MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS SHEER FOLLY

Alas, Oregon has added itself to the states suffering a lethal case
of reefer madness.

Hubert Henkel is dead after being shot in early March by two
Clackamas County sheriff's deputies serving a warrant for cannabis
cultivation at 10:30 p.m. on his farm near Mulino. A neighbor
described the 68-year-old Henkel as "the hardest working guy I've
ever met." His longtime companion, Marjorie Crawford, 80, was arrested.

A hardworking pair of seniors is terrorized in their home, late at
night, because they enjoy pot?

Henkel's death proves the adage that pot doesn't kill, but
prohibition does. Unfortunately, Henkel's death is not an anomaly.
There is a litany of names of those who have died because of the war
on pot. No one else ever should die over cannabis.

Read what the late William Buck--ley had to say about prohibition in
the April 29, 1983, issue of The National Review: "The anti-marijuana
campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement,
aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and
suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents."

As of this writing, there are 34 bills before the Oregon Legislature
dealing with pot. Some come from patients. Senate Bill 812, for
instance, would establish legitimate dispensaries for medical
marijuana. Some bills come from law enforcement agencies and
essentially would gut the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Rep. Ron
Maurer, R-Grants Pass, is sponsoring House Bill 3274, which would
mandate a state--operated pot garden and eliminate the now-legal
gardens of Oregon citizens qualified as patients in the program.

What seems to be lacking is an acknowledgment that our state is
broke. We cannot try new programs that are not self-funding. The OMMP
is one health program that has put money into the state's coffers.

Law enforcement agencies argue that there is abuse of the medical
marijuana system. Patients are just as adamant, insisting that the
system is flawed, but it works for many, just not enough, patients.

I'm a registered card holder in the program. I'm also active in drug
policy reform, an issue I became passionate about after my former
employer, Bill Conde, closed his lumber yard near Harrisburg.

Bill had a good and growing business. He also was a storehouse of
information about hemp and cannabis. Whatkhe wasn't was a pot dealer,
as the authorities tried to portray him. The pressure led him to
leave the country. The wrong-headedness of prohibition cost three
families full-time livelihoods. How many others have had lives torn
apart because of this prohibition?

Patients are tiring of the lack of recognition cannabis gets as an
effective medicine. To patients, cannabis is a blessing. The
demonization of pot, on the other hand -- dating from the "Reefer
Madness" days of the 1930s -- has been a serious block to advancing
truth and science. The reality gap between cannabis' proven and
suspected multiple medical uses and the stupidity of its illegality is vast.

Peer-reviewed studies at university medical schools and other
institutions continue to find that marijuana can provide benefits in
the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other medical
problems. It's an outrage that these benefits are ignored or suppressed.

The truth about cannabis is "yes, it is medicine." Oregonians who use
pot medicinally are not running a scam. They are not anything other
than what they claim: patients who find high-quality, affordable and
safe medicine in cannabis. Legislators, law enforcement and other
criminal justice professionals, doctors, news reporters and our
state's newspaper editors need to stop believing those who are lying
about cannabis.

I believe Oregon needs a public, fact-based debate about cannabis as
medicine and about the absolute fantasies upon which the current
policy of prohibition is based.

Every activist patient, every hemp activist and every pot
legalization advocate in Oregon relishes the opportunity to engage
those whose fundamental cannabis philosophy is rooted solely in reefer madness.