Measure Tears Rift in Marijuana Reform Movement

Growing Pains

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/growing-pains/Content?oid=2700158

Measure Tears Rift in Marijuana Reform Movement

by Stefan Kamph
July 22, 2010

A PLAN TO CREATE a statewide system of medical marijuana dispensaries
will appear on the ballot this November ­ without the endorsement of
Oregon's largest marijuana advocacy group.

Portland-based Oregon NORML is not taking a stand on Initiative 28,
which qualified for the ballot on Friday, July 16. This lack of
support highlights a rift within the pro-marijuana community between
groups who support across-the-board legalization and those who want
to set up private licensed dispensaries to sell pot to medical patients.

Since Oregon voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1998,
the number of marijuana cardholders has grown to 36,380. But it's
still illegal to buy or sell pot in the state. Pro-pot groups Voter
Power and Oregon Green Free paid around $100,000 to signature
gatherers on the campaign for Initiative 28, which would change state
law to allow dispensaries to sell medical marijuana.

This change wouldn't be small potatoes. There is national interest in
opening dispensaries across Oregon, with the Initiative 28 campaign
receiving a $5,000 donation from the Berkeley Patients Group, which
operates dispensaries in California and Maine.

Both Voter Power and Oregon Green Free run clinics that approve
patients for medical marijuana, which would likely change to
moneymaking dispensaries if the measure passes. Under the text of the
measure, dispensaries would have to be nonprofit organizations, with
any revenues going toward operational costs, scientific research, and
assistance programs for low-income patients.

The split between advocates who want pot to be legal and those who
see a chance to sell it in dispensaries has led different factions of
the primary marijuana advocacy group, NORML, to turn against one another.

"NORML always favors legalization over medical marijuana," says
national NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre. But on the other
hand, he notes, "The most politically active groups have commercial interests."

St. Pierre expressed support for Initiative 28 in a statement
released very late in the game­just 10 days before the deadline to
turn in signatures. Meanwhile, Oregon NORML Executive Director
Madeline Martinez is an obvious holdout against the proposed law.

"It is disappointing that Madeline Martinez [is not] supporting this
reasonable reform," wrote Initiative 28 chief petitioner Anthony
Johnson in response to a Mercury article ["Measuring Up," News, July 8].

Martinez says she's concerned that if commercial growing operations
gain control of the supply to dispensaries, prices will stay high and
there will be little incentive for further reform.

"I'm not opposed to dispensaries," says Martinez, "but I am opposed
to prohibition pricing."

Backing Initiative 28 is Southern Oregon NORML, a group founded a
year ago in Medford that does not associate itself with Oregon NORML.

"They used to be called Portland NORML until Madeline took over,"
complains Southern Oregon NORML Executive Director Lori Duckworth.
"They don't speak for the state."

Duckworth says her group doesn't think the time is right to pursue
legalization.

The group also has an icy relationship with its supposed parent
organization, national NORML, which says they focus too strongly on
the interests of growers rather than medical marijuana users.

"Southern Oregon NORML lies in a hotbed of cultivation, so their
concerns are more around the cultivators," says St. Pierre. He
cautions that the dispensary model could put cash into the hands of
the criminals who run illegal grows in the area.

"People who are making untaxed, illegal money are in a better
position to fund these things," says St. Pierre, adding that in a
climate of increasing support for marijuana legalization, dispensary
owners looking to maintain a hold on the trade will draw the scorn of
pot users.

"Those industries are going to climb to the top of the shit list
faster than the drug czar," he says.

Duckworth dismissed those fears. "We're not here to profit off of
illegal operations," she says.

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