Another Group Opposes the Crime Mandatory-Sentence Proposal; Both Are on November Ballot

SALEM - A panel of 24 Oregon voters on Friday wrapped up a week of reviewing the medical marijuana initiative by narrowly endorsing the measure.

The Citizens' Initiative Review panel on Measure 74 voted 13-11 in support of the proposal on the November ballot that would create a state-regulated network of medical marijuana dispensaries.

An earlier panel working under the same framework last week came out with a much more unified vote - 21-3 - in opposition to ballot Measure 73, which would set mandatory minimum sentences for repeat drunken-driving and sex-crime convictions.

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Law Enforcement Agencies Struggle To Manage Legitimacy Of Growing Fields Of Medical Marijuana

From above, the bushy green plants in backyard after backyard resemble English topiary gardens, neat and tidy.

But a closer look at the gardens hidden from passersby behind tall fences tell a different story: cannabis crops mushrooming under the umbrella of the 1998 Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

A helicopter flight this month with U.S. Rep. Greg Walden revealed numerous cannabis crops growing adjacent to homes in every community in Jackson and Josephine counties, ostensibly to service the area's more than 7,000 medical marijuana cardholders.

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This November, Oregon voters will have the opportunity to correct the biggest shortcoming in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Many voters don't realize that under the current law, patients must grow their own cannabis -- or find someone to grow it for them for free.

Measure 74 would create a regulated medical cannabis dispensary system. Such a system would give a much-needed supply option to patients, such as myself, who are physically unable to grow a garden and want access to a steady, safe supply. Patients will be able to shop for and select from a wide variety of strains, extracts, edibles, tinctures and solvents for their medical needs.

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Law Enforcement Agencies Struggle to Manage Legitimacy of Growing Fields of Medical Marijuana

From above, the bushy green plants in backyard after backyard resemble English topiary gardens, neat and tidy.

But a closer look at the gardens hidden from passersby behind tall fences tell a different story: cannabis crops mushrooming under the umbrella of the 1998 Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

A helicopter flight this month with U.S. Rep. Greg Walden revealed numerous cannabis crops growing adjacent to homes in every community in Jackson and Josephine counties, ostensibly to service the area's more than 7,000 medical marijuana cardholders.

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EUGENE (AP) - An Oregon utility official has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Eugene police used excessive force and violated her civil rights during a 2009 drug raid.

The complaint filed by Eugene Water & Electric Board Commissioner JoAnn Ernst also includes her three adult children. It seeks unspecified damages for the use of "paramilitary activities, personnel, tactics and equipment" while executing a search warrant at Ernst's home.

Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns told The Register-Guard he has not yet had a chance to review the complaint in detail. But he told the newspaper the police department has investigated and determined the search followed department policy and met national law enforcement standards.

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He Had Loaded Shotgun at Grow North of Sams Valley

SAMS VALLEY - Jackson County sheriff's deputies on Wednesday shot and killed an armed man guarding a marijuana garden deep in the woods north of Sams Valley.

The sheriff's SWAT team was searching for the garden on Bureau of Land Management property at around 7 a.m. when they encountered a man armed with a loaded shotgun, law enforcement authorities said.

Two deputies fired at the man, who is described as a Hispanic adult, according to Oregon State Police.

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Joann Ernst Claims Police Used Excessive Force Against Her Family

Eugene Water & Electric Board Commissioner JoAnn Ernst and her three adult children have filed a federal lawsuit accusing Eugene police of excessive force and violating their civil rights during an Aug. 11, 2009, drug raid on their west Eugene home.

Eugene attorneys Brian Michaels and Marianne Dugan filed the complaint Wednesday afternoon on behalf of Ernst, her daughters Jamie and Joanna Allen, and her son Jack Allen.

The suit names the city as a defendant, as well as Eugene police officers Joe Kidd and Matt Lowen. It seeks unspecified damages over the police department's use of "paramilitary activities, personnel, tactics and equipment" while executing a search warrant at Ernst's home.

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The results are in! The Oregon newspaper ranking of conditions qualifying for an Oregon Medical Marijuana Program card clearly puts glaucoma ahead of severe pain as an honorable disease to have.

After all, who wouldn't feel sorry for persons slowly losing vision and even allow them to use marijuana as "medicine" to treat it? Newspaper editors can stand a few hundred "patients" using marijuana "medicine" but not the thousands who have qualified with less honorable and sympathetic reasons, like severe pain.

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New Rule Could Draw Tourists Seeking Medical Marijuana Cards

With expansion of the Oregon medical marijuana program set for voters to decide in November, state officials have reacted to a recent Oregon Court of Appeals decision by slightly expanding the program now.

As of four weeks ago, people from out of state can come to Oregon and participate in the Oregon medical marijuana program. Like state residents, they need only visit a medical marijuana clinic where a physician can authorize their state-issued program cards and then either grow their own marijuana, designate someone else to grow it for them or pay to join a local club such as the Cannabis Cafe, where marijuana is distributed to cardholders.

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Our Mission Is to Stimulate Discussion; a Medical Marijuana Opinion Certainly Did

The statement that appears below this and every other editorial in this newspaper reads, "The Mail Tribune offers its opinion pages to stimulate discussion and understanding of issues important to our community." Judging by the protesters who appeared in front of our building Wednesday, it appears we have succeeded.

The protesters were upset about an editorial we reprinted July 31 from The Oregonian regarding an initiative on the November ballot that would change the way medical marijuana is dispensed to those who are qualified to receive it.

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Illegal Marijuana Plantations on Government Lands Are Expanding, Putting Forest Users at Risk, Say Southern Oregon Law Officers

As the helicopter raced over the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Saturday morning, the pilot explained his rationale for flying low and fast.

"We try to fly about 300 feet above the ground," said the Jackson County Sheriff's deputy. "It's better than at high altitude. This way you are only a target for a few seconds."

Folks who grow marijuana on federal forestland have been known to take shots at unwanted visitors, he will tell you.

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Once Again, The Sheriff Is Appealing A Court Ruling Unlikely To Be Overturned

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters apparently has not yet learned that his role is to enforce the law as it is, not as he would like it to be.

Winters is appealing an Oregon Court of Appeals ruling saying he cannot deny a concealed handgun license to a medical marijuana cardholder. Winters is not alone in his belief that issuing the license would violate federal drug law. Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon, who denied two concealed carry permits on the same grounds, also has appealed the ruling.

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The Oregonian Editorial Board denigrated not only the supporters of Measure 74 but also all medical marijuana patients with its recent editorial on medical marijuana.

The editorial board purports to know the intentions of the supporters of the measure as well as the medical condition of all 36,000 medical marijuana patients. The board contends that all those who support the initiative, which would establish a nonprofit dispensary program, are really only interested in legalization of marijuana for adults and that the 32,614 medical marijuana patients who list "severe pain" as one of their qualifying conditions aren't really patients. No, they must be considered less worthy than patients who use pharmaceutical narcotics like OxyContin and Percocet. They must be stigmatized within quotations, as "patients." And so, the board reasons, Measure 74 should be dismissed on its face.

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In response to Sheriff Thomas Bergin's comment about the domestic terrorist who committed heartless acts in Svensen ("Animal group takes credit for attack," The Daily Astorian, July 29): I find it offensive and childish that the sheriff tried to give some sort of imagined description of the character and habits of the unknown suspects, but specifically that he assumes they must have been smoking pot.

I am very familiar with the discrimination and social stigma that goes along with being a marijuana user, as I have been one for many years. It is one thing to find this sort of ignorance and red-herring attacks at the grocery store, the soccer field or on Facebook, but to see it printed in the newspaper, quoted by an elected leader, is disheartening to say the least. Sheriff Bergin and The Daily Astorian should be embarrassed and ashamed for thinking that paragraph of the story was worthy of saying or printing.

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Medical marijuana advocates protest an Oregonian editorial questioning a ballot measure on dispensaries

The Mail Tribune got an earful Wednesday from medical marijuana supporters who were miffed at a recent editorial that appeared in the paper claiming medical pot initiatives are just a smoke screen for across-the-board legalization.

The editorial was written by staff at The Oregonian newspaper and the Mail Tribune chose to reprint it in Saturday's edition.

This didn't sit well with the 20 or so sign-waving protesters from various medical marijuana advocacy groups from across the state who lined the sidewalk in front of the Mail Tribune building at 111 North Fir Street. They scheduled the protest at 4:20 p.m., to coincide with the symbolic "420" number revered in cannabis culture.

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Upcoming Legislature Could Benefit Medical Marijuana Users

In Oregon, one can use marijuana legally for medicinal purposes if that individual obtains a special permit. It is possible that big changes could be in store for medical marijuana patients in Oregon, if a ballot measure to create medical marijuana dispensary systems passes in November.

Currently, people who are enrolled in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, which consists of 36,380 people, have two options in terms of accessing their medical marijuana. They can either grow their own or buy from a producer who sells to four people or less.

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To be honest, it's hard for me to work up a great amount of anger or condemnation toward the five people indicted in the recent opium bust here in Ashland. Of course, I don't feel sorry for them, either. Those five people made a choice, but that choice was certainly affected by the large number of people who are willing to buy illegal drugs.

People are always willing to pay for a service, including the service of growing opium, psilocybin mushrooms, and marijuana. I don't do drugs. I don't snort them, smoke them, inject them, or ingest them. In fact, I try to avoid most illegal activities (except a little jay-walking here and there, and of course the time I was speeding in a school zone).

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Call the 'Medical Marijuana' Measure What It Is: Back-Door Legalization

Let the charades begin: Another "medical marijuana" measure is coming to the fall ballot.

Of course, the advocates insist that the sprawling legalized network of marijuana dispensaries envisioned by Initiative 28 is all about providing compassionate and convenient "medicine" to Oregonians who suffer from such things as glaucoma, nausea from cancer treatment and the wasting associated with HIV/AIDs.

Never mind that of the 36,380 Oregon "patients" who now hold cards that protect them from state prosecution for smoking marijuana, 534 reported suffering from glaucoma, while 32,614 checked the box for "severe pain" as one of their qualifying medical conditions. Anyone over the age of 18 with a doctor's note that says they can benefit from smoking marijuana can apply to the Oregon Health Division for a card.

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ONTARIO -- Oregon voters will have the opportunity to approve the use of dispensaries to grow and distribute marijuana for the use of medial marijuana users in the state, or to simply reject the initiative in the general election in November.

The measure, known as Initiative 28, will be on the ballot Nov. 2.

The initiative will coincide with the measure already in place, Measure 67, which was approved by voters in 1998.

Ontario Police Chief Mike Kee wants to raise awareness to the issue.

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If some of the world's top AIDS researchers sign a radical manifesto linking drug policy to AIDS prevention, and the world shrugs it off, how radical is it, really?

Scientists and other AIDS experts who have signed the Vienna Declaration -- 14,756 people in all, as of Friday -- appear to have a "tree that falls in the forest" problem. They're doing their best to shout in the world's ear, but the world thus far doesn't seem to be taking much notice.

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