MEASURE CALLS FOR MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

Oregon wasn't the first state to permit sick people to smoke marijuana when
voters passed Measure 67 in 1998, but it was the first to create a
state-operated registry that issued cards to patients.

Now, Oregon voters are again being asked to break new ground in the Nov. 2
election: Measure 33 would create the nation's first state-licensed
nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries, which would sell marijuana to
cardholders. The initiative also would increase the amount of marijuana
cardholders could grow and possess.

Proponents say the measure would address one of the most oft-cited problems
with the current law: that patients find it hard to obtain an adequate
supply of marijuana because of restrictions in the current law.

"That, combined with the fact that there's no place a patient can go and
get medicine, has resulted in many of the patients in the program going
without their medicine," chief petitioner John Sajo said. "This is
medicine, it's a real medicine, and patients should be able to get it
consistently when they want it."

Opponents say the law would open the door for black-market growers to
operate with impunity in Oregon. White House drug czar John Walters said
the measure would turn Oregon "into a safe haven for drug trafficking."

Even some medical marijuana advocates oppose the measure, saying it would
jeopardize the existing law by prompting federal authorities to intervene.
Oregon's law has avoided heavy-handed federal intervention because it keeps
marijuana gardens small and no money changes hands, said Jerry Wade, a
board member of the Stormy Ray Cardholders Foundation and a medical
marijuana cardholder since 1999.

Stormy Ray was the chief petitioner for the original law, known as the
Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, or OMMA. She has multiple sclerosis and says
marijuana saved her life. She opposes Measure 33.

"There have been so many Oregonians that have worked hard to create the
OMMA program, that it is appalling that today's bad caregivers would try to
take over our program," she said.

Plenty of medical marijuana is being grown, she said, but not all of it is
getting to cardholders. "It's being diverted away from the program," she
said. The answer for cardholders struggling to keep a good supply of
marijuana is to network with other patients, she said.

Sajo said Ray, because she has been the "poster child" for the medical
marijuana movement, has not had to worry about her own supply because
others have grown it for her. In fact, Sajo said, he served as her
caregiver - a person designated under the law to grow marijuana for a
patient - for several years.

"She's been taken care of better than anyone else," he said. More than
11,000 Oregonians, including 1,300 Lane County residents, hold medical
marijuana cards, which exempt them from arrest and prosecution for growing
and possessing small amounts of medicinal marijuana.

To qualify for a card, a doctor must confirm marijuana could provide some
relief from one of the qualifying medical conditions, such as cancer, HIV,
glaucoma or Alzheimer's disease, or a disease that causes symptoms such as
severe pain, nausea, muscle spasms or wasting disease.

Measure 33 would enact a number of changes to the law, including:

* Increasing the amount of marijuana a cardholder or their caregiver could
possess. Current law limits cardholders to seven marijuana plants, of which
three can be "mature," and possess up to three ounces. The initiative would
permit a cardholder or their designated caregiver to possess up to 10
mature marijuana plants and one pound of usable marijuana at any time.
However, if they only grow one crop a year, they're allowed to possess up
to six pounds per patient immediately following the harvest.

* Permitting naturopaths and nurse-practitioners to sign medical marijuana
applications; under current law, only medical doctors and osteopaths can
sign a patient's application.

* Lowering the annual application fee from $150 to $20.

* Directing the state to conduct scientific research into marijuana as
medicine.

Clearly the most controversial part of the measure, though, would require
the state to license nonprofit groups to run medical marijuana
dispensaries. An applicant would pay a $1,000 fee and submit a petition
with signatures of at least 25 cardholders to get a license.

If no private dispensary is licensed in a particular county with six or
more cardholders, then the state would grant a license to the county health
department, which would be required to dispense marijuana to cardholders.

Dispensaries would be required to keep records, submit monthly reports, be
subject to pre-announced inspections and pay 10 percent to 20 percent of
their gross revenue to the state medical marijuana program.

They also would be required to provide medical marijuana to indigent
cardholders at no cost, with a value representing at least 20 percent of
the dollar amount sold to their paying patients.

Sajo said he understands concerns that the measure would undermine public
support for medical marijuana. But he said it's important that patients
have ready access to marijuana in "a safe, regulated environment."

"It would have safeguards and regulation, and I think people who say it
goes too far are just willing to let patients go without medicine, and we
are not," he said.

But opponents say Measure 33 is craftily written to let drug dealers, even
those with prior convictions, run marijuana dispensaries and sell marijuana
to cardholders.

"It doesn't matter if you have the criminal history of Noriega - you can
still get into this program and be a dispensary," said Wade of the Stormy
Ray foundation.

The measure does not require state officials to conduct background checks,
nor does it permit them to ban people with criminal histories from running
dispensaries, he said.

Law enforcement officials are concerned as well about the criminal element
running large-scale, state-licensed marijuana growing operations, said Lt.
Craig Durbin of the Oregon State Police drug enforcement section. "There's
no regulatory arm that is going to be able to look at dispensaries to
determine if this person is staying within guidelines and they're not
currently involved in criminal activity," he said.

Durbin said he also is concerned that dispensaries would become targets for
criminals willing to commit violence to steal a large amount of marijuana.

But Todd Dalotto, who runs Compassion Center, a Eugene medical marijuana
advocacy group, said Measure 33 would most likely reduce crime because
patients would not have to turn to the black market to get marijuana.

Wade and other opponents argue that Measure 33 is a backdoor attempt to
legalize marijuana.

Sajo, the chief petitioner of the measure, denies that. But he said it is
"a step in that direction." He said approval of the measure would undermine
the prohibitionist argument that "everything about marijuana is bad."

"Anything that educates people to the fact that marijuana has positive
uses, as well as the potential for abuse, I think undercuts that paradigm,"
he said. "But the measure is not legalization."