In their latest editorial, entitled “Another Dance Around Marijuana“, the editorial board addressed I-28, the initiative that would create a regulated dispensary system in Oregon. The gist of their argument is a dare to dispensary proponents to just be honest and come out in favor of legalization, instead of dancing around the “charade” of “medical marijuana”. It’s worth reading the whole thing (and leaving a comment!) so that you’ll understand the tone I used in my comment below:
“Anyone over the age of 18 with a doctor’s note that says they can benefit from smoking marijuana can apply to the Oregon Health Division for a card.”
False. The person must have legitimate medical records documenting afflictions with one or more of nine qualifying conditions within the past three years, accompanied by a state form signed by a doctor, often a 2nd doctor, recommending marijuana as a treatment. This is not California – getting a card is difficult and expensive.
“medical marijuana”… “medicine”… “patients”…
Misleading. Use of “scare quotes” to denigrate the fact that, indeed, cannabis is a recognized medicine in the state of Oregon. Not just from the 1998 Medical Marijuana Act, but also from the recent move by the Oregon Board of Pharmacy to place cannabis in Schedule II, a category that includes drugs with recognized medical benefit in the state.
It is also recognized by the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians as a medicine, the US Veteran’s Administration, and thirteen other US states and the District of Columbia. Cannabis has over 20,000 published scientific studies behind it, federal patent #6630507 for cannabinoids and antioxidants and neuroprotectants, and the US government still sends this medicine by mail to four patients, including Oregonian Elvy Musikka for (guess what) her glaucoma.
So, you’d think with that much evidence behind it, “editors” at your “newspaper” could provide better “journalism”.
“Never mind that of the 36,380 Oregon “patients” who now hold cards that protect them from state prosecution for smoking marijuana, 534 reported suffering from glaucoma, while 32,614 checked the box for “severe pain” as one of their qualifying medical conditions.”
Misleading. You fail to mention that patients can register for more than one condition. If you have cancer, you likely have pain and nausea. If you have HIV/AIDS, you have pain. There are 17,591 recommendations for conditions other than pain, so, potentially, those patients registered for pain alone may be less than half of the registrants.
Furthermore, 26% of US adults, according to the CDC, have suffered from a chronic recurring pain that has lasted >24hrs. These are migraine sufferers, car crash survivors, and people with all sorts of diseases and conditions that aren’t listed in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act per se, yet create a life of unbearable pain.
Considering the recent FDA warnings about the skyrocketing liver damage rates and overdoses from over-the-counter NSAIDs and prescription opioids, we should be trumpeting the use of medical cannabis for those in severe pain as a medicine of first resort, not last. We certainly shouldn’t be denigrating people who without medical marijuana would live in what you call “severe pain”.
“Ultimately, their measure isn’t about medical marijuana or people suffering with glaucoma or nausea. It’s about moving ever closer to a future of legalized recreational use of marijuana. If they are so certain that would be good for Oregonians, they ought to have the courage to call the question.”
Red Herring. I-28 is asking Oregonians whether or not people who are already allowed to use, possess, transport, and cultivate cannabis for medical purposes should be provided a system of buying and selling cannabis. “Legalization” would ask whether all Oregonians 21 and older should be allowed to use, possess, transport, and possibly cultivate cannabis.
The system of medical marijuana in Oregon is this: Suppose, and let’s hope not, the editorial board of the Oregonian all returned from the doctor today. They all had just received the awful news that they have glioblastoma – a form of brain cancer.
Now our editorialists face the prospect of not just the cancer, but the chemotherapy treatments that can be so much worse. The enormous pain, the unending vomiting and dry heaves, the depression that comes with killing your body’s cells on purpose, our editorialists are at the end of their rope. They can’t swallow the pills and keep them down, the IV drugs have shut down their sphincters, what will they do?
Fortunately, Oregon is one of the fourteen reasonable states that have allowed folks like our cancer-stricken editorialists to use cannabis, which is remarkable as an anti-emetic, helps with pain, and lightens up that depression.
Ah, but where to get it?
For these editorialists, after getting their cards, have all the right in this state to grow some pot. But where do you get a seed or a start? Maybe you find the network of caring patients and activists who will give you a free plant and some medicine. But even then, it’s going to take a while – many chemo treatments – before that plant is ready to harvest. That little bit of medicine you got as a donation won’t last a day. And maybe after reading a few Oregonian editorials on the “medical marijuana charade”, you’re having trouble finding a grower or caregiver who wants to help you full time (unlikely; we’re not cruel like that)?
What are you going to do, editorialists? Are you going to head downtown, looking for a dreadlocked kid or longhair, hoping to score in the illegal market? Or do you still have some friends from your Journo school days who can hook you up with a bag?
I-28 would give all the 36,380 patients a place to get their medicine other than the park or “the guy”. I’m surprised you felt the need to dance around that basic fact.
Russ Belville
NORML Outreach Coordinator
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…your welcome DuDe ;)
Wow, man, you just blew my mind, dude.
RE: Whole Systems and a Comprehensive Over-View… from plants to Humans.
Russ, although your initial response to the Oregonians article is well written, your response to A. Johnson on July 27th demonstrates to me that your consciousness is still entrenched in ye ol’ paradigm of prohibition.
Historical evidence clearly shows that Kanabous is one of the building blocks of the world’s greatest civilizations. When you reefer to Kanabous as “pot, weed” and the like you are essentially reinforcing the idea that marijuana is a drug rather than a sacrament. It’s clear to me that the influential characters within this movement have yet to fully integrate the holistic facets of Cannabis Conscience, and quite clearly miss the mark when representing OMMA’s original intent.
I am convinced that the Oregonian and perhaps law enforcement have a point in that the OMMP Program being 12 years ol’ has yet to mature into it’s 13th year, and is sill being misrepresented
to this day. The intent behind OMA (Original Matrix Attained) is to provide relief and support to a
fractured social fabric of misfits subject to a failing belief system(s), an illusory sense of economy,
materialistic values and a paradigm of scarcity where “time is money.” Today’s work-week leaves little if any room for self-development, healing, or whole-body integration of the senses… which have all been grossly distorted.
It certainly doesn’t take a genius to note that America in it’s obesity is unconsciously perpetuating a profound sense of social isolation, dysfunction and sickness due to a blatant disregard for Natural Law.
The OMMP is well written, requiring a fundamental relationship between patient, caregiver and master gardener or “grow~her.” It’s designed to create a support system and alternative (affordable) wholistic alternative to the current paradigm, by and large over-looked by the cannabis
corps as well as today’s so called “health care” industry.
Within the parameters of the law, Cannabis today is legal! I-28 should catalyze and compliment the existing program but only within a holistic perspective of SELF-CARE. As it stands, those players claiming to represent the Movement are by and large sick themselves or have yet to
experience and explore the depth that herbs, raw foods, yoga and massage have to offer.
The only reason Cannabis has market value today is because we the folk have designated it’s usage as Sacred since time immemorial! Law enforcement has an interest in equalizing our efforts to protect the youth from those ignorant p.o.t. heads without “common sensie,” and ward off any further distortion, misrepresentation, or abuse of what little is left of Kanabous Culture.
According to the Law of Time (www.lawoftime.org) the biomass of humans today are at odds with the biosphere-noosphere transition. While the technosphere is collapsing under the influence of stellar excitation, the nervous system of human civilization is by and large underdeveloped and immature due to a fundamental disconnection from Natural Time, brought about by crack-pots, dopes and those neurotic weeds “out of time.” -12:60
wit’ Highest Regards,
P.A.N. Agent 67
The Rad Man strikes with logic,and is a walking CRITICAL THINKING MACHINE…slippery slope is the one Russ,that if the courts allowed pot for sacrament–then law could allow heroin smokers to suggest that “heroin sacrament” behavior is protected religious use. What would the FRUIT of heroin as sacred usage show the world–maybe people can live NORML lives with their sacrament being legal low priced and unadulterated addictive smack–in personal subjective truth.
It’s just such an illogic:
You want legal weed for everybody. Therefore, your desire for patients to purchase weed at a dispensary is a Trojan Horse for your goal of legal weed for everybody.
*sigh*
Look, if I think everybody should get legal weed at a store for any reason they feel like, how can I NOT think sick people should get legal weed at a store for medicinal purposes? We may disagree on the former, but you (not “you” you – the Oregonian) won’t even broach the possibility of agreeing on the latter?
Geez, it’s PY101 – Intro to Logic Venn diagrams! An “all golden retrievers are dogs, but not all dogs are golden retrievers” level of basic logical structure even a booze-soaked freshman football scholarship frat boy can understand. What would I say, “No, damn it, I believe all people should get legal weed at stores, but I will not support folks in wheelchairs buying it to ease their pain!”
Will dispensaries be a step to legalization? Well, I hope so, but that’s not my call alone, that’s the voters’ call. Maybe they see well run pot stores, the sky doesn’t fall, they make a bit of revenue, and suddenly 50%+1 Oregon voters vote to make it legal for everybody.
But they won’t make that vote if the dispensaries turn out to be a major public policy disaster.
So, really, by making this “Trojan Horse” argument, The Oregonian is ceding that only the lack of dispensaries keep Oregonians from legalizing for everyone. Right? Cuz if you think they are so bad, you’d support them, knowing they’d turn off the electorate and support for legalization would fall.
It’s like that stupid argument, “Well, if we legalize pot, what’s next, legal meth?” Uh, damn, that’s some mighty good pot we legalized that once smoked it leads 50%+1 Oregon voters to vote for legal meth. Since only 1 in 7 Oregonians toke, it’s got to have some hella-strong second-hand smoke to get another 3 in 7 to vote for legal meth. Last I checked, there was no “Meth Power” or “Oregon Meth Free” or “NORMAL (National Organization for the Reform of Meth/Amphetamine Laws, to make the analogy work)” working to get meth legalization on the ballot. I never read about it in TWEEK TIMES, Crank Culture, or West Coast Speed magazines.
But do I think meth possessors should be caged? Not unless they’re proven harmful to others. (Cooks on the other hand, get a cage. That’s hazardous explosive chemicals we’re talking about!) Jail is a lousy rehab and people shouldn’t be caged for what they do to themselves and other consenting adults.
Thank you Russ for your insight and voice regarding this issue. As an OMMP cardholer,
I have grown my own medicine for a decade. Now I have to have a grower, and the one I have is a true humanitarian. He has arthritis too, and that means we will not have many more gardening years left.
We need safe access,
If anyone needed cannabis for thier chemotherapy tomorrow, they would be hard pressed to find it.
I am a cancer survivor of 30 years. I know what I am talking about.
I will count on the compassionate voters of Oregon to make the right decision in November.
Thank you for your response! It brought up some very good points; first, that many of the patients with a recommendation for severe pain have other qualifying conditions, and second, that severe pain is not something for which people should have to go without treatment! Many people of all age groups and all walks of life have debilitating pain for various reasons; without medical marijuana, they either go without treatment and suffer, or they are prescribed toxic, addictive substances such as oxycodone. Opiate pain killers are also far more mind altering than marijuana, and severely compromise the ability of pain patients to hold down jobs and lead active, fulfilling lives.
I have been a medical marijuana patient for four years due to both chronic pain from a number of neck and back injuries, and to chronic nausea and irritable bowel syndrome; the pills that exist as an alternative to marijuana are very expensive, only marginally effective (if I can even swallow them without vomiting them right back up), and leave me in such a stupor that I am often unable to function at work or in school. Marijuana has been a God-send for me, as it takes the edge off of my pain so that I can focus better and sleep at night, and relieves my nausea (which can be crippling, and has forced me to drop out of school no less than four times). Marijuana allows me to get on with my life; without it I am often unable to eat for days on end.
Ah, Russ, thanks again for your debate and logic skills, your command of the facts, and–most enjoyably–your wit and sarcasm as you show up fools and dissemblers for what they are. I like to think I have at least the polite sarcasm down, if not your other skills, but invariably once I start, I inevitably end up giving a literary finger. Not the best thing for a discussion, but it sure does feel good!
Keep up the good fight.
Thank you so much, Russ for your great response to the “unbiased” editorial from this “respected” media outlet. The Oregonian should take on I-28 for what it is, not what it isn’t. Just because I-28 supporters also, support legalization for all adults, it shouldn’t mean that I-28 is a bad policy choice for Oregon. Oregon voters should be able to make an informed decision about a proposed policy, not be fed more misleading and fear-mongering propaganda. They certainly shouldn’t take their cues from anti-patient advocates like Kevin Mannix, Dan Harmon and Sheriff Tome Bergin by denigrating sick and disabled patients who are suffering with severe and debilitating medical conditions.
Keep up the excellent work, Russ. Nobody does a better job of countering media propaganda than you do.
Thanks Russ, well stated.
You saw a few points that nearly escaped me in this “editorial” but ultimately to me, they are taking the same tone as oft scribed by Law Enforcement Professionals, who opt the same denigration of the efficacy of medical marijuana, most notably our own Washington County Sheriff. Odd how the “editorial board” and the sheriff both are qualified to determine that medical marijuana patients are faking these painful conditions when qualified physicians determine otherwise. …
Ignoring facts and hyping distorted emotional half-truths are characteristics of propagandists, not our notable “editorial board” and certainly not an elected official, unless, of course, they actually ARE propagandizing.