THE SITUATION IN OREGON

Oregon's medical marijuana initiative, passed in 1998, authorized the state
Department of Health to issue cards entitling patients (with a doctor's
approval) to possess and grow three "mature" plants which the state has
interpreted to mean "flowering" and four immature plants. As of February
'02, fewer than 1,700 Oregonians had paid the $150 annual fee for a
state-issued card; since then some 2,500 names have been added to the
registry, bringing the total to about 4,200. The surge appears to be an
unintended consequence of the Board of Medical Examiners' investigation of
Dr. Philip Leveque, a famously liberal recommendation-writer. The Board
couldn't find grounds to revoke Leveque's license, but they suspended it
from May through July, and he was ordered to meet certain practice
standards in the future.

Publicity surrounding the case inspired many citizens to seek
recommendations through their own doctors (950 Oregon docs now have signed
at least one application for medical-mj cards), and through Leveque
himself. The indominitable 79-year-old osteopath has endorsed some 750
state-card applicants since his license was restored Aug. 1. This week he
saw patients at ad hoc clinics in Roseburg, Medford, Brookings, and
Portland Philip Leveque, a man to whom 26 German officers once surrendered!

The mighty U.S. government is not sitting by idly as Oregonians turn to the
devil weed. On Sept. 23 a DEA agent confiscated a total of 12 indoor plants
being grown by three documented patients Leroy Stubblefield, 54, Scotty
Russell, 46, and Clarence Vandehey, 48 at Stubblefield's residence in Sweet
Home. Stubblefield is a quadraplegic vet who survived the dangers of
Vietnam only to have his spinal column destroyed in a car crash the day
after he got discharged in '69. He lived in a nursing home until 1976, at
which time, with government assistance, he was able to live more-or-less
independently.

All three men are Caucasian, by the way, and longtime Linn County residents
with clean records.

None had been publicizing their cannabis use. In fact, they were such
low-profile rank-and-filers that none of Oregon's marijuana-reform
organizations got wind of the bust until a month after it occurred. Paul
Stanford of the Hemp & Cannabis Foundation happened to call Stubblefield
Oct. 19 on behalf of a patient who was selling a trailer in Sweet Home and
needed a local phone contact. As the confiscation was recounted by Russell
to Stanford, "When they first came to the door, the sheriff didn't say he
had a federal agent with him. He identified himself as an officer with the
Linn County VALIANT Team. Valiant is a pretty ironic word here. It's an
acronym for "'Valley Inter-agency Narcotics Team.'"

Under Oregon law, the Health Services Dept. will answer inquiries from
state and local law-enforcement officers not the feds about whether a given
patient or address is registered. Stanford thinks the DEA may have been
informed inappropriately about Stubblefield's garden.

"Leroy was in bed when they came. His caregiver [Russell] took them back
and the officer started talking to Leroy from behind the bed and the
caregiver had to explain that Leroy couldn't roll over and see him. They
said they wanted to inspect the grow site. They were all under a
misapprehension that the state has the right to inspect a grow site. A
patient who has a medical marijuana card doesn't give up any of their
rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. But Leroy said,
'Okay, you can go look.' So the Linn County officer went down with several
other officers, never saying that one of them is a federal agent. And as
soon as they get down there they play out their little drama: "I'm not
taking it, this garden is in compliance under state law." "Well, I'm taking
it because it's illegal under federal law." And that's what they did.

"They mentioned to Scotty while they were down there that this was one of
the first gardens they'd inspected that was in full compliance. And this is
the first one they confiscated. No one has been indicted and I wasn't
arrested when I brought down seven replacement plants and gave them to
Leroy on Sunday the 20th."

Stanford, 42, is a full-time cannabis advocate.

He cultivates indoors in 15-25 gallon containers less than one flowering
plant per patient,for himself and 17 other medical users.

He also produces a weekly TV show called "Cannabis Common Sense" co-hosted
by Leveque, that tops the public-access-station ratings.

Recently he had two live plants in the studio "and the police didn't come
get us." Stanford speaks respectfully of Portland's longtime D.A., Mike
Shrunk. "He was a strong drug warrior and our opponent until about 10 years
ago," says Stanford. "But he's paid attention and come around to a more
neutral, objective position."

This summer Stanford's non-profit Hemp and Cannabis Foundation opened a
clinic at 4259 NE Broadway St., where Dr. Leveque regularly sees patients.
Nurse practitioners conduct the physical exams, and patients have to bring
records documenting a history of serious illness (as per Leveque's
commitment to the Board). The Foundation has asked attorney Ann Witte to
prepare two suits to be filed in response to the Stubblefield confiscation.
"In state court we're seeking an injunction to stop all Oregon law
enforcement agencies from cooperating on any marijuana investigation with
federal agencies.

In federal court we're suing to get the plants back and for compensation to
Leroy. They threatened to take the poor man's home and make him live in a
nursing home, which is a very real fear for him."

Stanford also runs a political entity called the Campaign for the
Restoration & Regulation of Hemp which has twice failed to get an
initiative on the ballot that would regulate the sale of marijuana to
adults through state-licensed liquor stores. (It was written to bring
Oregon into compliance with international treaties.) There'll be another
signature drive in the spring of 2003. Roughly 100,000 signatures are needed.

A reform outfit called Voter Power is preparing an initiative for 2003 that
would expand the current law to allow patients/caregivers to grow 10 plants
and create state-licensed non-profit dispensaries to conduct
over-the-counter sales. Oregon's initiative system itself would be
modified by an initiative on this year's ballot, backed by the unions and
the League of Women voters, that would ban payment to canvassers on a
per-signature basis.

Paying for signatures by the hour supposedly would double the cost of
getting an initiative on the ballot and thus inhibit a rightwing politico
named Bill Sizemore who has been advancing his anti-union agenda by means
of initiatives.

Oregon is a politically schizoid state, half eco-liberal, half
whacko-christer. A designed-in-Eugene initiative to create a state
health-insurance system has gotten swamped by corporate money A measure
that would require genetically modified foods to be labeled as such was
getting 57% support in the polls until the corporate ad campaign kicked in,
and within two weeks support was down to 43%, and falling. You'd never
know from the ubiquitous signs attacking "the costly labeling law" that it
has anything to do with what you take into your body.

Speaking of highway signs, a man named Bill Conte, who owned a lumber yard
south of Albany, used to display his pro-hemp sentiments on a banner that
could be read from I-5. After years of harassment from the local
authorities, Conte moved to Belize, his wife's native country, and he's now
got a successful business buying items at Oregon flea markets and garage
sales, shipping them by the container-load to Belize, and selling them
there. Somehow he must have overcome the dreaded "amotivational syndrome."