Special report:

The Reality of Medical Marijuana Use Not What Proponents Projected in 1998

In 1998, advocates sold a medical marijuana program to Oregon voters
by tugging on heartstrings.

"There are thousands of patients like me, people suffering from
cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy and a host of other diseases or
illnesses that threaten their lives," wrote grandmother Stormy Ray in
that year's voters' pamphlet. No drug should be denied them in their
efforts to cope with the resulting pain, not even marijuana, she argued.

But only about 3 percent of today's patients cite cancer and even
fewer cite seizure-inducing conditions like epilepsy. AIDS and
glaucoma don't even make the top five, which is dominated by three
less special conditions that could be considered catchalls - pain,
spasms and nausea.

Measure 67's advocates projected about 500 new patients a year, which
would have swelled participation to 6,000 by now, not considering
attrition due to deaths or withdrawals.

But the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program now encompasses 48,838
users, who pay nearly $2.5 million a year for the substance. They are
assisted by 25,486 caregivers and 31,896 growers, though they are
allowed to grow and use without assistance, and often do.

Each user can legally possess up to 1.5 pounds of processed marijuana
at a time, along with up to six mature plants and 18 immature plants
- - limits established by the 2005 Legislature. Each grower and
caregiver can possess up to the same amount of marijuana and number
of mature and immature plants on a per-client basis.

While growers are limited to four clients, there is no limit for the
number of clients a caregiver may have. Caregivers are authorized to
assist patients who might not be able to manage on their own.

In fact, one Portland marijuana advocate is listed as the official
caregiver for 46 users and official grower for four more. Thus, he
can legally possess up to 75 pounds of processed marijuana at any
given time, plus 300 mature plants and 900 immature plants.

A pound of locally grown marijuana sells for anywhere from $1,500 to
$4,000, according to law enforcement sources. In fact, a pound of
top-quality product could be swapped for a pound of cocaine, they say.

A mature plant typically yields seven to 15 pounds, so the net
allowance could run thousands of pounds of marijuana, worth millions
of dollars.

To avoid a criminal possession charge, someone who doesn't hold a
medical marijuana card is limited to less than one ounce. Law
enforcement officials, who have to deal with the fallout, think
allowing medical marijuana cardholders, caregivers and growers to
possess dozens of times that much, if not hundreds or even thousands,
virtually invites abuse.

What's more, today's marijuana is vastly more potent than the casual
observer might expect.

The active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, typically tested about 6
percent in the marijuana being smuggled in from Mexico when the drug
began gaining popularity in the 1960s, according to the Yamhill
County Interagency Narcotics Team. Today, YCINT says, local growers
using sophisticated equipment and techniques are producing pot with a
THC content of up to 30 percent - five times as much.

Critics say the system is totally lacking in oversight. They say it
isn't serving mainly to help sick people, but rather helps criminals
and addicts, allowing them to traffic in marijuana more readily
without getting caught. The vast majority of participants are abusing
the program, they contend.

Advocates also decry the lack of oversight, but for different reasons.

Patients who need the drug can't simply purchase it from a drug store
or dispensary; they have to deal with a grower. Advocates say that
discourages many legitimate users, leading them to drop out of the program.

However, a measure to establish a state-regulated dispensary program
was defeated at the polls in November.

Yamhill County is home to 852 registered medical marijuana patients.

Some 781, or 92 percent, list pain as the reason for their use of the
drug. Another 197 state muscle spasms, while 118 cite nausea.

So few cite cancer that it doesn't even qualify for specific
numerical breakout. The number of local cancer sufferers in the
program is given simply as "less than 50."

That's also true of the numbers for seizures, glaucoma and AIDS.

The local figures mirror the state as a whole. Only 1,566 of the
state's entire roster list cancer as one of their reasons to be in
the medical marijuana program, and even fewer list the other
conditions advocates touted 12 years ago in selling the program to voters.

According to data analyst Aaron Cossel, participants are allowed to
enumerate multiple conditions and sometimes do. That makes the low
number citing conditions like cancer or AIDS even more striking.

In February, State Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, introduced a measure
to limit the conditions qualifying for participation in the program.
Senate Bill 777 would allow marijuana use only for a set of specific
conditions, and would prohibit the Oregon Health Authority from
adding conditions to the list in the future.

The bill would authorize use only for:

. Nausea stemming from chemotherapy.

. Severe or neuropathic pain.

. Insomnia associated with fibromyalgia.

. Appetite loss from cancer or AIDS.

. Glaucoma.

. Spasticity from multiple sclerosis.

At a March 16 hearing before the Senate Health Care, Human Services
and Rural Health Policy Committee on March 16, opponents called the
bill "cruel." They argued, "Either you think marijuana is medicine or
you don't."

However, that's not the way the ballot measure was presented to
voters. At the time, marijuana was billed as an appropriate treatment
for a relatively narrow range of specific conditions, not as a
panacea for all ills.

The language in the 1998 Measure 67 made it clear that marijuana was
to be used only for severe, debilitating and potentially
life-threatening illnesses, and then only as a last resort for
patients not getting relief through conventional treatment. That's
what led advocates to project only about 500 people a year would qualify.

For many critics, particularly in the law enforcement community,
Kruse's proposal doesn't go nearly far enough. Locally, they are led
by Sheriff Jack Crabtree and one of his detectives - Sgt. Chris Ray,
who heads the Yamhill County Interagency Narcotics Team.

They say the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program has become nothing more
than a front for the sale and use of high-potency pot, perpetuating
an existing black market.

Ray and detective Randy Ogle of the Oregon State Police, a YCINT
colleague, said they routinely encounter people using pot for
conditions that don't qualify, growing more than allowed to under the
law and selling pot grown under the auspices of the program to fund
some other form of drug habit.

A YCINT case from last May illustrates their complaint. The target
was James Woods of McMinnville.

As a registered grower, Woods had a legal right to supply four
registered users. They included his 15-year-old son, authorized to
take marijuana for attention-deficit disorder and "sleeplessness and
lack of appetite" associated with diabetes, neither of which was ever
envisioned by advocates.

But Woods was caught with far more marijuana than the law allows.
YCINT agents also discovered and seized a quantity of methamphetamine
when they raided Woods' grow.

Ray's report included this exchange:

"He said he didn't understand what the state expects him to do with
all the excess marijuana that he ends up with after his patients are
supplied. I suggested he not sell it."

New registrants require some sort of medical certification.

Back in 1998, advocates led voters to believe that would typically
come from a patient's primary care physician. However, in practice,
that has never proven the case.

Last year, about 80 percent of all new certifications were provided
by a single Portland source - a chain of "clinics" operated by the
Hemp and Cannabis Foundation.

The foundation has issued a set of guidelines to help its clients
determine which conditions qualify and which don't.

It rules out attention-deficit disorder, even though that was one of
the conditions cited for the younger Woods. But it doesn't rule out
pain - even pain from a painful knee, which is what foundation head
Paul Stanford cited in his own registration.

Stanford defends his own qualification, saying his doctor is amazed
anyone with such a bad knee could get by without surgery to fix the problem.

That doesn't surprise Ray. He said that claims like those of Woods
and Stanford are the rule rather than the exception.

And he said users are by no means alone in abusing the system. In
large measure, he said, caregivers and growers are also using it for cover.

Stanford is perhaps the state's leading example.

When the law was enacted, the caregiver function was created to
protect a spouse, parent or nurse from being prosecuted for
administering marijuana to a terminally ill patient. But it quickly
changed into something else entirely.

Stanford told the News-Register that he serves as the official
caregiver for 46 users. He said he serves as official grower for four
others, giving him a total caseload of 50.

He said he is actually growing and supplying the marijuana for all
50, but that only requires 24 plants, enough to produce several
hundred pounds per harvest.

He thinks he's managing to stay within the law. If so, critics say
he's making a great case for an overhaul.

That's certainly the view of Yamhill County District Attorney Brad Berry.

He said he could support the program if it was limited to sick people
truly in need, but that isn't what he's seeing. "There is nobody who
needs 24 ounces of medical marijuana at one time," he said.

Ray and Ogle say Mexican drug cartels use proceeds from marijuana
sales to fund trafficking in other drugs, including methamphetamine,
powdered cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin. And they said local
medical marijuana growers are increasingly taking the same tack on a
vastly smaller scale.

In one recent local case they prosecuted, a registered medical
marijuana caregiver was caught selling pot to support his meth habit.
He was supposed to be assisting his ex-girlfriend with her medical
needs, but she had left both him and the area.

YCINT caught the grower, Jay Marrington of Lafayette, with 12 mature
plants and 26 immature plants. The agency said he was selling it to
fund his meth habit.

Ray and Ogle said the association is a common one. In fact, it's the rule.

They say they discover marijuana in about 98 percent of their meth busts.

Marrington insisted he wasn't actually selling the drug, he was just
growing it. However, Ray said undercover agents made several buys
from him before staging the raid.

Local law enforcement officials all agree that with proper oversight,
the program wouldn't be open to such flagrant abuse. They say the
state extends a virtual open invitation to lawbreakers because it
provides no followup regulatory oversight whatsoever.

Crabtree, Ray and Berry said the state should be requiring actual
prescriptions, not simple waivers, which carry a much lower standard.

While the marijuana being grown today is vastly more potent than it
used to be, its potency still varies widely from crop to crop.
Because the program goes unregulated, he said, users have no way to
monitor the dosage they are getting.

No legitimate medication has ever been dispensed that way, he said.

If YCINT stops a driver with a bottle of OxyContin in his car, Ray
noted, picking up on the theme, they can check the pharmacy label to
determine who should be in possession of how much and for what
reason. But with marijuana, ostensibly put to the same pain-relief
purpose, none of that information is available, he said.

With OxyContin, discrete, refillable amounts are doled out to
patients under the direct supervision of physicians and pharmacists
held accountable by their licensing organizations. But the supply is
virtually unlimited with marijuana, despite the extreme potency it
often carries today.

Berry agreed. Outside the program, he noted, possession of anything
close to 1.5 pounds of marijuana would constitute proof of intent to sell.

The largest barrier to adoption of a highly regulated prescription
system is another arm of government - the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration. It lists marijuana as a Schedule I substance, which
means it can't be legally prescribed - or even used in scientific or
medical research projects - for any reason.

Medical researchers have developed a synthetic form of marijuana's
active ingredient, THC. Doctors may legally prescribe Marinol, and it
is often used to treat nausea and loss of appetite associated with
cancer, AIDS and and the powerful chemotherapy drugs used to combat them.

However, Marinol is not effective in treating pain, leading
researchers to suspect any analgesic properties marijuana actually
possesses must stem from some other ingredient.

If marijuana were less regulated at the federal level, it could be
more regulated at the state level, much the way opiates like
OxyContin are, Berry said.

He said pharmacies could then regulate dosage and track use. Under
such a system, there would be a clearer distinction between
legitimate users and criminals.

Ironically, that's one point on which critics and advocates agree. In
fact, it's probably the only one.

Stanford is all for adoption of a prescription system.

He said about 40 percent of his Hemp Foundation clients let their
cards lapse because they aren't comfortable with what they have to go
through to line up a supply. Dispensing the drug through pharmacies,
or even the formal dispensaries envisioned in the failed November
ballot measure, would alleviate that problem, he said.

The two sides quickly diverge from that point on.

Stanford is enthused with the big numbers the program is producing.
He believes marijuana should ultimately be fully legalized, and
thinks the numbers suggest a growing base of support.

For critics, though, the program amounts to nothing more than a
deceptive form of back-door legalization.

Ray said legalization advocates "pulled the wool over the eyes of
voters" when they won passage of the measure.

Berry said he's not convinced marijuana should be legalized outright,
but he said Oregonians are entitled to an honest debate. He terms the
state's medical marijuana program a ruse for legalizing marijuana
without that debate.

Crabtree concurs.

"If our state wants to have an honest discussion about the pros and
cons of legal marijuana, let's do it," he said. "But let's not back-door it."