THE BULLETIN AND ANTI-POT EXTREMISM

The Bulletin again wrongly stands against marijuana (cannabis). In
the Oct. 28 editorial "Pot politics and business," The Bulletin
suggests that in 2009, Oregon legislators will have another
opportunity to pass a discriminatory statute allowing employers in
our state to fire anyone who tests positive for cannabis (SB 465),
even if that person is registered in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.

The Bulletin published a story the following day, "Group takes aim at
medical marijuana law," focusing on the efforts of Dan Harmon and his
group, the Drugfree Workplace Legislative Work Group.

Lacking evidence of cannabis compromising the safety of any of
Oregon's workplaces from legal participants in the OMMP,
anti-cannabis forces rely solely on personal bias to push their
intrusive agenda. Random drug testing is a violation of the U.S.
Constitution's Fourth Amendment and Section 9 of Article I of the
Oregon Constitution.

How much more unreasonable can a seizure get than the taking of a
person's bodily fluids? Surely the lack of even one workplace
accident due to any Oregon patient's medical cannabis use makes drug
test searches (and seizures) unreasonable, lacking any probable cause.

In 1998, voters passed the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act with 55
percent in favor. That same election there was a proposal to make
possession of cannabis a crime again, which voters rejected by a
larger measure than passed the OMMA.

Harmon and his cohorts are anti-cannabis extremists. They ignore
medical science. Our nation prohibited pot without any credible
scientific testimony, no medical expertise and a media campaign based
on racial bigotry. On the other hand, science today continues to find
illnesses and medical conditions that marijuana effectively treats.

There is an underhandedness to Harmon's DrugFree Workplace efforts.
Harmon and his ilk apparently wish to avoid debate at all costs.
Surely if their anti-cannabis politics were supported by science and
their drug-testing agenda supported by an obvious history of
workplace safety abuse at the hands of the state's OMMP participants,
they would welcome opposition.

Could it be that the foundation for Harmon's efforts is inherently
weak? I think so. Could it be that Harmon and his peers fear open and
public debate? I think so.

The OMMP is a legitimate step toward regulating cannabis. Law
enforcement, on the other hand, has failed miserably in their efforts
at controlling pot's production and consumption using Prohibition
policies. Nearly a quarter of a million pot plants were seized last
year (with some grows numbering thousands of plants) and the
overwhelming majority of those illicit operations were run by
criminal foreign cartels.

It is obvious that Prohibition has failed, again. In these hard
economic times we need to move toward more regulation (which the OMMA
continues to do) and away from policies that only spend increasingly
rare funds.

Leland Berger, a Portland attorney who represents patients and their
providers statewide, put it this way:

"Abuse of the OMMA, to the extent it exists at all, is far and away
the exception rather than the rule. Instead, the OMMA has taken a
huge financial bite out of the underground market.

"Figuring 20,000 patients times 6 pounds a year (4-24 ounce indoor
harvests/year, which is how it was explained to the Legislature in
2005) times $4,000/pound is $480 million, or nearly half a billion
dollars, that is no longer in the underground market. That's huge."

Perhaps it is time to bring the issue forward and have it debated
publicly. Oregon's cannabis-consuming patients are ready for that
debate. Will Dan Harmon, The Bulletin and the small array of anti-pot
individuals in Oregon care to step up and defend their position, in public?