Search Results: oregon/ (8)

The total is still below 15%.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
A Gallup poll found that 13% of U.S. adults currently use cannabis, up from 7% in 2013.

At SFWeekly, I argued that the 2016 Presidential candidates have dodged their responsibility to discuss legalization.

Ohio is looking for an experienced pot grower to help write the state’s MED rules. The successful applicant will likely have to pass a drug test.

Some Ohio communities are taking action to keep out MED businesses, though dispensaries won’t open in the state until at least 2018.
The alcohol industry wants Congress to know that cannabis-impaired driving is a problem. Officially, the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America is neutral on legalization, but this year an industry group donated to stop Arizona’s REC initiative.
The San Jose Mercury News editorializes in favor of legalization in California. So does the East Bay Times.

The National Conference of State Legislatures endorsed rescheduling.

North Dakota will vote on MED in November. Arizona will vote on REC. Supporters of the Oklahoma MED initiative are “ cautiously optimistic” that they gathered enough signatures to make the ballot.

Two MED initiatives could qualify for the Arkansas ballot. The question of which one voters get to decide may end up in court. The Arkansas Farm Bureau and the state’s Chamber of Commerce oppose both.

Denver’s limited public use initiative collected more than double the number of signatures needed to qualify for a vote in November.

Nashville may decriminalize. The Chicago Tribune visits a grow house, and catches up on the Illinois industry.

High Times lists its “ hateful-eight,” the country’s most influential legalization opponents.

Illegal drug sales on the so-called dark web have tripled since the 2013 closure of the site Silk Road.

Watch out for knock-off vaporizers.

In Oregon, some Craigslist sellers ask for payment in cash or cannabis. Minnesota’s two MED producers are both losing money.

Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon.


U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, says he will most certainly vote to legalize limited amounts of marijuana in Oregon next week. Merkley tells Talking Points Memo that he’s tired of seeing resources wasted on a failed war on pot.
“I think folks on both sides of the argument make a good case,” Merkley said. “And there is concern about a series of new products — and we don’t have a real track record from Colorado and Washington. But I feel on balance that we spend a lot of money on our criminal justice system in the wrong places and I lean in favor of this ballot measure.”

Benton Mackenzie in court.


Benton Mackenzie doesn’t have much time left. The angiosarcoma eating away at his blood vessels and leaving fist-sized tumors on his skin is in the final stages. He’s in pain. It’s why he chose to grow cannabis at his parent’s Iowa home where he lives with his wife. It was worth the risk, a risk that ultimately led to his conviction for cannabis cultivation earlier this month along with his wife.
Without much strength or time left, though, Mackenzie wants to be comfortable. So he’s travelled from Iowa to Oregon where he can legally purchase cannabis with a doctor’s recommendation. It’s likely a last trip for Mackenzie, his wife and their son. And one he is already enjoying.

Marijuana.com

By Anthony Martinelli
Communications Director
One thing that’s easily noticed when working in the cannabis reform movement is that there’s an embedded fear in many individuals when it comes to standing up for supporting legalization, and working publicly to get it done. On one hand, it’s hard to blame these people: Cannabis prohibition is a very real, very dangerous beast. The government has spent a lot of time, and resources, to put this fear into the public.
On the other hand, free speech is a constitutional right, and standing up for what we believe in should be a core principle of being an active citizen of our great, yet ever-progressing country. It’s easy to forget that in relative terms, we’re a young nation, and we have a lot to improve upon — we can’t let complacency be an enemy.

Stoel Rives World of Employment

A federal appeals court on Monday decided that when cities shut down medical marijuana dispensaries, doing so does not violate the federally protected rights of disabled people.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by severely disabled Californians who were authorized by their doctors to use cannabis, reports Maura Dolan at the Los Angeles Times.
The patients had sued the Orange County, California cities of Costa Mesa and Lake Forest, charging that the cities’ attempts to shutter medicinal cannabis dispensaries violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination based on disability.
The 9th Circuit ruled that federal law does not protect the use of drugs banned by the federal government.
“We recognize that the plaintiffs are gravely ill,” wrote Judge Raymond C. Fisher, a Clinton appointee, for the court.
The patients’ attempt to win legal protection involves “not only their right to live comfortably, but also their basic human dignity,” Judge Fisher wrote, and “California has embraced marijuana as an effective treatment for debilitating pain.”

Photo: Stoel Rives World of Employment

​Can medical marijuana patients be fired from their jobs for legally using cannabis with a doctor’s authorization? That’s the question before the Washington Supreme Court, which heard arguments Tuesday from attorneys in the case of a medical marijuana patient fired by a telemarketing firm for failing a drug test in 2006.

Voters in 1998 would be “flabbergasted” to hear someone could be fired for legally using medical marijuana away from work, in this case to alleviate migraine headaches, argued Michael Subit, attorney for the woman called “Jane Roe” in court proceedings to protect her identity, reports Josh Farley at the Kitsap Sun.

“The Legislature understood (voters) were giving broad permission” to use marijuana medicinally, argued Subit, “…and that’s why they [legal medical marijuana patients]can’t be fired.”
But James Shore, attorney representing Teletech, claimed the law passed by voters provides only a defense in court to patients who have a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana. Shore said Washington’s medical cannabis law does not offer employment protection.
“An employer could permit it in the workplace if they want to,” Shore said of medical marijuana. “But they don’t have to.”

Democratic Party of Oregon

​The campaign for Measure 74, which would legalize medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, announced Wednesday that they have received support for their cause from the Democratic Party of Oregon.

Co-author and chief petitioner Anthony Johnson said the endorsement will help his campaign by getting the word about to voters that the measure is on the ballot and that it “further legitimizes medical marijuana as medicine,” reports Sarah Ross of The Oregon Politico.
Of course, the usual suspects, chiefly including law enforcement, were quick to criticize the ballot measure. Bruce McCain, an attorney who is also a retired captain from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, claimed the measure could be “political cover” for legislation that would further decriminalize marijuana.
“I’m just trying to give an objective analysis of what 74 is going to do, and 74 is simply the next step to Prop 19,” claimed McCain, citing the California voter initiative that could legalize and regulate adult recreational marijuana use in that state if it passes in November.