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ISSUE #34.26 • NEWS •
[MARIJUANA]

Holy Smoke


High times for marijuana marchers.

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Pot Power: “Ganja Girl” flexes her muscles at the Million Marijuana March.
IMAGE: Jason Howd
BY JASON HOWD | jhowd at wweek dot com

[May 7th, 2008]

Maybe there were good vibes after all from the ninth annual Million Marijuana March that rolled out at high noon on May 3 through downtown Portland.

Less than 48 hours after an estimated 700 marchers demonstrated to protest pot prohibition and to support the use of medical marijuana, conservative activist Kevin Mannix announced he’d end a ballot initiative drive that would have replaced the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program with prescription THC pills. As first reported Monday on wweek.com, Mannix says there wasn’t enough time or money to collect the 82,769 valid signatures needed to put his initiative on the November ballot.

Madeline Martinez, executive director of the Oregon National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said Tuesday that she couldn’t be more thrilled.

“I think it speaks volumes about where the public is on this issue,” Martinez says. (Paul Stanford, head of the nonprofit THC Foundation clinics, says patients oppose THC pills because they’re ineffective and overpriced.)















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Martinez, a medical-marijuana user for chronic disk and joint pain, says her 1,200-member group aims to have medicinal pot taxed by the state and eventually sold in state-run liquor stores. The pro-pot demonstrators want to place an Oregon Cannabis Tax initiative on the 2010 state ballot that they say could add hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the general fund for health care.

“Relax it and tax it,” the crowd chanted at Saturday’s march—one of more than 200 pro-pot demonstrations held worldwide on the same day.

Among the marchers, who got a police escort for their 24-block route around Pioneer Courthouse Square, were punks, parents and grannies; hip-hoppers and hippies; people in wheelchairs and on crutches.

Portland Police Sgt. Robert Voepel said the only rabble-rousers during the 45-minute march were two people-pestering drunkards who were unconnected to the peaceful gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.

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

FACTS : The initiative by Mannix, a candidate in the May 20 Republican primary for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, also would have provided stiffer penalties for repeat sex offenders and drunk drivers.

According to April 2008 data from the state, Oregon has about 16,000 medical marijuana users, and 2,865 licensed physicians who have signed medical marijuana applications.

 

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RECENT COMMENTS ON “Holy Smoke”

7

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 a...

Bill, May 8th, 2008 10:42am
8

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...

Anthony Johnson, May 8th, 2008 11:48am
9

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.P. Freely, May 8th, 2008 11:33pm
10

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 Jo...

Paul Stanford, May 10th, 2008 11:28am
 
 
 






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