April 30, 2009 Eugene Weekly Cover

Jim Grieg of Willamette Valley NORML just forwarded to me links to the new issue of the Eugene Weekly entitled “Reefer Medness” that coincides with the mayor’s proclamation of Medical Marijuana Awareness week in this college town, home to the University of Oregon Ducks. The cover story “The Politics of Prescription Pot“, details the inter-organizational battle this legislative session between the Stormy Ray Cardholders Foundation (working in coordination with Law Enforcement) versus every other Oregon marijuana advocacy organization (Oregon NORML, Willamette Valley NORML, Southern Oregon NORML, Voter Power, Oregon Green Free, and Mother’s Against Misuse and Abuse)

“The story you’re about to write is completely bullshit.” This is as good a place to start as any, with one of the first sentences spoken to me over the phone by Jerry Wade, who serves as secretary for the Stormy Ray Cardholder’s Foundation (SRCF). Wade was responding — in a kind of preemptive strike, since no specific questions had yet been asked — to a request that his organization respond to the scads of criticism leveled at SRCF by other organizations in the movement.

According to Wade, SB 388, which received a hearing in Salem April 20, focused exclusively on the needs and rights of patients who use medical marijuana. The bill, he said, sought to prevent abuses on the supply side of the issue by ensuring clear and legal access to well-regulated and well-defined marijuana producers who are growing pot solely for patients.

Now, as for the “bullshit”: Numerous individuals and organizations have claimed, in so many words, that SRCF is a puppet and a front for The Man; and that the organization, by working so closely with law enforcement and politicians, is a slave to power; and that it does not represent the collective interest of the medical marijuana movement.

Anthony Johnson of Voter Power said: “It is a shame that the Stormy Ray Cardholder’s Foundation, an organization with just a handful of members, has been propped up and used by the law enforcement lobby to pass laws that actually harm sick and disabled patients.”

The actual harm being done, Johnson claimed, is “by conning legislators that compromises are being made while patients are only going to be harmed by proposals that reduce the amount of medicine available and will lead to more resources being wasted on the arrest and jailing of patients and their providers.”

Koozer from WV-NORML said that the legalization movement in general is “appalled” that Ray has “worked her way into being the only group that law enforcement will deal with and speak with.” In general, Koozer added, it’s confusing that legislators are paying so much attention to law enforcement, which he called “addicted” to the money it makes waging the so-called War on Drugs. He warns further that it’s a dangerous thing when law enforcement is involved in the making of laws, a process typically, if not constitutionally, delegated to the legislative branch of government.

Among the travesties included in the Stormy Ray bill were provisions to limit grow sites to 24 ounces of medicine total, despite how many patients a garden serves, instead of the current situation where a grow site can have 24 ounces per patient served.  Since at least 20% of grow sites serve more than one patient, this would have immediately impacted patients because the growers could still have 6 mature plants per patient, and what grower would want to take the risk of taking on multiple patients when at harvest time, he’d be way out of compliance?  (And the 20% is DHS’ number; I think it is much higher because while 75% of grow sites only care for a single patient, DHS requires that patients list a grow site even if they aren’t growing.  Therefore a large unknown percentage of grow sites are “paperwork only”.  I’d bet at least 50% of grow sites serve more than one patient.)  In a time where the #1 complaint for patients is lack of access to medicine, Stormy Ray wanted to create disincentive to serve patients and more easier busts for law enforcement.

Similarly, Stormy Ray lobbied for a new limit for hashish, 2 ounces, where current law allows for 24.  They lobbied for DHS to be given the right to inspect grow sites at a moment’s notice and to forward violations found in inspections to law enforcement for immediate prosecution.  They lobbied for the printing of a “medical marijuana manual” that DHS would print (at considerable cost in this economic downturn) and require patients’ signatures for, which could then be used as another way to punish patients and growers who may later be investigated by law enforcement.  This is how Stormy Ray protects patients: by reducing the number of growers, the number of plants grown, the amount of medicine possessed, and empowering law enforcement’s ability to prosecute patients and growers.

See, that’s all it takes to bring together Oregon’s famously quarrelsome marijuana advocacy groups: one bad bill to fight and one bad actor to oppose.

I also got my op-ed published in that edition; the complete text follows after the break.

Marijuana Legalization In Oregon

Not the end of reform but the beginning

By Russ Belville

As we celebrate the 10 years of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, let’s reflect on a decade of compassion and success. We’ve seen the program grow to protect more than 20,000 seriously sick and disabled Oregonians’ use of the “safest therapeutically active substance known to man,” according to DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young.

Some 20,000 Oregonians no longer face harassment, arrest, and imprisonment by law enforcement for their medical use of marijuana as recommended by their doctor. The program is self-funded and has run a surplus that generated over $1 million for other state programs.

However, even with a medical marijuana program, patients still face enormous hurdles while trying to follow their treatment. There is no means of distributing marijuana — buying and selling it, whether they’re medical users or not, is still prohibited by state and federal laws. If a patient cannot grow their own, then they must acquire their medicine on the illegal black market, where it costs more per ounce than palladium or saffron. The expense of growing medical marijuana is not covered by patients’ insurance.

Marijuana’s illegality to the non-medical user means businesses will still urine-test their employees, with no exception for the medical users. Landlords may discriminate against patients in housing and child custody is endangered any time a patient is taken to court.

The illegality of marijuana for the majority of its users also has an impact on the effectiveness of medical use. The U.S. government recently denied a petition by Dr. Lyle Craker of UMass to grow a plot of marijuana for scientific and medical research, despite the recommendation by another DEA Administrative Law Judge, Mary Ellen Bittner, that he was qualified, the research is necessary, and he should be allowed to do it. This stranglehold on medical research also prevents investigation of differing marijuana strains and how their cannabinoid ratios may be effective in treating different conditions.

U.S. government statistics show nearly one in eight adult Oregonians use marijuana at least once per year, and so long as they represent a consumer demand for marijuana, there will always be entrepreneurs looking to provide the supply. The state spends an estimated $61.5 million per year enforcing a marijuana prohibition that 354,000 Oregonians per year ignore. Yet adult Oregonians have still consistently used marijuana for non-medical purposes at a steady rate of 6.5 to 8 percent monthly over the past decade.

Medical users of marijuana only represent a little more than one in 20 of all marijuana users in Oregon. Prohibition of marijuana to those 19 nonmedical users is costing taxpayer dollars in a proven futile attempt to stop their use while Oregon looks to cut school days and programs in order to save money in this economic downturn. Meanwhile that one medical user faces high medicine prices, lack of availability, job loss, home loss, family breakups, and a dearth of reliable scientific information about the medicine because we deem it illegal for the other 19 adult users.

The key to the illegality of marijuana for 95 percent of its Oregon users lies in marijuana’s Schedule I status. The federal government ranks drugs in ‘schedules” from I to V. Drugs rated Schedule II, III, IV, and V, which include cocaine, methamphetamine, opium, PCP, and anabolic steroids, are all prescribable drugs anywhere in the U.S., from the “dangerous” Schedule II drugs to the relatively safe Schedule V drugs. Marijuana is rated Schedule I, completely illegal even for doctors to prescribe, which means:

• “The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse” (despite the fact that only 9 percent of marijuana users develop dependence, compared to 15 percent for alcohol and 32 percent for tobacco).

• “The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” (despite the fact that 13 states now recognize marijuana’s medical use and the U.S. government holds patent #6,630,507 on the medical use of cannabinoids ).

• “There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision” (despite the fact the U.S. government currently sends 300 medical marijuana joints to five U.S. citizens every month , including Oregonian Elvy Musikka).

It is even more clear that marijuana is mis-scheduled when one considers the raw plant form of cannabis, which ranges from 4 to 15 percent THC (the psychoactive chemical in marijuana), is considered Schedule I, yet the pharmaceutical version of THC, the Marinol pill, at 100 percent THC, is considered Schedule III.

Medical marijuana is a wonderful change in Oregon, but only a beginning. Until marijuana is legal for all responsible adults, medical marijuana patients will continue to face these hurdles and never truly receive the treatment they deserve.

Russ Belville is national outreach coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and host of NORML’s Daily Audio Stash at http://stash.norml.org