VOTERS WILL GET PLETHORA OF BALLOT PICKS IN NOVEMBER

Medicinal pot, vote-by-mail and unions' political donations all qualify

Oregon voters will decide in November whether to make it legal for cancer
patients to smoke marijuana, allow vote-by-mail in all elections and
prohibit public employee unions from raising political money from payroll
deductions.

State election officials said Friday that petitioners for those ballot
measures and a fourth allowing adult adoptees to see their birth
certificates had gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Meanwhile, an anti-abortion initiative did not collect enough signatures
and an anti-crime measure appeared to be in doubt. The verification process
continues for five other initiatives.

The secretary of state's office has until Friday to finish the work.

Signatures are checked by scientific sampling. If the first sampling
indicates a proposed initiative does not qualify for the ballot, a second
sampling is checked.

Measure supporters need 73,261 signatures of registered voters to put a
statutory change on the ballot. A proposed constitutional amendment
requires 97,681 signatures.

The marijuana measure is similar to medical pot laws passed last year by
voters in California and Arizona. It would permit people who have been
diagnosed with debilitating medical conditions to smoke marijuana.

The measure would allow marijuana use for anyone suffering nausea, pain,
wasting disease, seizures or muscle spasms brought on by cancer, AIDS or
glaucoma.

Dr. Rick Bayer, chief petitioner for the measure, Friday said qualifying
for the ballot is an important step.

"This is a really great day for Oregon patients," Bayer said.

The measure, by coincidence, will join another one on the November ballot
that will decide whether to reinstate criminal penalties for possessing
small amounts of marijuana. The 1997 Legislature passed that law, but those
who want the law returned to the way it was -- no criminal penalties for
possession of less than an ounce -- gathered enough signatures to put the
issue to a vote.

The anti-crime proposal, sponsored by Crime Victims United, would increase
penalties for property crimes and repeat violent offenders. It failed the
first of the two tests designed to verify signatures.

Talena Ray, a state election official, said the measure failed using a
sample of 1,000 signatures. County clerks will conduct a second test using
a sample of 4,000 signatures.

Measures whose signatures were still being verified include proposals to:
make it harder to adopt administrative rules; reform campaign financing;
ban clear-cutting; designate 15 percent of lottery proceeds for parks and
salmon restoration; and require that any super majority requirement receive
the same super majority.

The Oregon Citizens Alliance's abortion measure would have banned the
procedure in the second and third trimesters except to save the mother's
life. This is the second general election in which the group opposing
abortion and gay rights has failed to get an initiative on the ballot.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski