25th
speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 2-23-2011
On
Monday, KDRV Channel 12 told us that House Bill 2982 had been introduced to
scrap the OMMP law and re-write it without protections for patients from
over-enthusiastic cops, and disqualifying anyone with a controlled substance
conviction from having a card.
After Jeopardy, I turned to RVTV Channel 14,
and found Jackson County cops selling this bill or something similar, telling
us about all the evils of medical marijuana, and saying that more controls on
it would somehow stop those evils. The
trouble is, all of the evils that they cited are part of the black market
preserved by OMMP: theft of pot; growing indoors in rental housing; selling
illegally; selling to minors; minors selling to anyone who wants it. All of these evils happened before OMMP; they
have simply become more open as the legal jeopardy of growing and possession
has been reduced for those with a license.
Tightening up the rules won’t stop these evils; it will only make them
worse.
Week
before last, 50 JOINT Josephine County and Oregon State Police officers spent
400 man hours arresting 7 people and closing down 3 “compassionate care
centers” in Grants Pass that had been selling medical pot to OMMP card holders. OSP Lieutenant Darin Lux said, “We’re trying
to enforce the law on the books.
Sometimes it isn’t cheap. We
don’t let that dissuade us from conducting business.”
There
are so many laws on the books that police cannot enforce them all equally; they
should stick to those that are necessary.
We got along well enough for thousands of years without banning cannabis,
which was once mandated to be grown. Our cops are apparently more interested in
arresting pot sellers than thieves, because the feds pay them to arrest pot sellers, skewing the priorities of our
police. The federal government is paying our cops to persecute us with borrowed
money; we already owe over $100,000
per citizen on the national debt. Because
of that borrowed subsidy, 50 officers were taken away for a full work day from
enforcement of laws against theft, vandalism, and littering, among other evils
that they could be stopping.
If
we want our cops to stick to the business of necessary evil, this Board and all interested citizens should ask
the Legislature to pass the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2012, which would put pot
under the same kind of rules as liquor in Oregon. While it would retain the OMMP, it would end
the in-state black market in pot with all of its evils. The evils of Mexican gangs growing weed in
remote areas of our state for the national black market won’t stop until the
rest of the nation follows, but one state has to start the ball rolling. Oregon is good at that.
Rycke
Brown, Natural Gardener 541-955-9040 rycke@gardener.com
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