A press conference introducing an initiative petition, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2010, and its signature-gathering campaign will be held Monday, July 7th at 10 am at the campaign office, located at 105 SE 18th Avenue in Portland. All media representatives are encouraged to attend. Speakers at the press conference will include Madeline Martinez and D. Paul Stanford, co-chief petitioners for the measure.
OCTA proposes to redirect millions of dollars annually into Oregon’s general fund by permitting cannabis (marijuana) to be sold in retail stores to adults over 21 years of age. The OLCC would be tasked with managing the program, which would license approved individuals to cultivate the product for sale. A portion of the cannabis grown would also be directed to registered cardholders in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. A portion of the taxes collected would go to drug treatment.
In addition, the initiative would permit cultivation of industrial hemp, which could quickly become Oregon’s largest cash crop. Used for clothing, food, building materials, fuel and even plastics, hemp is in great demand but cannot be grown under current law.
Supporters estimate that revenue generated by state-controlled cannabis sales could easily reach $300 million annually. In addition, tourism and related activities would generate at least $50 million annually.
The campaign plans to gather a minimum of 82,769 valid signatures by the deadline of 5pm on July 2, 2010. After the measure has been certified by the Secretary of State, it will be presented to Oregonians for a vote in November of 2010.
For more information about the press conference or the campaign, please contact: Madeline Martinez - 503.313.9929
FRESNO, Calif. — The Fresno County Board of Supervisors will conduct a public hearing on the local implementation of the statewide Medical Marijuana Identification Card Program, 9 a.m., July 8, in the County Board Chambers in the Hall of Records at 2281 Tulare St.
Although 40 California counties have implemented the program – including Merced, Tulare, Inyo and San Benito as well as Los Angeles, Orange and Kern – Fresno has yet to act.
Aaron Smith, California organizer for the Marijuana Policy Project, noted that the program – mandated by a state law that went into effect in 2004 – benefits law enforcement by removing the burden of verifying patient documentation from officers on the street. The ID card provides a means for local peace officers to easily identify bona fide medical marijuana patients during enforcement stops.
“We are merely calling on the Board of Supervisors to follow existing state law so that suffering patients like Diana do not have to live in fear of false arrest at the expense of local taxpayers,” Smith said. “It is the duty of the county’s leaders to protect their most vulnerable citizens and to make the jobs of local law enforcement easier by providing them with all the tools available. This program is a major step in the right direction.”
To help educate the community about this and other medical marijuana issues facing Fresno, MPP will host a free screening of the award-winning medical marijuana documentary “Waiting to Inhale,” followed by a panel discussion, July 7, at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 2672 E. Alluvial Ave., in Clovis.
I’m coming at you from Oregon, where our medical marijuana law requires an ID card for all patients, caregivers (I’m one), and growers. California has mandated that all counties offer an ID card program, but participation in the program is optional.
I guess I don’t understand why Californians would not want a mandatory, statewide ID card system. I hear the complaint, “I don’t want to be on some government list!” Well, do you have a Social Security Number? Then you’re already on a government list!
I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was the first time my caregiver card meant something to me. I was transporting two fairly-bushy four-foot plants to one of our cardholder meetings. They were covered with thin white plastic garbage bags, but with the light streaming through you could make out the silhouette of some fine Oregon cannabis.
I looked into my rearview and there was one of Portland’s finest tailing me. I got that initial adrenaline rush all us stoners get when there is suddenly a cop driving behind you, especially when you’re carrying ounces of ganja. Then I remembered, “Hey, I’ve got a caregiver card. If he pulls be over, I just show him my license, registration, insurance, and caregiver card and I’m driving away scot-free!” The panic subsided. The cop never pulled me over. But that feeling of relief definitely trumps any sort of paranoid thought I ever had about being on some “gub’mint list”.
In an opinion issued Wednesday, the appeals court upheld a ruling by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.
The agency said that Emerald Steel Fabricators in Eugene violated state laws barring discrimination against the disabled by discharging an employee who used medical marijuana.
A key issue was the fact the employee never used marijuana in the workplace — an issue the Oregon Supreme Court avoided in 2006 when it ruled against a registered medical marijuana user fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests detected traces of the drug.
Employers do not have to let patients smoke medical marijuana in the workplace. But the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act approved by voters in 1998 was unclear about whether employers must accommodate workers who smoke medical marijuana off the job.
In the opinion by Judge Timothy Sercombe, the Oregon Court of Appeals went back over the 2006 Oregon Supreme Court ruling to emphasize the Emerald Steel employee never used the marijuana at work — just like the worker in the Columbia Forest case.
Medical marijuana has been opposed by the construction industry, which wants laws to prohibit medical marijuana users from potentially hazardous jobs such as operating heavy machinery.
Supporters of restrictions on medical marijuana use, including state Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, have said they are trying to ensure public safety.
But medical marijuana activist John Sajo says that during legislative hearings last year, nobody was able to identify a single case where a medical marijuana patient had caused a workplace accident or problem.
Rep. Schaufler sure had a fun time during testimony from some of us Oregon activists. We printed up flyers accusing Schaufler of instituting job discrimination against the sick and disabled. Schaufler replied that the whole set of Oregon Revised Statutes are books full of discrimination, for example, it discriminates against him performing brain surgery or building a 100-ft tower in his yard.
When a politician can’t tell the difference between reasonable regulations based on public safety and unreasonable regulations designed to discriminate, you know you’ve got a tough battle on your hands. They think a medical marijuana patient at work is as dangerous as a state representative performing brain surgery.
See, Schaufler, like lots of people, think that the medical marijuana patient is going to be running around like Cheech & Chong all the time, hot-boxing the cab of the crane or giggling when they notice they’ve been parked in the bulldozer for the past twenty minutes. They really think we’re crazy to, in their mind, put Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High behind the bandsaw at the mill or put The Dude from The Big Lebowski in charge of demolition at the construction site. They really can’t see that marijuana “should be treated like other medicines”, just as it says in the law.
They seem to have no issue with the users of heavy prescription drugs; in fact, we brought forth proposals that would actually test for impairment rather than the quality of a worker’s urine. That was soundly rejected; why, it might burden those workers who use Ambien, Xanax, OxyContin, Percocet, Prozac, or even who just like to knock back a beer or two during lunch. We can only conclude that it’s not the impairment they really care about, it losing their right to fire whom they consider “potheads”.
Schaufler also had a hard time explaining how this was a measure to promote public safety. Since Oregon’s medical marijuana law went into effect in 1999, we’ve seen workplace fatalities remain more or less steady and workdays lost from injuries drop, even as the patient population grew from 600 in 2000 to almost 20,000 today. If medical marijuana users in the workplace are such a hazard, where are the bodies?
Sheriff Rob Gordon revoked or denied CHL’s to Steven Schwerdt, Paul Sansone and Lee Wallick on the basis they disclosed they have used a controlled substance, medical marijuana, regularly and for prolonged period of time. Gordon believes these people are barred by federal law from possessing firearms.
Judge Steven L. Price said as a matter of law, Oregon’s CHL requirements do not include abstaining from medical marijuana nor qualifying to possess firearms under federal standards.
The commissioners agreed with Gordon’s opinion that it is necessary to obtain a binding legal opinion on the issue from the Oregon Court of Appeals.
County counsel also wants answers to questions about whether issuing permits could subject the sheriff and the county to federal prosecution or civil liability.
The attacks on medical marijuana patients for their legal state-approved use of cannabis are staggering. In addition to wanting to deny patients their 2nd Amendment right* to own a handgun, states have pushed to deny medical marijuana patients from having driver’s licenses; from working in so-called “dangerous” positions; and from working as teachers, doctors, lawyers, public employees or elected officials.
Private enterprise denies medical marijuana patients the right to work through drug testing. Government agencies evict patients from federally subsidized housing. Customs won’t let patients cross the US/Canada border. Divorce lawyers and child protective services will use a patient’s medical marijuana use as a factor in determining the custody of patients’ children.
It all comes back to the criminalization of marijuana; the understandable blurring of the lines between recreational and medical use that are always going to exist so long as marijuana is prohibited to the majority of its users. For there are much more powerful legal prescription drugs than cannabis, but nobody fears the Prozac patient owning a handgun, the Xanax patient working in a “dangerous position”, or the OxyContin patient having a driver’s license.
Now that June has arrived it is time to start looking at the Summer Festival Schedule. I’m going to open this up with a look at the summer festivals I’ll be attending in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest. I’m going to depend on you marvelous Stashers to keep me informed on what’s happening in your area. Just send me an email at stash@norml.org and I’ll be glad to promote your area’s summer festival. The Northwest schedule is listed in the Full Story below:
The Oregon Supreme Court ruled Friday that a man who helped his friend move things could be convicted on marijuana possession charges.
Thomas Fries argued he should be acquitted because he was acting at his friend’s direction and just helping with the move when he loaded the plants in his SUV.
But the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that physical control of property is sufficient to prove actual possession.
The court noted there are exceptions in the law that permit people to possess marijuana in limited situations - but this was not 1 of them.
This is the way the story reads from the Associated Press, and I’ve seen it picked up on a couple of media outlets already. One site, the Seattlest, in a post entitled “Thank You, Your Judicial Obviousness”, mocks the decision, writing, “it took the Oregon State Supreme Court to decide that? Surely a lower court could have easily ruled on this decision, ending it with a ‘duh.’” I’d like to remind the Seattlest that indeed, a lower court did make that decision. Supreme Courts take up cases that are being appealed.
It does seem like a story worthy of satire, when all you read are the AP’s five short sentences. The Seattlest went on to say “After Fries made his case in court, we hope a judge quipped, ‘Son, you must have been smoking some of those plants to think that argument would work.’” However, as is the case with many of the marijuana stories in the media, important details are being glossed over.
In this case, the fact that the man convicted was helping his friend who was a registered medical marijuana patient in the state of Oregon and had every legal right to be in possession of those plants and every legal right to move those plants to his new home. He just had the sorry luck to get evicted, which happens often to patients when landlords kick them out for their legal choice of medicine, and even worse luck that he didn’t have a vehicle to move his medicine.
So now his friend, Thomas Fries, is convicted of possession of marijuana and sentenced to five days in jail, a $500 fine, and 18 months of probation. That’s the punishment for his crime of helping his disabled friend in time of need.
Washington County (Hillsboro; just west of Portland) Oregon Judge Steven L. Price ordered Sheriff Rob Gordon to return to three Oregon Medical Marijuana patients their concealed handgun licenses. Sheriff Gordon had denied one patient’s application, one patient’s renewal, and had revoked one patient’s license based on the argument that federal law prohibiting the possession of a firearm by a controlled substances user preempted state law. Judge Price ruled it did not, as did Washington County Judge Marco Hernandez before him.
I argued the same issue (with basically the same letter from the sheriff and the same argument from county counsel) before Jackson County (Medford, Southern Oregon) Presiding Judge Shively on Friday morning and am hopeful for a similar result.
I’ve long argued about the effect the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Parmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs has on our Constitutional rights, and the 2nd Amendment is no less a victim than the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th, and 15th.
My contention is that since most mandatory minimum sentences double when there are firearms present, even if the firearms are legally possessed, doesn’t this in essence serve to deprive cannabis consumers of our 2nd Amendment rights? People think of guns and drugs and automatically assume the person must be some cold-blooded drug dealer when many are just cannabis gardeners who can’t call the cops when scary kids with weapons break in to steal very profitable crops.
But these cases take the cake. I’ve talked with Lee about these cases, where sheriffs in Oregon’s more conservative counties will disarm medical marijuana patients who are following state laws with respect to marijuana and the handgun. The idea that the patients are really just dope dealers is a prejudice found often in law enforcement, which is the craziest idea when those patients have filled out a form with the state and registered their address for growing into an electronic database that is instantly accessible by law enforcement to verify legality. That’s far more registration than most law-abiding gun owners are subject to.
It’s Tuesday, May 6th and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world. I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville.
We here at NORML would like to remind you to get involved in the cannabis civil rights movement and join us here at NORML – you can learn everything you need to know at NORML.org. Make a donation, write a letter, attend a rally, march for your rights – it all starts with you. Call your Congress at 202-224-3121 – they’ll ask your zip code and put you in touch with your elected officials. Tell them to support HR5842 and HR5843 to end DEA raids in medical marijuana states and legalize personal possession of pot. It still is a government of We the People, but you have to step up and do your part.
Tuesday is Government at Work day on the podcast, and coming up after the news, we’re going to speak with D. Paul Stanford, executive director of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation’s chain of medical marijuana clinics in six Western states. Paul has some excellent news about the defeat of a plan to repeal Oregon’s highly-successful self-funded medical marijuana program and the launch of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act for 2010.
After that Cannabis Karri brings us the secret agent of the counterculture, the Undercover Hippy. His new album, “They Feed on Greed” features an instant cannabis classic called “Too Stoned” that we’re playing for you today.
We’ll wrap up today with another look at the Global Marijuana March this last weekend with two activists straight from the heartland. We’ve got James Getman from Iowa NORML and Steven Eisenhauer from SW Indiana NORML here to give us a review of their events and their take on the chances for cannabis reform in the Midwest.
So sit back and relax with your favorite strain – this is the Daily Audio Stash.
Willamette Week | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Conservative ballot-measure supremo Kevin Mannix just told WWire he and his cohorts are dropping a proposed ballot initiative to kill the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.
“That petition’s going to stop this week,” Mannix says. There was not enough time or money to gather the 82,769 valid signatures needed, he says.
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” says Paul Stanford, head of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, a Portland-based national chain of medical marijuana clinics.
Mannix says the decision to drop the petition drive had nothing to do with lack of public support, but rather lack of resources. But Stanford says he believes Mannix ran into trouble because the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, approved by voters in 1998, is still supported by a clear majority.
Stanford says it’s good news for medical-marijuana advocates that the petition has been dropped.
“We don’t have to waste our resources encouraging people not to sign that petition,” Stanford says. “We don’t have to mount a campaign against them in the fall. It just saves us a lot of time and effort.”
The so-called Oregon Crimefighting Act would have done three things:
•Given repeat “major felony” sex offenders a minimum 25-year sentence.
•Made third-strike DUII convictions a felony.
•Replaced medical marijuana with prescription THC pills.
Stanford has called the initiative a cynical effort to tear down medical marijuana by tagging it onto slam-drunk issues like opposing drunk drivers and sex predators. He says many marijuana patients oppose the change because THC pills are too expensive and not as effective.
Mannix told WWire that the ballot initiative, which he drafted, had financial support from the Florida-based nonprofit Save Our Society From Drugs. He says backers may return with another effort to gut medical marijuana in the 2010 election.
How about Save Our Society From Ignorance? This was the most shameful attempt to repeal medical marijuana in the second state to enact such protection for serious ill and disabled people. Mannix is a well-known conservative troublemaker in this state. He’s the man behind our ill-fated Measure 11, a state-level get-tough-on-crime mandatory minimum sentencing scheme that has helped overcrowd Oregon’s prisons and led us to spending more money on prisons than colleges. He’s lost a couple attempts to become governor and is now eyeing the federal Congressional seat of the retiring Representative Darlene Hooley.
Es lunes, Cinco de mayo y es cuatro veinte en alguna parte en el mundo. Soy su anfitrión, “Radical” Russ Belville.
This weekend was the kickoff to the summer protestival season. I hope you all enjoyed your Global Marijuana March and took the opportunity to use your freedom of speech, freedom assembly, and freedom to petition your government. But that’s only the beginning, because ending adult marijuana prohibition starts with you. Call your Congress at 202-224-3121, and tell your representative to support Barney Frank’s HR5843 bill that would legalize marijuana for personal use.
For our Political Activism day today I’m bringing you my report from Portland, Oregon’s ninth annual Million Marijuana March, held in the center of downtown at Pioneer Courthouse Square. I’m also calling on all local activists to send me your audio, video, and pictures from your March, so we can share your experience with the global cannabis community.
We’ve got just a few news stories and your Weekly Legislative Roundup, then right after the news we’ll take a look at our Reformer’s Calendar.
Next I’ve got exclusive audio from our Portland event. Friday night we held a party for Oregon NORML’s Board of Directors, PonyBoy, Fuzzy, and SK from Los Marijuanos out of Las Vegas, DJ Selekta Lou from Sacramento, and Chief Greenbud who flew out from Nashville, Tennessee. I’ll take you inside NORML West Coast Media HQ for an impromptu interview. Then you’ll hear speeches from the event by our Executive Director Madeline Martinez, Board Member Melodie Silverwolf, and Co-Founder Anna Diaz.
For our musical break on this Blues Monday, Cannabis Karri brings us a bluesman from my neck of the woods, just south in Salem, Oregon. Mark Lemhouse performs “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More”, something I’m sure we’ve all said a time or two when searching for our favorite prohibited strain.
To conclude our Stash I’ve got an extra-special musical treat as Chief Greenbud joined us on the local cable access show I host in Portland called “A Cannabis Community Forum”. Chief performed two songs live for our show, and you’ll get to hear his parody of the Plain White T’s hit, “Hey There, Delilah” that he has re-written as “It’s Only a Weed”, a tragic tale of an average cannabis arrest, and an original number called “The Legalization Song”.
And remember, if you are a business or non-profit who’d like your message heard on the Daily Audio Stash or the NORML Weekly News, you can advertise with us. We have rates for every budget and a 10% discount for non-profits. You can target your message to the focused audience of enlightened cannabis consumers you’re looking for. With over 28,000 daily downloads and hundreds of thousands of embedded players on websites worldwide, advertising with NORML is the most effective way of reaching your potential customers. Just send us an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org and we’ll have you on the air in no time.
So sit back and relax with your favorite strain, it’s time for your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
Just catching up on some of the reports from the March this weekend:
Close to 500 protesters took to the streets [of Calgary, Alberta, Canada] Saturday in favour of marijuana’s medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain.
Amid the incense aromas and reggae beats, several hundred Austinites rallied at the Capitol on Saturday for the legalization of marijuana for personal and medical use.
“These guys are easy compared to the anarchists,” said Sgt. Voepel of the Portland Police Department, “they’re on time, and they’re orderly.”
According to the Sarge, the only rabble rousers during the march were two drunkards who were pestering people but were unconnected to the peaceful pro-pot gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.
Just stopping in for a second… the March in Portland was fantastic. Police estimated 750 people marching, and we had three local TV stations covering us, with a different member of the Board of Directors of Oregon NORML (myself on the CBS affiliate) quoted in the report. They gave us favorable coverage, especially of our announcement of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) for 2010, our initiative to tax and regulate cannabis for adults and sell through Oregon liquor stores.
Audio and video coming soon… but I’m on my way to the after-party concert with Los Marijuanos, Chief Greenbud, and more.
The activists at the Illinois Compassion Action Network have put together a website full of Patient Videos to help lawmakers there understand the need for a medical marijuana law in Illinois. When you hear the stories from these patients about how marijuana has made their lives bearable, it really shows this is an issue about compassion, not drugs.
You can also view some of my interviews with medical marijuana patients in Oregon at the Oregon NORML YouTube Channel.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama recently toured Oregon with his campaign. In the southwestern Oregon town of Medford, he sat down with the Medford Mail-Tribune for an interview. (Cue video to 5:00 for the question of Oregon’s medical marijuana initiative.)
“When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else,” the Senator explained. “My attitude is that if it’s an issue of doctors prescribing medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else. I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to grow their own or start setting up mom and pop shops because at that point it becomes fairly difficult to regulate.”
I’m not familiar with all the details of the initiative that was passed [in Oregon] and what safeguards there were in place, but I think the basic concept that using medical marijuana in the same way, with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate. I would not punish doctors if it’s prescribed in a way that is appropriate. That may require some changes in federal law.”
I will tell you that - I want to be honest with you - whether I want to use a whole lot of political capital on that [laughs] when we’re trying to get health care passed or end the war in Iraq is, yeah, the likelihood of that being real high on my list is not likely.
“What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforcement officers to deal with.”
Senator Obama, people in twelve medical marijuana states are already “growing their own”. At a time when you are trying to “get health care passed”, doesn’t it make sense to allow people to grow their own medicine as a method of reducing overall health care costs? The only concern anyone has about patients growing medicine is whether that medicine gets diverted to the black market, a condition you as president could alleviate by adding your support to Rep. Barney Franks’ bills to decriminalize personal marijuana possession at the federal level.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008, Tucson, AZ.Toward a Science of Consciousness 2008, at the Tucson Convention Center, Tucson AZ. The eighth biennial Tucson conference continues an interdisciplinary tradition of intense, far-ranging and rigorous discussions on all approaches to the fundamental issue of how the brain produces conscious experience. An estimated 800 attendees from 6 continents will participate in 400 presentations included in 21 Pre-Conference Workshops, 12 Plenary sessions, 21 Concurrent Talk sessions, 2 Poster Sessions and, for the first time, an interactive Art and Technology of Consciousness Exhibit. For more info, see http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/tucson2008.htm
Friday, April 11, Portland, OR. - A double showing of the documentary film, Dispensing Cannabis: The California Story will be held at the Studio 6 Theater beginning promptly at 7pm and again at 10pm. In this hour-long documentary, voices from inside discuss practices and issues involved in distributing medical cannabis. Of the twelve states in 2006 that permit medical cannabis use, California is the only state that allows for the distribution of the medicine. How and where do people get their medicine? How does one insure that their medicine is clean, safe and is sufficient quality? Tours of five cannabis dispensary models provide an unprecedented look into this quasi-legal business. Doctors, lawyers, law enforcement, patients and caregivers share their perspectives and concerns.
Sunday, April 13, 2008, Los Angeles, CA.Medical Marijuana Comedy Show ExtravaGANJA at the Comedy Store (Main Room), 8433 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. This show will feature the comedic talents FreddyLockhart, Ngaio, Darwin Hines, Tere Joyce, Tasty Jeff (Jeff Richards of SNL fame) and more! There is also rumor of an appearance by Russell Peters himself. Meet Jack Herer, author of ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes’ and help him with the California Hemp & Health Initiative 2008. Meet Richard Eastman and support the L.A. County Medical Marijuana Exposition & Patients’ Festival. Show time is 8:30 pm. Doors open at 8:00 pm. Tickets are only $20 w/ a $5 discount for members of compassion clubs. Additional details at HowardDover.com. This is a 21+ event with a 2 drink minimum.
As the Associate Director of Oregon NORML - a local chapter headquartered in Portland, Oregon - I am proud to announce the release from Oregon NORML Press of The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act Handbook. This is the definitive guide for the patient, caregiver, or grower in Oregon trying to learn the ins and outs of our medical marijuana program. The guide answers common questions from “How do I register with the state to use cannabis medicinally?” and “What are the possession limits regarding plants and medicine?”* to “What do I tell my landlord or the police about my medical marijuana?” and “What if my doctor won’t help me with a marijuana recommendation.” The handbook also contains a complete copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes governing medical marijuana.
newsreview.info - Serving Roseburg & Douglas County, Oregon - News
WILBUR — Employers and workers who intervene in a co-worker’s substance abuse are the only ones who will stem the rising rate of workplace drug and alcohol abuse, said Dan Harmon, chairman of the Drugfree Workplace Legislative Work Group.
Annually, substance abuse costs Oregon $5.9 billion.Included in that figure are health care costs and spending on programs related to substance abuse, on which Oregon spends $813 million annually.And then there’s the loss of productivity in the state, amounting to $4.15 billion in lost earnings.
The costs Harmon cited came from an ECONorthwest study.
Citing figures from the U.S. Department of Labor, Harmon said the American economy loses $81 billion in productivity annually because of substance abuse.
Which gets no link from the newspaper article, whose title is never named in the article, and couldn’t be found after I tried a few extensive searches out at the ECONorthwest website. I always like to read these studies when I see scary numbers coming from supporters of urine testing.
Most of the time when opponents are citing these “substance abuse costs” and “loss of productivity”, they are really ginning up the numbers by conflating the abuse of drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, which do create huge costs, with the popularity of marijuana, which creates the large numbers of “drug abusers” needed to scare the public.
Commentary from activist Laird Funk here in my home state of Oregon. Laird was one of the exceptional people who helped to pass Oregon’s Medical Marijuana Act in 1998. He writes about the contracting, drug rehab, and drug-testing lobbies who are pushing for discriminatory laws that would allow to fire registered users medical cannabis solely for their possession of a medical marijuana card:
NORML.ORG US OR: OPED: The Bulletin Supports Medical Marijuana Discrimination
Fire ‘em all! That is the thrust of your Feb. 25 editorial calling for laws allowing Oregon workers who therapeutically use marijuana to be immediately and arbitrarily fired, regardless of where or when they used their medication. Darkly hinting of problems in the workplace, you see danger in even such basic tasks as driving a car. Clearly you agree with the position of Associated Oregon Industries that the number of Oregonians lawfully registered with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program is a serious and burdensome problem which actually ranks as an emergency!
Reviewing available information, including the number of accidents caused by therapeutic marijuana-using workers cited by AOI, we find the following: 1998, 0 accidents; 1999, 0; 2000, 0; 2001, 0; 2002, 0; 2003, 0; 2004, 0; 2005, 0; 2006, 0; and from 2007, 0! Yes, there is a story in those numbers, and it has a lesson to be learned - a lesson that fits right in between those we learned from other stories, like Chicken Little, whose sky was falling, and the boy who cried “wolf,” who felt neglected and made up claims of danger.And so it has been that for the last three legislative sessions, AOI’s “Chicken Little,” Don Harmon, has teamed up with a small rotating cast of ditto-heads in the role of the boy who cried “wolf” to call for emergency legislation to deal with the growing problem of therapeutic marijuana-using Oregonians actually having jobs and being productive members of society.
But even they had to answer “none” when asked by Rep. Peter Buckley how many accidents had been caused by those workers. Some emergency!
Each of the ditto-heads prefaced their remarks with claims that they themselves had voted for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, but then claimed that the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program had become riddled with fraud and abuse and that the number of registrants was both proof of that claim and a real problem for Oregon employers.
But patient numbers are not evidence of abuse - convictions are.
One thousand, eight hundred convictions a year would be an abuse rate of 10 percent.
But by most accounts there are fewer than 1 percent, or 180 OMMP registrants, annually arrested for violating provisions of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and, of course, far fewer convictions. Ninety-nine percent compliance seems OK to me. It is noteworthy that, by law, registrants who are convicted of violations must report that fact to the OMMP and may not be registered as a grower for five years.
US Leads The World In Illicit Drug Use; US Drug Enforcement Administration ‘Celebrates’ 35 Years Of Failure; Marijuana, Cocaine Have Contrasting Effects On Driving Performance, Study Says; Loretta Nall on AL judge's son's special treatment for felony drug charges.
Oral Pot Preparation Effective For Depression, Journal Reports; New Zealand: Most Pot Consumers Not Frequent Users; Cannabis Agonist Reduces Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Tumor Growth, Study Says; California: County Officials Finalize Mendocino Vote Count; Interview with Mason Tvert on proposal of cannabis smoking lounges in Denver airport to combat air rage incidents with alcohol.
Drug Czar Responds To NORML's Refutation Of 'Potent Pot' Claim; Teen Pot Use Falling In States With Medical Marijuana Laws; Medical Pot Use Not Associated With Serious Side Effects, Study Says; Interview with Teen MJ Use study co-author Dr. Mitch Earleywine.
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, describes the case precendent in roadside traffic stops and search and seizure.
Seattle, Washington attorney Doug Hiatt explains the latest medical use issues in Washington State, including denial of transplant organs for medmj patients.
