast Masters”, will present a class on starting one’s first legal four-plant cannabis garden.

So you can know what exactly is and isn’t legal, I’ll be delivering a presentation on the latest updates to Oregon’s marijuana law, including the latest amendments to the House Bill 3400 that will shape much of the regulations in cannabis commerce.

Then on Tuesday night, June 30 at 11:30pm, Portland NORML will join other activist groups that are planning a celebratory photo opportunity on the west side of the Burnside Bridge with the iconic “Portland Oregon” sign in the background. At the moment of midnight, as marijuana becomes legal, activists from Porkchop’s Projects (a veterans’ service organization) and Stoney Girl Gardens (a medical marijuana provider) will give any adult with identification some free cannabis seeds and some usable marijuana from within an enclosed tent, hidden from public view as required by the new law.

Why spend your money in Vancouver, Washington, and break federal law bringing marijuana over the border, or resort to the Oregon black market? Portland NORML will educate the public and our partners will give away thousands of seeds and hundreds of pounds of marijuana this year so Washington State and the black market do not benefit from our new marijuana legality. Get your free weed in Oregon and become a self-sufficient cannabis consumer.

Wow. Just wow.

A fan of my show has forwarded to me the email he got from Sen. Ted Ferrioli (R-West Idaho) explaining why he threw a temper tantrum until the east side of the state was given special privileges not approved by the 56 percent of voters who passed marijuana legalization in Measure 91. Here it is, with my commentary interspersed:

Writers of M-91 knew that rural areas would be skeptical, but underestimated how much they might oppose, or even resist the new law. In fact, the opt-out designed into M-91 would have required rural citizens (who voted “no” by a wide margin in some cases) to face another public election on the question, leading many to ask “What part of my “no” vote did you not understand?”

The first “no” vote, Sen. Ferrioli, was not a vote on whether, say, Malheur County wanted legal pot shops. That was a statewide vote as to whether pot shops should be legalized statewide. Malheur County and the rest of West Idaho voted no and were outvoted by the state. That’s how this thing called democracy works – elections have consequences. Does Eastern Oregon now get to be governed by Dennis Richardson and represented by Monica Webhy, or is marijuana policy the only statewide election for which West Idaho gets their way?

In that case, the only way to reverse that decision, in other words, to unwind that second “no” vote, would be through a third referral to the people.

Dang, this democracy thing sure is difficult. It’s almost like, shucks, the state voted no on legalized marijuana statewide in 2012 and, gol-darnit, the only way to unwind that vote was to go through the entire initiative process again in 2014.

Oregon voters, if nothing else, are stubborn. If they vote once on an issue, fine. If they are forced to vote twice on a measure (like “Death with Dignity Act) they get very cranky and the issue would be considered a closed question for decades (as with Monmouth, Oregon’s last “dry” city).

Ohmygosh, we wouldn’t want any cranky voters! C’mon now, Senator, Oregon’s Death With Dignity was passed in 1994 as Measure 16. It was held up by injunction until 1997. The all-knowing wise legislature decided that the state’s voters didn’t know what they were doing (sound familiar?) and placed Measure 51 on the 1997 ballot, which would have repealed Death With Dignity. It was rejected by 60 percent of the voters. (That reminds me of the time when the all-knowing wise legislature decided in 1998 that 1973’s marijuana decriminalization was a mistake, referred it to the voters, and were soundly rebuked by the voters, 2-to-1. Y’all don’t really understand what the people want regarding marijuana, do you?)

As for Monmouth, it was settled by religious folks in 1852 who established alcohol prohibition there in 1859. Citizens attempted to overturn prohibition there in 1936, then 1950, 1954 and 1976 and failed to do so. In 2002, citizens finally succeeded in overturning prohibition by a 58 percent vote. What you’ll note in this re-telling, Senator, is that nowhere along this Monmouth timeline was it the Monmouth City Council making these changes; the citizens were forced to gather petitions and hold a vote. Based on your context, you seem to be saying that Monmouth’s City Council would have overturned prohibition on its own sooner if it could have, a laughable proposition.

I wanted an opt-out by simple majority vote of the city council or county commission so that combat veterans suffering PTSD, hospice patients, cancer sufferers, children suffering from juvenile seizures, those suffering from Parkinsonism and people with chronic pain would have a chance to change hearts and minds of councilors and commissioners over time with their personal stories.

And so the way you’re getting, say, Malheur County to recognize the needs of desperately sick and disabled residents is by making those people drive hours to get to a legal dispensary in the west or find black market weed dealers in the east? By allowing a city council or county commission to ban the medical marijuana dispensaries that are already near these patients?

How much “over time” is this going to take, Senator? Eastern Oregon has heard these stories from patients since before medical marijuana’s statewide passage in 1998 (thank God you weren’t in office then to tirade until you got West Idaho’s right to still treat them all as criminals until they could change the hearts and minds of their wise and benevolent overlords!)

Aiding them in this effort will be the experience of other jurisdictions which will suffer none of the predicted adverse affects of medical clinics and low-key recreational outlets.

The result? Maybe not next week, or next year, but sooner rather than later the opt-out decisions will begin to be unwound, in this case, by a simple vote of the majority or councillors and commissioners rather than an expensive, high profile local referral election.

Right. These Eastern Oregon counties will get to suck up Western Oregon marijuana tax money as they observe marijuana commerce out west, and they’ll all have a change of heart that they haven’t had over the past two years of observing Western Oregon’s functioning medical marijuana dispensaries that have operated with none of the predicted adverse affects. Sooner rather than later… where the seventeen years of medical marijuana in Oregon serves as the upper bound for “later”.

I believe in the basic compassion of people. Councilors will respond to direct appeals from their constituents, and in a better way than if they are forced into a referral campaign.

Right, like they have responded to direct appeals for the past seventeen years?

No, Senator, what you are protecting is the will of these glorified home owners’ associations to ban all pot commerce, even the medical marijuana that you and I and every pollster who asks the question knows the majority of even rock-ribbed, hyper-religious, elderly conservative Republicans support. You’re protecting these city councilors and county commissioners from the uncomfortable position they’d be in if they had to campaign against sick and disabled people’s access to medicine.

Regarding the income from the sale of drugs: I agree that communities who opt out should have no income from sales. In a strange way, the offer of local tax revenue in exchange for acceptance of legal drug sales solidified support for a local opt-out provision.

“Drugs,” right, Senator. So, how exactly is withholding the 3 percent local tax from West Idaho towns that don’t have pot shops or dispensaries going to prevent these West Idaho counties from receiving a portion of the 17 percent state tax? Are you going to approve language that guarantees the proceeds of Oregon’s only sales tax are only disbursed to the counties that allow pot shops?

Meanwhile, I am working on resolving the banking issue, helping tribes develop policy for growing and selling marijuana from reservations, drafting a resolution to Congress to “unschedule” marijuana (reclassification creates a new set of problems), finding a way to start recreational sales on July 1, 2015 and creating an explicit right to home delivery for medical users.

Well, certainly then, we should allow West Idaho’s local governments to decide whether their banks should be able to handle marijuana accounts and whether their local Indian tribes have any rights to marijuana. That resolution to Congress will also have to be amended so the local governments can decide whether they are signing onto it. Of course, the local governments should also be able to decide whether home deliveries are legal.

After all, we wouldn’t want them to get cranky if we forced them to accept marijuana banks, Indian pot shops, home pot deliveries, and made them speak up for descheduling marijuana federally.

I conclude that I am doing my best to implement what people wanted in M-91, which is the end of Prohibition. As with the end of the prohibition on alcohol, communities will get there at their own pace.

Oregon first implemented alcohol prohibition in 1844. The territory repealed it the next year. Until 1915, localities passed various alcohol laws. In 1915, Oregon prohibited alcohol statewide. In 1919, the United States prohibited alcohol nationwide. In 1933, the United States repealed Prohibition and Oregon did so, too, just days later. That’s when Oregon created the OLCC, particularly ORS 471.506, which tells us that if a local government wants to ban alcohol, it “shall order an election on the question whether the sale, for beverage purposes, of alcoholic liquors of any of the classes described in this section shall be prohibited in the city or county … Must be signed by not less than 10 percent of the electors registered in the city or county … [and] An election under this section shall be conducted.”

In other words, Senator Ferrioli, you just gave a handful of city councilors or county commissioners in a West Idaho county the power to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, but they’d have to get the voters’ permission to ban a tavern.

Again, I ask, what’s the point of having a statewide initiative system it its results do not apply statewide? It’s time for activists on the left and right to come together for a constitutional amendment that, like Washington State, prohibits any legislative tinkering with a citizen initiative for two years.

SALEM, Ore. – In the closing days of the Oregon legislative session, powerful senators from both sides of the aisle have introduced a radical proposal that would split the state into two new sovereign states, called “New Oregon” and “West Idaho”.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick spoke at a press conference Monday announcing the plan that would create the fifty-first state in the United States.

“This is completely constitutional,” said Ferrioli, “as nobody is seceding from the United States. These newly-defined states will each follow historical precedent in petitioning to be a part of our Union, just as Oregon itself did in 1857.”

Ferrioli represents a small town in the very rural eastern side of Oregon, while Burdick is a senator representing a southwestern slice of the very urban Portland metropolitan area. They personify the rural/urban wedge that is slicing Oregon into two states, west and east, along the spine of the Cascade Mountains.

“When we got down to negotiating the compromise on the marijuana issue,” explained Burdick, “we realized that we’d be setting a precedent of governing this state as two separate halves anyway. With the self-pump gas bill going through as well, we wondered why should we continue the charade that this is actually one state full of people with shared values?”

While marijuana was legalized in 2014 by a 56 percent statewide vote, Ferrioli has been fighting for the right of Eastern Oregon counties to ignore the new law, because they really, really hate potheads. The marijuana issue Burdick referred to is a compromise that was announced just last week. The counties that rejected the Measure 91 legalization initiative by greater than 55 percent would be allowed to ban commercial marijuana growing, processing, and retail sales, whether it is for recreational or medical use. The bans could be enacted simply by the will of the city council or county commission. The rest of the counties would have to follow the new law that requires a vote of the people to enact a marijuana ban.

Burdick also explained that splitting the state was essentially fairer in the long run. “We had a 17 percent state tax on marijuana in the compromise, plus a 3 percent local tax,” continued Burdick, while noting that Measure 91 banned any sort of local taxes. “Then we realized that all of Eastern Oregon would ban marijuana shops, but still indirectly benefit from the state’s 17 percent marijuana tax that only Western Oregonians would be paying.”

“This way, each side of the state gets what they want,” interjected Ferrioli. “In West Idaho, we will ban marijuana, pump our own gas, restore marriage as a union between one man and one woman, drive eighty miles an hour on a motorcycle without a helmet, and make our tax revenue off of alcohol and guns, as the Good Lord intended. In New Oregon, you can smoke pot in your vegan lesbian strip clubs and piddle around on solar-powered electric bicycles in full body armor until the Rapture, for all we care.”

The proposed state split hews closely to those vast rural counties in Oregon that rejected Measure 91 by more than 55 percent. However, Deschutes County, which includes the sizeable, and somewhat liberal city of Bend, voted for Measure 91, and Wasco County, which includes the large town of The Dalles, are included within the borders of West Idaho – much to the chagrin of the residents of Bend.

When pressed by a reporter for the Bend Bulletin, Burdick explained that it was geographically easier to just split the state along the Cascades. “Bend will end up being like the Austin, Texas, of West Idaho,” Burdick said, “and as for The Dalles, well, come on, have you ever been to The Dalles?”

West Idaho, should it be admitted, would be governed by Dennis Richardson, the Republican who lost the statewide election to John Kitzhaber, but won the Eastern Oregon counties that comprise West Idaho. Similarly, Dr. Monica Webhy will become West Idaho’s first senator and an election will be held for a second senator and its one representative in Congress. Most of West Idaho also voted down Oregon’s Equal Rights Amendment, so it will not apply.

On the other side of the Cascades, the GMO labeling initiative that had failed statewide by just 837 votes will go into effect in New Oregon. The marijuana initiative will also go into effect and 100 percent of the taxes raised will stay in New Oregon, as will most of the writers of satire like this one.

In our last installment, I showed how Oregon’s medical marijuana advocates pushed for expansive limits and suffered news reporting of the shenanigans in medical marijuana that led to the adoption of new legislative restrictions that the advocates blame mistakenly on legalization of recreational marijuana.

A somewhat similar path was forged in Washington State. Their law was more relaxed than Oregon’s in the first place, with no state registry requirement and allowing a “60 day supply” of marijuana, whatever that is (it’s like asking “how big is a dog?”) Lacking that state oversight, it was second-only-to-California-easy to get a medical marijuana recommendation in Washington. But medical advocates complained about lack of patient access and lobbied to grant nurse practitioners and naturopaths the right to make those recommendations as well. To nobody’s surprise, this led to an explosion in patient counts, including hundreds of young people getting their medical recommendations in a tent at Seattle Hempfest for $200 from three naturopaths.

The “60 day supply” was eventually addressed, with medical advocates arguing for the need for every patient to be allowed over four pounds of usable marijuana, a number that was revised down to match Oregon’s 24 ounces. That left every medical marijuana participant in the Pacific Northwest legal to possess a pound and a half of marijuana. Unsurprisingly, medical weed flowed eastward from Washington just like Oregon medical weed.

Washington had a head start on dispensaries compared to Oregon. Medical advocates zeroed in on the medical law’s language regarding caregivers, who were allowed to serve only one patient at a time and recoup the reimbursements for expenses. Storefronts opened up where the clerk was the “caregiver” and the next customer in line was the patient he cared for, who was then no longer cared for in favor of the next patient in line. So long as the clerk didn’t serve two patients at once… wink!

In 2011, Olympia tried reining in the dispensaries by establishing some regulations and creating a 15-day waiting period to switch caregivers. But then Gov. Chris Gregoire, fearing federal threats if she allowed legal marijuana sales, section-vetoed the dispensary regulations. So, did the medical community recognize, despite the veto, the political will against the storefront shenanigans and rein in the abuses themselves?

Of course not; they found a new loophole. The governor had just approved collective gardens that could serve ten patients at a time. So the storefronts switched from being caregivers for one patient at a time in line to collective gardens serving nine patients who grow, then adding the tenth patient in line who just completed a purchase, then dropping him from the collective for the next patient in line. Soon, storefront medical marijuana shops numbered over 300 in Seattle alone.

We’re supposed to believe in that had recreational legalization failed in Washington, Olympia would have just left this medical marijuana program alone?

To be clear, I am not happy about these changes to Pacific Northwest medical marijuana. Despite the obvious gaming of the systems and redistribution eastward of medical marijuana, there are some truly needy patients for whom 6 plants and 3 ounces will not be enough and prices at the pot shop will be too high. However, the notion that keeping healthy people subject to criminal arrest for marijuana would have protected those patients is ludicrous.

Furthermore, the perception of shenanigans in medical marijuana don’t stay contained to these states. The reason that arc I described in Part One has bent lately toward CBD-only states is because lawmakers and advocates in the successive states declare “this won’t be like California”. The only state yet to veto CBD-only legislation is Idaho, which has seized plenty of medical marijuana coming from neighboring Washington and Oregon.

As other states re-legalize marijuana, their existing medical marijuana programs shouldn’t be affected as greatly, since the succeeding states have placed limits and regulations on marijuana that will more closely match what can be expected for recreational marijuana. Only in the Pacific Northwest, where untaxed shops and a pound-and-a-half possession stand in stark contrast to taxed shops and an ounce possession, are these kinds of drastic changes going to happen.

Except California. What happens for legalization and medical marijuana there in 2016 is anybody’s guess, and it will affect the entire marijuana reform playing field thereafter.

(Coming up in Part Four, how Ohio legalization in 2015 may change the game for both medical and recreational marijuana going forward in 2016.)

In our last installment, I detailed how the arc of medical marijuana legislation in the United States has bent toward pharmaceuticalization: from wide-open California medical marijuana in 1996 to the recent phenomenon of fifteen “CBD-only” states and counting.

Today let’s consider what happens to medical marijuana in 2016 in those states that are passing marijuana legalization. The wail you hear coming from the Pacific Northwest is the sound of medical marijuana advocates screaming bloody murder as their medical marijuana programs undergo serious restrictions. Their anger stems from a belief that legalization has “thrown patients under the bus;” having promised that passage of Initiative 502 in Washington and Measure 91 in Oregon would not alter medical marijuana in any way.

But medical marijuana is being severely altered anyway. In Washington, most of the existing dispensaries will be forced to close their doors. Where patients used to be able to cultivate 15 cannabis plants and possess 24 ounces of usable marijuana, they may now only cultivate 6 plants and possess 3 ounces of marijuana, 48 ounces of edibles, 216 ounces of tinctures, and 21 grams of extracts. Cooperative gardens are now limited to just four patients and sixty plants. In Oregon, changes aren’t as drastic. Patients retain their possession limit of 24 ounces and cultivation limit of 6 (mature) plants, but now there is a hard limit of 12 plants total in cities and 48 plants total in rural areas, regardless of how many patients the garden is grown for.

(Readers in red states, try to calm down as you read about people complaining about “only” 6 plants and “just” 3-to-24 ounces and “limits” of 48-to-60 plant gardens.)

It is completely true that legalization under I-502 and M-91 did not affect medical marijuana. Neither initiative changed one iota of medical marijuana law. The initiative writers specifically kept their hands off medical marijuana statutes under the constant threat of medical marijuana advocates insisting that legalization should leave medical marijuana alone. Ironically, had legalization authors written their initiatives to reconcile medical and recreational, there might be more statutory and political protection for medical.

As the medical advocates see it, because legalization passed and medical’s changing, the former caused the latter – post hoc ergo propter hoc. As I see it, legalization is shining a spotlight on medical, exposing its flaws that legislators were keen to change anyway, but in the spotlight, they can no longer ignore.

Medical marijuana advocates are loathe to accept their own responsibility for these changes. In Oregon, the state began with a limit of three mature plants and three ounces, with cards for patients and their caregivers. Advocates highlighted the most desperate patients to persuade the legislature to bump that up to six plants and 24 ounces. Then they complained that one extra card for a caregiver to grow for a patient wasn’t enough, so a third card for growers was added as well.

The common theme connecting these requests for increased limits and a grower’s card was the lack of access to marijuana for patients, because Oregon had no dispensary system. But then an ad hoc system of dispensaries began popping up anyway, selling marijuana to patients despite the illegality of doing so, winking and nudging with explanations of “donations” and “reimbursements for supplies and utilities.” Recognizing the futility of stopping it, the legislature in 2013 codified those dispensaries into law.

Then there were the news stories: In 2011, one of the ad hoc dispensaries named itself “Wake N’ Bake” and got its owner featured on the front page of the paper holding a six foot bong. In 2012, an Oregon grower farmed for 200 patients, produced a half-ton of marijuana, and paid its workers in weed. Throughout the 2010’s there was story after story of people shipping Oregon medical marijuana back east. By 2015, we find out Oregon’s largest medical marijuana garden – 624 mature plants – is serving 104 Californians with Oregon medical marijuana cards. Throw in the double-murder of medical marijuana growers selling their weed to a guy from Texas and medical marijuana events where caregivers and growers, not simply just patients, are allowed to smoke pot, and you have a perception of medical marijuana in Oregon that was begging to be addressed by the legislature.

We’re supposed to believe that if we’d have had two successive legalization failures in Oregon, Salem would have just left this medical marijuana program alone?

(Coming up in Part Three, how Washington followed a similar path and got its medical program restricted worse than Oregon’s.)

(There will be a Part Two to my previous article, but I had to get this one off my chest first… –“R”R)

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows. That must explain why I find myself, a lifelong Democrat, in complete agreement with Republican Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli when he says, “Oregonians are not expecting to have to wait until 2016 to be able to buy retail legal marijuana in Oregon. These growers are out there. They’ve got products.”

Our state makes it legal to possess, grow, use, and gift marijuana among adults 21 and older on July 1, 2015. But our legalization measure says that the state won’t begin the licensing process until January 4, 2016. That will allow commercial growers to begin planting and it will take a full grow cycle before they will have produced usable marijuana for sale. Then the stores will have to become licensed, then inspected, and by the time everything is done according to Measure 91, it will be August or September of 2016 before we see our first legal marijuana sale.

So, where are adults getting the marijuana they possess, grow, use, and gift legally for the intervening fourteen to fifteen months?

One thing we hear constantly from our legislators is the need to follow the directives of the Department of Justice’s Cole Memo, which says, in part, that states that legalize marijuana must make sincere efforts to discourage interstate leakage of marijuana and cover for black market sales of marijuana intrastate. That’s why they passed onerous new regulations on the medical marijuana side, right? We had to reduce plant counts and require lots of tracking so we discourage the black market, right?

If we do not get onboard with Sen. Ferrioli’s idea, are we not then encouraging interstate trafficking and incentivizing the black market?

For the months following July 1, if there are no pot shops in Portland, you can guarantee an increase in the people crossing the Columbia River to buy Washington weed, people who have already made two pot shops in Vancouver the #1 and #3 top sellers in Washington. Vancouver, with just four legal pot shops, out-sells all of Seattle, with its fifteen legal pot shops.

Then there are the currently existing medical marijuana dispensaries. If we do not allow them to sell to recreational customers, it is going to happen anyway, but through a steady stream of entrepreneurial OMMP cardholders who will collect donations from friends, buy in bulk, and “gift” those friends their share of medical marijuana. Unless one of those friends is an OLCC undercover, nobody is ever going to catch this group in the act, and the marijuana, once removed from its dispensary packaging, will be indistinguishable from the legal marijuana all adults are allowed to grow and possess.

And, of course, someone legal to grow four plants, if they do it correctly, can produce a lot of usable marijuana. We’ll be legal to possess eight ounces at home. Measure 91 also makes up to twice those amounts only a ticketable offense. So, we’ll have a whole bunch of adults who can grow seven plants and possess a gram shy of a pound of weed, and they’ll be perfectly legal to “gift” up to an ounce of that marijuana to other adults. But if anyone exchanges money for that weed, that’s the black market we’re talking about, right?

Now, naysayers will argue that the medical system lacks the sort of “seed-to-sale” tracking they believe is required for the Cole Memo. Or that the medical system isn’t set up for taxation. Or the medical system won’t be able to handle the demand. Or the prices will skyrocket. Somehow, the sky will fall.

But the medical system has no “seed-to-sale” tracking now and Oregon’s seen very little interference from the feds in sixteen years. It’s hard for me to believe that a government that is so eager to tax marijuana at the state and (despite Measure 91) local level can’t figure out how to do so with a month to go in the legislative session. The medical system, if you believe the legislature, is already supplying all the Oregon demand and a whole lot of out-of-state demand. Oregon consistently has the lowest price on quality marijuana in the nation, and that’s largely because we have such abundant supply.

The whole point of passing Measure 91 was to take what was criminal and make it legal. If on July 1 we legalize adults’ right to possess, grow, use, and share marijuana, but provide them nowhere to get it legally, we are incentivizing criminal activity and gaming of the medical system. Open the dispensary doors to all adults on July 1. After all, how can selling marijuana to healthy people be any more risk than selling marijuana to sick and disabled people?

Yesterday, the governor of Texas signed another one of those limited cannabidiol oil bills. It’s the fifteenth state to have such a law, and this one gets even more restrictive than its predecessors. The CBD oil will only be available to epileptics, only after they have tried at least two other conventional treatments unsuccessfully and only if two doctors agree CBD oil should be recommended.

These non-whole-plant states represent the proof of a theory I have promulgated since 2010 known as the Medical Marijuana Box Canyon. The hypothesis is that if you fight for only for medical marijuana, your marijuana is going to become medical only.

The Box Canyon is a metaphor from old western movies, where the cowboys are riding hard to get away, but get driven into an ambush where canyon walls prevent escape on three sides while the bad guys attack from the fourth. With respect to marijuana, it’s the idea that our framing of marijuana as medicine, while successful in helping us escape total prohibition, has boxed us into a political trap that retards the decline of marijuana prohibition.

First, let’s look at the evolution of medical marijuana. We begin in California in 1996, which passed Prop 215, the most wide-open medical marijuana law in the nation. The ease with which someone can get a medical marijuana recommendation there really makes their system more of a “legalization with doctor’s permission” law, notwithstanding the localities that ban medical cultivation.

But inherent in that idea of a doctor’s recommendation is tacit support for the idea that marijuana use is bad unless one has a valid excuse. It’s the “We’re Patients, Not Criminals” frame. It transformed the frame of the prohibition of marijuana from “a dangerous substance no one shall use” to “a medicine stoners abuse to get high,” thereby shifting the evil from the plant itself to the person who’s using it.

So, in order to prevent the evil medicine-abusing stoners from gaming the medical marijuana system to avoid prosecution, the next set of laws added strict condition lists and patient registries. Plant and possession limits got lower and lower. Throughout the late 1990s and the 2000s, we got a dozen of what I call “medical marijuana farming states” where patients can grow their own cannabis for medical use.

Then in 2010, Arizona passes the first medical marijuana law to limit who can grow their own cannabis. If one is within 25 miles of a dispensary (as 97.2% of Arizonans now are), one cannot grow cannabis, one must purchase it at the dispensary. Massachusetts followed with only those who can prove “hardship” being allowed to grow. Successive states didn’t allow anyone to home grow; all must purchase from dispensaries. Now there are nine of these “medical marijuana dispensary states”, where marijuana is treated just like any other medicine you must buy at the pharmacy.

Last year, we saw medical marijuana transformed into something you’re not allowed to have in its raw plant form, as New York and Minnesota became the first “medical cannabinoid states”. Then after Dr. Gupta’s popular “Weed” documentary showed epileptic kids healed by cannabidiol, Utah kicked off the CBD-only craze that yesterday added to the “medical cannabidiol states”. Boosting the support for CBD-only in these states is that it doesn’t get one high, which, of course, is something only those medicine-abusing stoners would want.

So for 2016 and beyond, what happens with medical marijuana? We can expect more of the conservative Midwest and Southern states to pass some form of CBD-only law. Florida will likely pass either a medical cannabinoid or medical marijuana dispensary amendment. But I believe the prospects of another state passing a medical marijuana farming law are slim to none. Marijuana has indeed become medical and soon, as further clinical trials on cannabinoid medicines are passed, it will become pharmaceutical.

When that happens, expect to see Big Pharma’s cannabinoid preparations replacing crude flowers and extracts on the shelves in medical cannabidiol, medical cannabinoid, and medical marijuana dispensary states. After all, we asked for them to treat cannabis like medicine. When was the last time you found any willow bark in the aspirin section?

(Coming up in Part Two, how medical marijuana screwed itself in the Pacific Northwest and how Ohio 2015 legalization may be the breakthrough for medical marijuana farming.)

Dear Senator Kruse,

I was forwarded a letter you had written in response to recent legislative attempts at re-regulating medical marijuana. You open with a condemnation of those who have petitioned you with threats and vulgarity. While I do not fault you for disrespecting those tactics, I would hope you can appreciate the emotion driving those letters and calls. These people are frightened of being subject again to loss of health and liberty. Stress may sometimes lead them to abandon civility, but it does not diminish the validity of their concerns.

What catches my attention is your immediate dismissal of the term cannabis not in favor of the commonly-used marijuana but in favor of the term pot. I understand a need for shorthand, but your particular choice of the word pot, followed by your tale of personal addiction to it (as well as LSD, cocaine, and methamphetamine, I have learned), makes me wonder how much understanding and respect you have for those of us who, unlike you, have managed a healthy and productive lifelong relationship with cannabis. I share much of your background in recovering from the effects of my father’s and my own hard drug and alcohol abuse, but I have found cannabis to be a welcome supplement to my life that has enhanced my being and caused me no pain not related to its prohibition. Your use of the term smoking pot makes me feel as if you minimize the importance of this issue of personal liberty and citizen democracy.

You cite your bouts with addiction as why you are “qualified to be working in this subject area.” It makes me wonder how many of the members of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission are recovering alcoholics and how many members of the Oregon Transportation Safety Department have wrecked their cars? For those of us who’ve studied contemporary drug policy, your background in the addiction recovery community merely certifies that you’ve been exposed to the fatalistic and nonsensical ideas about cannabis that science has disproven; ideas marketed by an industry in desperate need of drug-court-mandated clients with “marijuana addictions” that prove remarkably curable with probationary urine tests and the threat of jail time.

Oppose Senate Bill 964

I write in particular to ask you to re-think your rationale for Senate Bill 964, which will, among other things, establish harsh new limits and overbearing regulations on medical marijuana growers and allow localities to maintain existing bans on medical marijuana facilities. You say your support of Senate Bill 964 is based on two primary objectives: protecting “the integrity of the medical program” and attempting “to end the black market sales in Oregon” (an impossibility; there are black markets in cigarettes, DVDs, and purses, for examples.) Please allow me to explain why both of those objectives are not just unrealized, but actively opposed, by Senate Bill 964.

Your defense begins with some back-of-the-envelope calculations about the production level of medical marijuana in Oregon. Here, Senator, I find myself in agreement, in principle, that there is a whole lot of marijuana produced in the state of Oregon. My research has shown that Oregon consistently has the lowest nationwide prices for quality marijuana. Basic economics of supply and demand suggests that there is a great deal of supply here.

The question, however, is just how much of that supply is produced by those growing under the auspices of the medical marijuana program? You make assumptions about “two pounds of pot for each of the 71,000 patients” that have no basis in fact. Many patient just have cards and no grows at all; they use their cards to shop at dispensaries. Some growers produce just a few indoor plants that might produce a half pound. Other outdoor growers may produce massive plants with many pounds. Some crops fail. The truth is, we really don’t know.

Furthermore, estimates about average patient usage are just guesses as well. Frequently cited numbers of grams-per-day ignore the much greater amounts of product needed to produce a gram of tincture, a gram of edible, a gram of concentrate, or a gram of flower. Wouldn’t it make more sense to commission studies or surveys of our medical marijuana program to get some real numbers before we start hacking away at a system that, despite however few may be gaming it, is still serving some of our sickest and most vulnerable citizens?

These changes risk violating the Cole Memorandum

You are proposing severe cuts because you’re assuming medical marijuana is the root of all marijuana diversions. However, if medical marijuana is just a minority source of diversion, you will have only accomplished eliminating one of the black market’s competitors while harming a vulnerable population in the process without really addressing much of the diversion.

These cuts, you claim, are necessary to fulfill the Cole Memorandum’s directives, which include preventative measures to discourage interstate marijuana trafficking and cover for the marijuana black market. But then you’re proposing to institute a system of onerous inspections and regulations that guarantee that many of these medical marijuana growers – who just want to help sick people, not start a business – will return to that black market. You’re proposing limitations to garden sizes that will guarantee many of these patients – especially the sickest ones with the greatest need – will return to that black market.

Then, in another move counter to the intent of the Cole Memorandum, you are fighting for the maintenance of bans on medical marijuana dispensaries in 146 cities and 26 counties. We may as well call this the Black Market Marijuana Dealer Protection Act of 2015. Nobody can seriously believe that these bans are stopping anyone from using medical marijuana in these localities. Patients are either taking their money out to benefit another city or county, or they’re giving it to their black market source.

Medical marijuana bans shouldn’t exist at all

Your defense of this local option notion is that a 56 percent statewide vote shouldn’t be binding on the 44 percent in localities who opposed it. You don’t believe that is an “overwhelming majority”, yet in the last election, more Oregonians supported Measure 91 than former Gov. Kitzhaber and Senator Jeff Merkeley. If a barroom brawl was 56 versus 44, those extra dozen fighters on the winning side would sure feel like an overwhelming majority to the losers. What would the majority vote have to be, Senator Kruse, to convince you that the entire state should follow its mandate as written? What’s the point of a statewide initiative system at all, when what you seem to support is the ability of locals who lost to opt out of statewide laws?

Your defense of local option bans makes more sense if you’re defending only the right of localities to remain bigoted against medical marijuana businesses, despite a majority vote of the state. But you’re not in favor of the people in those localities making that decision through the ballot. Rather, you’re supporting the right of the small city councils and county commissions to maintain their bans and forcing the people to have to overturn them. The default position, in your view, is that the Cole-Memorandum-red-flag black-market-subsidy known as a local ban should remain in place until the people vote it out. In your view, the people in a city are subservient to their elected officials, even if the people in the state voted that they shouldn’t be.

Medical marijuana bans should not exist at all. The 1998 initiative that brought us medical marijuana stated that it was to be treated as other medicines. What other medicine in the State of Oregon is subject to a local ban based on the vote of a council or commission? Even alcohol in this state cannot be banned by a locality without the vote of the majority of the people in an election! Why should it be easier for a locality to ban a dispensary than a tavern? Why should any population have the right to vote to make it tougher for sick people to get well?

We must respect the democratic process

Of course, this is only about medical marijuana bans in the short game, right, Senator Kruse? The long game here is to establish the right of these localities to maintain bans on medical so that they can establish that right to ban recreational marijuana, too. It would make no sense to allow a city council to ban a medical dispensary while requiring a vote of the people to ban a recreational pot shop, so there will be a natural inertia to allow the same local power to ban both types of marijuana retailers. Then that local power will be extrapolated to allow cities and counties to establish their own local marijuana taxes, again in contradiction to the text of Measure 91 and again acting as another subsidy to the black market.

The fact is that Measure 91 copied its requirements for a local vote of the people on any bans and the state as sole taxation authority from the state’s liquor laws. The reasons are to help insure as uniform a statewide standard for marijuana as possible, to avoid violating provisions of the Cole Memorandum by promoting black markets. If a local city council or county commission is so sure they’re representing their constituents’ disdain for marijuana businesses, why do they fear putting that issue up for a vote?

Many of you in Salem claim you are frightened by the threat of federal interference, but from our perspective it appears you are more frightened of threats by the lobbyists from the cities and counties. Since so much of what you propose runs counter to the tenets of the Cole Memorandum, this cynicism seems only logical, especially since Oregon has remained remarkably free from federal interference, because our medical marijuana system is more tightly regulated than Washington’s and California’s.

Why not continue to allow the medical marijuana system to remain untouched, as 56 percent of the voters agreed to by supporting Measure 91? You are speculating as to how an unknown recreational system will work alongside a barely-studied medical system, with consequences that can only harm the medical consumers and threaten the viability of the recreational system. Done correctly, a recreational system with statewide access and low prices would cause much of the enrollment in the medical marijuana program to decrease naturally, as well as many of the medical providers opting to join the more lucrative recreational system. This would do more to reduce medical marijuana diversions to the black market than the restrictions, regulations, and bans you’re supporting.

Please respect the democratic process, Senator Kruse. Don’t force the people to pass a constitutional amendment forbidding the legislature from subverting citizen initiatives, as is the law in Washington. Just uphold the law the people of your state voted on.

If you’re just joining us, Oregon’s joint legislative committee that was assigned the task of implementing our recreational marijuana legalization got bogged down trying to restrict the medical marijuana program. Never mind that the Measure 91 recreational marijuana legalization initiative said, three times, that the existing medical marijuana program was not to be affected, and 56 percent of the voters agreed with that.

It appears as though some of our elected officials think our petitions and votes aren’t what we want to see written into law. They think our initiatives are merely advice. And like then-Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2011, they are so easily frightened by vague, unrealized federal threats they’re willing to line-item veto the key provisions of sensible marijuana regulation.

And should these politicians succeed, they’ll wreak the same sort of havoc on Oregon’s successful medical marijuana program as we are now seeing wrought upon Washington’s.

That joint committee of five senators and five representatives was well on its way to accomplishing most of the drastic changes to Oregon’s medical marijuana program they sought, including the reduction in medical marijuana gardens from 6 mature plants per patient to a limit of just 12 plants total, regardless of how many patients a grower serves, in urban areas, as well as new recordkeeping and inspection requirements for medical marijuana growers. (Again, despite Measure 91 saying, in effect, “don’t tinker with medical marijuana!”)

But they deadlocked on local medical marijuana bans. When our medical marijuana dispensaries were created by the legislature in 2013, they allowed city councils and county commissions to institute bans until May 1, 2015. Then 146 of 242 cities and 26 of 36 Oregon counties instituted bans.

Now that the ban deadline is up, the question became how can cities and counties maintain those bans? House members wanted such bans to automatically go to the ballot for the voters to decide. Senate members instead wanted bans to remain until the people collected enough signatures to put it to a vote of the people.

Never mind the fact that the recreational marijuana legalization we just passed by a 56 percent vote says that in order to ban a recreational marijuana dispensary it requires a vote of the people, not just the votes of city councils or county commissions. As committee member Rep. Ann Lininger adroitly noted, it shouldn’t be any easier to ban medical marijuana sales.

Since the joint committee has deadlocked, Senate President Peter Courtney has empaneled a Senate committee to push the local medical marijuana dispensary ban language the Senate members wanted. Leading that committee is the same co-chair of the joint committee, Democratic Senate President Pro-Tem Ginny Burdick, joined by Republican Senator Jeff Kruse.

The political calculus here is that she thinks she can get a bipartisan Senate majority to support it. Then when it goes to the House, it’s not just Rep. Lininger and four other joint committee members stonewalling it. The full House, she believes, will be swayed by the Senate into supporting the local ban language she favors.

Of course, it strains credulity to think that if the handful of officials running a city or county can vote to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, they won’t demand that power to ban recreational marijuana shops, in contradiction of the clear language of Measure 91 that says only the public vote can institute a ban.

Then we’ll find ourselves in the same morass as Washington State, where medical and recreational marijuana are only available in the urban centers. The price of marijuana will be artificially inflated, especially if the precedent for ignoring Measure 91’s “only the people can ban” language is later applied by the legislature to the “only the state can tax” language, allowing local pot sales taxes. And the reduction in the black market that legalization promised vanishes as it fills the need for patients and consumers in 146 cities and 26 counties, or more!

If Senator Ginny Burdick accomplishes these line-item vetoes regarding local bans and local taxes, she’ll have then defied the intent of fully two-thirds of her district who supported Measure 91.

This isn’t about marijuana. This is about Democracy. Again, I ask, what good is citizen initiative power if the politicians feel they have the right to line-item veto it? What good is voting when a key senator is willing to ignore a supermajority of her own constituents? Please, contact Senator Ginny Burdick and let her know she needs to respect the will of the people.

You may recall last year that we voters here in Oregon passed statewide marijuana legalization. We’re one of the 26 states with some form of citizen lawmaking ability, so we crafted a marijuana legalization initiative, got it on the ballot, and passed it with a fifty-six percent majority.

The initiative legalized personal marijuana possession and growing and established a system for commercial production, processing, and sales. Much of what was in the initiative was copied-and-pasted from our state’s liquor laws, including two key provisions: only a vote of the people in a city or county could ban commercial marijuana licenses and only the state can tax marijuana.

Another huge provision in the new marijuana law was that it was not to affect the existing medical marijuana law. This was so prominent in the campaign for legalization that it was written into the initiative in three separate sections.

In order to implement the recreational marijuana law that declared tinkering with medical marijuana off-limits, the Legislature gathered five representatives and five senators in a joint committee, which was acknowledged often by those who couldn’t resist the opportunity to be stand-up comedians (“joint committee, get it?”).

Then they let us in on the real joke – their respect for the will of the voters.

As soon as our Measure 91 was certified, the lobbyists emerged from counting their piles of money to begin subverting democracy. Lobbyists representing city councils and county commissions don’t like two key provisions on local marijuana bans and local marijuana taxes. They want the ability for a handful of councilors or commissioners to be able to ban or tax marijuana, no matter what their local constituents think or how the majority of the state voted.

Lobbyists representing commercial marijuana growers and law enforcement don’t like the current system of medical marijuana growing. They want the legislature to clamp down with restrictive limits on how many medical marijuana plants may be grown, especially within residential zones.

So this Measure 91 Implementation Committee began meeting twice a week beginning in February. Now their time is up and the committee accomplished virtually nothing as they debated how local city councils and county commissions can ban medical marijuana and how the state should reduce the size of medical marijuana gardens.

Maybe we should be thankful they got so bogged down in the local bans and medical garden size issue that they never even got around to establishing the right of localities to add their own marijuana tax, contrary to the legalization initiative the majority supported.

One of the few things that have been accomplished in the recreational marijuana implementation has been a series of “listening tours” conducted by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), the agency tasked with regulating legal pot by Measure 91. On those tour stops, we learned that at least three of the five commissioners voted against the measure, including the chair, who is one of the 36 county district attorneys who were unanimously against legalization.

Another accomplishment has been the seating of members of the Rules Advisory Committee, the experts selected to help guide the OLCC in implementation. Of those members, at least six are cops, district attorneys, or county officials who opposed marijuana legalization and believe such nonsense as marijuana legalization being a cause of child abuse and domestic violence.

So I wonder, what is the point of having an initiative system if the legislature is just going to ignore what the people voted on? This isn’t a story about marijuana. This is a story that should frighten everyone supporting any issue on the left or the right. What good is your GMO labeling initiative or your gun rights initiative or your reproductive rights initiative when we’ve established the precedent that the lobbyists can just have the legislature line-item veto your initiative’s key provisions?