Pubdate: Fri, 19 Oct 2012
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Copyright: 2012 The Oregonian
Contact:  http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/324
Author: Harry Esteve

MARIJUANA WOULD BE TREATED LIKE LIQUOR IN OREGON IF LEGALIZATION MEASURE PASSES

Talking over a car speakerphone, Oregon's marijuana impresario Paul 
Stanford describes what life would be like if his ballot measure to 
legalize weed wins next month.

"It would be just like liquor," says Stanford, who has tried for 
years to end what he considers an ill conceived and damaging pot 
prohibition. If you're 21 or older, you walk into a state-licensed 
store and buy a pack of pre-rolled joints, or a baggie if you're 
looking to buy in bulk, or marijauna-laced food, or a bottle of 
cannabis extract.

The state-licensed agent rings up the sale, which includes a state 
profit margin, and you're on your way to getting legally high.

"I don't like that term 'recreational,'" Stanford says about the most 
likely customers of such stores. "I like 'adult social use.' We don't 
talk about recreational alcohol use. It's pejorative."

Whatever the label, Measure 80 would dramatically change the way the 
leafy drug is grown, bought, sold and enforced in Oregon. In addition 
to buying at state marijuana outlets, adults would be free to grow 
and use marijuana at will, whether for medical reasons or to relax after work.

How does that Country Joe McDonald song go? "Must be a hippie's dream."

More like a nightmare, say state law enforcement officials, who are 
the primary opponents of the measure.

"From a pure policy standpoint, I don't want to introduce yet another 
intoxicant and open the spigot full blast so everyone can get stoned 
all the time," says Josh Marquis, district attorney for Clatsop 
County and a designated spokesman for the opposition. "Look at what a 
dreadful job we've done keeping alcohol from being abused by adults, 
and worse yet, by kids."

Marquis says the most salient argument against the measure is that 
pretty much anyone in Oregon who wants to smoke marijuana can -- and does.

"It's easier to get a medical marijuana card than it is to get a 
driver's license," Marquis says. Some 57,000 residents have a 
certificate to use medical marijuana. And even without one, anyone 
caught with less than an ounce of pot is issued an infraction -- akin 
to a speeding ticket.

Given the state's loose laws surrounding marijuana, few people end up 
in jail, much less prison, for using it, he says. State corrections 
statistics appear to back his statement.

Of the 14,200 inmates in Oregon prisons, fewer than one in five are 
in for any type of drug-related charge, says Liz Craig, spokeswoman 
for the state Department of Corrections. Of those, 30 are in on drug 
possession-only convictions, and 10 are marijuana-related. A total of 
51 people are in Oregon prisons on marijuana delivery charges, she says.

Such numbers don't stop supporters of legalization from arguing that 
society has gone overboard tracking down and prosecuting dopers. It's 
a big part of the case made by one of the most high-profile 
supporters of Measure 80, former Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

"We're wasting so much time and so much energy and so many people's 
lives with our current policy," Bradbury says. "We're putting them in 
jail at the prime of their lives. It's just ridiculous."

Bradbury likes that under Measure 80, smoking marijuana would be 
treated the same as drinking a martini.

"Liquor has no medical benefit, but we allow it through a 
state-regulated monopoly," Bradbury says. "There are a number of 
people who like to smoke pot, and they enjoy it, just like people who 
enjoy liquor. I don't see the difference."

The measure would create a seven-member "Oregon Cannabis Commission" 
that includes five members elected by licensed marijuana growers and 
processors. The commission would regulate sales of marijuana as well 
as cultivation for sale -- much like the Oregon Liquor Control 
Commission does for alcohol.

Also like the OLCC, the cannabis commission would set the sales price 
for marijuana, ensuring a profit -- most of which would go into the 
state's general fund. Some would go into hemp product research, some 
toward addiction and mental health programs. People with medical 
marijuana cards would be able to buy at a discount.

Stanford estimates $140 million a year in state revenues from sales, 
a number he says he got from a study by a Harvard economist. The 
official financial impact statement in the State Voters Guide states 
the revenue impact to be "indeterminate" but would likely cover the 
estimated $22 million yearly cost of running the new commission.

How much someone can buy at one time at a state store remains up in 
the air. The commission "may set a limit," according to the measure, 
but it doesn't specify how much.

The commission also would "work to promote Oregon cannabis products 
in all legal national and international markets," according to the initiative.

Beyond the state-regulated sales, the measure allows anyone other 
than minors to grow pot for "personal, noncommercial use." It also 
completely deregulates cultivation, processing and sale of hemp, 
defined as the parts of a marijuana plant that don't have 
psychoactive ingredients.

Stanford, who has become wealthy by setting up a nationwide chain of 
medical marijuana clinics after a number of failed business starts, 
considers the measure a grand "experiment" in revising drug laws for 
the better.

A longtime champion of hemp and marijuana use, Stanford helped pass 
the 1998 initiative campaign that made medical marijuana use legal in 
Oregon -- an industry that has boomed. Wholesale legalization is 
simply the next step in a rational deregulation process, Stanford believes.

Initially, he says, prices will spike. So will use, as people who 
have wanted to smoke it but didn't out of respect for the law or 
concern for appearances, take it up. But prices will go down over 
time as the market settles in -- usage, too, as the novelty wears 
off, he predicts.

Furthermore, Stanford says, he doesn't expect to see a huge outburst 
of home cultivators, because it's not as easy as it looks to grow good bud.

"It's easy to sprout and grow," he says, but not to produce the high 
quality, high-THC content plants that the state stores would sell. 
"There's a learning curve."

Opponents scoff at Stanford's reasoning.

"If you could legally grow your own, why go into a store and pay $200 
an ounce?" says Umatilla County Sheriff John Trumbo, who represents a 
coalition of sheriffs and police chiefs opposed to the measure. 
Unlike Stanford, Trumbo expects a wave of home growers, which could 
lead to neighbor-on-neighbor complaints, thefts and plenty of other 
mischief that cities and counties don't have time and money to combat.

A rapid influx of marijuana users is going to mean a similar increase 
in intoxicated driving, he says. More police officers and deputies 
are going to be forced to take expensive and time-consuming courses 
at the state police academy to become drug recognition experts.

And the costs won't be offset by new state revenue, as Stanford 
predicts, because of the new grow-your-own mentality, Trumbo says.

"They say it's really intense and difficult to grow marijuana, and 
I'm saying no it ain't," Trumbo says. "You plant it and trim it. You 
can grow it all day."
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