"Potheads clash with journalists (and ne'er the twain shall meet, by my word!) at 10:30 am tomorrow, at the O mothership, 1320 SW Broadway."

There's no journalists there.

@el cubano I disagree.

Regardless of how one feels about pot use, is it really that crazy to claim that these types of measures are about normalizing pot, with an eye towards legalization? Doesn't seem that farfetched to me.

Skip this half ass crap and just go for full legalization. Then put the OLCC in charge to make sure no one can catch a buzz.

The nonprofit dispensary initiative is about patients getting safe access to medicine. Oregon had the luxury of learning from the problems in other medical marijuana states with dispensaries such as California, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico. I 28 would allow for any law abiding citizen willing to follow the regulations to produce the medicine for nonprofit dispensaries. The new law will not change the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, it only adds an new option for patients to be able to purchase their medicine. The initiative gives extra choices to patients, provides jobs for anyone and will generate money for our cash-strapped state of Oregon. Many of the people who support dispensaries also would like to see marijuana legal for everyone, but patients can't wait for the voters to come to their senses about prohibition to get the medicine their doctor recommends. Please vote to legalize nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries November 2nd.

Sarah Duff
Assistant Director for Oregon Green Free Clinical Services
Board Member for the Institute for Cannabis Therapeutics.

The Oregonian editorial on the "charade" of medical marijuana was insulting to patients who have already suffered enough.
Even if the ultimate goal of some marijuana advocates is to eventually make marijuana available for most adults, it is still ridiculous, cynical, and naive to assert that marijuana has no medical value, and that most patients in Oregon's medical marijuana program don't have legitimate problems. It's especially cold-hearted, and medically uninformed, to demean the patients who use marijuana for chronic pain, primarily just on the grounds that pain is the most frequent application of medical marijuana in Oregon. As an author of medical books, including The Pain Cure, I discovered that chronic pain is by far the most common intractable medical condition in America, limiting the lives of almost 20 percent of all adults, particularly older people. It's hundreds of times more common that AIDS or glaucoma. So of course it's the most common qualifying condition. Do the math.
The editorialists also implied that the relative scarcity of glaucoma patients in the program indicated that people with "real" problems don't rely on marijuana. But if they had done their homework, they would have known that there is now an effective pharmaceutical medication for glaucoma, generally superior to marijuana, and that this is the reason why relatively few glaucoma patients are now in the program.
Before Oregonian editorialists spout outdated rhetoric, they should go to one of the local medical marijuana clinics and actually talk to the patients. It's obvious just by looking at these people, many of whom are disabled, infirm, and aging, that most or all of them have serious medical problems. You don't see many hippies at those places; you see sick people.
It is also insulting to Oregon's medical community to imply that the 15,000 physicians who have signed medical marijuana enrollment documents are either too stupid or too dishonest to eliminate people with invalid claims. If the Oregonian editorialists wish to prove their presumption that it's easy to scam an Oregon doctor, they should try it with their own attending physician -- their family doctor, or specialist -- which is the only type physician recognized by the program.
Oregonian: Go into the community you seek to influence, do some reporting, read some medical journals, get the facts, and then offer an informed opinion, instead of just an opinion.
The writing style of the editorial was obviously intended to be hard-nosed and clear-eyed, but the content was just gullible, conventional wisdom from an era gone by. If the Oregonian wants to lead its citizens, it should start by catching up with them.
This kind of intellectual laziness posing as tough-guy pragmatism is part of the reason why the Oregonian these days is usually about as thick as the Nickle Ads.
Cameron Stauth

The Oregonian editorial on the "charade" of medical marijuana was insulting to patients who have already suffered enough.
Even if the ultimate goal of some marijuana advocates is to eventually make marijuana available for most adults, it is still ridiculous, cynical, and naive to assert that marijuana has no medical value, and that most patients in Oregon's medical marijuana program don't have legitimate problems. It's especially cold-hearted, and medically uninformed, to demean the patients who use marijuana for chronic pain, primarily just on the grounds that pain is the most frequent application of medical marijuana in Oregon. As an author of medical books, including The Pain Cure, I have learned that chronic pain is by far the most common intractable medical condition in America, limiting the lives of almost 20 percent of all adults, particularly older people. It's hundreds of times more common that AIDS or glaucoma. So of course it's the most common qualifying condition. Do the math.
The editorialists also implied that the relative scarcity of glaucoma patients in the program indicates that people with "real" problems don't rely on marijuana. But if the writers had done their homework, they would have known that there is now an effective pharmaceutical medication for glaucoma, generally superior to marijuana, and that this is the primary reason why relatively few glaucoma patients are now in the program.
Before Oregonian editorialists spout outdated rhetoric, they should go to one of the local medical marijuana clinics and actually talk to the patients. It's obvious just by looking at these people, many of whom are disabled, infirm, and aging, that most or all of them have serious medical problems. You don't see many hippies at those places; you see sick people.
It is also insulting to Oregon's medical community to imply that the 15,000 physicians who have signed medical marijuana enrollment documents are either too stupid or too dishonest to eliminate people with invalid claims. If the editorialists wish to prove their presumption that it's easy to scam an Oregon doctor, they should try it with their own attending physician -- their family doctor, or specialist -- which is the only type physician recognized by the program.
Oregonian: Go into the community you seek to influence, do some reporting, read some medical journals, get the facts, and then offer an informed opinion, instead of just an opinion.
The writing style of the editorial was obviously intended to be hard-nosed and clear-eyed, but the content was just gullible, conventional wisdom from an era gone by. If the Oregonian wants to lead its citizens, it should start by catching up with them.
This kind of intellectual laziness posing as tough-guy pragmatism is part of the reason why the Oregonian these days is usually about as thick as the Nickle Ads.
Cameron Stauth

RE: Whole Systems and a Comprehensive Over-View... from plants to Humans.

Mr. Camp although your initial response to the Oregonians article is well written, your response to the Oregonian's article reveals to me that your consciousness is still entrenched in ye ol' paradigm of prohibition.

Historical evidence clearly shows that Kanabous is one of the building blocks of the world's greatest civilizations. When you reefer to Kanabous as "p.o.t., weed" and the like you are essentially reinforcing the idea that marijuana is a drug rather than a sacrament. It's clear to me that the influential characters within this movement have yet to fully integrate the holistic facets of Cannabis Conscience, and quite clearly miss the mark when representing OMMA's original intent.

I am convinced that the Oregonian and perhaps law enforcement have a point in that the OMMP Program being 12 years ol' has yet to mature into it's 13th year, and is sill being misrepresented
to this day. The intent behind OMA (Original Matrix Attained) is to provide relief and support to a
fractured social fabric of misfits subject to a failing belief system(s), an illusory sense of economy,
materialistic values and a paradigm of scarcity where "time is money." Today's work-week leaves little if any room for self-development, healing, or whole-body integration of the senses... which have all been grossly distorted.

It certainly doesn't take a genius to note that America in it's obesity is unconsciously perpetuating a profound sense of social isolation, dysfunction and sickness due to a blatant disregard for Natural Law.

The OMMP is well written, requiring a fundamental relationship between patient, caregiver and master gardener or "grow~her." It's designed to create a support system and alternative (affordable) holistic alternative to the current paradigm, by and large over-looked by the cannabis
corps as well as today's so called "health care" industry.

Within the parameters of the law, Cannabis today is legal! I-28 should catalyze and compliment the existing program but only within a holistic perspective of SELF-CARE. As it stands, those players claiming to represent the Movement are by and large sick themselves or have yet to
experience and explore the depth that herbs, raw foods, yoga and massage have to offer.

The only reason Cannabis has market value today is because we the folk have designated it's usage as Sacred since time immemorial! Law enforcement has an interest in equalizing our efforts to protect the youth from those ignorant p.o.t. heads without "common sensie," and ward off any further distortion, misrepresentation, or abuse of what little is left of Kanabous Culture.

According to the Law of Time (www.lawoftime.org) the biomass of humans today are at odds with the biosphere-noosphere transition. While the technosphere is collapsing under the influence of stellar excitation, the nervous system of human civilization is by and large underdeveloped and immature due to a fundamental disconnection from Natural Time, brought about by crack-pots, dopes and those neurotic weeds "out of time." p.o.t = "patients out of time" = 12:60

wit' Highest Regards,

Discover the Law of Time
Jason G. Gibson
P.A.N. Agent 67
www.gorgewellness.org

The Oregonian Editorial Board should be ashamed of themselves, claiming to know both the intentions of non-profit dispensary supporters as well as the medical conditions of Oregon’s 36,000 medical cannabis patients without any basis for such conjecture.

Supporters of non-profit dispensaries simply believe that patients, battling severe and debilitating medical conditions, should have safe access through state-licensed and regulated facilities similar to pharmacies. The fees paid by dispensaries and their producers will also create jobs and generate revenue during this current economic recession and budget crisis. The additional revenue would fund medical research, establish a fund to assist low-income patients and go towards Oregon Health Authority Programs. To dismiss the proposal as dishonest is insulting to both supporters and all Oregon voters who deserve to debate the issue on its own merits, not for what its not (legalization for all adults.)

To denigrate sick and disabled patients just because severe pain is one of their qualifying conditions is simply unconscionable. These patients, some suffering from cancer and HIV as well, deserve just as much compassion as patients using OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin or any other pharmaceutical pain killer. The 36,000 patients and the 3,000 doctors who have registered them with the state do not deserve to be insulted, especially from editors who have no idea of the patients’ suffering. These patients simply choose a nontoxic, natural medicine that has never caused a single fatality. They are not a “charade.”

Supporters of the non-profit dispensary program know that marijuana is medicine and not a charade. We know that medical marijuana patients are real patients deserving compassion, not ridicule. We know that patients deserve safe access and don’t deserve to go without medicine or being forced to the black market. We know that Oregon could use new jobs and additional revenue. We welcome an honest debate with The Oregonian because we know it is an honest debate that we will win.

Anthony Johnson
Director, Oregon Green Free Clinical Services