Pubdate: Thu, 10 Dec 2015
Source: Portland Mercury (OR)
Column: Cannabuzz
Copyright: 2015 The Portland Mercury
Contact:  http://www.portlandmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1174
Author: Josh Jardine

PUFF, PUFF, PUBLISH: CANNABIS IN THE NEWS

This column increased in size by 50 percent a few weeks ago, and yet 
there is still barely enough space for all the canna-news. Light one 
up and let's jump right in.

PUFF, PUFF, PUBLISH-Portland made national news this week when our 
branch of the USPS put out a memo to area newspaper publishers. In 
it, they reminded our modern-day William Randolph Hearsts that it is 
still illegal "to place an ad in any publication with the purpose of 
seeking or offering illegally to receive, buy, or distribute a 
Schedule I controlled substance." It went on to say, "If an 
advertisement advocates the purchase of clinical marijuana through a 
Medical Marijuana Dispensary, it does not comply" with federal law.

This is problematic for newspapers that use USPS to mail copies of 
their editions, often to rural readers who may not have access to 
home delivery through other methods. As we know, cannabis is still a 
Schedule I drug, and there are federal laws against advertising for 
illegal substances. When you are as financially successful as the 
USPS, telling whomever you wish to "suck it" is just good 
business-especially when it's those fat-cat pillars of our economic 
engine, newspapers.

Oregon's elected officials quickly jumped in, with Representative 
Earl Blumenauer and Senator Ron Wyden asking the USPS for some 
insight on "what appears to be an outdated interpretation" of the 
law. Anyway, the next time you stealthily send your Iowa cousin a 
quarter of Oregon's finest, maybe don't include a copy of this paper.

NOT THAT CIVIL-Civil asset forfeiture is a perfectly sensible policy 
that allows the nice people in blue to seize money and possessions 
from you, even if you have not been charged or convicted of a crime. 
The Drug Policy Alliance released a study saying that 80 percent of 
those who have had property and cash seized have never been charged 
with any crime.

The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties law firm, put 
out a report last month that states that the combined value of assets 
seized by the Justice and Treasury departments reached $5 billion in 
2014, while the value of items taken by burglars hit $3.5 billion.

Does all that money come from cannabis businesses and consumers? No, 
but there are some disturbing examples of when it did: In February 
2014, a 24-year-old black college student had $11,000 seized by 
officials at a Kentucky airport because his suitcase "smelled like 
marijuana." They found no guns, drugs, or evidence of a crime, but 
took all the money nonetheless.

Never mind that if you do work in the canna industry, you cannot 
legally open a bank account of any sort if your income is derived 
from cannabis-related activities. To that end, having cash on your 
person that you cannot otherwise place into a bank makes you a target 
for not only thieves, but Uncle Sam and local law enforcement as 
well. So try not to smell like weed, I guess. And good luck with that.

CLEANER CANNABIS FOR ALL-While all cannabis sold to medical and 
recreational buyers in Oregon must be lab tested, starting in June 
2016 those lab tests are going to be stricter and offer more 
protection for consumers.

The labs will need to be state accredited, a process that will weed 
out (thanks, it just comes natural to me) those with questionable 
equipment and practices. Growers will no longer be allowed to 
cherry-pick the finest buds from their batch for testing, which will 
now screen for almost 60 pesticides. If your flower doesn't pass, 
prepare to have it destroyed while a state regulator oversees its 
death using something other than a bong.

As the ever-excellent Noelle Crombie reports in the Oregonian, these 
Oregon Health Authority rules will have a major impact. She writes, 
"The state requirements detail how each batch of cannabis should be 
tested and tracked, rules that set marijuana apart from other 
products people consume."

Crombie quotes David Farrer, a public health toxicologist with the 
Oregon Health Authority, who told her, "Every product that you 
purchase on the shelf you could trace back to the batch that was 
tested for pesticide. That is a tremendous amount of assurance that 
doesn't exist for any other agricultural product."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom