News Mar 12, 2014 at 4:00 am

A Pot Supporter Is Stymieing Our Best Shot at Legal Weed

Comments

1
The "War on Marijuana" has been a complete and utter failure. It is the largest component of the broader yet equally unsuccessful "War on Drugs" that has cost our country over a trillion dollars.

Instead of The United States wasting Billions upon Billions more of our tax dollars fighting a never ending "War on Marijuana", lets generate Billions of dollars, and improve the deficit instead. It's a no brainer.

The Prohibition of Marijuana has also ruined the lives of many of our loved ones. In numbers greater than any other nation, our loved ones are being sent to jail and are being given permanent criminal records which ruin their chances of employment for the rest of their lives, and for what reason?

Marijuana is much safer, and healthier to consume than alcohol. Yet do we lock people up for choosing to drink?

Let's end this hypocrisy now!

The government should never attempt to legislate morality by creating victim-less "crimes" because it simply does not work and costs the taxpayers a fortune.

Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that's approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think and there is nothing they can do to stop it!

Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
2
Well said!
3
The best outcome for supporters of ending prohibition and regulating and taxing marijuana would be for both the Constitutional Amendment and the New Approach initiative to qualify for the ballot and pass. The Amendment would end marijuana prohibition first and then separate all the details of regulation to a next step. The Amendment doesn't create a right to possess marijuana as the Oregonian wrongly reported recently, it addresses the wrong of using criminal penalties to regulate marijuana and instead requires that marijuana regulation be based on civil fines unless public safety (DUI) or children were involved. This is an important foundation for any tax and regulate model. The new approach initiative would build on this foundation with layers of regulation that would treat marijuana like alcohol. The combination of these two initiatives would give Oregon the best marijuana law on Earth. If voters want to ensure that Oregon moves forward, they should put these measures on the ballot. That means contacting the campaigns and helping by collecting signatures and donating money. Leaving our destiny to be shaped by out-of-state billionaires and mysterious lawyers delaying progress is not such a good idea. So, fellow marijuana lovers, get up, stand up and seize this moment in history!
4
You've got to appreciate Paul Stanford's incredible luck. Having some unknown lawyer appear out of the blue, one who has never uttered a public word about marijuana reform, one who supports legalization and specifically Stanford's proposal, who then issues a frivolous ballot title challenge to the other legalization plan, a challenge peppered with the words "we" and "our" (http://oregonvotes.org/irr/2014/037cbt.pdf), which the AG rejects as frivolous, who then appeals that to the Supreme Court, who then issues another frivolous ballot title challenge to the second interation of the other legalization plan which is again rejected by the AG, who then may still appeal that second iteration to the Supreme Court, who has no web site and rejects all Stanford's pleas to cease and desist, I mean, wow, talk about coincidence!

I mean, with that kind of coincidence, combined with Stanford's own admitting of bad blood between himself and the other legalization proposal, and admitting that not having to compete for signature gathering with a better-funded initiative benefits his proposal, why, more conspiratorial-minded people might draw hasty conclusions.

After all, one would have to suspect the worst of intentions to think that an under-funded initiative campaign that had failed in 2012 as well-funded Washington and well-funded Colorado succeeded by large margins would resort to such underhanded dirty tricks. One would have to presume that the 2014 iteration of Stanford's proposal, that legalizes 24 plants and 24 ounces, were it to make the ballot alongside the other proposal that legalizes 4 plants and 8 ounces, would probably bring in fewer votes than the more conservative proposal. Since under Oregon law, if two initiatives pass, the one with the most votes wins, one would have to presume that keeping the other proposal off the ballot is the only way to succeed, if one were conspiratorial-minded.

One would also have to presume that the largely-volunteer campaign of Stanford's that has turned in less than 30,000 of a 150,000 goal for signatures in over seven months might not be as well-funded and able to collect the other 120,000 by July as advertised, especially if a well-funded, professional campaign spending a million or more dollars on signature gathering and campaign advertising is in the mix.

And if one had been an activist in the local Oregon legalization movement for a decade, with direct and first-hand knowledge of various instances in which the word and ethics of Paul Stanford were questionable at best, one might be even more tempted to equate the quote "I sometimes think when he says he likes ours better, maybe he's trying to hurt us" with Captain Renault's shock that there's gambling going on in Casablanca.

But that one wouldn't be me. One of my friends is one of the chief petitioners for both of Stanford's measures, and he assures me there is no connection between Michael McNichols and anyone associated with or funding the I-21 and I-22 campaigns. It is just a terrible coincidence to the best of my friend's knowledge. And, ultimately, futile on McNichols part, as his Supreme Court appeals have zero merit, New Approach will get a ballot title, it will have plenty of funding to gather signatures even in a short April-July window, it will make the ballot and it will pass. It will just cost more.

Please wait...

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