SALEM, Ore. -- Medical marijuana advocates pleaded with lawmakers Monday to enact a bill that would prohibit employers from firing them because of their choice of medication.

"The bottom line is I need a job and I don't make enough through social security and food stamps," said Judy Adamson, a 61-year-old widow, breast cancer survivor and registered medical marijuana user. Last year Adamson was suspended from her job as a driving instructor when she tested positive for cannabis after her former employer ordered her to take a drug test.

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SALEM - Medical marijuana advocates pleaded with lawmakers Monday to enact a bill that would prohibit employers from firing them because of their choice of medication.

"The bottom line is I need a job and I don't make enough through Social Security and food stamps," said Judy Adamson, a 61-year-old widow, breast cancer survivor and registered medical marijuana user. Last year Adamson was suspended from her job as a driving instructor when she tested positive for cannabis after her former employer ordered her to take a drug test.

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I read the Feb. 8 Associated Press article, "Bill would allow medical-marijuana users to be fired for failing drug tests." I agree with Andrea Meyer of the ACLU who said in the article that "This bill doesn't make us any safer."

That this amendment would apply to medical-marijuana and not other prescriptions indicates that zero-tolerance is a simplistic way to approach a complex issue. Legalizing and taxing the use of non-THC-bearing hemp would be no less complex but much more productive especially considering the expanding bio-fuel industry in Oregon and the exploding cost of building products.

Victor T. Reppeto

Salem

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Kudos to The Register-Guard for printing Jim Greig's outstanding Feb. 16 guest viewpoint, "Marijuana more than medicinal."

The people of Oregon can't help but benefit by moving away from blind adherence to a federal policy built upon racism, xenophobia and a corrupted moral and legal foundation.

It is the prohibition of cannabis which makes it so valuable that patients get robbed and assaulted for their gardens. All across the western states, criminal gangs and syndicates invade our national parks and forests growing huge farms of pot.

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Claiming to be the "world's leading drug policy newsletter," the Drug War Chronicle publishes a regular online feature called, "This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories." The typical newspaper reader probably comes across these cops-gone-bad stories pretty rarely. But, when hundreds of reports compiled over the past year from around the nation are read in one sitting, they add up to a hidden cost of America's ill-fated drug war - widespread corruption inside local police departments, prisons and jails.

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It's a topic on the minds of many. It's been called a scourge on society, an epidemic.

Methamphetamine, methamphetamine, methamphetamine. Douglas County leaders believe the more discussion there is around the drug, the better the odds of beating it.

On Feb. 22, members of the Douglas County Meth Task Force will hold an educational community event about meth. The hope is to get Douglas County residents to understand the truths about the drug's dangers.

"I think we'd be going a long ways toward helping to prevent more people getting on it," said Joyce Akse, co-chair for the task force.

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"What do you mean America's youth don't know who George Washington was?"

"Dude?"

"He was our first president, our best president and one of the primary reasons the experiment called America was able to work. But of course they don't teach you that in school anymore."

"Dude?"

"Scholars and historians deemed Washington to be our greatest president in a Wall Street Journal survey. But another survey shows that Washington's coverage in history textbooks has declined to less than 10 percent of what it was in the early 1960's."

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As a registered cannabis-using patient in Oregon, I enjoy the benefit of one of the best medical marijuana programs in the country. If I actually could get access to my medicine in a safe, consistent manner - - at a local dispensary, for instance - it would be perfect.

I am confined to a wheelchair by an especially crippling form of rheumatoid arthritis and suffer from the associated chronic pain issues. I also have glaucoma and other eye conditions, severe muscle spasms and adult-onset insomnia. Growing my own isn't an option for me. Using cannabis has helped me in many, many ways, but best is its reduction in my menu of costly pharmaceuticals.

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Meth Is The Drug Of Choice To Self-Medicate Mental Illness, Officials Say

The fight against methamphetamine in Marion County will require a multi-pronged attack, according to Rod Calkins director of the Marion County Health Department, because it is an all-out battle that effects every aspect of local government.

"Meth is a huge problem in our communities, there is no denying it," he said. "It challenges our public safety, our law enforcement, and our infrastructure -- it is also a huge medical issue."

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Lawmakers in a Senate Committee Debate Proposal

Employees who legally use marijuana under Oregon's voter-passed medical-cannabis laws could be fired for flunking a drug test under a proposed Senate bill under committee consideration Wednesday.

Backers say the law would provide clarity on an issue surfacing in the workplace with increasing frequency. The bill would not just allow employers to remove workers if they are found to be impaired or consuming marijuana on the job but if they test positive for using the substance outside of the workplace.

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Thank you for raising awareness of the Higher Education Act's denial of student loans to youth convicted of drug offenses ("Berkeley offers drug offenders scholarships," ODE, Feb. 2, 2007). Instead of empowering at-risk students with a college degree, HEA limits career opportunities and increases the likelihood that those affected will resort to crime. Speaking of crime, convicted rapists and murders are still eligible for federal student loans. Most students outgrow their youthful indiscretions involving illicit drugs. An arrest and criminal record, on the other hand, can be life-shattering.

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Question 31 on the Fafsa Inspired a UC Berkeley Student Senator to Create a Program That Gives Aid to Those Denied Federal Aid Because of Drug Convictions

The biggest problem with question 31 on the FAFSA form, which asks whether a student has been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs, is not that it will strip students of their financial aid, but rather that it will scare people off from applying to school in the first place - at least according to Director of Student Financial Aid Elizabeth Bickford.

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When a Peruvian federal judge was gunned down as he lunched with a nephew near his office last summer, his murder was a big wake-up call about the power of Mexican drug cartels. Federal Judge Hern Dan Saturno Vergara probably would be alive today if he had not been on a major case against alleged members of the Tijuana cartel, one of the five Mexican cartels believed to be bankrolling state-of-the-art cocaine processing labs in Peru.

Closer to home, the Tijuana and Gulf cartels are behind the escalating violence along the border, especially in south Texas, the leading port for cocaine.

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Oregon's Medical Marijuana Growers Want to Win Respect, Help the Sick...and Grow the Kindest Bud on the Planet.

A miniature version of Eden grows in Chris Duback's deep-Southeast Portland basement. But there is trouble in paradise.

Visitors wouldn't notice the danger. Everything in this small, white-walled room looks fantastic. The 1,000-watt metal-halide lights and two-headed sets of 100-watt fluorescent bulbs shower 18 marijuana plants with a downpour of artificial light. The blaze makes every shade of green glow with radioactive intensity.

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COOS BAY - The Coos Bay School Board has taken a first step toward instituting an updated drug policy for new employees.

At the December board meeting, Superintendent Dr. Karen Fischer Gray reported the district's medical screening process had lapsed under her watch. This week, she recommended a revised policy, doing away with medical examinations and focusing, instead, on pre-employment drug tests.

"I don't feel that it is necessary to ask people to go through physical examinations before hiring them," she said. "I would like to see all employees, licensed and non-licensed, to be drug tested, previous to being able to begin their jobs."

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Alleged Assailants Offered Their Victim Painkillers Before Driving Him Home

Authorities in Josephine County are looking for four men they believe kidnapped a Williams man Sunday afternoon, beat him with an ax handle and then gave him medication for the pain.

The 35-year-old victim told Josephine County sheriff's deputies that four men he knew burst into his [redacted] home at about noon Sunday and accused him of stealing their medical marijuana, the sheriff's office reported in a press release Monday.

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First, let's make one thing perfectly clear: I did not inhale.

But there were plenty of people who did at the fifth annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards. Right there on the porch at the Ambridge Event Center in Northeast. Strictly for medicinal purposes, of course.

The daylong event Dec. 9 was sponsored by the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. It was billed by organizers as "the only event of its kind in the United States."

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As one of the more than 12,000 Oregon Medical Marijuana Program patients in the state, I have a relevant question, one many other participants in the OMMP are asking also: "Where can I find my medicine?"

I am confined to a wheelchair with severe rheumatoid arthritis and cannot grow marijuana for myself. I receive assistance from time to time, but the system is so inefficient. Because pot is astronomically expensive, patients who choose to grow their own face the threat of robbery and possible assault. And why is it so expensive? Why is this plant worth as much as gold?

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Safeway Stores, Bay Area Hospital and the Coos Bay Police Department Have One Thing in Common: All Three Screen Employees for Use of Illicit Drugs Before Putting Them on the Payroll.

But many South Coast schools don't.

Coos Bay School Board recently reviewed a personnel policy that required the district to complete a background and criminal records check, a medical exam and drug test on all new employees. According to Superintendent Dr. Karen Fischer Gray, the district has not been exercising the full policy for several years.

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A Day to Reflect on the Fight Against Meth

Today is National Methamphetamine Awareness Day -- the first time a president has designated a day to focus national attention on methamphetamine, an extremely destructive and harmful drug.

For parents, today is a reminder of the importance of talking to our children about dangerous drugs. For our youth, it is an opportunity to reaffirm a commitment to a drug-free future. For those struggling with addiction, it is an occasion to seek treatment. And for all Americans, it is an opportunity to thank law enforcement officers, treatment counselors and prevention advocates whose efforts have contributed to a nearly 20 percent decline in drug use among American youth over the past four years.

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