An open letter to Oregon legislators:
You have on your schedule many cannabis related issues this session, and I'm writing to ask you to please toss them all into the circular file where they belong. First and foremost, gardening the medicine my doctor recommends should not be grounds for you to take away my fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. If I'm doing something wrong, then the police should have no trouble getting a warrant to search my home. It is not American to consider me guilty until proven innocent!
Politicians and law enforcement officers are not always above corruption, and news reports and public perception often portray you in a very bad light. How would you feel if the public demanded that you allow us to inspect your homes and/or offices at will, just to make sure you're not doing anything wrong? Would it change your answer if I told you that this might curtail the corruption among your unscrupulous colleagues? No? You'd still want to see a warrant before you let your home be "inspected?" Now you know how I feel.
As for the idea of a state garden, while I believe there are aspects of the concept that have potential, again, I ask you to please take it off the table for this session. You are rushing into this with what seem to be good, but naive intentions. While I tend to receive at least some small benefit from even the least helpful strains of cannabis, I would be mostly bedridden if I didn't have access to the better strains for me. All cannabis is not created equal, and patients will be hurt if you rush into a state garden without understanding the complexities and challenges that are inherent to producing quality herbal medicine.
Instead, I'd like to ask you to consider setting this plan aside for a couple of years, while you gather a panel of botanists, horticulturists, and other scientists to determine the best ways to start a supplemental system that would help patients avoid the black market when their gardens don't produce enough. That is a legitimate problem, and I have had to under-medicate too often for just that reason. At the same time, invest in surveying all OMMP patients about what works and doesn't work for them, before attempting to "fix" the OMMA.
In the meantime, if you really want to help patients, then why not institute something similar to the old Oregon law that was supposed to turn over all of the cannabis confiscated by law enforcement to patients in need? This could be an excellent starting point for a supplemental system, and it could help you to work out the bugs before trying a wider approach that would involve cultivation. Additionally, it would save the state the cost of destroying and wasting the vast majority of that medicine.
As for all of the rest of the cannabis issues, I just want to say that I'm angry. I feel bitter, jaded, frustrated, and most of all angry. It seems to me that, instead of committing to serious research and the best science has to offer, you rely on the handfuls of us who show up to your hearings or write in, to give you information about how to best help more than 20,000 suffering Oregonians who all have different diseases and different needs. What results is band-aid legislation at best, no serious problems get solved, and, as was the case with SB 1085, sometimes you end up hurting patients like me. This has become a biennial Cirque du Cannabis.
It's time to get serious about ending the cannabis corruption on all sides -- patients, gardeners, and police alike. The best way to do this will be to make cannabis as easy and inexpensive to procure as St. John's Wort or Valerian (which, for me, produces a "high" similar to cannabis, though it doesn't help with the pain and nausea). There are many reasons little old ladies can garden their other medicinal herbs in their backyards without fear of robbery or worse, but the main reason is that these medicines are not illegal, and their prices are not artificially inflated by prohibition.
When you grow tired of the biennial Cirque du Cannabis, and when you grow tired of continuing to fund organized criminals through your prohibition of cannabis, please consider finally allowing free trade and showing the courage of taking on the worthy and noble responsibility of taxing and regulating Oregon's lucrative cannabis industry. It's simply the right thing to do.
News Hawk: MsRedEye: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Salem-News.com
Author: Erin Hildebrandt
Copyright: 2009 Salelm-News.com
Contact: Contact Us
Website: Cirque du Cannabis - Salem-News.Com
You have on your schedule many cannabis related issues this session, and I'm writing to ask you to please toss them all into the circular file where they belong. First and foremost, gardening the medicine my doctor recommends should not be grounds for you to take away my fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. If I'm doing something wrong, then the police should have no trouble getting a warrant to search my home. It is not American to consider me guilty until proven innocent!
Politicians and law enforcement officers are not always above corruption, and news reports and public perception often portray you in a very bad light. How would you feel if the public demanded that you allow us to inspect your homes and/or offices at will, just to make sure you're not doing anything wrong? Would it change your answer if I told you that this might curtail the corruption among your unscrupulous colleagues? No? You'd still want to see a warrant before you let your home be "inspected?" Now you know how I feel.
As for the idea of a state garden, while I believe there are aspects of the concept that have potential, again, I ask you to please take it off the table for this session. You are rushing into this with what seem to be good, but naive intentions. While I tend to receive at least some small benefit from even the least helpful strains of cannabis, I would be mostly bedridden if I didn't have access to the better strains for me. All cannabis is not created equal, and patients will be hurt if you rush into a state garden without understanding the complexities and challenges that are inherent to producing quality herbal medicine.
Instead, I'd like to ask you to consider setting this plan aside for a couple of years, while you gather a panel of botanists, horticulturists, and other scientists to determine the best ways to start a supplemental system that would help patients avoid the black market when their gardens don't produce enough. That is a legitimate problem, and I have had to under-medicate too often for just that reason. At the same time, invest in surveying all OMMP patients about what works and doesn't work for them, before attempting to "fix" the OMMA.
In the meantime, if you really want to help patients, then why not institute something similar to the old Oregon law that was supposed to turn over all of the cannabis confiscated by law enforcement to patients in need? This could be an excellent starting point for a supplemental system, and it could help you to work out the bugs before trying a wider approach that would involve cultivation. Additionally, it would save the state the cost of destroying and wasting the vast majority of that medicine.
As for all of the rest of the cannabis issues, I just want to say that I'm angry. I feel bitter, jaded, frustrated, and most of all angry. It seems to me that, instead of committing to serious research and the best science has to offer, you rely on the handfuls of us who show up to your hearings or write in, to give you information about how to best help more than 20,000 suffering Oregonians who all have different diseases and different needs. What results is band-aid legislation at best, no serious problems get solved, and, as was the case with SB 1085, sometimes you end up hurting patients like me. This has become a biennial Cirque du Cannabis.
It's time to get serious about ending the cannabis corruption on all sides -- patients, gardeners, and police alike. The best way to do this will be to make cannabis as easy and inexpensive to procure as St. John's Wort or Valerian (which, for me, produces a "high" similar to cannabis, though it doesn't help with the pain and nausea). There are many reasons little old ladies can garden their other medicinal herbs in their backyards without fear of robbery or worse, but the main reason is that these medicines are not illegal, and their prices are not artificially inflated by prohibition.
When you grow tired of the biennial Cirque du Cannabis, and when you grow tired of continuing to fund organized criminals through your prohibition of cannabis, please consider finally allowing free trade and showing the courage of taking on the worthy and noble responsibility of taxing and regulating Oregon's lucrative cannabis industry. It's simply the right thing to do.
News Hawk: MsRedEye: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Salem-News.com
Author: Erin Hildebrandt
Copyright: 2009 Salelm-News.com
Contact: Contact Us
Website: Cirque du Cannabis - Salem-News.Com
