Oregon

[palmspringsbum]

Court sides with employers in medical marijuana case

5/4/2006, 10:06 a.m. PT
The Associated Press
OregonLive.com


SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that an employer didn't have to make an allowance under state disabilty laws for a worker who used medical marijuana.

The case involves Robert Washburn, a former millwright at the Columbia Forest products plant at Klamath Falls who was fired after failing drug tests.

Washburn had a state-issued card allowing him to use marijuana to ease leg spasms that disrupted his sleep.

He used the drug at home, but the company, which has a policy prohibiting workers from coming to the plant with controlled substances in their systems, fired him in 2001 after he failed several urine tests.

Washburn sued the company, saying that his condition left him legally disabled, and that required the employer to make reasonable accommodations for him under the Oregonians with Disabilities Law.

A circuit court decision said the state medical marijuana law doesn't require employers to "accommodate the medical use of marijuana in the workplace."

However, the Oregon Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the test results didn't establish that Washburn had used the drug at work.

Moreover, the appeals court said, the lower court should decide whether, under the circumstances of the case, Washburn's employer should have had to allow his medical marijuana use.

In Thursday's ruling, the Supreme Court said Washburn's impairment did not rise to the level of a disability under state law.

The court said Washburn initially controlled his leg spasms with standard prescription medications, but his doctor later appproved Washburn to participate in Oregon's medical marijuana program.

The court found that Washburn was not disabled under state law because his previous medication had succesfully treated his condition and that Washburn's employer was not obligated to make allowances for him showing up for work with marijuana in his system.

From the article, there are several conditions this ruling is based upon:
<ul><li>the condition was controlled with standard prescription medications;</li><blockquote>Therefore, there was a <i>legal</i> alternative.</blockquote>
<li>he was fired for failing drug tests, not for medicating at work or behavior on the job;</li><blockquote>But, according to the article, the court additionally found that the employer was not required to <i>accomodate</i> his medication with cannabis. </blockquote>
<li>he was not considered <i>disabled</i> by state law;</li><blockquote>I'm assuming he was not considered <i>disabled by state law</i> because he could work.</blockquote>
</ul>

Unfortunately, this could set the 'standard' for medical marijuana in the workplace, and the rule of thumb will be firstly, that if you can work you aren't considered 'disabled'.

The import of not being 'disabled' is that you do not qualify for the protections against discrimination for the disabled, and therefore neither your employer nor your landlord are required to accomodate your disability. i.e., tolerate medical marijuana.

At least that's how I interpret what the article said.

Put another way, my take on this is that the best bet in a case of this type would be: 1) housing, of 2) someone totally disabled, 3) for whom standard medications don't work.

And most people who are totally disabled and medical marijuana patients with housing issues are going to be in federally subsidized housing.

My first thought is about the only way around this would be to encourage employers to accomodate medical marijuana patients, much as the gay rights movement did when they failed at the ballot box or in court over discrimination in the workplace.

<span class=postbold>See Also</span>: California|Legal pot can make jobs go up in smoke

<span class=postbold>See Also</span>: California|DPA Files Brief on Behalf of Leading Health Organizations in Medical Marijuana Job Discrimination Case

<span class=postbold>See Also</span>: Salon|Socio-Economic|Employment

[palmspringsbum]

Published May 05, 2006

Top Oregon court rules against worker on medical marijuana

BY JULIA SILVERMAN
The Olympian
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a lower court’s ruling that required employers to make allowances for workers who use medical marijuana.

Judges on the state’s highest court issued a tightly focused ruling concluding that if an employee’s disability can be mitigated through treatment, employers need not make especial allowances for that employee.

But state Supreme Court judges skirted the issue of whether an employee can be disciplined at work for using doctor-approved medical marijuana at home.

The case had been cast as a showdown between an employer’s right to ensure safe workplaces versus a worker’s right to treat their pain with pot.

Several large corporations, including Boise, Idaho-based WinCo Foods, Inc., and Portland-based Freightliner LLC had filed briefs siding with the employer in the case, saying the lower court’s decision could put them at odds with federal drug-free workplace regulations.

The case involves Robert Washburn, a former millwright at the Columbia Forest products plant at Klamath Falls who was fired after urine tests showed traces of drugs in his system.

State-issued cards

Washburn had a state-issued card allowing him to use marijuana to ease leg spasms that disrupted his sleep. About 11,000 Oregonians have received such state-issued cards since voters passed a physician-approved medical marijuana law in 1998.

Washburn used the drug while at home, but the company, which has a policy prohibiting workers from coming to the plant with controlled substances in their system, fired him in 2001.

Washburn sued the company, saying that his medical condition left him legally disabled, requiring his employer to make reasonable accommodations for him in the workplace under the Oregonians with Disabilities Law.

A circuit court dismissed Washburn’s lawsuit, citing a provision in the state medical marijuana law that employers don’t have to “accommodate the medical use of marijuana in the workplace.”

However, the Oregon Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the test results didn’t establish that Washburn had used the drug at work.

In Thursday’s ruling, though, the Supreme Court said Washburn’s impairment did not rise to the level of a disability under state law.

The court found that Washburn was not “disabled” under state law because he had previously successfully treated his condition with painkillers and that Washburn’s employer therefore was not obligated to make allowances for him showing up for work with marijuana in his system.

“This case is really limited,” said Philip Lebenbaum, the Portland attorney who represented Washburn. “(Under the ruling), if you can mitigate your disability, then you are not disabled, like if you are nearsighted and can wear glasses.”

[palmspringsbum]

Oregon Employers Claim Important Victory in Medical Marijuana Fight

Press Release

Oregon Employers Claim Important Victory in Medical Marijuana Fight

dBusinessNews
Posted on: Friday, May 05, 2006 04:05 AM


Portland - The Oregon Supreme Court stepped into the medical marijuana debate and sided with employers by overturning the Washburn v. Columbia Forest Products decision on May 4, 2006.

While the decision technically keeps some slim hopes alive for employees who believe their employers need to accommodate their medical marijuana use, Oregon employers should now feel fairly confident that they can consistently enforce their drug policies.

Columbia Forest Products employed Robert Washburn as a millwright, where he was required to work with heavy machinery in a “safety sensitive” environment. Washburn received a prescription and began smoking medical marijuana on a nightly basis because of muscle pain that interfered with his sleeping. Washburn tested positive for marijuana under the employer’s drug testing program and the company placed him on a disciplinary leave of absence for violating its policies. Washburn argued that while marijuana may have been in his system, he was not actually impaired in carrying out his duties. He asked Columbia for an accommodation under state disability law, requesting that he be allowed to take an alternate drug test that would actually measure impairment and not simply reveal marijuana presence. The employer refused and terminated him.

Washburn filed a disability discrimination claim against Columbia. In early 2005, the Oregon Court of Appeals decided that Washburn was entitled to an accommodation and that the employer should have implemented a more precise drug test that measured impairment. Columbia pointed to Oregon law that holds that employers need not accommodate the “use” of medical marijuana in the workplace, but the Court of Appeals said that Washburn was not “using” the drug simply by having it in his system.

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the appellate court’s decision and dismissed Washburn’s lawsuit. It ruled that Washburn was never actually disabled and therefore not entitled to an accommodation in the first place, let alone an accommodation involving medical marijuana. However, it stopped short of actually striking down Oregon’s medical marijuana program and did not provide guidance to employers about how they should treat medical marijuana users in the workplace.

Justice Rives Kistler wrote a non-binding concurring opinion, which means that it does not carry the weight of law but will still be considered by Oregon judges as good reasoning. His opinion states that employers probably cannot be forced to accommodate medical marijuana users in the workplace in any manner because marijuana is considered an illegal drug under federal law. He said that even though Oregon has chosen to establish a medical marijuana program and state law enforcement officials have stated they will not prosecute users, this does not mean that Oregon employers can be forced to accommodate something that is illegal.

This decision is good news for Oregon employers, and even though it is not a victory that will end the debate, it certainly is a step in the right direction. Employers who wish to take an aggressive stance against drugs in the workplace should feel fairly confident that they can discipline those testing positive for medical marijuana just as they would any other employee who violates company policy. There is a risk of litigation, and it is always possible that a sympathetic judge hearing the case would disagree with Justice Kistler’s concurring opinion and rule in favor of the employee.

Employers who are less risk averse may instead work with the employee and his or her health care provider to determine whether other accommodations besides medical marijuana use might mitigate any underlying disability. It is ultimately the employer’s right to decide which accommodation will be allowed, and it may very well be that another simple solution exists.

If you have any questions about this opinion or how it affects your workplace, call any of the attorneys in the Portland office of Fisher and Phillips LLP at 503-242-4262.

[palmspringsbum]

Well, the decision is up now, and the reasoning seems to be pretty much as I surmised from the news article. Essentially, the court has ruled that if you can work enough to have a job worth fighting for, you're not disabled enough to be protected from discrination because of your disability.

In this case, plaintiff argues that he is disabled by virtue of his leg spasms, a condition that he claims substantially limits one of his major life activities, i.e., sleeping. However, as the trial court noted below, it is undisputed that plaintiff is able to counteract those leg spasms and the resulting sleep problems by using prescription medication. As a result, we conclude that, because plaintiff can counteract his physical impairment through mitigating measures, his impairment does not, at this time, rise to the level of a substantial limitation on a major life activity. Consequently, we conclude that plaintiff is not a "disabled person" for purposes of ORS 659A.112 to 659A.139. Because plaintiff is not a "disabled person" under those statutes, employer had no statutory duty to accommodate plaintiff's physical limitation in the manner sought by plaintiff.

The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.

http://159.121.112.45/S52254.htm

[palmspringsbum]

Oregon Supreme Court OKs Firing of Medical Marijuana Patient

The Drug Policy Alliance
Tuesday, May 9, 2006


Robert Washburn, an Oregon resident who used medical marijuana to control muscle spasms in his legs, sued his employer after he was fired for a positive drug test. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in the case earlier this month, saying that the company was allowed to dismiss Washburn because he was not covered by Oregon's statute prohibiting workplace discrimination against disabled persons.

Washburn used medical marijuana at night to treat muscle spasms that limited his ability to sleep. He began using medical marijuana after discovering that it was more effective in helping him sleep than the prescription drugs he previously had taken.

After being dismissed from his job for testing positive for marijuana, Washburn sued his employer alleging disability-related discrimination. The Oregon Supreme Court found that since Washburn was able to remedy his sleep disruption through prescription medication, his impairment did not meet the criteria to qualify him as a “disabled person,” and therefore his employer did not have to accommodate his physical limitation through allowing the use of medical marijuana.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Kistler took the analysis beyond the Oregon statute that prohibits disability-related discrimination in the workplace, concluding that federal law preempts state employment discrimination law when it comes to accommodating medical marijuana use: “The fact that the state may choose to exempt medical marijuana users from the reach of the state criminal law does not mean that the state can affirmatively require employers to accommodate what federal law specifically prohibits.”

This Washburn decision is troubling for the future of marijuana law reform in the courts. First, Oregon’s high court states that there is a direct conflict between Oregon’s disability statute and federal law, with the latter superseding the former. Second, the court draws a very narrow definition of what constitutes a disability – a definition which could be adopted by other states, resulting in restriction of the protections of other medical marijuana laws.

There appears to be at least one silver lining. The majority’s opinion is narrowly drafted and does not say that an employer cannot be required to accommodate off-duty use of medical marijuana when the employee does qualify as disabled under Oregon’s law. So there is likely room for more seriously disabled or ill persons who benefit from medical marijuana but not traditional prescription drug therapies to claim employment protections under the state disability law.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/050906oregon.cfm

[palmspringsbum]

Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Last modified Monday, May 15, 2006 11:45 PM PDT


Nurse claims he was fired for pot advocacy

By BENNETT HALL
Gazette-Times business editor
The Corvallis Gazette-Times




A longtime Samaritan Health Services nurse is contesting his dismissal, claiming he was fired not because of his job performance but because he has been an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana.

An executive of the health care network disputes that claim.

Ed Glick was terminated April 18 from his job as a nurse at Samaritan Regional Mental Health Center in Corvallis after he refused to take a drug test.

According to Glick, the demand that he submit to urinalysis came during a meeting to discuss omissions in the paperwork he did on several patients. He said the gaps were minor and occurred when he was working an exceptionally busy weekend shift that required him to rush through the numerous admission forms to attend to the patients’ immediate needs.

When a supervisor insisted he take a drug test, Glick said, he refused and walked out of the meeting. He was then fired.

“I was ambushed in a meeting with the supervisors,” Glick said. “The real reason I was fired is I’ve been doing medical cannabis nursing for 10 years.”

Oregon is one of about a dozen states that allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes, but the practice remains highly controversial.

Glick, however, has never been shy about his belief that pot has therapeutic value, calling it a “miracle medicine.”

At work, he has made a point of making notes in patients’ medical charts about their use of marijuana to treat their health problems, which can be a preliminary step to getting a state marijuana card.

On his own time, he has written letters to the Gazette-Times, produced an informational CD about the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and petitioned a judge to expand the law. He hands out business cards identifying him as a medical cannabis nurse. On April 8, a little over a week before he was fired, Glick gave a presentation to the National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics in Santa Barbara, Calif.

He also volunteers at the Compassion Center, a nonprofit clinic in Eugene that provides counseling and educational services related to medical marijuana.

According to Glick, he has seen patients from Corvallis at the Compassion Center who claim their Samaritan Health Services doctors have refused to help them get a prescription for marijuana, even though state law allows its use to treat pain, muscle spasms, loss of appetite and other symptoms due to cancer, HIV and a wide range of other conditions.

“I’m being squeezed between my patients and a medical system that doesn’t care about their needs,” Glick said.

A Samaritan official denied that the health care network discourages its doctors from prescribing marijuana.

“There is no formal policy that Samaritan has ... which dictates either one way or another regarding prescriptions of marijuana,” said Steve Jasperson, chief executive officer of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. “That’s up to the individual physician and his or her relationship with the patient.”

Jasperson also denied that Glick was fired for advocating prescription pot.

“He was terminated for good cause,” Jasperson said.

While he declined to go into detail about Glick’s job performance, Jasperson said Samaritan’s employment policies clearly state that a drug test can be required if there is “reasonable suspicion” to believe an employee is impaired.

“An employee who chooses not to take a drug test has potential consequences of that of termination,” Jasperson said.

In a statement he sent to the newspaper, Glick denied ever having come to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, either at Samaritan or any other job.

Glick said he does not have a medical marijuana card and does not smoke the drug recreationally, although he did say, “I use it infrequently.”

On Monday afternoon, Glick took his cause to the streets, standing near the eastern entrance to the Good Samaritan campus with a sign that read “Fired for putting patients first.” He was joined by about 15 supporters, many of them connected with the Compassion Center.

Bill and Erin Hildebrandt came down from Lafayette with their five children to demonstrate on Glick’s behalf. Erin Hildebrandt smokes marijuana to control symptoms of Crohn’s disease, and her husband said the family moved to Oregon from Maryland so she could use the drug legally.

“It was a lot easier for us, with five small kids, to move out here and not have to worry about the cops kicking our door in and pointing guns at our kids’ heads,” he said.

Glick has filed a wrongful termination grievance against Samaritan through his union, the Oregon Nurses Association, and hopes to be vindicated through that process. But even though he loved his 15 years of working for Samaritan, he said, he doesn’t want his job back.

“I’m not expecting them to (rehire me), but I am expecting them to recognize the situation,” Glick said.

“I want Samaritan Health Services to begin recognizing that cannabis is a legitimate medicine.”

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.

[palmspringsbum]

Monday, May 22, 2006
Last modified Monday, May 22, 2006 1:40 AM PDT


Letters: Cannibis a safe, therapeutic drug

The Corvallis Gazette-Times



I’ve only recently met Ed Glick, but have known of him for years. As a nurse, Mr. Glick has a professional ethic to uphold, and it appears his advocacy for medicinal use of cannabis may have superceded his excellent record of patient care with Samaritan Health Services.

The May 16 GazetteTimes article, “Nurse claims he has fired for pot advocacy,” fails to ask Samaritan officials at least two relevant questions:

Why does Samaritan lack a specific criteria for cannabis? In Oregon, there are now more than 12,000 registered patients and 2,000 doctors making the necessary recommendations for a patient’s use of cannabis.

Also, how many doctors in Samaritan’s employ have made cannabis recommendations for patients?

In spite of the recent proclamation by the Food and Drug Administration that cannabis has “no medical use,” there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Ed Glick is a serious advocate for a substance that has a recorded history of human use at least 5,000 years old without a single toxic overdose.

In a 1989 hearing on the drug’s effects and uses, Drug Enforcement Administration administrative law judge Francis L. Young concluded not only that marijuana’s medical usefulness had been adequately demonstrated, but that the plant had been shown to be “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

Thank goodness there are health care professionals like Glick and the 2,000 doctors in Oregon who recognize the medical value and safety of cannabis.

Allan Erickson

Drug Policy

Forum of Oregon

Eugene

[Midnight toker]

Police bust pot grow bordering Parkrose High School

12:17 PM PDT on Wednesday, July 26, 2006

By ANTONIA GIEDWOYN, kgw.com Staff


Police busted an outdoor marijuana grow operation in Northeast Portland which bordered a high school soccer field, authorities said Wednesday.

<table class=posttable align=right width=320><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/portland-grow_near_school.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>The pot plants are visible on the right side of the fence.</td></tr></table>The only thing separating the marijuana plants from the Parkrose High School soccer field was a fence, said Sgt. Brian Schmautz, spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau.

“All a student would have to do is reach out and grab some dope,” he said.

Although school is not currently in session, many people use the soccer field during the summer and those who do complained to police about the visible marijuana plants.

When officers questioned the people growing the plants in the yard of a nearby home, the growers claimed they needed the marijuana for medicinal purposes, and they refused to relocate the plants, Schmautz said.

They did have a medical marijuana card, but even with the card it is illegal to grow the plants in public view, according to Oregon law.

Officers later served a search warrant and seized 35 plants and growing equipment. They did not cite anyone for growing marijuana in public view, Schmautz said, but officers did arrest 46-year-old Robert Kuhn for custodial interference and "removed a 14-year-old runaway from the residence during the execution of the warrant this morning," he said.

The house is located at 4409 NE 116th Ave.

The marijuana investigation will be submitted to the District Attorney's Office for prosecution.

[Midnight toker]

Near kids, if you plant it, the cops will come

Marijana bust - A medical grower's yard, dubbed the "Field of Dreams," is next to a school soccer field

Thursday, July 27, 2006
MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian


Teenagers at Parkrose High School dubbed the yard full of marijuana plants that bordered the school's soccer area the "Field of Dreams."

But the neighbors weren't amused.

Particularly Mike McMurphy, a drug-and-alcohol counselor, whose own yard backs up to the great ganjas.

"I just happened to peek through a hole in the fence, and I couldn't believe it," he said. "They're growing a jungle full of weed out there."

Portland police early Wednesday raided the marijuana operation at 4409 NE 116th Ave., arrested the grower, a 46-year-old medical marijuana cardholder, and dug up more than 30 plants in his yard.

Some stood 51/2 to 6 feet tall, just 4 feet from the school field's chain-link fence.

"You could reach out and grab a plant from the school fence," East Precinct Officer Ryan Lee said. "It's so egregious. They're so far outside the bounds of the medical marijuana program."

Once police got two or three tips about the unusual marijuana grow, Lee and his partner, Bill Hoover, decided to look for themselves. They drove their patrol car onto the school's soccer field. As they pulled up to the fence, Hoover said, someone just "went running" from the house.

Police stopped by the home and found a teenage girl home alone. They decided to return with a search warrant, but not before checking with prosecutors and the city attorney's office.

Since the medical marijuana program began, Portland police cases against medical marijuana cardholders have been rare. But Mark McDonnell, a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney, said this case was clear.

Oregon law says cardholders are not immune from criminal prosecution if they "engage in the medical use of marijuana in a public place . . . or in public view." And, medical "use" includes production, possession or delivery, McDonnell said.

So at 7 a.m., police armed with a search warrant burst through the red front door of the tan clapboard house. It sits at the end of a gravel road adjacent to the school property. About 10 officers dug up the plants in the rear yard and seized more inside the house, filling eight burlap bags.

The grower, Robert Bennett Kuhn, was arrested, accused of manufacture of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, police and prosecutors said. He also was held on a felony warrant for custodial interference out of Columbia County. A 14-year-old girl at the house, a runaway from a group home, was removed.

"It's sort of like, 'Use your head stupid!' " McDonnell said. "I mean, don't flaunt it."

John Sajo, director of Voter Power, a group that works with medical marijuana patients and helped get the program passed, said medical marijuana cardholders can live next to a school and grow marijuana as long as it's done privately.

"What we teach people is if you're going to grow in your backyard, you should have a good solid fence where people can't see into it at all," Sajo said.

Before police arrived Wednesday, the growers put up a blue tarp along the side of the yard, trying to block a view from the school field.

Neighbors, such as stay-at-home mom Melissa Wrede, wondered what the grower was thinking.

"It's loony," Wrede said. "Ridiculous!"

Corinna Hammer, a mother of two young children who lives next door, said she wasn't surprised by the police raid. She and her husband couldn't help but catch whiffs of the marijuana. "They smoked pot on the front porch," Hammer said.

McMurphy first noticed the plants two weeks ago when he was caring for his lawn in his backyard and looked through his rear fence. His wife grabbed her digital camera and started clicking away.

"Everybody that walked their dog was stopping and looking at it," he said. "They're right up against that school. I couldn't get over that. I was shocked."

Maxine Bernstein: 503-221-8212; maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com



<center>©2006 The Oregonian</center>

[Midnight toker]

The men then stole cash and marijuana from six mature plants the couple grew to supply themselves and other medical marijuana users.

Uh, why were the plants holding cash?

August 3, 2006


Four men charged in theft of money, medical marijuana from Talent home

By chris conrad
Mail Tribune


The four men who allegedly robbed a Talent couple of medical marijuana and cash at gunpoint appeared Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Traisean Ray Wallace, 21; George Dewey Crawford, 21; Tyrell Charles Abram, 20; and Travis Billy Cox, 20, were charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery and three counts of second-degree robbery.

Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan said Wallace, Crawford and Abram came to the Rogue Valley from Santa Cruz, Calif. They lived together in a house in the 400 block of Laurel Road in Medford, according to court records.

Cox, of the 2100 block of Kings Highway in Medford, has lived in the Rogue Valley most of his life, Fagan said. Court records show he has a lengthy criminal history, which includes convictions in 2005 for identity theft and first-degree theft.

"Apparently, these guys met while hanging around an apartment at 1050 Spring St. in Medford," Fagan said. "The tenant was in the process of being evicted, but allowed them to stay there."

This was where the men were arrested Tuesday. Police seized the marijuana and the $400 in cash they allegedly took during the robbery.

Fagan said he believes Crawford was the group's leader, since he is believed to have planned the heist and held the gun on the victims. He also had the bulk of the recovered cash.

"He doesn't affiliate himself with any particular gang," Fagan added. "But he did use some very strong language during the crime, telling the victims to lie down or they would be shot."

Police allege the men burst into a home in the first block of Talent Avenue late Sunday. The owners, Bree Santos, and her boyfriend, Mike Kennedy, and three guests were home at the time.

The men then stole cash and marijuana from six mature plants the couple grew to supply themselves and other medical marijuana users.

Abram, Crawford and Wallace were lodged in the Jackson County Jail in lieu of more than $1 million bail. Cox was held without bail because of a probation violation for a theft conviction earlier this year.

Reach reporter Chris Conrad at 776-4471, or e-mail cconrad@mailtribune.com

[budman]

August 7, 2006


Medical marijuana dilemma

By chris conrad
Mail Tribune

Medford police Lt. Tim George remembers the good old days when a cop could simply chop down a marijuana plant and ask questions later.

Now, eight years after medical marijuana became a reality in Oregon, the line between right and wrong has become somewhat murky, George said.

"You ask any dope cop in Oregon about medical marijuana and they'll laugh you out of the room," he said. "There are probably some scenarios where people really need it for things such as glaucoma or cancer, but we have people with symptoms such as 'chronic pain' that are clearly taking advantage of the act."

George criticizes the Legislature's raising the amount of medical marijuana a card holder can possess. It is now legal for a user to have 24 ounces of usable pot, six mature plants and 18 seedlings.

"That's more than one person can smoke in a year," George said, laughing.

Jackson County ranks third in the state in the number of medical marijuana card holders, according to state statistics.

In fact, Jackson County's 1,038 card holders are not far behind higher populated counties such as Lane (Eugene), with 1,379, and Multnomah (Portland), with 1,838.

Those numbers look to climb as the state received 5,579 new applications for marijuana cards between July 1, 2005, and June 30 this year. Also, medical marijuana advocacy clinics such as the Southern Oregonians Helping Ease Medical Problems (S.O.H.E.M.P.) advertise themselves in local classifieds, promising that a licensed physician will help people with documented ailments qualify for cards.

The fallout from this, George said, is a bump in crime surrounding medical marijuana users in recent years.

"We've had five recent burglaries reported to us where the suspects broke into homes looking to steal medical marijuana," said Medford Detective Sgt. Tim Doney.

Considering a pound of marijuana can fetch between $1,500 and $2,500 on the street, it is a profitable target for burglars, George said.

Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan said the motivation for most medical marijuana burglaries — including Tuesday's robbery in which four men bursting into a Talent home and stole medical marijuana at gunpoint — is money.

"It's fairly common for us to receive reports of marijuana rip-offs," Fagan added. "And I can assure you that there are people with cards that are making a profit selling their excess marijuana."

Both George and Fagan described how tough it is for cops to navigate the gray area created when marijuana went from being illegal in all cases to legal in a select few.

Sheriff's detectives recently worked a case where marijuana plants were found growing on property belonging to Boise Cascade in White City. It turned out the pot belonged to a man with a medical card who apparently didn't know you had to grow it on your own property.

"So there are times when law-abiding people are put into peril when marijuana is found on their property," Fagan said. "And most district attorney's don't see the use in prosecuting people who grow too many plants or place them where they shouldn't. It's hard to go after someone suffering from a disease who may need it for treatment."

Fagan said most cops have learned to focus their energy on larger grows run by drug cartels.

"If they're going to treat it like a prescription drug, then they should dose it out from pharmacies," George added. "I'm not cold enough to think that there aren't people who really need it, but the way it's being handled now simply makes it more accessible on the street."

Reach reporter Chris Conrad at 776-4471, or e-mail cconrad@mailtribune.com.

[budman]

Pot Bust

Marijuana Initiative Fails to Make the Ballot

August 10-16, 2006
The Portland Mercury News
BY AMY JENNIGES

An initiative that would have made marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority in Portland failed to make the ballot this week, after a Multnomah County analysis of the initiative's signatures showed that the petition's backers, Citizens for a Safer Portland, didn't submit 26,691 valid signatures.

The initiative—largely funded by the Washington, DC-based Marijuana Policy Project, which gave the campaign over $120,000 to date—collected a little over 40,000 signatures. But the campaign scrubbed duplicates, the city tossed another 5,000 due to "circulator error"—a decision the campaign is not happy about—and only 62 percent of the remaining 27,000 signatures were valid, according to Multnomah County Elections' calculations. The campaign spent over $94,000 on petition circulators, according to the July 24 campaign finance filings.

Local pot activist Chris Iverson filed the petition without much fanfare back on February 7. Given Portland's already strong support for the state's medical marijuana measures, Iverson's strategy was to keep quiet and avoid drawing any opposition that might jeopardize the built-in advantage. In hindsight, that strategy may have backfired.

Iverson disagrees. "The fact that we only had four months hurt us. The fact that we didn't have a whole lot of money hurt us," Iverson says. "I still think not talking to the media and laying low was a smart decision."

In Seattle, where a similar measure made the ballot and passed in 2003, there was a 63 percent reduction in arrests, prosecutions, and sentences for marijuana offenses. Portland's measure could have had a similar effect by making "adult marijuana-related offenses the lowest law-enforcement priority in the City of Portland," and backing up the measure with a citizens' oversight committee to ensure the directive was being followed by cops and the district attorney.

Supporters, like Iverson, had hoped that the city measure would have paved the way for statewide marijuana reforms—ambitious ideas like regulating and taxing the drug. "It seems that [the Marijuana Policy Project] and the activists here in Oregon want to continue down this low-priority initiative road," Iverson says. "It's very likely we will obtain another grant and do this next year or in '08. I am not stopping until this is legal, and the war on marijuana is over."

[budman]

Police find convicted felon with weapons, pot plants in Olalla

August 10, 2006
The News-Review

OLALLA— Law enforcement officers seized several assault weapons and marijuana plants from a convicted felon in Olalla Wednesday morning.

Members of the Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team and Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Tactical Response Team served a search warrant at 393 Freadman Lane around 5:30 a.m. after receiving information about the alleged crime, according to a DINT press release.

Alexander Duncan MacKenzie, 37, was allegedly found with 13 firearms throughout the residence. Several of the firearms were semi-automatic assault rifles and pistols. One of the weapons was a .22-caliber rifle with a homemade silencer, according to the release.

MacKenzie was also allegedly found to be out of compliance with his Oregon medical marijuana card, which led DINT officers to seize 14 mature marijuana plants.

MacKenzie was charged with multiple counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm silencer, and the unlawful manufacturing and possession of marijuana.

Another resident of the home, Vera Olena Westbrook, 48, was also arrested on suspicion of unlawful possession of a firearm silencer and the unlawful manufacturing and possession of marijuana, according to the release.

The pair were arrested without incident and lodged at the Douglas County Jail.

[budman]

Medical marijuana cardholder caught with 200 pounds of pot

August 25, 2006
The News-Review

DIXONVILLE -- A medical marijuana cardholder was caught with 120 pounds of processed marijuana, 80 pounds of marijuana butter, 10 grams of hashish, 45 large cannabis plants and several pscilocybin mushrooms.

The Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team found some of the pot packaged for sale and $7,000 worth of cash at the home of Dwight Ehrensing off Strader Road, north of Buckhorn Road in Dixonville.

Ehrensing, 61, was arrested and booked at the Douglas County Jail on charges of delivery of marijuana and the manufacture and possession of marijuana.

The narcotics team was given a search warrant after receiving a tip that Ehrensing was selling marijuana, which isn't allowed, even for medical marijuana cardholders.

"We're finding it's becoming more common," said DINT Lt. Curt Strickland. "People are using the cards to circumvent the law."

DINT was assisted at the scene by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, Oregon State Police, parole and probation officers.

[budman]

Jury returns not-guilty verdicts in case


By Drew Atkins, Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006 2:19 PM PDT
The WorldLink.com


“Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, it's like a scene from a comic book,” exclaimed Defense Attorney James Monsebroten, hoisting the 10-foot pole up into his hand like it was a gigantic spear he was about to throw. “This? This is the murder weapon?”

Monsenbroten smiled at the jury, wanting them to acknowledge the situation's absurdity. The jury did not smile back.

It was Friday morning, the end of an emotional three-day trial in which Simon Alonzo, 33, of North Bend, was charged with attempted murder; and his wife, Lisa Funnell, 28, with fourth-degree assault of a 5-year-old child. The jury was ready to hear the closing arguments, deliberate and go home.

The accusers - Vernon Clingings, 34, and Brandy Manfull, 26, both of North Bend - sat in the audience area. Manfull's eyes were damp with tears, as was the case throughout the majority of the proceedings. She sniffed loudly as Monsenbroten continued his closing arguments.

“We're to understand that Mr. Alonzo went to his car, got this,” Monsebroten shook the large pole in his hand, “and then tapped on their door with it, raised it up like Zeus or some superhero, and said, ‘I'm going to kill you!'”

The pole Monsenbroten held, according to prosecution lawyer Coleen Cerda, was the weapon with which Simon Alonzo had attempted to murder Clingings at his home at 2656 Sherman Ave. It was a polesaw, used for cutting out-of-reach branches, and it typically had a large blade on its end for this purpose. Clingings and his wife, Brandy Manfull, said it was with this blade that Alonzo had attempted to impale him. Alonzo had done this, the prosecution argued, in order to steal Clingings' marijuana grow lights.

As Cerda put it, “When Clingings wouldn't lend him the grow lights, ... Alonzo decided he was going to get what he wanted, one way or another.”

Though Alonzo was eventually found not guilty of attempted murder, the jury did find that he recklessly caused injury to Clemmings. Clemmings had a large gash across his left arm, one he did not have before Alonzo came to his home. How he received the injury was the primary subject of dispute in the case.

In the beginning, the stories of the defense and prosecution coincide. On June 17, at about 3 p.m., Alonzo and his wife drove to Clingings' North Bend residence, ostensibly to borrow marijuana grow lights and to lend them their pole saw. Clingings' said he was legally permitted to grow a certain amount of marijuana due to a undisclosed medical condition.

After about 15 minutes of conversation in the living room, Clingings left the room temporarily, and when he re-entered a fight erupted between him and Alonzo. At this point, the stories diverge. The prosecution said this fight was instigated by Alonzo, who, upset by Clingings' refusal to lend him grow lights, pushed and cursed at Manfull, prompting Clingings to defend her. Monsenbroten argued the fight was instigated by Clingings, who misheard something Alonzo had said, mistakenly thinking he was insulting Manfull.

Funnell testified that she tried to get Clingings to stop attacking Alonzo. Cerda argued that Clingings' 5-year-old son had attempted to jump on Funnell at this time, prompting her to “backhand him so hard he (fell) into a recliner... 6 feet away.”

Funnell was charged with fourth-degree assault, but the jury found her not guilty.

Alonzo said he ran out of the house after the fight, grabbed his pole saw, which he said he had left on Clingings' porch, and started running toward his van. Clingings gave chase and grabbed the other end of the pole saw, Alonzo testified, and the two engaged in a tug of war for it. Monsebroten argued that Clingings received his arm injury at this time, accidently cutting himself on the jagged edge of the pole saw while trying to yank it away from Alonzo.

Clingings said he received his injury when Alonzo returned to the house shortly after the fight and attempted to stab him in the chest with the pole saw.

According to Monsebroten, the jury found Alonzo not guilty of attempted murder primarily because Oregon State Police testing found blood on only one side of the pole saw blade, which was inconsistent with Clingings' claim that he'd been stabbed by it. Monsenbroten argued that a jagged part of the pole caused Clingings' arm injury, not the blade.

“The state police report is what really showed Clingings story to be a fabrication,” said Monsebroten. “I think this was a case of someone screaming louder so they'd be heard. Clingings assaulted (Alonzo), and I think he accused him of this greater crime so people wouldn't pay attention to (Clingings') lesser one. That was his immediate strategy.”

The district attorney's office did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Clingings and Manfull are scheduled to be sentenced today on charges of possessing and manufacturing marijuana, as well as two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor.

[budman]

Alleged Goshen shooter has medical marijuana card

07:30 AM PDT on Wednesday, September 13, 2006

KGW.com


GOSHEN, Ore. -- A Eugene-area man accused of fatally shooting a woman while defending his marijuana growing operation from burglars holds a medical marijuana card.

Lane County sheriff's deputies say there is NO evidence that 45-year-old Alan Smith of Goshen was selling marijuana for profit.

Smith remains in the Lane County Jail on a murder charge.

Investigators said he shot 48-year-old Debra Lynn Contreras of Eugene last Friday as she tried to flee in a pickup after what authorities believe was a botched attempt to steal drugs and money from Smith.

[budman]

Leafy Look-Alike Stirs Pot Of Trouble For City Managers

By Bill Bishop
The Register-Guard
Published: Wednesday, September 13, 2006

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/eugene_employee_book_cover.jpg width=300></td></tr></table>Botanical similarities between the leaves of marijuana and ornamental maple trees have ignited controversy over a photo used on the cover of Eugene's annual Employee Benefits Handbook.

The similarities struck a few employees as beneficial to neither employees nor their handbook.

"We're a little embarrassed," said Myrnie Daut, risk services division manager. "We certainly didn't want to offend anyone."

Nevertheless, the image irked a few police employees, who complained.

On Friday, they got an e-mail from Police Capt. Steve Swenson, trying to extinguish the controversy and clear the air.

"To some, the lace leaf maple pictured as part of a series of photos resembles a marijuana leaf," he wrote, adding that the city has an abundance of various maples, including the type on the handbook's cover.

"I have a very nice one in my front yard," he continued. "There are no hidden meanings, subliminal or intentional, supporting medical marijuana or advocating marijuana use as some are speculating."

Faced with criticism from some city workers, city officials immediately removed the image from the city's Web page and replaced it with a photo of a lighthouse. After a brief discussion, city officials decided not to replace the covers on the 650 booklets already distributed to employees. However, new employees will get a booklet with the revised cover, featuring the lighthouse, Daut said.

She said the leaf image is plainly a tree in its full-color version, but the distinctions were blurred when the image was printed in black-and-white for the booklet.

"Hopefully this addresses the issue and puts it to rest," Swenson said in his e-mail to police employees. "On a positive note, it is a good sign the pamphlets are being viewed."

[Midnight toker]

House hopefuls sound themes

Published: September 30, 2006
By DAVID BATES
Of the News-Register


<table class=posttable align=right width=250><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/oregon_house-candidates.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>From left: House District 24 Rep. Donna Nelson (R-McMinnville), and challengers Sal Peralta (Democrat) and David Terry (Libertarian).</td></tr></table>The candidates in Oregon House District 24 have yet to make a joint appearance on the campaign trail this fall. But voters looking for a capsule summary of the themes and issues likely to emerge in the race may find them online.

Rep. Donna Nelson, a Republican seeking her fourth term, is stressing experience. She identifies more than 30 committees, boards and nonprofit groups with which she is or has been affiliated.

Meanwhile, she is emphasizing her conservative credentials as a "taxpayers' advocate," a "property owner for property rights" and a "fighter for our veterans, troops and families."

David Terry's statement emphasizes a theme central to his Libertarian philosophy: "We can have civil liberties and economic freedom! But we must look outside the two-party box."

He is pledging to seek repeal of "unreasonable restrictions" on development and defend Oregon's Death with Dignity and Medical Marijuana Acts, both of which have been under fire by the federal government.

Sharing the two-party box with Nelson is Realtor Sal Peralta, a Democrat. He's insisting, "It's time for a change."

The basis of his campaign is emphasizing tax inequities in Oregon. Oregon corporations in the 1970s produced nearly 24 percent of the state's income tax, he said, while they are now down to about 5 percent.

Restoring that balance, he is arguing, would make resources available for schools, state police and health care.

Elections officials say the first volume of the State Voters' Pamphlet, featuring candidates, will be delivered by mail Oct. 11-13. The second, featuring ballot measures, should arrive Oct. 18-20.

Oct. 17 is the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 7 general election. Ballots are slated to go in the mail the Friday of Oct. 20 and begin arriving the following day.

In the meantime, both state and local voters' pamphlets have been posted online.

For statewide races and ballot measures, visit the Oregon Elections Division at www.sos.state.or.us. Click on "Elections Division," then on "Military/Overseas Voters' Guide for 2006 General Election."

Local races and money measures may be found on the Yamhill County website at www.co.yamhill.or.us. Click on "Clerk/Elections," then on "Current Year Elections." The page features multiple links to the County Voters' Pamphlet, depending on what format you want, HTML or PDF.

The District 24 seat is generally regarded as a safe one for Republicans, given the county's conservative voter base.

However, it was held by a Democrat, Marilyn Worrix of McMinnville, in the mid-1990s. And earlier this month, the race was termed a "wild card" by the Ridenbaugh Press, a Carlton-based public affairs newsletter read closely by political insiders.

Editor Randy Stapilus, who has covered politics in the Pacific Northwest since 1974, noted that "all the statistics suggest" Nelson will be re-elected. But he advised readers to keep an eye on Democrat Sal Peralta, who "has been running an unusually organized, thorough and energetic campaign."

"No wild projections here," Stapilus concluded. "But keep it on your radar screen."

[palmspringsbum]

Medical marijuana users arrested for pot growing operation

10:33 PDT on Sunday October 15, 2006
kgw.com

KEIZER, Ore. – Police found what they described as an “elaborate” marijuana-growing operation inside a Keizer home Saturday and confiscated all the illegal plants and equipment.

<table class=posttable width=300 align=right><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/beaver_and_anderson_.bmp alt="Image of NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST"></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST (left) and NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST as shown in police mug shots.</td></tr></table>Officers were serving a warrant at ADDRESS WITHHELD BY REQUEST after getting a tip from a concerned citizen, according to Capt. Jeffrey Kuhns with the Keizer Police Department.

“Upon making entry into the residence officers discovered what they characterized as an elaborate indoor marijuana grow with 23 mature Marijuana plants, and 46 seedlings. There was a total of 299.3 grams of dried harvested Marijuana bud, 437 grams of dried non-harvested Marijuana bud, 829.7 grams of dried mature Marijuana plants, and 2253 grams of Marijuana ‘shake,’" Kuhns said.

Police also found and confiscated equipment including digital scales, packaging material and special lights to help the marijuana grow faster.

“NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST and NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST were both present inside the residence when the search warrant was executed. NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST admitted the Marijuana grow was his, and additional evidence found within the residence suggested NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST had assisted with the growing operation,” Kuhns added.

Officers arrested Anderson and Beaver, although they were both Oregon Medical Marijuana card holders, because “the number of mature Marijuana plants and seedlings exceeds the number allowable by law,” Kuhns explained.

Anderson and Beaver were both charged with one count of manufacturing of a controlled substance and one count of manufacturing of a controlled substance within 1000 feet of a school because Keizer Elementary School is located just to the south of ADDRESS WITHHELD BY REQUEST.

[palmspringsbum]

‘Cannabis nurse’ gives up his license

By BENNETT HALL
Gazette-Times business editor
The Corvallis Gazette-Times
Last modified Thursday, November 23, 2006 8:14 PM PST

Medical marijuana advocate ends fight to keep practicing

A local nurse and medicinal marijuana advocate fired by Samaritan Health Services for refusing to take a drug test has surrendered his nursing license rather than stop using pot.

Under an agreement with the Oregon State Board of Nursing that took effect Nov. 8, it will be three years before Ed Glick can apply to have his license reinstated.

Illegal drug use violates the state law that governs nursing and is grounds for disciplinary action. In interviews with nursing board staff, Glick acknowledged that he “self-medicated with cannabis” and agreed to relinquish his license after more than 20 years as a nurse.

“I admitted to using an illegal drug, and that violates the standards of practice for Oregon nurses,” Glick said this week.

Barbara Holtry, a spokeswoman for the Oregon State Board of Nursing, said the law is clear on marijuana use.

“All nurses have to abide by the Nurse Practice Act,” Holtry said.

Glick might have been able to keep his license by entering the nurse monitoring program, a five-year probationary arrangement that requires chemical dependancy treatment and regular urinalysis, but he refused. He argues that marijuana is a beneficial substance that has been “demonized” by the government.

“I’m not going to go into drug treatment because I admitted to using pot,” he said.

Holtry said she couldn’t comment on the particular circumstances of Glick’s case but added that the monitoring program is only for nurses actively trying to overcome a chemical dependency.

“If someone is not willing to comply with all those terms and conditions,” she said. “then obviously that is not an option for them.”

Glick was terminated in April by Samaritan Health Services for refusing to submit to a drug test after a supervisor raised questions about gaps in patient paperwork. He fought his firing through a union grievance process but was unable to win his job back.

Glick, 49, had worked at Samaritan for the past 15 years, most recently in the health care network’s regional mental health center in Corvallis. He had also become an outspoken advocate for medicinal marijuana, leading demonstrations, speaking at conferences and handing out business cards identifying him as a “cannabis nurse.”

Although Oregon is one of about a dozen states that allows the drug to be used for medical purposes, the practice remains controversial, and Glick claimed his advocacy work was the real reason for his dismissal.

A Samaritan official denied that charge, insisting Glick was terminated “for good cause.” Steve Jasperson, chief executive officer of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, told the Gazette-Times last spring that the hospital’s policies clearly state it can require a drug test if there is “reasonable suspicion” that an employee might be impaired.

Glick continues to deny that he reported to work under the influence of marijuana or any other drug.

“I’ve never been impaired or intoxicated for a moment at any nursing job,” he said. “All I am is an uppity nurse.”

But he also admits that he occasionally uses marijuana to treat his own medical conditions, which include insomnia and pain from spinal problems, even though those problems are not severe enough to qualify for the Oregon medical marijuana program.

In Glick’s view, it makes more sense to use a plant he believes to be safe and effective than to dose himself with synthetic sleep aids and pain-killers.

“I do take ibuprofen now and then, but I don’t like pharmaceuticals,” he said.

In the end, he said, it was his refusal to lie about his pot use that cost him his nursing license.

“I probably could have lied my way through it, either by lying my way into the medical marijuana program or by lying about my use of the drug,” Glick said. “I didn’t really give (the nursing board) much of a choice in the matter.”

Glick hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll apply for reinstatement of his nursing license when the three-year waiting period is up. After months of battling his former employer and the state over rules he disagrees with, he’s ready for a change.

For now he’s going back to school, signing up for a general agricultural program at Oregon State University.

“I don’t want to spend my life where I’m not wanted. ... It’s pretty likely that I’m done with nursing,” Glick said. “I’m going to work with plants for awhile.”

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.

[palmspringsbum]

Nurse admits using pot, loses license and job

Associated Press
November 25, 2006
The Spokesman-Review

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An advocate for the use of medicinal marijuana has decided to give up his nursing license rather than submit to a drug test.

Ed Glick, 49, acknowledged that he used marijuana to help him sleep and ease back pain, and he agreed to relinquish his license after more than 20 years as a nurse.

"I admitted to using an illegal drug, and that violates the standards of practice for Oregon nurses," Glick told the Gazette-Times newspaper.

Under an agreement with the Oregon State Board of Nursing that took effect Nov. 8, it will be three years before Glick can apply to have his license reinstated.

Samaritan Health Services fired Glick in April for refusing to take a drug test after a supervisor raised questions about gaps in patient paperwork. He fought his firing through a union grievance process but was unable to save his job.

Glick worked at Samaritan for 15 years, most recently in the health care network's regional mental health center in Corvallis. He had also become an outspoken advocate for medicinal marijuana, leading demonstrations, speaking at conferences and handing out business cards identifying him as a "cannabis nurse." Glick, whose back problems are not severe enough to qualify for the Oregon medical marijuana program, maintains he was fired because of his advocacy work.

Steve Jasperson, chief executive officer of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, told the Gazette-Times last spring that the hospital's policies clearly state it can require a drug test if there is "reasonable suspicion" that an employee might be impaired.

Glick might have been able to keep his license by entering a nurse monitoring program, a five-year probationary arrangement that requires treatment and regular urinalysis. He refused.

Barbara Holtry, a spokeswoman for the Oregon State Board of Nursing, said the monitoring program is only for nurses actively trying to overcome a chemical dependency.

"If someone is not willing to comply with all those terms and conditions, then obviously that is not an option for them," she said.

[palmspringsbum]

County agrees to $18,000 payment to settle lawsuit filed by inmate who said he was molested by other prisoners

News Review (The)
JOHN SOWELL, jsowell@newsreview.info
December 10, 2006


Douglas County officials agreed Wednesday to pay $18,000 to an incarcerated former Myrtle Creek resident who claimed he was molested by two male prisoners while in custody in the county jail. The man, now 20, was 16 at the time.

The Board of Commissioners agreed to the payment to settle a lawsuit filed against the county in U.S. District Court in Eugene. The agreement came following negotiations between the attorneys representing the county and the man, who is serving nearly six years in the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton.

Because he was a minor when he was allegedly victimized, The News-Review has chosen to not publish his name.

The youth was awaiting trial on robbery, assault and conspiracy charges in April 2003 when he was placed in a cell with two convicted sex offenders. He was being tried as an adult and had been moved to the jail after originally being housed at the county Juvenile Detention Center.

For a time, he had been held in a segregation unit. Later, he was moved to C Tank, where sexual offenders and suspects needing medical attention were held because of its location next to an observation post.

Two of the men in C Tank had criminal records as sex offenders. One had been declared a predatory sexual offender by the Oregon Board of Parole and Post Prison Supervision.

The man who said he was victimized, who has a slight build, claimed that man once tried to join him in the shower. On other occasions, he said that man tried to rub his crotch. He said he awoke one day to find the second man on his bunk molesting him.

In his complaint, the victim said he informed three different jailers that he was being accosted and "messed with" by the sexual offenders. He said he was told he would have to deal with the problem himself, according to the complaint.

The youth's father complained to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. By that time, complainant had been convicted of robbery and taken to the McLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn.

Both adult suspects were charged with third-degree sexual abuse. However, a grand jury failed to bring indictments against either man and the charges were dismissed.

Jens Schmidt, a Eugene attorney who represented the county in the lawsuit, said the complainant never told jail officials he was being sexually molested. Schmidt said the man told him during questioning for a deposition that at most he told jailers he was being "messed with" and asked to be moved.

"There was no evidence developed in the case that jail staff ignored complaints of sexual advances ... ," Schmidt said.

The youth and five other defendants were convicted of breaking into a Myrtle Creek man's mobile home, beating him and stealing his medical marijuana. He is scheduled to be released in January 2009.



* You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info

[palmspringsbum]

DUII crash turns up pot plants in SUV

<table class=posttable align=right width=220><tr><td class=postcell><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/vaughn_tamara.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Tamara Vaughn (Crook County Jail photo)</td></tr></table>Posted: 9:43 PM, Dec. 18, 2006

By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.com

A Prineville woman who lost control of her SUV on a curve south of town Sunday night was arrested on DUII charges. But she could be in even more trouble, due to the three 2-foot-tall marijuana plants allegedly found in the overturned vehicle, authorities said.

Crook County sheriff's deputies responded around 8:30 p.m. to the single-vehicle crash on Southeast Lower Davis Road, near the Juniper Grove RV Park, said Crook County Undersheriff Jim Hensley.

Officers found a 1996 Chevy Blazer driven by Tamara Annette Vaughn, 41, had been traveling northbound when it failed to negotiate a curve and left the roadway, rolling one time and coming to rest on its roof, Hensley said.

Deputies contacted Vaughn, who suffered minor injuries in the crash but refused medical treatment from Crook County Rural Fire ambulance personnel, Hensley said. She was arrested for driving under the influence and taken to the county jail, where she was cited and released.

While at the scene, deputies learned Vaughn allegedly had been transporting three marijuana plants in her vehicle at the time of the crash, Hensley said. All three plants were about two feet high and growing in planters.

The plants were seized as evidence, the undersheriff said, and the results of the drug-manufacturing investigation will be forwarded to the district attorney for review.

[palmspringsbum]

December 19, 2006

Butte Falls must help pay for pot prosecution

<span class=postbold>DA says case isn't worth the expense; town marshal says letting suspected smuggler go free sends a bad message</span>

By sanne specht
The Mail-Tribune

BUTTE FALLS — Town leaders say they will pay to help prosecute a woman who allegedly smuggled marijuana in care packages to her daughter in New Jersey, who sold it to help pay for college.

"She shipped the marijuana in cereal boxes and coffee," said Butte Falls Marshal Don Leahan. "They made between $12,000 and $14,000 in marijuana sales if you take the statements of the daughter into account."

Leahan said tips from community members initiated his investigation of Catherine Carlisle, who lives near Butte Falls and owns the Whistle Stop Emporium. She has not been charged with a crime.

"Everybody knows she's been selling marijuana," Leahan maintained. "But nobody was doing anything. This is a big deal in a little town like this."

Leahan said Carlisle's daughter, a Butte Falls postal employee, and a New Jersey investigator have given statements that Carlisle recently sent five ounces of marijuana to her daughter in two separate shipments.

Leahan said Carlisle has engaged in interstate commerce of narcotics for sale. But the Jackson County District Attorney's Office won't prosecute the case unless Butte Falls foots the bill for bringing in the out-of-state witnesses, he said.

Leahan is angry the little town of Butte Falls could have to pay for prosecution. But it will, he said.

"I spoke to the assistant D.A. this morning," said Leahan. "She said 'Yes, we'll prosecute. But we won't pay for the witnesses.' I said 'Then I guess the city will have to pay. We'll have a bake sale if we have to.' "

Carlisle, who said she has a permit to grow marijuana for three licensed medical marijuana users, admits to illegally mailing the drug to her daughter in the past.

"Yes, I have sent marijuana," said Carlisle. "We made a mistake, my daughter and I."

But Carlisle denies Leahan's allegations of recent shipments. This time she is being framed, she said. "And I'll go to my grave swearing to that," Carlisle said.

Thieves recently stole all of her marijuana, leaving her with nothing to ship to her daughter or offer to her marijuana patients, Carlisle said.

Carlisle said she is being set up by her best friend who gave false information to an overzealous marshal who is pursuing her in a "vicious vendetta."

"These people are evil," she said. "And this is a weird little town. "

Jackson County District Attorney Mark Huddleston said this is the first time a local community has offered to finance an aspect of a county prosecutor's case.

"This is unprecedented in my experience," said Huddleston. Huddleston stands by his refusal to pay for plane fare and lodging for the out-of-state witnesses, saying the county, like the state, must spend its limited funds on prosecuting more serious crimes.

"It's not worth spending scarce county funds on a case with this level of crime and possible punishment," said Huddleston. "It doesn't have anything to do with the municipality. We have a limited pool of money. We'd say the same thing if this was (a pending case) in Medford."

Leahan said punishing Carlisle is not the issue, it's taking a stand against selling drugs.

"It's against the law," he said. "How can I ignore that? And if the D.A. doesn't prosecute, they're saying it's OK."

Mayor Ron Ormond said Huddleston's decision sends the wrong message to his community. Ormond said Butte Falls is full of "rumors and innuendo" about rampant drug use.

"We used to have a pair of sneakers hanging over the street on some wires," said Ormond. "I was informed that meant drugs were available in the community. I don't think it's OK."

Ormond said he will take the matter before council members at their Jan. 14 meeting.

"I can't see the council refusing," he said. "If people are shipping marijuana, who knows what the hell else they're shipping."

<small>Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 776-4497 or e-mail sspecht@mailtribune.com. </small>

[palmspringsbum]

Keeping a clear head, sniffing out the news

Thursday, December 21, 2006
By Stephen Beaven
The Oregonian


First, let's make one thing perfectly clear: I did not inhale.

But there were plenty of people who did at the fifth annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards. Right there on the porch at the Ambridge Event Center in Northeast. Strictly for medicinal purposes, of course.

The daylong event Dec. 9 was sponsored by the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. It was billed by organizers as "the only event of its kind in the United States."

Pretty lofty rhetoric.

To be honest, though, other than the "med room" out on the porch, this gathering felt like a convention. Not like a mortgage brokers' convention, where all the guys are decked out in suits from Men's Wearhouse and all the ladies are sporting new duds from the Dress Barn.

No, there was plenty of hemp clothing and pipes and pot-leaf T-shirts, and one woman had really awesome butt-length dreads. There was also a fashion show and an awards ceremony for best Oregon weed and a nice Buddhist monk.

Still, it really did feel like a convention because of all the booths and the round tables with white cloths. Also, it was held in a ballroom. Plus, it's not like there were a bunch of slack-jawed potatoheads sitting around staring into space, like you'd expect in a room full of serious dope smokers.

Out on the porch, though, it was a whole different story. Because the porch was reserved for people with medical marijuana cards. But I have to admit that it struck me as I was watching these good people take massive hits off of a really, really beautiful ceramic pipe that none of them looked particularly sickly.

I mean, most of them looked like my friends from high school sitting around in some kid's backyard while his parents were out of town, passing a pipe in a slow, mesmerizing circle.

There was lots of coughing, of course. But not, like, this-guy-needs-to-go-to-the-hospital coughing.

Then I talked to Tony Pearson. He's a natty 61-year-old retired engineer from Portland who has glaucoma. He says a little pot in the morning and a little at night helps relieve the pressure in his eyes that accompanies his illness.

Another guy told me he'd had 24 surgeries because of a degenerative bone disease and that Mary Jane helps ease the pain.

So, OK, that's legit. Let them have their dope, already.

Once I made up my mind on that, I closed my little notebook, put my pen back behind my ear and headed for the parking lot.

But my head was clear. I wasn't even hungry.

<small>Stephen Beaven: 503-294-7663; stevebeaven@news.oregonian.com </small>


<center><small>©2007 The Oregonian</small></center>

[palmspringsbum]

Police seize 105 marijuana plants from man with medical card

kgw.com

12:02 PM PST on Wednesday, December 27, 2006

By ANTONIA GIEDWOYN, kgw.com Staff

CLATSKANIE, Ore. –- Police confiscated more than 100 marijuana plants from a Clatskanie man with a medical marijuana card last Friday.

On December 22, Washington State Police troopers stopped a Dodge Ram pickup driven by 58-year-old Darrel R. Lundeen, from Clatskanie, for speeding on Interstate 205.

During the stop, troopers found marijuana packages and arrested Lundeen on drug-related charges, said Oregon State Police Sergeant Larry Lucas.

Troopers called Oregon State Police after Lundeen admitted to growing marijuana at his Clatskanie home to give to people for medical purposes.

Police who went to Lundeen’s residence in the 15000 block of River Front Road in Clatskanie seized approximately 105 marijuana plants. That amount is above the number of plants a person is allowed to possess for medical purposes under Oregon law, Lucas said.

Lundeen, who is registered to grow medical marijuana, was not taken into custody. The case was forwarded to the Columbia County District Attorney's Office.

Under Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act, which became law through a ballot initiative in 1998, a person who grows marijuana for a patient must be registered through the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. The authorized person is limited to growing marijuana for up to four patients, and is limited to growing 18 seedlings or starts and six mature plants per patient.

[palmspringsbum]

More than 100 marijuana plants seized in Clatskanie
By Staff

The Daily News Online
Dec 27, 2006 - 01:54:49 pm PST

CLATSKANIE --- Oregon State Police, following up on a tip from the Washington State Patrol, seized approximately 105 marijuana plants Friday afternoon from a Clatskanie-area residence. No arrests were made but the case is being referred to the Columbia County District Attorney's Office for review.

According to a news release from OSP, on Friday WSP troopers stopped a 2006 Dodge Ram pickup driven by Darrel R. Lundeen, 58, of Clatskanie, for speeding on Interstate 205 southbound near milepost 35. During the stop, WSP troopers arrested Lundeen after finding individual packages of marijuana totaling 175 grams, as well as drug paraphernalia, in Lundeen's vehicle, the news release said

WSP contacted Columbia Enforcement Narcotics Team Oregon State Police Detective Jeromy Hasenkamp with information that Lundeen admitted growing marijuana at his Clatskanie home to give to people for medical purposes.

Detective Hasenkamp, along with OSP troopers and Clatskanie police, went to Lundeen's residence in the 15000 block of River Front Road in Clatskanie, where Lundeen consented to a search. According to the news release, troopers seized approximately 105 marijuana plants in various stages of growth.

Although Lundeen is registered to grow medical marijuana for himself, the amount is above the number of plants an individual is allowed to possess under Oregon law, the news release said.

Lundeen was not taken into custody in Oregon.

Under Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act, which became law through a ballot initiative in 1998, a person who grows marijuana for a patient must be registered through the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program and is required to have a grow site card displayed. The authorized person is limited to growing marijuana for up to four patients, and is limited to growing 18 seedlings or starts and six mature plants per patient. The seized marijuana plants were above the number Lundeen was authorized to grow, the news release said.

There currently are 11,104 patients in Oregon with medical marijuana permits.

More information about the OMMP can be found on the Web at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/about_us.shtml.

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Police find 105 pot plants in raid at house

Thursday, December 28, 2006
By JOHN BRANTON Columbian staff writer
The Columbian


<table class=posttable align=right width=250><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/lundeen_darrel.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Darrel Lundeen. Police say pot found at home.</td></tr></table>Police said they found 105 marijuana plants in a raid at the home of an Oregon man Washington State Patrol troopers arrested last week near Salmon Creek.

During a traffic stop for speeding, 58-year-old Darrel Lundeen told the WSP troopers that he was carrying marijuana, according to a WSP bulletin. He reportedly told troopers he grew marijuana for patients who use it legally for medicinal purposes.

Lundeen, whose home in Clatskanie, Ore., home was raided Friday, was not arrested, according to a bulletin from the Oregon State Police.

Instead, Oregon officers sent their reports to the Columbia County, Ore., District Attorney's Office, asking that officials consider whether to file criminal charges against Lundeen.

The case began on the morning of Dec. 22, when a laser speed-checking device that WSP troopers were using in Clark County registered the speed of Lundeen's 2006 Dodge Ram pickup at 13 mph over the 60-mph limit.

Troopers stopped Lundeen for the alleged speeding violation and, later, said they found packages containing 175 grams of pot in his truck.

After Lundeen allegedly told them he grew pot for medical patients, troopers arrested him on suspicion of possessing marijuana with intent to deliver, and ticketed him for speeding.

He was taken to the Clark County Jail and released later that day.

Man authorized search

A bulletin released Wednesday said WSP troopers told the Oregon State Police what Lundeen had said about growing marijuana. Oregon officials said they then obtained Lundeen's permission to search his home and found the plants.

Medical marijuana can be used legally in Oregon and Washington for relief from pain, cramping and nausea by patients who suffer from certain serious medical problems and obtain a certificate signed by a physician.

In Oregon, the OSP bulletin said, authorized people can grow marijuana for as many as four patients. Lundeen is authorized, officials said, but the law limits the pot that can be grown to 18 seedlings or starter plants and six mature plants per patient.

Lundeen's 105 plants were more than Oregon law allows, officials said. Lundeen could not be reached for comment.

In Washington, the medical- marijuana law says doctor-certified patients can have a 60-day supply but doesn't define how much that would be.

The executive board of the Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force, assisted by the Clark County Prosecutor's Office, allows three ounces of pot per patient; or nine plants: three starter, three juvenile and three mature.

At least one marijuana advocate, Steve Sarich of Seattle, has challenged the task force's limit as unlawful.

Unlike Oregon's law, however, Washington's Initiative 692 does not provide any legal way for certified patients to obtain marijuana legally, according to the Washington Department of Health.

Doctors in Washington can certify patients to use marijuana but cannot prescribe it.

No license to grow or sell marijuana is available in Washington, officials said.

For more information, visit www.doh.wa.gov. In the search box, type "marijuana."

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

105 marijuana plants seized in Clatskanie

The Astorian


Clatskanie - Oregon State Police seized 105 marijuana plants from the home of a Clatskanie man who is registered to grow medical marijuana.

OSP officers were acting on a tip from Washington State Patrol, who had arrested Darrel R. Lundeen, 58, earlier Friday after finding drug paraphernalia and 175 grams (about 3 3/4 pounds, or more than 61 ounces) of marijuana in individual packages in his pickup truck after pulling him over for speeding on Interstate 205. WSP told Oregon authorities that during the traffic stop, Lundeen admitted to growing marijuana at his home to give to people for medical purposes, OSP reported.

WSP contacted OSP Det. Jeromy Hasenkamp, a member of the Columbia Enforcement Narcotics Team. Hasenkamp, along with OSP troopers and Clatskanie police, went to Lundeen's home in the 15000 block of River Front Road, where officers seized about 105 marijuana plants in various stages of growth. He was not arrested and the case is being referred to the Columbia County District Attorney's Office.

Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act, which became law through a ballot initiative in 1998, requires a person who grows marijuana for a patient to be registered through the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) and to have a grow site card displayed. The authorized person is limited to growing marijuana for up to four patients, and is limited to growing 18 seedlings or starts and six mature plants per patient. The 105 marijuana plants seized by police officers were those above the number Lundeen was authorized to grow under the OMMP.

There are 11,104 patients in Oregon with medical marijuana permits. More information about the OMMP can be found on the Web at (http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/about_us.shtml).

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Sheriff's office begins new drug-testing policy

<span clas=postbold>Changes - Recent problems led to the new rules, which will be distributed this week</span>

Thursday, January 11, 2007
JESSICA BRUDER
The Oregonian

OREGON CITY -- Nearly a year after two prescription drug-addicted deputies made headlines and prompted calls for reform, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office has rolled out its first drug-testing policy.

The policy took effect at the end of December and requires a urine test for any employee suspected of abusing either illegal or prescription drugs. Undersheriff Charley Bowen, who reached an agreement to adopt the new rules with the Clackamas County Peace Officers Association Dec. 1, said they will give his agency "a better shot" at catching drug abuse in the future.

"We were surprised last year when we had a couple of employees that were arrested here," Bowen said. "I think that really brought it home for us."

In December 2005, deputy David Verbos was arrested after using his service weapon to rob cash or painkillers from four businesses, including a Target store pharmacy in Wilsonville, his own patrol district. Verbos was sentenced in September to 13 years in prison.

In January 2006, Raymond Lovelace, a jail sergeant, resigned under suspicion of forging prescriptions for painkillers. Four months later, he appeared in Clackamas County Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to one felony count of tampering with drug records.

Lovelace was sentenced to 15 days in jail and stripped of his law enforcement certification. He also was required to pay $607 in fines, undergo drug counseling and serve 18 months' probation.

Though both deputies had exhibited warning signs of possible drug dependence, Bowen said, they also suffered from serious medical conditions, so co-workers were apt to blame any unusual symptoms on illness.

Under the new policy, employees must notify the sheriff's office if they are taking any prescription drugs that could impair their performance, and supervisors have been trained to recognize signs of abuse and report their suspicions.

" 'Reasonable suspicion' would be just any articulable observations, from their appearance, behavior, speech, a body odor," Bowen said. Other indicators, he said, could include "deteriorating work performance and attendance, tardiness, or the kind of effects you might see from withdrawal, someone being really lethargic."

Employees who trigger suspicion and then test positive for drugs will be removed from duty. In some cases, the policy states, they may return to work after completing an evaluation, undergoing any necessary treatment and getting a recommendation from a substance abuse professional.

Bowen said the new policy would be distributed agencywide this week. Among other details, the 18-page document includes protocols for testing employees and forbids employees from using medical marijuana.

Jessica Bruder: 503-294-5915; jessicabruder@news.oregonian.com

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This looks like a good one
<blockquote>
<i>And every elected official, from Kulongoski on down to individual House and Senate members would have to submit to drug tests administered twice a year by the state police, should House Bill 2306, backed by the interim House Judiciary Committee, pass muster with lawmakers.</i>
</blockquote>

Many bills flying under public radar

<span class=postbold>Thousands could bring big changes for Oregonians</span>

BY JULIA SILVERMAN
The Statesman-Journal


January 13, 2007

The heavy hitters for this 2007 legislative session, from a raise in the cigarette tax to pay for an expansion of children's health care to a new push for renewable energy, have already received plenty of ink.

But a bill that would allow the State Forest Department to seek permission to put Smokey Bear's image on Oregon license plates?

Not so much.

Hovering just below the spotlight in Salem are literally thousands of bills that legislators will consider during the next six months, from the mundane to the costly. Some are sure to provoke outrage among small but vocal groups of Oregonians, while others could bring significant shifts in health care, public safety and the political landscape.

There's no way to definitively forecast which of the myriad proposals will become law. But the early bills, many filed at the request of Gov. Ted Kulongoski on behalf of state agencies, offer a broad preview of the under-the-radar topics percolating in Salem this year.

On the crime front, those who apply for legal medical marijuana cards would have to face a criminal background check by the state Department of Human Services, under Senate Bill 161.

The persistent tailgaters who dot the state's highways would face increased fines of as much as $720, under Senate Bill 108, introduced on behalf of Oregon State Police, particularly if driving too close to the car in front of them contributes to a collision.

And on the heels of several high-profile police shootings across the state, the Department of Justice is petitioning to require each county to develop a plan governing the use of deadly force by officials in Senate Bill 111.

State police also are backing House Bill 2163, which would require all cigarettes sold in the state to be "fire-safe," or cigarettes that can't spark fires. Similar laws are in effect in New York, California, Illinois, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to the advocacy group Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes.

Politically, House Bill 2084 could see Oregon jostling states like Nevada, Iowa and South Carolina for a more prominent role in the presidential primary season. Currently, the major party nominees are a foregone conclusion by the time the Oregon primary rolls around. The bill would give Secretary of State Bill Bradbury the authority to choose a new date for the presidential primary.

House Bill 2065, this one filed at the request of the House Interim Committee on Economic Development, would install a lieutenant governor in Oregon, one of only a handful of states that's currently without the position.

And every elected official, from Kulongoski on down to individual House and Senate members would have to submit to drug tests administered twice a year by the state police, should House Bill 2306, backed by the interim House Judiciary Committee, pass muster with lawmakers.

As for safety issues, Oregonians who live on narrow, twisty roads would have to slow down to 15 mph under House Bill 2297, proposed by Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie. And there would no more ripping around the Oregon Dunes, or anyplace else in the state, on an ATV for anyone under the age of 12, under Senate Bill 49 -- proposed by State Sens. Richard Devlin of Tualatin and Alan Bates of Ashland, both Democrats.

Some proposed bills are nods to national health trends, including increasing consciousness by consumers about food origins and widespread concerns over the possibility of a nationwide pandemic, like bird flu. House Bill 2185 would establish a new public health director position at the Department of Human Services, with authority over emergency health outbreaks; House Bill 2288, a request of the state Department of Agriculture, would set up an Oregon Food Policy council to act as advisory body on nutrition and local food production issues.

A few of the bills recycle consistently controversial topics, like Senate Bill 33, backed by the "Healthy Smiles" Coalition, which would require that fluoride be added by any water supplier serving more than 10,000 people in the state.

And as for Smokey Bear, the icon of fighting forest fires makes his cameo appearance in House Bill 2036, a bill backed by a group called the "Keep Oregon Green Association, Inc.," which is hoping old Smokey's image could be used on new license plates promoting wildfire prevention.

[palmspringsbum]

kptv.com

Southern Oregon Man Beaten With Ax Handle

POSTED: 6:47 pm PST January 15, 2007
UPDATED: 7:10 pm PST January 15, 2007

WILLIAMS, Ore. -- A Southern Oregon man told authorities he was beaten with an ax handle after four acquaintances forced their way into his house and accused him of stealing their medical marijuana.

Christopher Murray, of Williams, said the suspects pointed guns during the beating, and then drove him to two undisclosed locations.

Murray was later treated for cuts and scrapes at a Grants Pass hospital.

The Josephine County sheriff's office said two suspects have been identified by their full names and addresses. Another two men have been identified only by their first names.

The sheriff's office said one suspect fled into the woods when investigators visited his home.

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January 16, 2007

Beating tale has strange ending

<span class=postbold>Alleged assailants offered their victim painkillers before driving him home</span>

By anita burke
Mail Tribune

Authorities in Josephine County are looking for four men they believe kidnapped a Williams man Sunday afternoon, beat him with an ax handle and then gave him medication for the pain.

The 35-year-old victim told Josephine County sheriff's deputies that four men he knew burst into his Cedar Flat Road home at about noon Sunday and accused him of stealing their medical marijuana, the sheriff's office reported in a press release Monday.

The assailants beat him with an ax handle while holding a handgun and a shotgun on him, then forced him into a vehicle. They drove him to two undisclosed locations in Grants Pass, gave him some Vicodin, then took him home, said Josephine County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Ken Selig.

The victim, who suffered cuts, scrapes and blackened eyes, went to a neighbor's house to call for help around 5:45 p.m. Sunday. He was taken by American Medical Response ambulance to Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, where he was treated and released.

Deputies interviewed the victim and got the first names of the assailants. The group all knew one another casually and likely had used drugs together in the past, Selig said.

Deputies went to the home of one of the identified suspects, Benjamin Paul Jones, 39, on East Fork Road, Williams. Jones fled out a back door into the woods, but officials seized his vehicle and other evidence of the altercation, Selig said. Jones has a medical marijuana card and had reported a theft of his marijuana to police.

Selig said Jones phoned investigators Monday and told them he plans to come in with an attorney to discuss Sunday's incident. Officials also hope to track down Ethan Allen Felcher, 33, of Williams and two men identified only as Shane and Curt.

"We'd love to hear from them," Selig said. "We know something happened, but we've only heard one side of the story. We hope people will cooperate."

Detectives are continuing the investigation and ask anyone with information about the reported kidnapping and assault or the whereabouts of the suspects to call police. Reach the case detective at 474-5153, Ext. 3523, or call the department's confidential tip line at 474-5160.

Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4485, or e-mail aburke@mailtribune.com.

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January 21, 2007

Butte Falls woman investigated for drug smuggling

<span class=postbold>City Council approves ordinance allowing the town to pay costs of out-of-state witnesses</span>

By sanne specht
Mail Tribune

BUTTE FALLS — With the support of town leaders, the town marshal is proceeding with his investigation of a Butte Falls woman accused of smuggling marijuana in care packages to her daughter in New Jersey, who sold it to help pay for college.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance allowing them to pay costs for bringing in out-of-area witnesses for felony crimes "if necessary," said Marshal Don Leahan.

Leahan also appeared before a grand jury last week and obtained a subpoena for the financial records of nearby resident and "Whistle Stop Emporium" business owner Catherine Carlisle, he said.

Carlisle, who has a permit to grow marijuana for three licensed medical marijuana users, admits to illegally mailing the drug to her daughter in the past. But a recent robbery at her home claimed all of her marijuana, leaving her with nothing to ship to her daughter or offer to her marijuana patients, Carlisle said.

Carlisle insists she is being framed, but she is trying to keep a positive perspective about the city's new ordinance, she said.

"I always wanted to be important in passing legislation," said Carlisle. "I just never thought it would be in Butte Falls."

Leahan said Carlisle has engaged in interstate commerce of narcotics for sale. Tips from community members initiated his investigation of Carlisle.

"This is a big deal in a little town like this with only four real businesses," said Leahan. "It would be the same as if every business in the entire Medford mall was selling drugs."

Carlisle said her former best friend has given false information to an overzealous marshal — who is pursuing her in a "vicious vendetta," she said.

Jackson County District Attorney Mark Huddleston may not prosecute the case unless Butte Falls foots the bill for bringing in the out-of-state witnesses in the small-town case, Leahan said, adding he is angry the little town of Butte Falls could have to pay for prosecution of Carlisle.

Mayor Ron Ormond said Huddleston's decision sends the wrong message to his community. Without mentioning Carlisle by name, Ormond took the issue of paying for out-of-state witnesses before council members at the Jan. 14 City Council meeting.

Carlisle is frustrated that she has been unable to have direct communication with the DA or city leaders, she said.

"Not one single person from the council or the mayor has ever came in here to talk to me," said Carlisle. "The DA's office won't call me back. I can't afford legal representation. We'll have to get a public defender and I hope they have some good ones. I have no idea what's going to happen."

According to statements made by Carlisle's daughter, the marijuana shipped in cereal boxes and coffee brought in between $12,000 and $14,000 in marijuana sales, Leahan said.

Leahan said statements from Carlisle's daughter, in addition to those from a Butte Falls postal employee and a New Jersey investigator, prove Carlisle recently sent 5 ounces of marijuana to her daughter in two shipments. The witness' statements, combined with Carlisle's financial records, make a solid case, said Leahan.

Huddleston was not available for comment on Friday, but has said previously this is the first time a local community has offered to finance an aspect of a county prosecutor's case. Huddleston declined to pay for plane fare and lodging for out-of-state witnesses in this case because the county, like the state, must spend its limited funds on prosecuting more serious crimes, he said.

Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 776-4497 or e-mail sspecht@mailtribune.com.

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Medical marijuana abusers


BY WW EDITORIAL STAFF | newsdesk at wweek dot com


[February 7th, 2007] In preparation for a state law enforcement conference last year, Portland Police Sgt. Pat Walsh called drug units across Oregon to ask what they were most worried about. The answer: medical marijuana.

"It's not Grandma with stomach cancer that we have a problem with," Walsh says—it's the scores of people using the law as a cover for slinging dope, giving those with a legitimate need a bad name.

So in the name of the legit growers in our Jan. 24 cover story, "Garden of Weedin'," we make medical marijuana abusers this week's Rogues . Law-enforcement officials say once a medical marijuana card is issued, there's little oversight to make sure the right amount of pot is being grown and that all the nugs are going to patients. Portland police don't keep separate statistics on medical-marijuana cases, but estimate they investigated about 30 such cases last year.

In one such case, residents of a home on Portland's North Terry Street had two medical marijuana cards, letting them legally grow 12 marijuana plants.

But police say the neighborhood smelled like a Cheech and Chong movie and the home had a lot of foot traffic. A search warrant revealed more than three times the legal number of plants—some as big as Christmas trees and each capable of producing up to a pound of pot.

Police hauled it away in 55 burlap evidence sacks. They left 12 plants and 48 ounces of pot, bringing the home back into legal compliance. The September 2006 raid also netted 20 pipes and bongs, two digital scales, plastic baggies, a 9 mm Glock and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

The two residents, Christopher Pipkey and Timothy Longbord, said they weren't selling the drugs and had started growing for additional patients before the paperwork had been competed. Each was charged with manufacturing and possessing marijuana, and child endangerment because they had a 7-year-old girl in the house. Both pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

[palmspringsbum]

Bill would weed out medical pot-using employees

07:05 PM PST on Wednesday, February 7, 2007

kgw.com

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Employees who legally use marijuana under Oregon's voter-passed medical cannabis laws could be fired for flunking a drug test under a proposed Senate bill under committee consideration Wednesday.

Backers say the law would provide clarity on an issue surfacing in the workplace with increasing frequency. The bill would not just allow employers to remove workers if they are found to be impaired or consuming marijuana on the job, but if they test positive for using the substance outside of the workplace.

<table class=posttable align=right width=160><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/marijuana_graphic.jpg></td></tr></table>Opponents of the bill say it unfairly punishes medical marijuana users working in Oregon. They say workers can have traces of the drug in their system a month after use, and impairment can also come from a host of other doctor-prescribed and over-the-counter medications.

Lawmakers came down on both sides of the issue.

"More years ago and more pounds ago than I want to count, I spent 20 years as a professional, commercial helicopter pilot," said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who testified in support of the bill. "It is a zero-tolerance for drugs industry ... to assure a safe operation in the kind of very dangerous work that we were doing."

But Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who testified before the committee, said that employers should look for obvious signs of impairment, rather than drug tests, to pinpoint whether an employee's ability to carry out their job is truly affected.

J.L. Wilson, Oregon director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the law was critical for employers to avoid lawsuits.

"There's a whole host of plaintiff's attorneys looking for business and this is another avenue for them if you have impaired workers," said Wilson.

Others said the bill would fail to weed out employees that might be impaired by other doctor-prescribed or over-the-counter drugs, like those that contain codeine, amphetamines or morphine.

"This bill doesn't make us any safer," said Andrea Meyer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "It presumes that everyone who is using medical marijuana is impaired while at the same time individuals using other medications are not."

Lorenzo Gonzales, a 43-year-old machinist, said he was fired last month from his job with Forest Grove-based Merix, after traces of cannabis showed up in his mandatory drug test. The registered medical marijuana user said he takes cannabis for chronic pain due to several motorcycle accidents but that he only used the drug at night and it never impaired his ability in the workplace.

"The job I did was extremely complex and there's no way I could use my medication and think straight," Gonzales said.

But whether the high-tech manufacturing company had the outright authority to fire Gonzales, one of Oregon's 12,000 legally registered medical marijuana users, is a tricky question.

The Senate bill comes more than a year after the Oregon Supreme Court ruled against millwright Robert Washburn, a registered medical marijuana user who was fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests showed traces of the drug.

But the court's decision skirted the issue of marijuana use in the workplace and proponents of the legislation said lawmakers need to weigh in.

"The court cases that have come forward have not answered that question," said Jessica Adamson, government affairs manager at Oregon's branch of Associated General Contractors.

"We all believed we were talking about folks in the last three to six months of their life," Adamson said of the voter-approved medical marijuana law. "Not the kind of folks who would get it for back pain and show up on a construction site."

[palmspringsbum]

Medical Marijuana is legal. Don't discriminate against patients.

BlueOregon
<span class=postbigbold>guest column</span>
By Meg Ramirez of Sandy, Oregon. Previously, Meg contributed "Keep it simple, stupid."
February 7, 2007

I got a letter today… A trip to my mailbox is usually anything but exciting, but I must admit I was intrigued by the yellow manila envelope nestled in amongst the usual bills and junk mail today. Its cellophane window and bulk rate post mark told me it was a mass mailing, but the return address cryptically said only: Walter Cronkite.

Walter Cronkite? Why was the venerable old newsman writing to me?

A more careful examination of the front of the envelope told me. It said: “It’s time to end the disastrous War on Drugs.”

How interesting. "The most trusted man in America" is advocating against the War on Drugs and on behalf of the Drug Policy Alliance.

He writes:
<blockquote>
Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens.
I am speaking of the War on Drugs.

And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the War on Drugs is a failure.
</blockquote>
Who, indeed?

I raise this issue here on BlueOregon, because I feel it’s long past time for the Democratic Party to step up to the plate and stop this second, mad war that’s being perpetrated against our own citizens, right here on our soil.

But alas, the War on Drugs still consumes too much of our elected officials time, energy and resources. And it’s a bipartisan boondoggle. Consider this:

The Oregon Senate Committee for Business, Transportation, and Workforce Development will hold a public hearing today at 1:00 p.m. regarding S.B. 465. This bill, sponsored by the Drug Free Workplace Legislative Work Group, would unnecessarily expand the ability of employers to discriminate against state-registered medical marijuana patients. The bill would allow employers to adopt policies that would permit them to fire or refuse to hire patients for using their medicine in a responsible manner.

If this bill is passed, patients could be targeted for simply having marijuana metabolites in their system, without regard for when patients use their medicine, where they ingest it, or if they are actually medicated while at work.

The committee members are:
<blockquote>
Sen. Rick Metsger, chair (D-26): (503) 986-1726 Sen. Bruce Starr, vice-chair (R-15): (503) 986-1715 Sen. Ryan Decker (D-14): (503) 986-1714 Sen. Larry George (R-13): (503) 986-1713 Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-25): (503) 986-1725
</blockquote>
Three “D”s and two “R”s. I think it’s really sad that one of the few issues our contentious delegates can agree upon is sanctioning hard working Oregonians who have a legal prescription for a medically beneficial substance. Those folks don’t have it hard enough, right? They must suffer from cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, severe pain or nausea, seizures, or persistent muscle spasms to be granted a medical marijuana card – a prescription, if you will – and they’re still working or trying to find work. So let’s put ‘em on the unemployment line. How compassionate. And gee, it’s only a short hop from the unemployment line to public assistance. How intelligent.

A recent post here on BlueOregon objected to the proposal by Republican Representative Wayne Krieger to drug-test legislators. It inspired many comments, both for and against, this idea. Overwhelmingly though, most of those on the “pro” side, appeared to want it as a matter of equity. That is, if we, the people, must be subjected to drug testing, so should those who deem it appropriate to create, monitor and/or enforce such tests – such as politicians, policy setters, cops, judges, and doctors. Very few progressives seem to be in favor of forcing people to pee in a cup – especially when it might actually affect them.

What I also got from that discussion, was a general lack of knowledge of the whole issue by many. People seemed not to know how insidious drug testing has become. Here’s just one example:

“Narcotic Contracts” have become common practice at both the VA and with many Medicaid providers. These contracts demand that a patient who is prescribed Schedule II narcotics must submit to random, “blanket” drug tests, that check for everything from marijuana right up to meth, regardless of what the patient is being treated for. Veterans, who’ve served their country bravely are being cut off from the legally prescribed opiates they need to fight intractable pain, simply because they smoked a joint – usually used also to battle their chronic symptoms.

This policy is gaining widespread popularity because doctors are seeking to indemnify themselves against prosecution by an overzealous DEA. And it is but one of the many examples of those that have been victimized by this costly, ineffective and indiscriminate war.

Mr. Cronkite also wrote:
<blockquote>
When I wanted to learn the truth about the War on Drugs, I took the same approach I did to the war on Vietnam: I hit the streets and reported the story myself. I sought out the people whose lives this war has affected.
</blockquote>
I urge all Progressives, Democrats, and freethinking people to join me, “Uncle Walter,” and so many others in speaking up against this failed War on Drugs. Do some research. Peruse some web sites. Seek out the people whose lives this war has affected. Learn their tragic stories. Politicians know the War on Drugs is a failure that is ruining lives. We need to have the courage and conviction to tell it “the way it is,” as Mr. Cronkite wrote, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue. And then we need to change it.

Special thanks to Nathan Miller, MPP legislative analyst, for the heads-up on S.B. 465. I urge you to call or contact committee members to protest this unnecessary and harmful legislation.

[palmspringsbum]

Hashish case brings issue to forefront

<span class=postbigbold>Derived drug's place unclear under medical marijuana statutes</span>

RUTH LIAO
Statesman Journal


November 10, 2007

The details concerning a Marion County grand jury's refusal to indict a Keizer man for turning his medical marijuana into hash oil remain secret by law, but the decision has rekindled the debate about interpretations of Oregon's medical marijuana statutes.

Advocates of medical marijuana providers said some law enforcement officials still have a hard time accepting legal medicinal users.

"It's still difficult for people to get used to the fact that it was once someone they were putting in jail," said Brian Michaels, a Eugene-area lawyer who is a member of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act advisory committee.

But prosecutors and law enforcement officers said that hashish is illegal under federal controlled-substance guidelines, which Oregon has adopted. Oregon's medical marijuana act allows for marijuana derivatives, but hashish is considered a separate substance, said Deputy District Attorney Courtland Geyer.

"It is classified as a separate drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act," Geyer said. "And they are treated as separate drugs in Oregon's entire network of drug laws."

Anthony Wyatt Beasley, 28, of Keizer was arrested Oct. 19 after police were called to his home on a report of a possible bomb threat, police said. Officers found PVC pipes filled with a concentration of marijuana and police thought hashish was being made.

Beasley, a medical marijuana patient and provider, told police he was extracting tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, from his medicinal marijuana.

Michaels thinks hashish is a compound of marijuana and should be considered legal.

"It's become common to distinguish in the lexicon of our culture marijuana -- bud and hashish -- but they're both represented under marijuana," Michaels said.

While Beasley's case was dismissed this week, other cases in Marion County regarding the use of hashish are pending, Geyer said.

Beasley's case initially drew attention because he was growing 24 plants in his backyard, which bordered a parking lot of McNary High School.

Former Keizer City Council Charles Lee wrote a letter to Keizer City Council, asking if it would consider an ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana from being grown within a 1,000 feet of a school.

The outcome of Beasley's case did not affect his opinion, Lee said.

"It's just the concept of safety and welfare of kids and keeping those things within 1,000 feet of a school," Lee said.

Lee said he also talked with Marion County commissioners about adopting a similar ordinance for the county.

Madeline Martinez, executive director of the marijuana advocacy group Oregon NORML, said law enforcement officials should be trained about understanding the legal interpretations of the law.

Martinez said she's offered to conduct training for law enforcement officials and promotes continual education of medical marijuana providers.

[palmspringsbum]

Salem-News.com (Nov-11-2007 07:23)

Medical Marijuana Misinformation: Required Reprise

<table class=posttable align=right width=240><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/leveque_phillip.jpg width=240 alt="Dr. Phillip Leveque"></td></tr></table>Dr. Phil Leveque Salem-News.com

<span class=postbigbold>Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician, Toxicologist and Pharmacologist.</span>



(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I must belatedly congratulate previous witch-hunter Harry Anslinger and the Hearst Newspapers for thoroughly demonizing cannabis/marijuana which has been used safely as medicine for at least 5,000 years.

They coined the term "Reefer Madness" and apparently the side effects of an overdose of this medicine has stuck in the brains of many people including DEA brainwashed robots and many physicians (marijuana is bad because patients can grow their own but we doctors would prefer they visit our office and use really dangerous drugs like Oxycontin, a real "killer")

Any drug/medicine can be dangerous. Oxycontin has killed thousands and even VIOXX, an aspirin type drug, has killed thousands and now Merck Pharmaceuticals is about to pay out $5 billion to several thousands of victims and their survivors.

The worst adverse side effect of medical cannabis is a temporary "high" or euphoria, the "munchies" or long sleeping bouts. No deaths have ever been reported. Even aspirin causes thousands of deaths by medical use. Medical cannabis is about as addicting as a Starbucks latte or maybe chocolate.

For disbelievers, find me ONE reference of a death from cannabis.

One disbelieving responder has accused me of "handing out medical marijuana cards willy nilly since the program began." I must declare that in Oregon, 2,700 doctors have "handed out" cards to about 17 thousand medical patients. Those 2,700 doctors would be mortified at this accusation.

I was not encouraging (patients) to use cannabis. About 95 percent have been using cannabis as medicine for up to sixty years. They just wanted to do it legally.

Other doctors have found that cannabis is effective for psychiatric disorders, especially war veterans with PTSD. This person also up braided me for signing for patients with histories of drug addiction. (they were using it as medicine.) She quoted Kathleen Haley, the Executive Director of the Medical Board, saying that I, "recommended cannabis for conditions that could not benefit from the drug." If the patient said it works, it must work. Miss Haley is not a medical doctor, but a doctor of jurisprudence, a lawyer, she should not be practicing medicine.


All of my patients had previous diagnosis of an acceptable medical condition, I did not make the required diagnosis. Most diagnoses required highly trained specialists.


I am a general practice doctor but I am a toxicologist with fifty years of experience, cannabis is NOT a poison.

[palmspringsbum]

Marijuana Near School Stirs Former Keizer Councilor Action

The Statesman-Journal
Tue, 16 Oct 2007
Ruth Liao, Statesman Journal


<span class=postbigbold>He Urges Reworking of Law for Medical Growers</span>

Former Keizer city councilor Chuck Lee has requested that city officials look into creating an ordinance that would ban Oregon medical marijuana providers from growing near schools.

On Thursday, Keizer Police investigated the theft of live medical marijuana plants from Anthony Beasley, who lives near McNary High School, police spokesman Capt. Jeff Kuhns said.

Kuhns said that although police found that the medical marijuana provider was in compliance with state law, he has received feedback from many Keizer residents about the issue.

"I've heard from plenty of citizens (who) don't think marijuana should be grown in that fashion," Kuhns said. "The law needs to be looked at again."

Lee, who wrote the letter as a private citizen, submitted the letter to city officials before news of the theft was made public. He said heard about the grower more than three weeks ago.

Lee is a member of the Salem-Keizer school board and the president of Blanchet Catholic School.

Lee said he is not against the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program but felt that a city ordinance or state law should be crafted that would prohibit all medical marijuana operations from within 1,000 feet of a school. A similar statute exists for possession or delivery of illegal drugs.

"I think it's a loophole through the medical marijuana law," Lee said.

Beasley, a legitimate medical marijuana grower, said he has been under the program for about eight months. Beasley said living so close to the school wasn't ideal, but he wanted to find a property suitable for his operation.

Beasley said he was trying to avoid attention to his property by keeping his place secure. It was early Wednesday morning when Keizer police contacted him while investigating a neighbor's report of an armed person in the area. Since then, he has placed tarps to block the plants from view.

Lee said that if the proposal dies at the city level, he's prepared to seek a change in state law.

"I just hope that we can avoid something like that from happening again in Keizer or maybe in any other school," Lee said. "We want to be careful of the safety and the welfare of the kids. Growing marijuana a couple of feet of where they're parking cars is not ideal."

[palmspringsbum]

A Few People Get Uncle Sam's Weed

The Oregonian
Sun, 21 Oct 2007
Bryan Denson, The Oregonian

EUGENE -- The U.S. government's official policy on marijuana is that it's dangerous and illegal, even in states such as Oregon and California that have approved its medical use.

Yet Uncle Sam prescribes pot for 68-year-old Elvy Musikka of Eugene, one of seven test subjects in a little-known federal medical marijuana program.

"And yes," Musikka says, "I find it extremely hypocritical."

A cheerful anti-prohibition activist given to big hats and hemp skirts, Musikka has gratefully accepted the federal government's cannabis for 19 years. But she no longer smokes it -- it's too weak.

Musikka moved to Oregon three years ago, in part to smoke the state's renowned cannabis.

She was diagnosed with glaucoma in 1975 while living in Florida. A doctor suggested she try marijuana brownies, she says, and the drug weaned her from painful eye drops.

But in March 1988, after surgery left her right eye sightless, police arrested Musikka for possession and cultivation of marijuana. At trial, facing five years in prison, Dr. Paul Palmberg testified that Musikka would probably go blind without pot. The judge found her not guilty by reason of medical necessity.

Later that year, Musikka became the third patient to receive marijuana under an experimental study, the Investigational New Drug program run by the Food and Drug Administration.

Under the program, the government contracts to have pot grown in Mississippi and rolled into unfiltered cigarettes in North Carolina. The study reportedly grew to 14 patients but was cut off in 1992, after a surge of applications from AIDS patients. Musikka and others already enrolled were allowed to stay on.

Musikka flies to Florida as often as she can to fetch government-issue marijuana mailed to her through a Miami pharmacy. She gets between eight and 16 cans a year, each holding about 300 cigarettes.

The prescription for a batch she picked up in March reads: "Use 10 cigarettes over the day, smoked or eaten."

Musikka, a patient in the Oregon medical marijuana program, gets her smoke from patient advocate John Sajo, her designated grower, who cultivates some of southern Oregon's potent pot.

The two are co-sponsors of a proposed ballot measure to create a dispensary system for patients like them.

Musikka wonders why the government hasn't released a report on its Investigational New Drug findings.

"My doctor has to write them a report every year stating that I still have my sight, that it's still under control because of cannabis," she says.

She complains that the federal government insists on listing marijuana in the same category as drugs such as heroin, LSD and peyote.

"Ignorance," Musikka says, "blinds us."

[palmspringsbum]

Ruling protects pot patients

<span class=postbigbold>Privacy - A federal judge denies a grand jury access to Oregon medical marijuana treatment records</span>

by Anne Saker, The Oregonian
September 5th, 2007


A federal judge has thrown out sweeping subpoenas for patient records kept by Oregon's medical marijuana program and a private clinic, saying privacy concerns overruled a grand jury's demand for information.

Chief U.S. District Judge Robert H. Whaley in Yakima ruled on the subpoenas four months after a grand jury in that city issued them. The grand jury wanted to know about 17 patients who got medical marijuana from a grower with operations in Oregon and Washington.

Advocates for medical marijuana have said the subpoenas marked a new tactic in federal efforts to stop state-run programs such as Oregon's. In California, federal drug agents have closed medical marijuana dispensaries and prosecuted doctors who prescribed marijuana to patients.

The state of Oregon and the private Hemp and Cannabis Foundation went to court this summer to stop the subpoenas, and Whaley convened a hearing Aug. 1.

In his eight-page decision issued Tuesday, Whaley wrote that grand juries have wide latitude to conduct investigations and can issue subpoenas for almost any kind of information. The subpoenas cannot be quashed unless the person or organization fighting the subpoena can show the demand is unreasonable, the judge said.

Whaley found that the subpoenas against Oregon's program and the foundation were unreasonable.

"There is an obvious tension between the state's authorization of the production and use of marijuana as a medicine and the federal authority to make such activity a crime," Whaley wrote. "The point at which that tension should be broken by the compelled production of records to a federal grand jury has not been reached with these subpoenas."

Oregon voters enacted the state's medical marijuana program in 1998, and 14,868 state residents hold patient cards. Another 7,115 people hold licenses to grow medical marijuana; they cannot sell marijuana but can accept donations to defray expenses.

The state law governing the program expressly states that medical records will be kept confidential.

The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation is a Portland organization with clinics in Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Hawaii where doctors can examine patients and determine whether marijuana would be useful as medicine.

Whaley tossed out the subpoena to the foundation because its medical records "represent implementation of the state's program and are integral to the success of the program."

D. Paul Stanford, the foundation's founder and chief executive officer, said Wednesday the ruling will "protect medical marijuana patients' records and confidentiality. There are limits to the government's power to intimidate doctors and patients, and fortunately, the federal courts have delineated those limits."

Adam Wolf, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Law Reform Project who argued on behalf of the foundation, said the ACLU believes the case is important. "This should reassure physicians and patients that they are safe," Wolf said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Hagerty in Yakima, who is presenting the evidence to the grand jury, was on vacation and not available to comment. When contacted last month about the subpoenas, Hagerty refused to discuss the investigation.

But Stanford said the grand jury is looking at one man who ran a Goldendale, Wash., grow site for Oregon patients and an Estacada site for Washington patients. Stanford said that activity was not allowed under either state's medical marijuana program.

Madeline Martinez, executive director of the Oregon branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was jubilant over the ruling.

"I'm celebrating! Power to the people!" she said. "We were really afraid that this big, broad arm of the government was trying to overreach. We're patients. We're not criminals. We're just thrilled to pieces about this."

The ruling comes just before Oregon NORML, the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation and other groups convene the third annual Hempstalk festival this weekend at Sellwood-Riverside Park. The city of Portland had turned down the group's application for a permit for the event but relented after the ACLU stepped in.

Anne Saker: 503-294-7656; annesaker@news.oregonian.com

[palmspringsbum]

Group lights up in favor of medical marijuana

<span class=postbigbold>Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse tour the state to reveal the truth about legal drugs</span>

The Oregon Daily Emerald
By: Katie Wilson | Freelance Reporter
Posted: 10/15/07


Everyday people are destroying their bodies with perfectly legal and easily accessible drugs, says Sandee Burbank, executive director for Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse.

The worst part? They have no idea that they are doing this to themselves.

Burbank spoke at the downtown Eugene Public Library last Friday as part of a state-wide MAMA tour. The organization is on a mission to pull back the veil on what Americans are being told to put into their bodies.

"It's amazing how uneducated we are about the drugs out there," Burbank said.

MAMA advocates the Medical Marijuana Program primarily because it has seen people destroyed by pain when the medicine prescribed by doctors didn't work. Often, it made things worse.

"The more (medications) they gave me, the problem got worse," said Alice Ivany, who traveled with Burbank to share her story.

Ivany's left arm was amputated after an industrial accident in 1977. She was on a number of pain pills which made her very ill. Nothing worked. Life was further complicated by a surgery.

She began taking Tylenol and continued taking it for 10 years. As a result, she developed high blood pressure and will be on medication for that condition for the rest of her life.

Running out of options, she discussed medical marijuana, also called cannabis, with her doctor.

"I hadn't thought of it as a medication at the time," she said. "It's given me a quality of life I didn't have before."

After a life spent physically pushing his body, Jack Thomas finally came crashing down when he destroyed discs in his spine.

The doctors prescribed three daily doses of 600 milligrams of ibuprofen.

"By the time I finished that, my stomach was gone," Thomas said.

Doctors prescribed more medication to treat the new problems, but this only led to further complications until Thomas was, more often than not, flat on his back in pain.

What helped him was cannabis.

"Here is something I realized," Thomas said. "In my life, I didn't drink. I knew alcohol might kill me. I was told marijuana would kill me, so I didn't want to do that. Then they gave me meds and that almost killed me, so now I'm back to marijuana."

Prescribed drugs have their benefits and their place, Burbank said, but she also holds that "a drug is a drug is a drug."

She said many people are allergic to certain drug ingredients, and some medications are just plain dangerous. Yet, doctors and pharmacists are ignoring the safe and effective cannabis option.

"They are telling us these (other) drugs are safe. They aren't. There is a better way," Burbank said. "We used to say, 'Go talk to your doctor, talk to your pharmacist.' It's no longer enough to do this if you want to be safe. You have to get over the thought that because the doctor told me to and because (the medicine) is legal that it's safe. You need to get online and do some more research. Just because a doctor tells you to take a pill doesn't mean it's right for you."

Currently, the medical marijuana program is on rocky ground, so MAMA is working to educate the people in power and the people in pain about the benefits of cannabis and the dark side of legal medications.

Burbank pointed out that it is impossible to overdose on marijuana. It's not so hard to overdose on legal drugs. She wants to stop the flow of misinformation coming from school boards, political figures, and "The War on Drugs."

Ivany said MAMA has a motto: Follow the money.

"Who is profiting from marijuana prohibition?" she asked.

"Somebody's getting rich," Thomas added.

"I think of doctors and pharmacists as representatives," Ivany said. "It's a powder, it's a cream, it's a pill. It's all marketing and sales."

"It's amazing how messed up it is," Thomas said. "It's like they're trying to get rid of us."

He thinks part of the problem is the emotion that the subject of medical marijuana brings to the surface.

"When you start being emotional, logic is gone," he said. "All I know is this stuff works, and without it I wouldn't be here."

"The war on drugs has failed," Burbank said, citing the meth problem that didn't exist in past years in the way that it exists now. "What we're doing isn't working, and we need to change it around."

She wants people to "tell the truth, and stop the lies."

"People have to get their minds out of the '60s," Ivany added. "(Medical marijuana) is not about getting stoned."

<hr class=postrule>
<center>© Copyright 2007 Oregon Daily Emerald</center>

[palmspringsbum]

Theft from medical marijuana grow near McNary High raises questions

by Jason Cox, Keizer Times
October 19th, 2007


While still prohibited under U.S. law, an Oregon state ballot measure passed in 1998 allows people suffering from certain medical conditions to grow and smoke marijuana legally.

Likewise, state law provides enhanced penalties for cultivating, distributing or possessing illegal drugs within 1,000 feet of a school.

So what happens when statutes seemingly collide, such as a recent case where a certified marijuana patient was growing his crop mere yards from McNary High School?

It was one of the more interesting questions Keizer Police had to face in an incident where teenagers were allegedly trying to climb the fence into the patient's yard to steal the growing marijuana.

Police received a call on the evening of Sept. 15 from some teens near McNary High School. They said they were on the opposite side of the fence from a neighbor of the school, getting in a verbal confrontation before the neighbor chased them off with pepper spray. They said they could smell marijuana coming from the property, and accused the man of being intoxicated.

"So, once these four kids tell the officer this guy's possibly intoxicated, there's pepper spray and there's a smell of marijuana coming from the house, obviously he needed to go over there," Keizer Police Capt. Jeff Kuhns said.

"So he looked over the chain fence and basically saw a marijuana farm."

Police questioned the men at the house and found out people in the house grow marijuana for several patients who carry Oregon Medical Marijuana program cards.

"Once the officer saw that and researched the applicable statutes, they found that they believed they were in compliance with the law," Kuhns said. "(Applicable statutes say) you can't use your medical marijuana in public places or public view (but) that little clause only addresses use. It doesn't address growing it, and whether or not it should be viewed from a public area."

No charges were pressed in the incident. Likewise, both the residents of the house and McNary High administrators preferred to keep the matter quiet. McNary Prinicpal Ken Parshall said he told his staff and the school resource officer, but said he was concerned about cementing the rumors already floating around the McNary community.

He said he'd received no complaints from parents, but was told of reports that marijuana could sometimes be smelled in the parking lot of the school.

"Our main concern is that kids not have access to it, so we've not publicized the presence of the grow simply because we don't think raising awareness of drugs nearby campus advances public safety," Parshall said.

The cat was out of the bag, however, after police publicized that the same medical marijuana grow site was robbed on Oct. 10.

Anthony Beasley, 28, said he had reservations about the site being so close to a school. Planning to buy a house, he said the deal fell through, and he needed somewhere to live with a large, fenced-in back yard – and fast.

"I knew it might become an issue," Beasley said. "That was the one thing we were worried about was the kids."

Beasley swears by the benefits of using medical marijuana. He said he and other patients had tried painkillers and other prescription drugs, but the pills proved addictive and negatively affected their moods and lifestyles. According to the state of Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act Web site, Oregonians use marijuana to treat symptoms from cancer and subsequent chemotherapy, HIV and AIDS, nausea, glaucoma, symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis. More than 13,000 patients have cards to treat severe pain.

"I've got somebody close to me with brain cancer," Beasley said. "They're going to be dead in a couple of months."

Beasley grew for four cardholders, and was growing the maximum allowance of 24 plants – six plants per patient, each able to yield up to a pound of product. After the first incident – and finding out one of the plants had been tampered with – he was living in a trailer in the back yard to guard the plants. Beasley is careful to note that he is not the same man who allegedly verbally confronted the teens who first came near his yard.

But Beasley was inside the house when someone came over the fence – additional barriers of tarp and fencing had been erected to shield the view of the plants from the school parking lot – and took several of his plants. He believes a roommate made off with an additional portion of the crop. All told, he only has eight of the 24 plants he started growing.

"I'm hoping somebody comes forward," Beasley said. "… I'm interested in getting as much of the medicine back as I can."

He said this was his first time growing marijuana, and plans to grow another crop next year – but in another location.

And former city councilor Chuck Lee wants to make sure.

"Even though it is legal to grow [medical] marijuana on property adjacent to a school, I have deep concerns regarding the health and well-being of students at this school," Lee, recently elected to the Salem-Keizer Public Schools board, wrote in a letter to the Keizer City Council.

Lee is asking the city council to research the possibility of enacting an ordinance banning medical marijuana growth within 1,000 feet of a public or private school. He said he plans to work at the state level "to react to what I call a loophole in the Medical Marijuana Law."

But Sandee Burbank, executive director of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse – a group that favors access to medicinal marijuana – said fears related to the plant itself need to be balanced against potential harm from all drugs, from street drugs like methamphetamine, to tobacco and even caffeine.

"When you look at the drugs in general, you find the legal drugs kill more people exponentially," Burbank said. "… Cannabis has never killed anyone by itself."

Burbank expressed sympathy for Beasley, and other medical marijuana growers who could be a hot target for robbery, or worse.

"The cost of cannabis can be $300 an ounce (for non-patients)," Burbank said. "People are really tempted to steal. We tell patients anytime you're growing you have to be very careful that it's out of public view, but you have to be very concerned about theft.

"It doesn't matter where you live – kids live everywhere, not just at the school."

The Keizer City Council has yet to take up the issue. The Council could choose to enact an ordinance, but first city staff would have to find out if such an ordinance is enforceable.

"The first question is legally can we take it up?" Eppley said. "Because essentially we would be superceding state law. I don't know."

A law professor who specializes in state and local government thinks the city can. Paul Diller, assistant professor of law at Willamette University, compared such a restriction to city zoning codes.

"The idea behind this proposed ordinance, I think, is consistent with what cities historically do, which is regulate all manner of land usage," Diller said. "… This is just one more category that Keizer would be adding to the mix of its zoning ordinance. To me, it isn't very different to say a bar or strip club couldn't be located within a certain distance of a school."

[palmspringsbum]

Marijuana near school stirs former Keizer councilor action

<span class=postbigbold>He urges reworking of law for medical growers</span>

by Ruth Liao, Salem Statesman-Journal
October 16th, 2007


Former Keizer city councilor Chuck Lee has requested that city officials look into creating an ordinance that would ban Oregon medical marijuana providers from growing near schools.

On Thursday, Keizer Police investigated the theft of live medical marijuana plants from Anthony Beasley, who lives near McNary High School, police spokesman Capt. Jeff Kuhns said.

Kuhns said that although police found that the medical marijuana provider was in compliance with state law, he has received feedback from many Keizer residents about the issue.

"I've heard from plenty of citizens (who) don't think marijuana should be grown in that fashion," Kuhns said. "The law needs to be looked at again."

Lee, who wrote the letter as a private citizen, submitted the letter to city officials before news of the theft was made public. He said heard about the grower more than three weeks ago.

Lee is a member of the Salem-Keizer school board and the president of Blanchet Catholic School.

Lee said he is not against the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program but felt that a city ordinance or state law should be crafted that would prohibit all medical marijuana operations from within 1,000 feet of a school. A similar statute exists for possession or delivery of illegal drugs.

"I think it's a loophole through the medical marijuana law," Lee said.

Beasley, a legitimate medical marijuana grower, said he has been under the program for about eight months. Beasley said living so close to the school wasn't ideal, but he wanted to find a property suitable for his operation.

Beasley said he was trying to avoid attention to his property by keeping his place secure. It was early Wednesday morning when Keizer police contacted him while investigating a neighbor's report of an armed person in the area. Since then, he has placed tarps to block the plants from view.

Lee said that if the proposal dies at the city level, he's prepared to seek a change in state law.

"I just hope that we can avoid something like that from happening again in Keizer or maybe in any other school," Lee said. "We want to be careful of the safety and the welfare of the kids. Growing marijuana a couple of feet of where they're parking cars is not ideal."

rliao@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 589-6941

[palmspringsbum]

Keizer May Intervene With Oregon Voter Passed Law

by Neal Feldman, OpEd, Salem News
October 17th, 2007


Chuck Lee of Keizer, Oregon needs to mind his own business! This ex Keizer city councilman is all up in arms because a homeowner with a fence that borders McNary High School property is a fully legal grower for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) and was victimized by a burglar who stole some of his entirely legal property... harvest from the marijuana plants he grows for four program participants.

If that which was stolen was almost anything else Mr Beasley, the homeowner, had owned the focus would be where it rightfully belongs... innocent homeowner victimized by burglar, what shall we do to crack down on this kind of crime?

But because Mr Beasley is a legal marijuana grower for legal participants in the legal Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (note all the references to LEGAL?) according to Mr Lee the issue is not the city's failure to protect Mr Beasley's property and legal rights. No, according to Mr Lee the issue is to prevent Mr Beasley (and anyone like him) from engaging in entirely legal activities with entirely legal property in his own home on his own property.

I think it is abundantly clear that although the Oregon Medical Marijuana law was passed resoundingly by Oregon's voters not once but TWICE, that Mr Lee is an opponent of the law and likely voted against it both times. This is what I call Sore Loser Syndrome. His side lost the votes so he goes about trying to harass those who won, trying to make it hard if not impossible for them to do what the law allows.

Mr Beasley did not advertise his grow spot, and once it was attacked he put up tarps to obscure the plants from school view. Mr Beasley is not setting up a "Pot Stand" at the fence selling through the cyclone barrier dime bags to the student body at McNary HS.

What should be happening is the school should be taking steps to control the illegal activities of their students against law abiding citizens such as Mr Beasley.

It is interesting that this is not the tack that Mr Lee has chosen.

Interesting indeed.

Mr Lee claims he is not against the OMMP yet wants to ban grow sites from within 1000 feet of a school. Considering all the public and private schools in the Salem/Keizer area and how spread out they are this 'simple rule' of his would mean that well over 75% of homes would not be able to be used. And of the few that would remain available all opponents of the OMMP would need to do is start up schools in strategically located sites to pretty much eliminate any and all potential grow sites. And without grow sites those who under the OMMP have every right to their medicine will find the medicine nearly impossible to get.

And of course it is an incredibly small step to go from no grow sites within 1000 feet of a school to no use of the medication within 1000 feet of schools.

Which would for all intents and purposes kill the OMMP. Which is clearly what, in his incremental manner, Mr Lee seeks to do.

Keizer police spokesman Capt. Jeff Kuhns has said "that although police found that the medical marijuana provider was in compliance with state law, he has received feedback from many Keizer residents about the issue." I am not surprised he has received feedback. There were many who voted against the laws that produced the OMMP and I think it is quite obvious that Mr Lee riled up opponents to give their 'feedback'.

As Mr Lee stated, he "wrote the letter as a private citizen, submitted the letter to city officials before news of the theft was made public."

He said he heard about the grower "more than three weeks ago."

How interesting. He heard about the grower more than three weeks ago. One might even suggest that the burglary might have been formented by Mr Lee or one of his OMMP opposing cronies to bring the issue into the spotlight so that he could make his play to harass not only this one legal grower, Mr Beasley, but any and every other legal grower as well.

What Mr Lee wants is to treat LEGAL growers of a LEGAL product the same as those who possess and deliver ILLEGAL drugs.

I presume anyone who voted against the medical marijuana laws will support his actions and those who voted in favor will oppose his actions. But the state government should oppose his actions because his actions go against not only the laws of the state of Oregon but also the resounding decision of the Oregon voters not once but TWICE!

It is unacceptable to allow sore losers in initiative or legislative campaigns to undermine the passed laws by enacting ordinances or other obstacles which only seek to harass those who are just attempting to follow the laws.

If Mr Lee is afraid of Mr Beasley or other growers illegally selling to high school students then they can monitor for such. It is already a crime for him to do so.

But the proposal of Mr Lee does nothing but put an odious and undue burden upon those legally participatring in the OMMP. And whether you personally approve of or oppose the law it IS THE LAW. That should mean something.

Mr Lee calls it a 'loophole' that Mr Beasley is able to grow legally on his home property. Does Mr Lee know what the definition of a 'loophole' is? It implies being able to do something unintended. What unintended action is Mr Beasley doing? What difference does it make where the grow sites are so long as they are not making the harvests available to those not legally allowed to access them? There is no 'loophole'.

There is just the sophistry of an OMMP opponent seeking to use this as a wedge to attack and harass the OMMP as well as its entirely legal and law abiding growers and participants. Homeowners should be able to participate in any legal activity they wish on or in their own property.

Mr Beasley has been growing in that spot for nearly 8 months. Other than the burglary there have been no incidents. Mr Beasley, on his own, put up the tarps. But he is still attacked by the likes of Mr Lee and Mr Kuhns as if it were he, the legal and law abiding citizen victim of the burglar, who was the criminal instead of the burglar.

Mr Lee wants to 'prevent something like that from happening again'. Unfortunately he is not referring to the burglary for which he clearly could not possibly care less about, but instead he is referring to the entirely legal and law abiding activity of Mr Beasley growing the medical marijuana for several patients who need it and who are legally entitled to it.

Mr Lee threatens that if his local efforts fail that he will seek a statewide version.

It is clear that this has nothig to do with 'protecting kids' and everything to do with Mr Lee being a sore loser on the medical marijuana issue so he will do anything and everything he can to harass, intimidate and obstruct legal and law abiding citizens from accessing that which the law allows them.

That is simply wrong.

The schools need to keep their students under control. The police need to deal with burglars who try and take property, yes including legally grown medical marijuana, instead of looking for ways to harass, intimidate or obstruct legal law abiding citizens engaged in legal law abiding activities.

[palmspringsbum]

Hashing out medical pot law

by Jason Cox, Keizer Times
October 26th, 2007


Keizer Police recently arrested a medical marijuana grower and patient for manufacturing a controlled substance – hashish oil.

Pro-medicinal marijuana advocates have criticized the arrest, saying that creating hash oil – essentially separating the active ingredients of the drug from the plant material, using dry methods, water or a chemical solvent – is legal for medical marijuana patients.

However, Keizer Police Capt. Jeff Kuhns said the Keizer Police Department believes the intent of a portion of the law addressing "mixtures or preparations" of medical marijuana doesn't extend to hash oil.

"The intent behind that language is for things such as brownies, butters and stuff like that – putting it in your pizza, different recipes, different things you can make with the dried leaves," Kuhns said. "When they drafted this law, if they meant to address hashish or hash oil they would seemingly have addressed how much you can possess."

Lori Evans, a deputy district attorney for Marion County, said the case is set to go before a grand jury next month. She cited bar association guidelines in declining to discuss the intricacies of the case.

"The case is pending, so I can't talk about the merits of the case," Evans said.

For anyone who doesn't hold a Oregon Medical Marijuana Program card, hash oil is explicitly illegal under Oregon law, as is marijuana.

But organizations such as the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Reforming Marijuana Laws and the THC Foundation say hash oil fits within what medical marijuana patients are allow to have under Oregon law.

No authorities, or the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program's director, have so far been able to point to a statute, rule or case law indicating explicitly whether making hash oil is actually legal or illegal for medical marijuana patients.

The issue of Anthony Wyatt Beasley's medical marijuana grow – which was situated in a rental home adjacent to McNary High School's campus – became news fodder after several plants were stolen from his property.

About a week later – Wednesday, Oct. 17 – a former roommate was at the Newberg Drive house to collect personal belongings when police said she spotted two PVC pipes in the home, which she told authorities could be pipe bombs. Police responded to the residence and called in the Salem Police Bomb Squad, who determined that the pipes were full of marijuana. Butane – a chemical often used to extract hash oil out of the marijuana plant – was also obtained during the search, Kuhns said.

Keizer Police were able to obtain a search warrant – which must be signed by a judge – and went to the residence on Friday, Oct. 19, later arresting Beasley, 28, for manufacturing a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school. Beasley was released on his own recognizance on Tuesday, Oct. 23.

The Oregon Revised Statutes define "usable marijuana" – that is, what substances qualify as medicinal marijuana – as "the dried leaves and flowers of the plant Cannabis family Moraceae, and any mixture or preparation thereof, that are appropriate for medical use."

The Oregon Administrative Rules – a set of legally-binding rules that further govern the medical marijuana program – are even more explicit, declaring proper "the resin extracted from (the marijuana plant); and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of the plant or its resin."

There was only one point that both law enforcement and medicinal marijuana advocates could agree on - in their opinion, making hash oil using the butane method is unsafe. A 2006 case in Eugene saw two men allegedly attempting to make hash oil suffer severe burns, The Register-Guard reported. But the agreements end there.

Medicinal marijuana advocates, including the directors of the THC Foundation and Oregon's chapter of NORML, adamantly believe police and prosecutors were erroneous in their belief that hash oil falls outside the bounds of medical marijuana.

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell>
<span class=postbold>What is hash oil? </span>

Hash oil is made from the marijuana plant, using a solvent such as butane, isopropyl alcohol or other solvents to extract active ingredients in a more concentrated form.

There are several methods of making hash oil – one of which is by using PVC pipe. Essentially, it consists of grinding the marijuana plant into a powder and pouring the solvent into the pipe with the marijuana. A thick, gooey substance comes out that contains a higher percentage of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and other active ingredients than does the portion of the marijuana plant that is typically smoked.

The Oregon chapter of the National Organization of Marijuana Laws contends that hash oil is allowed for medical marijuana patients under the law, but does not recommend this extraction method due to the fact that butane is extremely flammable.</td></tr></table>Paul Stanford, executive director of the Portland-based THC Foundation, actually teaches monthly classes on how to extract hashish from the marijuana plant. They do not teach the extraction method using PVC pipes and butane to make hash oil.

Stanford said there's no narcotics added to hashish or hash oil – and that patients extracting it are within their rights. Hash is often in a solid form, while hash oil is generally a thicker liquid. It can be consumed by adding it to a tobacco or marijuana cigarette or cooked into food.

"This man had paid a fee to the state to be allowed to grow and possess marijuana, including hashish and hash oil," Stanford said.

Madeline Martinez, executive director of Oregon's chapter of NORML, blamed what she called inadequate training of law enforcement. She said 2005 changes to the medical marijuana statute were created specifically to address questions about what forms of marijuana are acceptable as medicinal.

"If you look at the law, it states clearly that we can have hash … we can have ganja butters," Martinez said. "… This is outrageous. If patients are expected to follow the law, doesn't it make sense that law enforcement should also have to follow the law?"

For her part, Tawana Nichols, program director of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, said she consulted with legal counsel and could not find any documentation to clarify the matter.

Kuhns reiterated that the department "think(s) the intent does not include hash oil" and noted the case had been reviewed by a district attorney and signed by a judge. He noted that, in Oregon statute, hashish and hash oil are listed separately from marijuana.

This isn't the first time Keizer Police have had to deal with seemingly contradictory laws regarding the medical marijuana program and laws that enhance penalties for drug cultivation or distribution near a school.

Just a few weeks ago a reported disturbance at Beasley's home brought police to the home, after another person at the house allegedly chased several teenagers with pepper spray. Police responded to the home and saw numerous marijuana plants growing, but found that Beasley and the other cardholders were in compliance with Oregon's medical marijuana law.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical pot provider arrested

<span class=postbigbold>Police suspect he was making hash oil in PVC pipes</span>

by Ruth Liao, Salem Statesman-Journal
October 23rd, 2007


A Keizer medical marijuana provider living next to a school was arrested Friday after police found evidence that he was manufacturing hashish, or hash oil, an illegal substance, police said.

Anthony Wyatt Beasley, 28, was arrested Friday afternoon in Keizer on a Class A felony charge of unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, said police spokesman Capt. Jeff Kuhns.

"We think he's crossed the line," Kuhns said.

Beasley's house in the 5100 block of Newberg Drive N is adjacent to McNary High School's parking lot.

On Wednesday, a former roommate returned to the home to collect some of her belongings and became alarmed when she saw objects made of PVC pipes on a living room coffee table, Kuhns said. Thinking they were pipe bombs, the woman called police.

A Salem bomb squad responded and a bomb robot detonated one of the PVC pipes, Kuhns said.

Inside the pipe, police found a concentration of marijuana, which led police to think hashish or hash oil was being made, which is illegal, Kuhns said.

That night, Beasley told police on the phone that the tubes were not pipe bombs and that he was extracting tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, from his medicinal marijuana.

Police obtained a search warrant Friday morning and forced entry into the home at 1:30 p.m., Kuhns said. At the same time, Beasley's landlord was having eviction papers served.

Police seized evidence of illegal drug manufacturing, which included the PVC pipes and ground-up marijuana found inside, Kuhns said. Police did not seize other plants and marijuana that Beasley is entitled to under the state medical-marijuana program, Kuhns said.

Keizer police knew of Beasley's medical-marijuana license and plants from an unrelated disturbance in September, Kuhns said. Beasley was growing 24 marijuana plants for himself and three other medical-marijuana cardholders.

On Oct. 10, Keizer police investigated a neighbor's report of an armed person, Kuhns said. Police searched Beasley's home but did not find any firearms. Beasley then told police that nine of his plants had been stolen earlier that evening, Kuhns said.

Sandee Burbank, the chairwoman of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program advisory committee, said she didn't know the particulars of Beasley's situation, but added that more than 17,000 participants in the state program must adhere to strict regulations.

"People who are breaking the law, they're breaking the law," Burbank said. "It's a real fine line."

Burbank, who also is executive director of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse, a nonprofit that advocates against drug abuse, said clinics and other programs try to provide new medical-marijuana providers and patients with resources and information to stay within the law.

"People that are going outside the law, that's a huge risk that they're taking," Burbank said.

rliao@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 589-6941

[palmspringsbum]

A smokescreen for criminals

by Bryan Denson, The Oregonian
October 20th, 2007


Oregon's medical marijuana program has grown colossally in recent years, with autumn harvests so robust it scarcely resembles the modest enterprise approved by voters in 1998.

The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was sold to voters nine years ago with the prediction that about 500 people a year would apply to get relief from debilitating conditions such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV and multiple sclerosis.

Today, the program has swelled to 14,831 patients, with 1,700 filing new or renewal applications each month, including a few diagnosed with common afflictions such as asthma, back pain and menstrual cramps.

An additional 7,178 medical marijuana cardholders are caregivers who assist patients. Lawmakers updated the program two years ago, adding a new class of third-party growers who now number more than 4,000.

The explosive growth of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, coupled with mass cultivation and the seduction of selling cannabis on the black market for $2,500 a pound and higher, also has provoked extensive abuse.

The state Department of Justice polled seven sheriff's departments across the state last year and estimated that 40 percent of medical marijuana growers had violated one or more laws, most often growing too much. Oregon State Police say 15 of the 46 illegal crop seizures they took part in last year involved medical marijuana growers.

Two weeks ago, a state trooper stopped a motorist on Interstate 5 near Aurora carting 49 pounds of just-harvested marijuana home to Gervais. The driver, who was a patient and grower for two others, was allowed to drive away with 4.5 pounds of pot because of the 2005 law, which also upped possession limits.

<span class=postbigbold>Police and prosecutors say the program is out of control. </span>

"The manner in which this statute is written, in my opinion, is a blueprint for drug trafficking," said Katie Suver, a deputy district attorney in Marion County. "And I believe that the general populace, when they voted it in, thought what they were doing is helping really sick people."

Patient advocates concede that a few criminals have tainted the program, using it as cover to sell cannabis illegally. The greater problem, they say, is that legions of sick people can't get the marijuana they need.

"There's 10 times more demand than there is supply," said patient and registered grower Don DuPay, a former Portland homicide detective who lost 135 plants when authorities raided several grow sites in June.

Voters are likely to decide the program's future next year. Supporters are pushing ballot initiatives to expand the law with cannabis dispensaries, and opponents have drafted a measure to repeal the law.

In the meantime, law enforcement officials say some of the program's vagaries are exasperating:
<ul class=postlist>
<li>Convicted drug dealers are permitted to legally smoke, carry and grow medicinal marijuana -- so long as their crimes occurred before Jan. 1, 2006. </li>

<li>Patients can legally cultivate six mature marijuana plants larger than 12 inches tall and 12 inches across. But there is no maximum size, and growers in southern Oregon are producing plants as big as SUVs. </li>

<li>A small office in the Department of Human Services handles paperwork for the program but doesn't inspect the grow sites. So cash-strapped police agencies have become cannabis constables. </li>

<li>Patients can smoke or grow pot in view of children, so long as they aren't in a public place. This year, two growers legally cultivated 24 plants in a backyard next to Keizer's McNary High School. </li>
</ul>

<span class=postbigbold>Takes up police time</span>

The southwestern corner of Oregon is gifted with verdant mountains, dry valleys and perfect cycles of summer sunlight. Some of the world's finest cannabis is grown there, its pedigree sometimes compared to the tobacco used in Cuban cigars.

"It's one-hit-wonder, see-you-tomorrow type stuff," said Detective Josh White, a sheriff's deputy assigned to the Josephine Interagency Narcotics Team, known as JOINT.

Three southwestern counties -- Curry, Coos and Josephine -- also boast the state's highest per capita concentration of medical marijuana cardholders. One in every 89 residents is a patient in the program -- nearly four times the rate of the Portland area's three counties.

Members of narcotics teams say they prefer to spend their shifts closing down meth labs and the vast marijuana grows by Mexican cartels that take root each year in remote mountains.

But they often find themselves investigating thefts of medical pot, including the occasional home-invasion robbery, and making sure growers comply with the law.

Although patients or their caregivers may tend as many as six mature plants, cardholders designated as growers are allowed to cultivate for as many as four patients, allowing a plot with 24 mature plants. Some growers combine resources in communal gardens, creating vast grows that can look suspicious.

Late last month, White checked out a citizen's report of 100 marijuana plants on a grassy hillock outside Grants Pass. The detective instead found a legal grow of five mature plants inside a greenhouse. When White caught up with the patient, a 28-year-old carpenter, the man told him his biggest plant had been stripped.

The detective spent most of his shift solving the crime -- and returning the man's pot.

Police in some parts of Oregon have wearied of rousting growers, even those with oversize grows, because such cases are a low priority for prosecutors.

"When it comes to medical marijuana," White said, "we're almost at a point where we don't care, it's sad to say."


<span class=postbigbold>Criminal growers </span>

Douglas County's drug task force arrested 25 people with medical marijuana cards in 2006. They seized 281 plants and 1,687 pounds of dried, processed cannabis with a street value of more than $4 million.

The team has raided medical marijuana cardholders across the county's 5,071 square miles in the past few years, seizing firearms, cash, cannabis butter, high-grade buds, hashish, psilocybin, cocaine, methamphetamine and methadone. They also found snapshots of children tending the gardens.

Lt. Curt Strickland, who heads the Douglas County Interagency Narcotics Team, said his troops busted dealers who register as medical marijuana growers, get patients -- including family members -- to designate them as their growers, then provide them little of the drug. That gives them cover for illegal sales, he said.

"They're professional pot growers," Strickland said. "There's no secret to it. That's how they make their living."

Last December, according to state and federal court records, an undercover informant for Strickland's team arranged to buy 50 pounds of dried marijuana from convicted drug dealer John Nelson Jr., a licensed patient and grower who allegedly bragged to the informant that he'd cultivated 550 pounds of pot the past two seasons.

Nelson is accused of telling the informant he wanted $125,000 for the bud, which would be a contribution to the cannabis patient organization he claimed to head, the "Medical Marijuana Fellowship."

When lawmakers amended the law in 2005, they also prohibited anyone convicted of felony delivery or manufacturing of drugs from getting a grower card. Nelson was allowed in because his drug conviction occurred before the change took effect on Jan. 1, 2006.

The Douglas County drug team searched Nelson's home and turned up 90 pounds of high-grade buds. A second grow site yielded 17 pounds more. But the state dropped drug charges against Nelson, 51, and his wife, 53-year-old Delores J. Nelson, after federal investigators took an interest in the case.

On May 17, the federal government indicted the Nelsons for allegedly growing, with the intent to distribute, 157 pot plants. Four patients, whose medicinal cannabis was seized in the Myrtle Creek raids, later sued Douglas County and its sheriff, Chris Brown, a vocal critic of medical marijuana, claiming the county had no right to give federal agents their medicine.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency does not recognize Oregon's medical marijuana program or similar laws in 11 other states. But federal prosecutors generally don't intrude on growers unless 100 plants or more are seized -- the threshold under government sentencing guidelines for a five-year minimum prison term.

<span class=postbigbold>What to do with leftovers </span>

Sharon Place cultivated medicinal cannabis in the early 1990s, before it was legal, carrying the drug to some of the hospice patients she cared for in the Applegate Valley.

She was arrested in 1991 for growing marijuana at home. But the judge recognized her good intentions. He let her go with two years' probation and 80 hours of community service, including time gardening at an elementary school.

Place, 51, later obtained a medical marijuana card. She spent this summer tending a communal garden on sloping farmland northwest of Eugene, fretting when water ran scarce and when mold, the worst in years, hit the crop.

By early fall, 60 plants bulged as big as dome tents, with buds -- the most potent part of the plant -- hanging like ornaments on fat Christmas trees. Place and her fellow growers harvested 21 pounds of usable cannabis.

After dividing the pot among 10 patients, the growers were left with about 6 pounds more than the law allows. Place plans to deliver it to patients who have no medicine.

Several nonprofit groups encourage growers to share extra marijuana with other patients or give it to them for distribution. John Sajo, the director of one such patient-support group, Voter Power, estimates that thousands of patients are forced to buy pot on the black market because they can't get it legally.

Many have no place to start a garden, can't afford grow lights and higher electricity bills or are too sick to tend a garden, he said.

"The people that are really left out," Sajo said, "are the sickest, oldest and closest to death."

Once a month, about 300 patients line up outside a theater in Portland's Mount Tabor neighborhood, some traveling hundreds of miles, to accept as little as 1.5 grams of cannabis from Oregon NORML, according to Madeline Martinez, executive director of the anti-prohibition group, which supports patients.

The meager offering comes at a time when southern Oregon growers often harvest pounds of usable cannabis from a single plant. Leftovers seldom reach her organization, Martinez complained, and she doesn't know why. "If you find out," she said, "let me know."

<span class=postbigbold>Measures on both sides </span>

Kevin Mannix, a former lawmaker who sponsored the ballot measure creating Oregon's mandatory minimum sentencing law, is the sponsor of a new initiative that would repeal the medical marijuana law.

The Oregon Crimefighting Act contains a provision to replace the program with a taxpayer-financed prescription program. The plan is to give synthetic components of marijuana, in pill form, to people suffering certain debilitating diseases.

Mannix said Oregon's law has given a protective screen to dope dealers and an "aura of appropriateness" to a practice most medical organizations oppose or remain neutral about.

His initiative flies in the face of Oregon's decades-long tolerance of marijuana.

Under Gov. Tom McCall in the early 1970s, the state was first in the country to decriminalize possession of small amounts. Legislators in 1979 passed a law -- later repealed, because it proved unworkable -- that required state police to turn over cannabis seized in drug raids for distribution to people suffering from glaucoma or undergoing chemotherapy.

"I worry about the Mannix initiative, and I take it as a serious threat," Sajo said. "But I don't think it has a chance of passing because it's so loony."

Voter Power's four proposed initiatives for 2008 include one allowing nonprofits to grow cannabis and set up dispensaries, where patients and caregivers could buy dried pot, plants, hashish and tinctures. Patients, caregivers and licensed growers could continue to cultivate cannabis as now, he said.

Voter Power's legal counsel, Leland R. Berger, attended NORML's national conference in Los Angeles last weekend, where he toured two legal marijuana dispensaries.

"It was," he said, "a slice of the future."

Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614; bryandenson@news.oregonian.com

[palmspringsbum]

Keizer Medical Marijuana Case Ignores Oregon Law

<span class=postbigbold>The law could not possibly be any clearer or plainer on any reasonable standard.</span>

by Neal Feldman, Salem News
October 30th, 2007


(KEIZER, Ore.) - Anthony Wyatt Beasley probably did not wake up Friday, October 19th 2007 thinking he would be a lightning rod and a focal point in a legal dispute, but that is what he has become. A standard bearer, willing or not, for the medical marijuana law of Oregon and the thousands of card holders in the state.

When Keizer Police arrested Mr. Beasley, a legal and law-abiding Oregon Medical Marijuana Program card holder, for the alleged 'crime' of making hash oil, something any and every sane reading of the law clearly allows, they managed to mobilize almost every supporter of the law, which was passed TWICE by the statewide voters of Oregon, into support for Mr. Beasley and opposition to the persecution, harassment and violation of his rights by those who are supposed to enforce the law regardless of their personal feelings about it.

There are even many calls for Mr. Beasley to sue the City of Keizer, a city just north of the state capital Salem, Oregon, the Keizer Police Department, the Marion County District Attorney's office, Police Captain Jeff Kuhns personally, any DA signing off on this mess personally as well as the judge who signed the search warrant personally. Some would also like nothing more than to see the landlord who is apparently evicting Mr. Beasley over his legal activities and the so-called 'ex roommate' who made the ridiculous accusations of pipe bombs when all they saw was PVC pipe (as if there is no use for PVC pipe other than to make pipe bombs) sued into fiscal oblivion as well.

The law could not possibly be any clearer or plainer on any reasonable standard.

The Oregon Revised Statutes define "usable marijuana" – that is, what substances qualify as medicinal marijuana – as "the dried leaves and flowers of the plant Cannabis family Moraceae, and any mixture or preparation thereof, that are appropriate for medical use."

The Oregon Administrative Rules – a set of legally-binding rules that further govern the medical marijuana program – are even more explicit, declaring proper "the resin extracted from (the marijuana plant); and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of the plant or its resin."

How many applicable ways, in context, can one reasonably define 'any' and 'every' that does not include hash oil? I would say ZERO. I do not know by what tortured line of unreason these violators of the public trust arrived at the opinion that hash oil is not included in 'any' and 'every' in the context of the law. They refuse to say, hiding like cowards behind 'procedural rules'.

As reported in the Keizertimes "Lori Evans, a deputy district attorney for Marion County, said the case is set to go before a grand jury next month." She cited bar association guidelines in declining to discuss the intricacies of the case.

The Keizertimes also quoted Evans saying, "The case is pending, so I can't talk about the merits of the case."

I'll just bet she can't. If she wanted to she could, but coward that she is she refuses.

It is too bad that grand jury hearings are not open to the public. It is also too bad that grand juries only get to hear one side so that it is said any lawyer worth the name 'can indict a ham sandwich'.

But once either the grand jury kicks the BS travesty, or if they do indict once it is kicked in court, we can only hope that the civil lawsuit filed will so chastise these wrongdoers that no one will ever even think of violating the rights of legal and law abiding OMMA patients ever again.

None of these folks should sleep well... for they have flushed their futures completely, and who knows how much damage financially they will eventually have caused the City of Keizer and the innocent taxpayers there who did nothing wrong other than to trust these criminals with enforcing the law.