LEGISLATORS FACE WIDE RANGE OF PROPOSALS ON STATE'S MEDICAL POT LAW

Some Medical Marijuana Advocates Seek To Close Loopholes That Have
Fostered "Significant" Abuses Within The Program

SALEM -- Oregon's medical marijuana program is undergoing some
intense scrutiny as it enters its second decade.

A Senate panel Monday held the first of what's likely to be several
hearings on a variety of proposals this session, ranging from one
that would create medical marijuana dispensaries to others that would
add restrictions to the program.

The first hearing filled a Capitol room to overflowing, primarily
with medical marijuana patients and advocates of the program.

One of them, Elvy Musikka of Eugene, said patients are wary of any
effort to tamper with a program that gives 21,500 Oregonians legal
access to a drug to ease their pain or debilitating medical conditions.

"I think we have the laws to take care of any problems without making
our program more complicated than it already is," said Musikka, who
has smoked pot for years to ease the symptoms of her glaucoma.

Medical marijuana advocate Stormy Ray asked Sen. Bill Morrisette,
D-Springfield, to sponsor the bill heard Monday. The proposal would
tighten up rules on caregivers of medical marijuana patients, and
would further clarify the quantities of marijuana plants and their
more concentrated derivative, hashish, that patients can possess.

It also would give police the right to assist patients who request
their help in recovering marijuana from growers and caregivers who
fail to provide it.

Ray, who has multiple sclerosis, said she wants to remove gray areas
in the law and close loopholes that have allowed some to abuse their
status as state-sanctioned growers or providers of medical
marijuana. The problem, she said, is that some end up profiting on
the black market from pot that legally belongs to patients but isn't
reaching them.

"The less abuse there is, the better our program will be able to
survive and work for patients," said Ray, one of the chief
petitioners for the state's landmark 1998 medical marijuana initiative.

Another bill introduced Monday on behalf of Voter Power, a marijuana
legalization advocacy group, is identical to a proposed 2010 ballot
initiative creating a government-regulated system of dispensaries,
where patients who hold a state-issued medical marijuana patient
card could acquire pot, cannabis plants and edibles made from marijuana.

John Sajo, the head of Voter Power and a southern Douglas County
resident, said the time is right for such an expansion of Oregon's
law. He cited U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's statement last week
that the Drug Enforcement Administration would end its raids on
state-approved marijuana dispensaries in California.

Another proposal would allow medical marijuana growers to ask
patients to compensate them for their time and materials -- expanding
the current provision that a patient may reimburse a grower for the
costs of supplies and utilities.

Advocates also are asking lawmakers to authorize research into the
efficacy and safety of medical marijuana, and to honor medical
marijuana cards issued by other states.

A law enforcement work group has asked for legislation giving them
access, in certain circumstances, to records on medical marijuana
patients, which currently are sealed, even to police.

The bills also would place various restrictions on how medical
marijuana could be grown and the roles that growers and those legally
designated as caregivers could play.

Oregon State Police Lt. Mike Dingeman, who is working on the law
enforcement legislation, said legislation passed in 2005 to limit
abuses under the program helped, but hasn't prevented the
exploitation of other loopholes.

"Abuse in other areas has skyrocketed significantly," he
said.

Dingeman told lawmakers that one caregiver currently has 26 patients,
each of whom are entitled to 24 ounces of pot. That means the
caregiver could have as much as 39 pounds of pot with him -- but if
police were to stop him, he could lawfully claim that the marijuana
isn't his but rather belongs to patients.

He showed a photograph taken overhead of a backyard filled with 24
pot plants the size of small trees. The law allows up to six mature
plants per garden, but the photo depicted a legal grow site because
six different people were authorized to produce marijuana at the same
address, Dingeman said.

The proposals he helped draft would limit to two the number of
patients each caregiver could be responsible for, and would curb the
number of medical marijuana gardens that could be at a single address.

He said police and prosecutors also want to relax patient-privacy
restrictions in the medical marijuana law. That way, when police
become suspicious about whether growers or caregivers are legitimate,
they can look up their patients and interview them to be sure the
growers and caregivers are really cultivating and providing the pot
to them.