MEDICAL POT BACKERS SAY MEASURE WILL FIX FLAWS

Law Enforcement Groups Oppose Plan For Dispensaries

There may not be much about Oregon's medical marijuana laws on which
John Sajo and Josh Marquis agree, but there's this: The state's
medical marijuana program needs fixing.

Sajo is a co-author of Ballot Measure 74, which he says will provide
much of that fix. Marquis, the Clatsop County district attorney,
thinks 74 would make an even greater mess of the medical marijuana
program. If passed by voters, the measure would, in Marquis' words,
"kick the door open to commercial marijuana distribution in Oregon."

They both may be right.

First the problems. Medical marijuana advocates such as Sajo,
executive director of pro-marijuana organization Voter Power, say as
many as half of the state's nearly 40,000 cardholders have trouble
consistently getting the cannabis they are entitled to for pain
relief. That's because the initial ballot measure that established
medical marijuana in Oregon, passed in 1998, gave cardholders the
right to grow their own or designate a grower for them.

But in a bit of fanciful thinking, the authors of the original ballot
measure established that Oregon marijuana growers couldn't be paid for
the cannabis they supply to cardholders.

Which, law enforcement officials say, is one of the reasons for what
they see as a second fundamental problem with the existing medical
marijuana program - its ability to provide cover for marijuana growers
who are illegally supplying the black market. Many of those suppliers,
they say, are growing large black market crops, but are kept beyond
the reach of law enforcement because they can show they have been
designated as legal growers by medical marijuana cardholders.

Measure 74 would take care of the medical marijuana supply problem by
allowing privately run medical marijuana dispensaries to become
established throughout the state. These dispensaries, or shops, would
sell marijuana to cardholders, and get their marijuana from
state-licensed marijuana growers.

In addition, Measure 74 would direct the state to set up a system in
which low-income medical marijuana cardholders could get access to
reduced-price cannabis. Also, the measure authorizes state officials
to fund research on medical marijuana.

The measure, however, does not specify how much revenue the state must
apportion to those two efforts. Measure supporters have estimated that
the revenue from the program (growers and dispensaries will have
license fees and pay 10 percent of their income to the state) could
bring $20 million into state coffers each year. Out of that, the
health department would take money to run the program; the rest could
return to the state general fund.

State health officials have estimated that, if Measure 74 passes,
there might be as many as 246 dispensaries around the state within
four years. But both supporters and detractors of the ballot measure
agree that nobody really knows what the landscape will look like. And
that is one of the main points of contention about the measure.

Law enforcement officials point to California, where vaguely worded
legislation allowed more than 800 loosely regulated medical marijuana
dispensaries to flourish in Los Angeles County alone. But there is
also danger in having too few dispensaries, Sajo says.

In New Mexico, only about a dozen dispensaries have been licensed, and
Sajo says each of those shops sells its entire stock of medical
marijuana as soon as it is announced for sale, leaving many
cardholders without access to cannabis.

There's little likelihood a Los Angeles-style environment could happen
in Oregon, Sajo says.

"The idea that there will just be a proliferation of fly-by-night
operations is unfounded," Sajo says. "If they (state health
authorities) make rules tough enough, that will inherently limit the
number."

Growers and dispensaries will be required to record their
transactions, which will be reviewed by the state Department of Human
Services public health division, which also will oversee the program.

"To presume there's going to be too many and they will be out of
control, causing problems, assumes the health department is going to
be asleep at the wheel," Sajo says.

In Sajo's view, Measure 74 finally brings the state oversight to the
medical marijuana program that law enforcement officials have been
seeking.

"We think law enforcement should like this proposal," he
says.

But they don't. The associations representing the state's sheriffs,
chiefs of police and district attorneys all formally oppose Measure
74.

The health department doesn't have the means or experience to oversee
dispensaries and legal growers, but that's exactly what it would have
to do, Marquis says.

Establishing and overseeing dispensaries and growers involves a number
of judgment calls and a great deal of monitoring that isn't spelled
out in the ballot measure. For example, the measure doesn't say how
many dispensaries and marijuana farms will be allowed, or exactly
where they will be placed, beyond the fact that they cannot be within
1,000 feet of a school or in a residential neighborhood.

In Marquis' view, having state health authorities responsible for
oversight makes no sense. Much of what they would need to do, he says,
such as ensuring that members of organized crime are not involved in
growing or selling medical marijuana, needs to be done by law
enforcement.

But Measure 74 does not give law enforcement any role in overseeing
the medical marijuana program. And the oversight task would be such a
large one, Marquis says, that if health authorities did a thorough
job, the promised state revenues wouldn't add up to much at all.

"If DHS were to actually do that, the $20 million would vanish in a
nanosecond," Marquis says.

One thing Oregon voters are unlikely to see in the weeks leading up to
the Nov. 2 Election Day is an abundance of advertising on the medical
marijuana measure. Ohio billionaire Peter Lewis has been the major
financial backer of pro-marijuana efforts nationwide, and contributed
$12,800. But Sajo says Lewis has not been forthcoming with any
additional money.