Holy Smoke

It sounds like yet another small step in the appropriate direction to me.

"“These guys are nothing compared to the anarchists,” Voepel says."

Sounds like an opening to a great book, to be honest.

I'm confused. A marijuana story in the Willamette Week without the wink-wink-nudge-nudge double entendrés about pot? How about "Mannix initiative goes up in smoke" perhaps, or like last year's "marchers groggily gathered" comment. No pictures of the most dreadlocked unkempt protester? No digs about "munchies" or "slackers"? Did I pick up the right paper? (In other words, kudos to WWeek for reporting it like any other political rally... which it is.)

A very small step indeed! When will reason and a return to individual liberty and self-determination prevail? Alcohol remains legal and celebrated with a brew pub on every corner despite it's deadly and violence-inducing, highly addictive properties, while marijuana which has none of those traits remains illegal. And now the employers of Portland routinely exclude medical marijuana patients from employment with their wrong-headed drug testing policies. So much for Portland's concern for all its citizens.

Three legislative sessions in a row, dedicated activists have managed to stop a bill that would specifically state that employers can fire medical marijuana patients. Please contact your legislators and let them know that marijuana should be treated the same as other medicines. That is not just an opinion, it is the law of our great state.

Also, if possible, attend the public hearings when this bill rears its ugly head in the 2009 legislative session. Voter Power helps transport patients and activists to these hearings to ensure that our voices are heard by the politicians in Salem. The big business interests and anti-medical marijuana zealots have hired full-time lobbyists to take away the rights and freedoms of patients. We may not be able to match their deep pockets, but we can surpass them with our passion and our sheer numbers.

Anthony Johnson

Voter Power Political Director

www.voterpower.org

Having medicinal cannabis "taxed by the state" and cannabis available "in state-run liquor stores" for adults are common-sense proposals that would generate millions of dollars for out state. We could get medicine to sick and disabled patients that desperately need it to alleviate their severe debilitating medical conditions and we could generate enough revenue to expand the Oregon Health Plan and other social services. Please support these proposals.

Anthony Johnson

Voter Power Political Director

www.voterpower.org

How is this going to work? What about the many card holders growing their own? Would they be included in this tax and relax strategy (which obviously couldn't work)? Would they be ordered to stop growing creating a slew of "criminals" overnight? If they were untaxed and only allowed to grow for personal what do you think would happen to imagined revenue the state would generate?

Right now there are no real proposals to support. I hope whoever puts it up looks at all the complexities involved. Whatever is put on the table, I guarantee the Feds are gonna tear it apart. So far they've publicly denounced and tacitly approved state approved MMPs. That would definitely change if MM became a source of public revenue.

I think the tax/relax approach is better reserved for total legalization. We aren't there yet. Try it now and we'd seriously jeopardize what we already have.

In a nation were one can walk in a store show ID and purchase 151 proof bottle of booze ,it make no sense one cant buy legal Marijuana?

I need to clarify what the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act proposal would do. The entire wording and much other info on OCTA are on our website at www.cannabistaxact.org ... First, I want to thank Anthony Johnson for his support. However, the first statement in Anthony's post wasn't accurate. The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act won't tax medical marijuana. It will provide untaxed cannabis to pharmacies, so medical patients could obtain cannabis at a very low price. It will allow anyone over 21 to grow their own cannabis for personal use without tax nor license. It will supersede the current Oregon Medical Marijuana Program and allow both patients and any adult to grow and possess their own cannabis with no fee or license. For sale to adults over 21, OCTA will license the cultivation of cannabis by implementing a system of controls mandated by international treaty. OCTA will comprehensively reform marijuana laws by regulating and taxing adult sales; licensing the cultivation of the drug for sale in state-run package stores and adults-only businesses; allowing adults to grow their own and farmers to grow industrial hemp without license; and letting doctors prescribe untaxed cannabis to patients suffering from a variety of illnesses and injuries. OCTA will end adult marijuana prohibition and

restore industrial hemp.

The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) will regulate the sale of cannabis in state-run package stores and in bars and coffeshops that get a license. Adults can also grow their own without a license and farmers will be able to grow unlicensed industrial hemp. We decided to implement the sale of cannabis in existing liquor stores to comply with an international treaty that requires that a single state commission control the commercial marijuana market. We think by complying with this international treaty, which carries the same weight as the US Constitution in federal court, OCTA will be upheld in federal court. We estimate that hundreds of millions of dollars will be raised each year for state revenue, perhaps more than 20 percent of a state's total budget, 90 percent of which will go to the state general fund, 8 percent to drug-abuse treatment programs, 1 percent to drug education and 1 percent to create and fund an agricultural committee that promotes Oregon's new hemp fiber, protein and oil crops and industries.We will take that money out of the underground economy and regulate an untaxed market that constitutes Oregon's largest industry. By allowing responsible adults to purchase marijuana in state package stores, we will stop the ongoing decline in social services and state educational funding for public schools and colleges, provide money for other state programs and lower the state legislature's ability to raise taxes for these programs on the general population. We want to emphasize that OCTA will save Oregonians money for their own use, rather than require them to pay more taxes for state programs.

The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act was written to comply with international treaty law and makes a number of findings by the people in its preamble that will allow it to be upheld in the inevitable court challenge it must endure after winning in a statewide election, prior to going into effect. OCTA was carefully crafted over a period of more than a decade with the input of dozens of experts and was designed to be upheld and implemented, in contradiction to current federal law. There are two things that federal courts hold supersede federal law: first, the US Constitution and constitutional law, and second, international treaties that have been signed by the United States and international law. The findings by the people in OCTA’s preamble, which is the first third of the OCTA, enumerate a number of findings by the sovereign, the people of the state of Oregon, and denote numerous constitutional, legal and historical findings that, along with implementing the controls mandated by international treaty, will force the federal courts to uphold OCTA so it will become law.

In the United States, laws are ruled unconstitutional in federal court when a law is shown to violate the Constitution and/or international treaties. Federal courts have consistently ruled that federal laws are superseded by the Constitution and by international treaties. Laws are routinely struck down as unconstitutional when the laws are found in violation of "constitutional law." Courts are directed in the U.S. Constitution to decide cases based upon the Constitution and international treaty requirements, federal legislation is secondary. To date, no state has attempted to regulate sales of a controlled substance in violation of federal laws, so questions concerning this are quite valid and understandable.

The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) sets a number of constitutional findings by the people of the state of Oregon, the sovereign, in an extensive preamble, which is fully one third of the text. Some of those findings specifically refer to the Oregon Constitution, but each Oregon constitutional provision cited is explicitly paralleled in the U.S. Constitution. We decided to rely on the Oregon Constitution since federal courts have ruled that it provides even more rights to the people than the U.S. Constitution. However, the citations we rely upon for OCTA are duplicated in the U.S. Constitution almost verbatim.

OCTA was specifically written to withstand a federal court challenge and be upheld.

OCTA prohibits and penalizes the illegal export to other states of legal Oregon cannabis. Thus, OCTA is an intrastate rather than an interstate issue and not federalized via the federal supervision of interstate commerce [proposed ORS 474.115]. We direct the Oregon Attorney General to seek repeal of federal cannabis prohibition if a federal court or agency moves to block implementation of OCTA, through federal legislation and to defend anyone prosecuted for violating federal law for activities licensed under OCTA. Any related costs would be funded solely from commercial growers' license fees [proposed ORS 474.075(1) & 474.315].

OCTA complies with the Single Convention Treaty of 1961 and its 1972 amendments, as well as both the U.N. Treaty on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and 1988. Proposed ORS 474.035(2) complies with requirements of licensing under these treaties by specifying, "the area, plots and extent of lands to be cultivated." ORS 474.035(3) licenses processing and handling of cannabis as directed by the treaties, within the time directed by the treaties, four months. The treaties require that a state commission controls licensing, storage, and distribution of cannabis and ORS 474.035, 474.045, 474.055, 474.065, & 474.115 meets all of those requirements. Oregon is one of the 26 liquor control commission states, where state commissions control the production, distribution and sales of distilled alcohol products. We already have a commission and distribution system mandated by the international treaties (see below) in place, so we don't have to create it from scratch to meet this requirement of international treaty law.

Proposed ORS 474.045(a) complies with the medicinal application that treaties have recognized. Proposed ORS 474.045(b), 474.075(3)(c & d), 474.085, 474.095, 474.115, & 474.205 comply with the scientific applications that treaties have recognized. Our proposed ORS 474.005(5), 474.035(1) and 474.085 complies with the industrial applications of cannabis and hemp as recognized by international treaties.

OCTA would also mandate numerous scientific studies of cannabis, and of cannabis prohibition versus regulation in the state of Oregon. OCTA details and funds these studies. We believe that the use of cannabis by minors will drop precipitously and that these studies will demonstrate this. Section 1

of OCTA designates this as a scientific experiment by the people of Oregon. We regulate the sale of cannabis and medicinal and industrial applications of cannabis according to the explicit wording that international treaties require.

We're not saying, at this point, that the U.S. should adopt any federal law. We are saying that our legislation complies with the constitutional and international treaty requirements that allows it to supersede federal law. First, we have to gather enough signatures to make the ballot, then we have to win the election in November 2010. If it passes, it will go into effect unless someone files in federal court asking that OCTA be reviewed.

The DEA and other drug warriors will file in court seeking an injunction to stop OCTA from going into effect. However, after we win the election they will not find a jury in Oregon to convict a person for violating federal cannabis laws. Once the drug warriors in Oregon file in federal court seeking an injunction, a federal judge in Oregon will decide whether to issue it or not. The Oregon judge's ruling can be appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the 9th Circuit's decision can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

OCTA is based upon constitutional law and international treaty law. This is the proper way to invalidate a law within our system of government, the federal drug prohibition, USC Title 21, Chapter 13. OCTA is not in violation of constitutional law or international treaties, OCTA is in full compliance with them and bases its departure from federal law upon constitutional grounds. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reserves powers not granted in the Constitution to the federal government to the states and the people. We are exercising a right not granted to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution, the right to regulate intrastate commerce (expressly not interstate commerce, since that is a federal power.)When our opponents claim that OCTA violates federal law, we will say that OCTA will be upheld in court because it is based upon constitutional and international treaty laws that supersede federal legislation.

We will take a lot of money out of the underground economy and regulate an untaxed market that constitutes Oregon's largest industry. By allowing responsible adults to purchase marijuana in state package stores, we will stop the ongoing decline in social services and state educational funding for public schools and colleges, provide money for other state programs and lower the state legislature's ability to raise taxes for these programs on the general population. We want to emphasize that OCTA will save Oregonians money for their own use, rather than require them to pay more taxes for state programs.

OCTA will raise tens of millions of dollars each year to fund substance-abuse treatment upon demand for alcoholics and other addicts. Currently, 90 percent of these people are turned away when they seek treatment.

OCTA is the solution.

In Oregon, the sale of distilled alcohol products is controlled by a state-run monopoly; OCTA will use this existing infrastructure to regulate the manufacture and sale of marijuana, while minimizing start-up costs to the state. This also helps ensure that OCTA will be upheld in the inevitable federal court challenge that will follow its passage, since international treaties mandate the system of controls OCTA implements.

OCTA will let doctors ameliorate or even end the suffering of many patients with a diverse assortment of illnesses and injuries. Marijuana is much safer, more effective and less costly than many alternatives currently in use.

OCTA will also deregulate the industrial

production of hemp fiber, seed oil and protein crops. The cannabis sativa plant produces more fiber, protein and oil than any other plant on earth. Hemp paper and fuel are not capital intensive and can be produced on a local basis with comparatively little money. Let's put economic control back into local hands and create thousands upon thousands of sustainable jobs by passing OCTA.

OCTA will put Oregon on the cutting edge of exciting new developments that are environmentally sustainable and economically profitable. We will create thousands of new jobs in the energy industry -- the biggest business there is -- as well as in the paper, fiberboard and textile industries. Tourism will boom!

At the same time, OCTA will return much control to our farmers, and away from the multinational industries that dominate our political process and destroy our environment. These capital-intensive, non-sustainable, and environmentally destructive industries have usurped our economic resources and clear-cut huge tracts of the world's forests, given us massive oil spills, wars, toxic waste, massive worldwide pollution, global warming and the destruction of entire ecosystems.

Prohibiting the cultivation of this ancient plant, the most productive source of fiber, oil and protein on our planet, is evil. In its place we have industries that give us processes and products that have led to unprecedented ecological crisis and worldwide destruction of the biological heritage that we should bequeath to our children, grandchildren and future generations.

Please support OCTA and help restore sanity to our political system and restore industrial hemp for our economy and ecology.

Yours truly,

Paul Stanford

www.hemp.org

www.cannabistaxact.org

That clears things up. Though I have no faith in the Supreme Court. They've allowed exceptions to the amendments when certain federal and state laws clearly violated The Constitution all in the name of the "greater good". E.g. eminent domain claimed by local municipalities on behalf of corporations- if you read the arguments in favor the massive leaps in logic that were used would be the same ones that would shoot down this proposal. Of course the easiest course of action would be for them to ignore the case. Parts of The Patriot Act come to mind.

But what if? The feds would immediately pull funding for all public services they currently subsidize (and threaten it long before it reaches the courts). This would make it a tough sell for most voters who are lukewarm on the prospect of legalization (which I'd imagine is the lion's share). Revenue from taxation would have to fill this gap and then some. Would it? If so how do you convince the masses?

It's a comprehensive plan that makes a ton of sense. I'll sign to put it on the ballot. I'll vote for it given the opportunity. I have little faith it will come to fruition. Common sense is too often trumped by the media driven sensationalism and corporate interests that motivate our law makers, law interpreters, and voters.