Looking to Oregon

Carol Ostrom of the Seattle Times, who has been doing a great job of reporting on the events leading up to yesterday's release of the 60-day limits for medical marijuana patients, writes about the aftermath:

A proposal by state health officials to limit medical-marijuana patients to a pound and a half of pot plus a scattering of plants drew heat from both advocates and law enforcement — but for different reasons.

Advocates had argued for more than 70 ounces of harvested marijuana and a 100-square-foot growing area; law-enforcement officials pushed for a limit of three ounces of harvested pot, three mature plants and six immature plants.

This essentially confirms what we've known for a while, that the public statements from law enforcement officials that they "just want a number - any number" were lies. They have their own idea of what's reasonable, and this idea is colored by their desire to arrest people (not by a desire to protect the citizens they serve).

By selecting the same exact limits as Oregon, the Governor achieved a compromise of sorts here (although one could easily point out that we're not dealing with parties acting equally in good faith). And by doing so, she also sets up a good way to evaluate the merits of these particular limits.

The I-1000 Death with Dignity campaign will be holding a press conference this afternoon. One of the strongest arguments in support of that initiative is that the Oregon law that it's patterned after has worked well for ten years. What we should be doing now is looking to Oregon's experience with their medical marijuana limits to determine whether or not a similar law would be effective here. I have some emails out to people who could shine some light on this. I'll keep you posted.