MEASURE 33 WOULD IMPROVE MARIJUANA LAW

Measure 33 is an initiative to correct deficiencies in the day-to-day
operation of the Medical Marijuana Act passed by voters in 1998. It does
not legalize marijuana, nor does it invite black market drug cartels to Oregon.

From the patients' perspective, the objective of Measure 33 is to make
access to the medicine through their physicians as free from judicial
impediments as possible. From the physicians' perspective, the objective is
to lift the pall of political controversy hanging over those who provide
this medicine to patients.

I have represented medical marijuana patients against criminal charges
throughout the state. Juries have found in favor of these patients in
counties dubbed both conservative and liberal.

Judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials, however, are far less
willing to accept the law as written. In what I am certain is an
unprecedented wave of resistance, they second-guess doctors' decisions and
determine for themselves whether a patient is worthy of this medicine.

Oxycontin, morphine, Vicodin, codeine, Prozac, Xanex: None of these drugs
has ever received the kind of scrutiny and pressure applied to a medical
marijuana patient. I believe it is because marijuana has been an illegal
substance for so long, and because the courts, the police and the
prosecutors have all placed so many people in jail for so long.

It is unrealistic to expect people to suddenly change the way they view
this substance and the people who use it. Truly, you cannot simply
legislate behavior.

What Measure 33 does is expand and simplify the method by which patients
can obtain access to medical marijuana. Currently, patients are allowed to
possess four immature plants and three mature plants.

Overlooking the obvious mathematical disparity of how four immature plants
grow to become three mature plants, how is one to know what is mature and
immature? What is a plant? Do clones count? Is it OK to grow, say, 12 to
ensure that seven survive?

Measure 33 allows a patient to grow 10 plants, of all stages, plus clones -
thus eliminating technical discrepancies for patients who are merely trying
to obtain the medicine their doctors see as beneficial.

Logistically, the grow-your-own strategy hasn't worked for many patients.
Patients are in the unenviable position of having to grow their own
medicine - or finding caregivers to grow their marijuana for free, since
paying someone to do it is illegal.

Growing marijuana takes time, money and know-how, and also requires a good
deal of space - not only for the lights and plants (or the land to grow it
outside), but also a separate space for the beginning of the g rowthcycle.

Between the police and the expenses, it is increasingly difficult for
patients to gain access to marijuana. Measure 33 establishes dispensaries
whereby patients can obtain their preferred medicine in the same way that
all other medicine is accessed - they would buy it at a licensed and
registered establishment.

All sales would be accounted for by the governing agency. As with any other
prescribed medication, unregistered sales would constitute a felony.
Historically, black market cartels are less attracted to areas where their
wares are dispensed under government regulation.

Because of the low medical risks presented by marijuana ingestion (zero, by
all medical standards), the number of health professionals who can
recommend medical marijuana would be expanded under Measure 33. This would
relieve physicians of much of the political pressure currently being
applied, and eliminate the second-guessing of doctors that is endemic in
the courts.

By the latest polling, 83 percent of Oregon voters agree that marijuana has
medicinal value - up from 54 percent when the original initiative passed in
1998.

Oregonians need look no further than California, where the voter-initiated
law allows access to more marijuana by patients, without any of the horrors
predicted by those opposing Measure 33. In fact, there has not been a
single identifiable adverse effect.

So whatever your fears, and whatever the opposition fears, chalk it up to
human inertia - because we have at our backyard an experiment we can look
at to determine what the impact really is. We in Oregon can benefit from
the knowledge and experience gained by the California experiment.