Current News You Can Use

Mississippi Measure 48 is a proposed constitutional amendment, posted at http://www.mississippiforcannabis.org/  .  I have a question about its "locality tax," licenses, and fees.   Answers and further discussion will be edited into this post. " ...Regulations will require an annual Mississippi Cannabis Sales license issued by any Mississippi County Circuit Clerk for a fee of no more than $1000.00 to all adult residents who apply, and a $25.00 annual city or county governing locality fee to farm 10 - 500 plants. Locality fees for cannabis farms with more than 500 plants will not exceed $1000.00...." At first this "locality fee" sounded like a flat yearly fee, but the last sentence above makes it clear that is wrong.  Is it $25 per plant?  If so, it should say "per plant" after "$25." But it couldn't be $25 per plant, because 500 plants times $25 is $12,500.  501 plants, however, would only be $1000.  A fee of $25 plus $5 per p...

12/14/14 Honorable Representatives, Reading the Oregonian, I found an article regarding OLCC’s request for emergency funding to hire regulators, and the following opinions of the reporter and one legislator: “Monday’s vote was a sign that some lawmakers have reservations about the state’s new marijuana policy. “Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, highlighted what he sees as excessive possession and home cultivation limits in the law.  Households can have up to four marijuana plants, and individuals 21 and older can possess up to 8 ounces at home and one ounce away from home. “’There are some major, major, problems in this ballot measure,’ he said.” There are major problems with this measure, though not that the possession limits are excessive.  On the contrary, they are so limited, and the law so misunderstood, that people may lose their homes just for trying to keep enough weed to supply their own households. To start with, that 8 ounces of dried pot, a m...

Oregon was the first state to vote in medical marijuana, in 1998.  Enough people now have medical marijuana cards that the in-state black market mostly collapsed several years ago.  One used to be able to find pot by asking any scruffy-looking kid on the street.  Not so anymore; the kids are unable to make money at it anymore without taking it out of state, and most kids are not able to do that.   As the street market collapsed, clinics became convenience pot shops for medical users, charging black-market prices, because selling it was illegal.  For several years, we had clinics and large grows being busted for selling instate, out of state, or trading pot for trimming buds.  They were often busted because people were caught taking large quantities on the road, heading for other states or home.  In some cases, narcs bought pot at the clinics by the pound.  Thus, people realized that selling was more dangerous than giving it away, and the mar...

Honorable Public Servants, If Measure 91 passes, people will not just be busted for growing and storing enough pot for their own use; they will lose their homes to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.  The measure allows 4 plants but only 8 ounces of “usable marijuana,” dried bud and leaf, per household, not per adult.  8 ounces, a half-pound, is enough per year for only one person who smokes only in the evening.  The poor often must live several adults to a household, and we need to grow by sunlight, which allows for only one good crop per year.  The exceptions to the licensing rules, listed in Section 6, also restrict a household to one pound of marijuana products, like cookies, and 72 ounces of liquid marijuana, which can only be vegetable glycerin extract, the only exception defined in Section 5 to “marijuana extracts,” which are forbidden in Section 57. If your household falls outside of these exceptions to licensing in Section 6, you are subject ...

Honorable Public Servants, As I told you last week , I have resumed smoking marijuana in the evenings after work.  I found that, after two weeks without it, I was progressively more depressed, to the point where good things that happened to me could not lift my mood.  It is my anti-depressant; that’s why it became my drug of choice and caused me to lose my taste for alcohol when I smoked it in college.  I have read Measure 91 in the Voters Pamphlet.  It seems to be written by the tobacco companies for their profit and for people who don’t like pot but want to tax it for their benefit.  Look at the endorsements in the Voters Pamphlet; it includes many people who formerly were stridently anti-pot. The proposed tax is a black-market-sized markup at $35 per ounce, paid by the growers.  It will revive our in-state black market, as unlicensed growers will easily be able to beat the taxed price.  Some licensed growers will also be tempted to se...

Letter to the The Daily Courier Editor, As a daily pot smoker, I will vote against Measure 91.  It allows only ½ pound of dried marijuana per household, barely enough for one user who smokes only in the evenings.  This will allow police to oppress the poor, who often have to live several adult consumers to a household.  It likewise allows one to give away only one ounce per recipient, restricting sharing between households. The tax is too high at $35 per ounce, and can be raised at any time by the OLCC, which will have a conflict of interest in regulating a product that directly competes with liquor, which it sells in its own stores.  The regulations are too tight.  Failure to file a monthly sales report would mean that the state would file for one and demand the tax they think one should pay.  Penalties for other violations are draconian, including forfeiture of all property in any way connected with a marijuana business, up to and includ...

A month ago, I told quite a few people that I had quit using marijuana for good.  I was feeling worse instead of better when I smoked it.  It seemed that, instead of losing my high as had happened in the past when I smoked too much and too long, I was staying too high for comfort, as though my aging body was unable to clear the THC from my system and I was building intolerance rather than tolerance. I told this to various groups because I am the most famous pot smoker in the county, after 10 years of street protests against the Drug War, 31 Marijuana Resolution speeches to the Board of County Commissioners, and another felony pot conviction, tied to my protest.  It ended in May 2013, when I decided that I had won my point after two states legalized pot.  Being a locally notorious celebrity, I had nothing to lose by letting people know that I was quitting for my own good reasons, and I owed people the truth.  I also thought that, by being so public about i...