Fired Oregon Pot Chief Shared This Internal Document With External Lawyer

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As you undoubtedly heard, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission fired its top pot guy yesterday. Tom Burns, the architect of the state’s medical dispensary system, had been hired back in December to help shepherd a workable recreational pot market across Oregon’s borders.

But while the OLCC was happy to confirm Burn’s abrupt departure last night, it hid behind the usual “personnel issue” excuse and wouldn’t offer any details. Burns himself wasn’t talking.

That’s changed today. After widespread speculation Burns was fired because of disagreements with OLCC Chair Rob Patridge, the agency’s lips loosened. They now say Burns was fired for lying.

According to spokesman Tom Towslee, Burns sent an internal document—apparently a draft communication to the legislative committee tasked with marijuana rules—to Amy Margolis, a Portland attorney who advocates for growers. Towslee didn’t know whether simply sharing that document would have merited firing, but he says the gravest offense was that Burns denied it when news of the breach made it back to OLCC officials.

“Not being truthful is the greater sin here,” Towslee says. “What happened to Tom Burns is largely self- inflicted.”

News of the breach trickled out earlier this afternoon. The site marijuanapolitics.com had an early account.

It’s unclear exactly what was in the document Burns leaked, but it doesn’t appear to have contained such prized secrets. Towslee is planning to share it with reporters, and it would have come to light eventually when the OLCC submitted it to legislators.

Towslee is taking pains to clear Margolis of any wrongdoing, calling her an “unwitting recipient” of the document. Margolis, for her part, isn’t saying much about Burns or the document.

“My hope is that after all this chaos this moves forward in a positive way,” she tells the Mercury. “We’re getting really close to decisions being made.”

For now, Burns’ spot is being filled by the OLCC’s licensing director, Will Higlin, who Towslee calls “a very experienced veteran state manager.” There will be a competitive search to fill Burns’ job, and it may be tough to find a qualified fit. A former director of pharmacy programs for the OLCC Oregon Health Authority, Burns was seen as having developed a unique and deep understanding of marijuana markets, and local players.

Towslee made clear, too, that the decision to fire Burns came from OLCC Executive Director Steven Marks, and was independent of the five-member liquor control commission.

“We certainly let them know what we were doing,” Towslee says. “We did not ask for permission.”

UPDATE, 4:45pm:

The document Burns shared with Margolis, just released by the OLCC, touched on something she’s very-much involved in: How the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program will (or won’t) be changed now that recreational pot is coming. As we reported last month, Margolis is advocating changes to the OMMP that could make it easier for medical growers to tap into a lucrative recreational market.

Burns sent her the document just this Monday, records indicate. Titled “MJ thoughts,” it is a draft letter that purports to be from three people who have opposed some of those changes: Anthony Johnson, the chief petitioner behind Measure 91, which legalized pot; Brent Kenyon, who directs Southern Oregon Alternative Medicine, which helps patients all over the state get medical marijuana cards; and Anthony Taylor, a longtime medical marijuana activist.

All three men’s names are at the bottom of the letter, but Johnson says he didn’t even know the document was in the works.

” I did not draft that letter,” he says. “I did not approve it. I did not see that letter until after it had been leaked.”

The letter is addressed to Sen. Ginny Burdick and Rep. Ann Lininger, who co-chair the joint committee hashing out recreational marijuana. It describes how the three men met with OLCC Chair Patridge on March 12 to hash out ideas for how to reconcile medical marijuana now that recreational pot is coming.

“We realize that there may be some advantages in changes in both medical and recreational marijuana to produce a more viable recreation market and allow better access to patients,” the letter says. “We believe any changes to the OMMP have to be done carefully to preserve the patient to grower relationship.”

Here’s Burns’ termination letter and his emails to Margolis.

The document also contains a back-and-forth between Margolis and Burns.

“Let me know you got this,” Burns wrote with an email forwarding Margolis the letter.

“?got it. i see that Rob’s name is not on it,” Margolis wrote back, apparently referring to Patridge’s name not being included among the signers.

Burns replied: “True but mentioned in letter as participant in developing ideas”

To which Margolis says: “This is very frustrating.”

The “MJ thoughts” document is potentially pretty important, as far as pot policy goes. If, as is suggested, Patridge is on board with the ideas within, it gives insight into what the future of medical pot might be. Ideas include:

•Allowing medical dispensaries to also cater to recreational customers—but only peddle product grown by medical marijuana growers.

•Offloading all testing, processing, and packaging rules for medical pot onto the OLCC.

•Allowing medical growers to register with the OLCC to sell excess pot on the recreational market.

The OLCC also released a letter from OLCC Director Marks to Burns, making the firing official.

“Among factors, I considered trust in your dealings with me, professional judgment at the level of position you hold, and what is generally in the best interest of the Commission going forward,” Marks wrote. “With these factors in mind and given the discretion afforded review for the position you hold, you are removed from your position effective this date.”

Here are the suggestions Johnson, Taylor, and Kenyon apparently worked out with Patridge: