SALEM -- Officials in an Oregon county who have tried to restrict commercial marijuana growing are suing the state in federal court, asserting that while pot is legal in Oregon it remains illegal under federal law, which has supremacy.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Medford, escalates a battle between the Josephine County Board of Commissioners and the state over regulating marijuana grows in rural residential areas.

The county had tried to ban commercial pot farming on parcels of 5 acres or less, but the state Land Use Board of Appeals ruled last month on the side of the growers, and put the restrictions on hold.

Now, the county officials are saying the state can't do that because marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

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The top federal prosecutor in Oregon on Friday pressed for data and details about the scope of the state's role as a source of black market marijuana.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams told a large gathering that included Gov. Kate Brown, law enforcement officials and representatives of the cannabis industry that Oregon has an "identifiable and formidable overproduction and diversion problem."

"That is the fact," he told the crowd at the U.S. District courthouse. "And my responsibility is to work with our state partners to do something about it."

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Oregon officials twice neglected to deliver key documents when The Oregonian/OregonLive sought to learn about a state-licensed day care operating in the home of a Portland marijuana entrepreneur.

The search started July 10 with a public records request to the state Office of Child Care. It asked for documents including anything submitted by Step by Step's employees, operators or owners.

Agency officials provided records between July 15 and Aug. 2.

But missing from the documents were forms that Step by Step's top employees, Bre Murphy and Shai King, each submitted when they closed the business June 20.

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State regulators allowed a Portland man to have a childcare business in his home while owning a storefront dispensary selling marijuana.

Those potentially dueling interests didn't surface until this summer, after two childcare employees quit and contacted the state. They accused the day care owner, Samuel Watson, of keeping large amounts of marijuana inside his Alameda home and said he was putting children at risk. Watson categorically denies the allegations, and state officials have not found him at fault.

Without key employees, Watson in June was forced to shut down his in-home day care and a second location in Concordia.

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[photo] 10,000 People Smoke Cannabis on Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C. to Protest Trump's Pick of Drug Warrior Jeff Sessions The weed was pretty good. #Trump420 protest in Washington, D.C. (Corey Pein)

An estimated 10,000 people lined up for five blocks to collect some 8,000 free joints at this morning's surprisingly punctual #Trump420 protest at Dupont Circle in Northwest Washington, DC.

The mellow, all but police-free event was a first stop for President Donald Trump's protesters and fans alike this Inauguration Day morning. The weed was pretty good.

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Marijuana rules still rankle

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission approved temporary rule changes Dec. 19 that take effect Sunday for recreational marijuana businesses.

In one change, growers who accept responsibility for illegally applying pesticides will receive a warning for a first violation, according to an OLCC news release Wednesday. Subsequent violations could result in harsher penalties, including loss of an OLCC-issued license to grow marijuana.

The change is in keeping with regulations set by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger on Thursday. Another change allows makers of edible products with cannabis butter, a concentrate, to produce that concentrate in the same commercial kitchen where the edible product is also made.

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Study: Fatal Car Crashes Declined After Oregon Legalized Cannabis

The Portland Police Bureau and other local law-enforcement agencies are pledging to step up DUII patrols on New Year's Eve to catch intoxicated drivers.

But a new national study says the Oregon roads are getting less drunk and dangerous-and it cautiously credits legal weed.

The frequency of traffic fatalities in Oregon has dropped significantly since the state legalized medical marijuana, according to a new study from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

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What's up with all those lame "Stay True to You" anti-pot billboards all over the city? I hear when Big Tobacco had to run anti-smoking ads, they used market research to deliberately create the worst ads possible. Is that what's going on here? -- Not Impressed

I assume you're referring to the Philip Morris company's infamous "Think. Don't Smoke" campaign, which I think about often and totally did not have to look up in any way.

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The OLCC Is Dragging Its Feet on Recreational Licenses, and the Clock Is Ticking

WHEN THE Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) was tasked with handling Oregon's adult use cannabis program-AKA the recreational weed sales that we have come to know and love-the news didn't send massive throngs out dancing in the streets. To say that Oregonians have a complex relationship with the OLCC is an understatement.

Among the agency's new, cannabis-related responsibilities? Issuing all the recreational licenses in the state-be they for dispensaries, growers, processors, wholesalers, labs that test cannabis and cannabis products, and the makers of edibles.

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Williams Farm With Elaborate Greenhouse Operation Underscores Huge Growth in Local Marijuana Industry

WILLIAMS - Josephine County's growing marijuana industry is experiencing growing pains.

The number of medical marijuana grow sites in the county has remained steady from a year ago, at about 2,500.

But growers who sell to retailers have been sprouting up - 38 new state-issued licenses have been granted this summer to people who plan to grow for the recreational market. More applications are pending.

Pivoting to take advantage of retailer preference for indoor-grown marijuana, these new operations are springing up in former pastures and fields across the county.

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SALEM, ORE. (AP) - Living marijuana plants went on display Friday at the Oregon State Fair, with organizers saying it's the first state fair in the nation to allow cannabis for public viewing.

The state voted to legalize recreational marijuana in late 2014. Here are a few things to know about legal pot in Oregon and the display at the fair:

The Oregon State Fair allowed a display about marijuana without any living plants last year and it generated no complaints. So this year, the organization took the next step and agreed to let marijuana growers display live plants.

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New Ground Broken by Oregon Agricultural Show Growers Look to Product's Potential As Cash Crop

This week Nathan Martinez's family will head to the Oregon state fair to view the prizewinning plants he has hydroponically grown and lovingly cultivated: both the sativa super sour diesel and the indica granddaddy purple.

Oregon legalised the recreational use of cannabis by over-21s two years ago

For the first time, the fair, one of the country's most family-friendly traditions - synonymous with the tilt-a-whirl, funnel cake and blue ribbon pigs - is to feature marijuana plants.

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A Plea for Descheduling Cannabis

NOT LONG AGO, I wrote about the slight, slim chance that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II [Cannabuzz, July 6]. You remember what Schedule I is-it's the list of drugs defined as having "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Along with cannabis, some of the other drugs listed as Schedule I are heroin, LSD, ecstasy, peyote, and Quaaludes. Not exactly respectable company.

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No Rescheduling Cannabis, But Plenty of Other Activity

WHAT'S WITH all the federal weed law action? My head is spinning!

MINE, TOO. Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced it would not change its dismal tune on cannabis, and that weed would remain a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Then, the Obama administration announced it would ease barriers on marijuana research, despite the Schedule I restriction. Then, a bunch of federal attorneys general got pwned in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding their prosecution of medical marijuana businesses, which is a pretty big deal.

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Collections Are Exceeding Projections

Pot smokers are paying even more in taxes than state officials thought they would.

According to figures released Monday by the Oregon Department of Revenue, Oregon's recreational marijuana sales tax has generated $25.5 million in revenue so far this year, exceeding projections by millions.

In the first quarter of 2016, the Oregon Department of Revenue collected $14.9 million from recreational pot sales. In May and June alone, retail outlets collected $10.6 million in taxes to push the year-to-date total over $25 million.

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SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Nine living marijuana plants will be displayed at the Oregon State Fair in a first of its kind event for the United States starting next Friday.

The exhibit of the nonflowering, immature plants brings pot cultivation more into the agricultural mainstream less than two years after Oregon voters legalized recreational marijuana. The Oregon Cannabis Business Council, which organized the exhibit, says it's the first time live cannabis will be shown at a state fair anywhere in the U.S.

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What to Read Before-and After-You Get High

HELLO THERE! Do you enjoy reading? How about reading about cannabis? I ask because if you're reading this column (or if it's being read to you by a service monkey using typing-to-speech-recognition software), it seems like you might enjoy some books on cannabis. I certainly hope so, because this week's column is about four of them. You could get them all through Powell's or many local, independent booksellers.

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Of Pot, Felons, and Duped Canadians

TELL ME about the weed fraud case!

WEED, FELONS, forgeries, lawsuits, California swindlers, and duped Canadian backers-the weed fraud case had it all.

The culprits in this story are a Northeast Portland dispensary called Cannacea, its owner Tisha Siler, a California group called Green Rush Consulting, and, per the Oregonian, a Green Rush employee who did hard time for wire fraud. Siler, Cannacea, and Green Rush were busted last month for especially bad behavior.

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The federal Drug Enforcement Administration delivered recently good news and bad to the nation's growing marijuana industry. It will not remove weed, which is legal for both medicinal and recreational purposes in Oregon, from its Class I schedule. It will allow more experimentation to determine just how dangerous - or helpful - marijuana really is.

Substances on the Class I list include, in addition to marijuana, such things as LSD, heroin, peyote and ecstasy. They have no widely recognized medicinal value and they are, according to the DEA, highly addictive. The worst of the worst, in other words.

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SALEM, ORE. - Marijuana leaves of all shapes and sizes lined a competition alcove at the Oregon State Fairgrounds on Saturday. The plants were surrounded by hundreds of booths listing technology, agriculture and business innovations in the cannabis growing industry.

"People say we've 'Microsofted' the cannabis industry," organizer Mary Lou Burton joked.

The weekend was the first marijuana growers fair in Oregon, hosted at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem. Sponsored by the state marijuana business council, and with presentations from state agencies regulating the newly legalized industry, it highlighted a number of desires from Oregon entrepreneurs and businesses to turn the state into a go-to region for marijuana.

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