Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
More and more medical marijuana gardens are sprouting in Clackamas County, prompting optimism in patients and advocates, alarm from some neighbors and confusion among police, who have long treated the crops as a scourge.
From January through July of 2008, the number of medical marijuana cardholders in the county jumped 23 percent, from 1,207 to 1,481, according to the Department of Human Services Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Statewide, officials have seen a similar increase - -- 23 percent -- from 15,927 to 19,646.
The growing numbers mean different things to different people: More people getting the help they need, more people abusing legal loopholes, more criminals preying on legal growers, more problems for police officers and courts. When the law views a plant as both medicine and contraband, nothing is simple.
Increasing Support
Stepping gingerly around 30 towering, bushy plants that produce much of the marijuana Clackamas County patients use, Paul Stanford, founder and director of the national nonprofit Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, said that law enforcement officials, as well as the general public, are gradually grasping the benefits of medical marijuana.
"Across the board, we're seeing increasing support, and it's so important. There are so many people who need medicine, but they don't want to break the law," Stanford said, picking up a fallen, densely budded branch and tucking it under a wire to dry.
The garden is tended cooperatively by several patients and caregivers who supply marijuana to cardholders who can't grow their own. Over the years, it also has produced a great deal of surplus marijuana, which Stanford provides free and in strictly controlled and reported quantities to cardholding patients in Clackamas and other counties.
"Of course, the real solution is to legalize ( marijuana )," he said. "But for the most part, it's a positive change in understanding."
Yet the experience of cardholders tends to vary, depending on where they live. In Clackamas County, police contend some cardholders are abusing their rights by growing too much marijuana.
A June report by Oregon's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program -- a federal grant program administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy -- states that the medical marijuana law has been consistently violated and is a major barrier to effective enforcement and prosecution.
From 2006 to 2007, the number of plants police seized jumped from 77 to 1,013 plants growing indoors, according to program figures. During that same period, the number of outdoor plants seized jumped from 178 to 494, according to Chris Gibson, director of Oregon's High Instensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
Yet advocates such as Stanford say police often seize plants growing legally and that the claim that medical marijuana growers frequently abuse the system is only a campaign to curtail medical marijuana, and many local cardholders complain of meddlesome police.
David Langshaw, a Milwaukie-area resident, has for four years been a cardholder and grown marijuana for himself and others ( cardholders and caregivers can grow for as many as four people ).
Yet he knows that could mean neighbors calling police or law enforcement showing up on his doorstep at any time.
A year and a half ago, he says, a neighbor's call brought a warrantless police officer to his door, and -- though Langshaw declined to show the officer his marijuana -- the conversation that followed left him feeling invaded. Langshaw isn't sure which agency the officer was from.
"People here have to watch out for that knock-and-talk stuff," he said. "I know my rights, but I worry about all those other people out there who think they have to show everything and answer all those questions."
"Sylvia," an Oregon City cardholder who declined to give her name to protect her privacy, grows her own medical marijuana outside her home, but keeps the crop covered and has guard dogs. In the past six years, she said, she's had regular break-in attempts as well as yearly police visits.
"Yes, it's embarrassing," said Sylvia, a grandmother with maladies ranging from fibromyalgia to arthritis to migraines. "I think it would embarrass anyone if police kept coming to their house asking to count their plants. I feel like they're punishing me for being a sick person."
"Green Medicine"
Police in Clackamas County say they have no intention of persecuting cardholders but added that dealing with medical marijuana is a murky, confusing business. While law enforcement in the county hasn't had to cope with the kind of sprawling, illegal crops that flourish on public lands in places such as rural Yamhill County, Lt. Dixon Andrews of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said simple backyard crops come with their own complexities.
"It's amazing to me how much marijuana people are allowed to grow. I mean, what are these doctors saying? 'Get high and stay high?'" Andrews asked, recalling a medical marijuana garden where a cardholder had exceeded the number of plants he could grow by about 22.
The police confiscated the extra plants, but the raid left Andrews feeling ill at ease.
"Here we are in a place where someone has broken a law, and in the past, we would have just cleared it all out. That's what I'm used to - -- eradication," he said. "But now we go away, taking some and leaving all these others standing. It's just weird."
Some officers, like Andrews, say they're eager to learn more about the laws regarding medical marijuana. And in this county, there are many advocates eager to teach.
Clifford Spencer, a Clackamas-area cardholder, caregiver and medical marijuana advocate, devotes 40 hours a week to bringing medical marijuana, coaching and making treatment plans for cardholding quadriplegics, very ill and dying patients.
He fights tears when he thinks of the pain relief that the "green medicine" has brought many of them. He despairs that some police still consider "extreme pain relief" he's witnessed to be corrupt behavior.
The experience of one friend in particular, an AIDS patient who died long before the 1998 Medical Marijuana law passed, still fuels Spencer's passion.
The friend suffered excruciating body aches and had tried every kind of legal drug in an attempt to ease his pain, Spencer said. Instead, he continued to languish, projectile-vomiting every medicine and bit of food he tried to keep down. When he tried marijuana, however, his nausea subsided along with his aches, and he was even able to smile and joke about "the munchies," Spencer said.
These days, Spencer is part of a co-op of unpaid caregivers who legally grow and deliver what they call "green medicine" to cardholding people who live in assisted living and nursing homes.
The caregivers have all seen countless cases of marijuana lessening pain, often allowing patients to discontinue the heavy painkillers they take, such as Vicodin, Valium or OxyContin, he says.
"Certainly there's enough research out there on the effectiveness and safety of ( marijuana ), and I think the federal government should recognize that," Spencer said. "Evidence shows the benefits far outweigh the negatives."
Advocates like Spencer say there must be a middle ground, where patients who need marijuana can get it more easily, but growers would have a harder time abusing the system.
During meetings with law enforcement and legislators in Salem, Spencer said he learned a great deal about the complexities of Oregon's dilemma with medical marijuana.
"Before that, my experience was with cancer and other patients and seeing how marijuana could ease suffering and death," he said.
"But at those meetings, law enforcement educated me about some of the abuses that have gone on," he said. "I used to think law enforcement was really against it. My experience has been that more and more law enforcement officers are encountering patients ( who are suffering ), and they are hearing their testimony. And, for the most part, they're becoming more sympathetic."
[sidebar]
THE LAW
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was passed by Oregon voters on Nov. 3, 1998 and went into effect a month later.
It modified state law to allow patients with a prescription and conditions ranging from cancer to glaucoma to pain, to cultivate, possess and use marijuana.
Measure 33 in 2004 sought to extend the law by allowing distribution centers, but was rejected by voters.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Author: Kate Taylor, The Oregonian
Copyright: 2008 The Oregonian
Contact: letters@news.oregonian.com
Website: The Oregonian newspaper: Oregon News - OregonLive.com
From January through July of 2008, the number of medical marijuana cardholders in the county jumped 23 percent, from 1,207 to 1,481, according to the Department of Human Services Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Statewide, officials have seen a similar increase - -- 23 percent -- from 15,927 to 19,646.
The growing numbers mean different things to different people: More people getting the help they need, more people abusing legal loopholes, more criminals preying on legal growers, more problems for police officers and courts. When the law views a plant as both medicine and contraband, nothing is simple.
Increasing Support
Stepping gingerly around 30 towering, bushy plants that produce much of the marijuana Clackamas County patients use, Paul Stanford, founder and director of the national nonprofit Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, said that law enforcement officials, as well as the general public, are gradually grasping the benefits of medical marijuana.
"Across the board, we're seeing increasing support, and it's so important. There are so many people who need medicine, but they don't want to break the law," Stanford said, picking up a fallen, densely budded branch and tucking it under a wire to dry.
The garden is tended cooperatively by several patients and caregivers who supply marijuana to cardholders who can't grow their own. Over the years, it also has produced a great deal of surplus marijuana, which Stanford provides free and in strictly controlled and reported quantities to cardholding patients in Clackamas and other counties.
"Of course, the real solution is to legalize ( marijuana )," he said. "But for the most part, it's a positive change in understanding."
Yet the experience of cardholders tends to vary, depending on where they live. In Clackamas County, police contend some cardholders are abusing their rights by growing too much marijuana.
A June report by Oregon's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program -- a federal grant program administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy -- states that the medical marijuana law has been consistently violated and is a major barrier to effective enforcement and prosecution.
From 2006 to 2007, the number of plants police seized jumped from 77 to 1,013 plants growing indoors, according to program figures. During that same period, the number of outdoor plants seized jumped from 178 to 494, according to Chris Gibson, director of Oregon's High Instensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
Yet advocates such as Stanford say police often seize plants growing legally and that the claim that medical marijuana growers frequently abuse the system is only a campaign to curtail medical marijuana, and many local cardholders complain of meddlesome police.
David Langshaw, a Milwaukie-area resident, has for four years been a cardholder and grown marijuana for himself and others ( cardholders and caregivers can grow for as many as four people ).
Yet he knows that could mean neighbors calling police or law enforcement showing up on his doorstep at any time.
A year and a half ago, he says, a neighbor's call brought a warrantless police officer to his door, and -- though Langshaw declined to show the officer his marijuana -- the conversation that followed left him feeling invaded. Langshaw isn't sure which agency the officer was from.
"People here have to watch out for that knock-and-talk stuff," he said. "I know my rights, but I worry about all those other people out there who think they have to show everything and answer all those questions."
"Sylvia," an Oregon City cardholder who declined to give her name to protect her privacy, grows her own medical marijuana outside her home, but keeps the crop covered and has guard dogs. In the past six years, she said, she's had regular break-in attempts as well as yearly police visits.
"Yes, it's embarrassing," said Sylvia, a grandmother with maladies ranging from fibromyalgia to arthritis to migraines. "I think it would embarrass anyone if police kept coming to their house asking to count their plants. I feel like they're punishing me for being a sick person."
"Green Medicine"
Police in Clackamas County say they have no intention of persecuting cardholders but added that dealing with medical marijuana is a murky, confusing business. While law enforcement in the county hasn't had to cope with the kind of sprawling, illegal crops that flourish on public lands in places such as rural Yamhill County, Lt. Dixon Andrews of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said simple backyard crops come with their own complexities.
"It's amazing to me how much marijuana people are allowed to grow. I mean, what are these doctors saying? 'Get high and stay high?'" Andrews asked, recalling a medical marijuana garden where a cardholder had exceeded the number of plants he could grow by about 22.
The police confiscated the extra plants, but the raid left Andrews feeling ill at ease.
"Here we are in a place where someone has broken a law, and in the past, we would have just cleared it all out. That's what I'm used to - -- eradication," he said. "But now we go away, taking some and leaving all these others standing. It's just weird."
Some officers, like Andrews, say they're eager to learn more about the laws regarding medical marijuana. And in this county, there are many advocates eager to teach.
Clifford Spencer, a Clackamas-area cardholder, caregiver and medical marijuana advocate, devotes 40 hours a week to bringing medical marijuana, coaching and making treatment plans for cardholding quadriplegics, very ill and dying patients.
He fights tears when he thinks of the pain relief that the "green medicine" has brought many of them. He despairs that some police still consider "extreme pain relief" he's witnessed to be corrupt behavior.
The experience of one friend in particular, an AIDS patient who died long before the 1998 Medical Marijuana law passed, still fuels Spencer's passion.
The friend suffered excruciating body aches and had tried every kind of legal drug in an attempt to ease his pain, Spencer said. Instead, he continued to languish, projectile-vomiting every medicine and bit of food he tried to keep down. When he tried marijuana, however, his nausea subsided along with his aches, and he was even able to smile and joke about "the munchies," Spencer said.
These days, Spencer is part of a co-op of unpaid caregivers who legally grow and deliver what they call "green medicine" to cardholding people who live in assisted living and nursing homes.
The caregivers have all seen countless cases of marijuana lessening pain, often allowing patients to discontinue the heavy painkillers they take, such as Vicodin, Valium or OxyContin, he says.
"Certainly there's enough research out there on the effectiveness and safety of ( marijuana ), and I think the federal government should recognize that," Spencer said. "Evidence shows the benefits far outweigh the negatives."
Advocates like Spencer say there must be a middle ground, where patients who need marijuana can get it more easily, but growers would have a harder time abusing the system.
During meetings with law enforcement and legislators in Salem, Spencer said he learned a great deal about the complexities of Oregon's dilemma with medical marijuana.
"Before that, my experience was with cancer and other patients and seeing how marijuana could ease suffering and death," he said.
"But at those meetings, law enforcement educated me about some of the abuses that have gone on," he said. "I used to think law enforcement was really against it. My experience has been that more and more law enforcement officers are encountering patients ( who are suffering ), and they are hearing their testimony. And, for the most part, they're becoming more sympathetic."
[sidebar]
THE LAW
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was passed by Oregon voters on Nov. 3, 1998 and went into effect a month later.
It modified state law to allow patients with a prescription and conditions ranging from cancer to glaucoma to pain, to cultivate, possess and use marijuana.
Measure 33 in 2004 sought to extend the law by allowing distribution centers, but was rejected by voters.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Author: Kate Taylor, The Oregonian
Copyright: 2008 The Oregonian
Contact: letters@news.oregonian.com
Website: The Oregonian newspaper: Oregon News - OregonLive.com
