Potfolio. Get It?

POP QUIZ! Remember last week when we talked about how cool it was that banks are full-on supporters and cheerleaders for cannabis businesses?

Trick question. Actually, last week I wrote about the exact opposite of that. It turns out that obtaining and keeping even a simple checking account is difficult beyond measure for legal cannabis enterprises. I didn't even touch on how impossible it is for a canna business to get funding from a traditional bank. It was sort of a bummer column, actually.

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Cops and Prosecutors Are Embracing a Radical Idea: Not Filing Drug Possession Cases

HERE'S THE DEAL: People are using drugs in this city, despite decades of law enforcement's best efforts.

That fight has landed thousands of people in jail and prison-far too many of them people of color. It's created hardships for Portlanders who need jobs and a place to stay, but find that a criminal record has closed the door to those things. It's led to tensions between police and communities of color that are playing out-vividly, tragically-every day around the country.

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Is That State's Brand-New Cannabis Initiative Any Good?

What do you think of California's brand new pot initiative?

IT'S A MIXED BAG, but I'm getting on board. Last week, California announced that the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) officially has a home on the state's November ballot. Over the past year, the concept of legalization among California voters has been polling very well. It seems almost certain the AUMA will pass.

My law firm's California attorneys have been looking at AUMA intensively for the past few months, and report that the 62-pager is more complex than Washington, Oregon, and Colorado's initiatives. For example, AUMA provides for an astonishing 19 separate business licenses, and its distribution model recalls the convoluted rules of booze. For these and other reasons AUMA has many opponents, even among pot boosters.

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It's Still Impossible for Cannabis Businesses to Open Bank Accounts

AT A RECENT cannabis event I went to, the crowd was made up of cannabis professionals: dispensary owners and staff, growers, edible makers, processors, and wholesalers. Among the speakers was the head of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission's (OLCC) cannabis program. During the Q&A, a grower brought up how that very week, his bank account had been shut down-the third time in the past year.

"The bank said it's because I'm involved with cannabis," he said, "and I wanted to ask you a question: I pay my taxes and fees to the OLCC in cash, which I made growing and selling cannabis. I take it the OLCC has a bank account. Correct?"

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State Hopes to Prevent and Delay Usage by Underage People

Less than two years after recreational marijuana was legalized in the state, the Oregon Healthy Authority is launching a program to dissuade young residents from using it. The message: Marijuana can affect brain development, impair abilities and jeopardize people's health and careers.

The OHA is piloting the campaign in Medford and Portland using web ads, streaming radio and TV and Facebook ads. It's being funded with $4 million allocated by the Legislature in this year's session to help prevent marijuana use among youth, according to Kati Moseley, policy specialist with the OHA Public Health Division.

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Did the Democratic Party Just Endorse Legalization?

Did the Democratic Party just endorse national legalization of weed?

NO, BUT the party added "marijuana law reform" as a platform plank to be adopted this month. It's a step.

The two big US political parties tend to scrape together an agenda and revise their platforms in presidential election years. Bernie Sanders (remember him?) was doing pretty well around the time the platform drafting committee was convened, and he got to appoint 7 of its 15 members. Those members proposed some short and sweet language around cannabis, offering that "we will refocus our drug policy by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and allowing states to set their own policies." (Period.) This language dovetailed with Bernie's Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2015, which was shipped off to the Senate Judiciary Committee last November, never to be heard from again.

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Hold Your Horses, Rescheduling Weed Isn't Happening Just Yet

HEY, YOU GUYS, did you hear? The federal government is about to make weed legal. No, for reals, I saw it on Facebook, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is going to totally make it so doctors have to give it to you, for free! Thanks Obama! I'm gonna make my doctor give me an ounce next week!

Before you start demanding that your podiatrist procure you some shatter, maybe we should do what Americans sort of suck at-taking a pause and examining what's really up.

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To the editor:

David Clear makes an interesting argument about marijuana production and retail sales. It seems our city council was duped after Prohibition was repealed, for at some point, the council must have approved sale of alcohol in our town.

Alcohol is sold here and produced here, but there is no movement to change that. Our children are subjected to sales of alcohol daily. Alcohol is not just consumed here, but the use is glorified by events such as annual beerfests, most recently held at a city park.

Perhaps alcohol should receive the same treatment as marijuana.

Times, attitudes, morals and behaviors change. We study history to help understand.

Dick Stentz

The Dalles

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Here's How a Component of Weed Helped Someone with Seizures

THESE ARE DAYS when it's important to find some good news, to seek out stories that remind us of our fellow human's capacity for decency, compassion, and selflessness. So turn away from the darkness-just for a minute, it'll still be there if you start to miss it-and let's examine the light for a minute.

At a recent cannabis event, I spoke with Jesse Peters, CEO of Eco Firma Farms. We talked about upcoming events, projects, and the ever-changing landscape of cannabis regulations. Peters is a friend-full disclosure-and I asked him if he was aware of anything that I may have missed that would make a good column. He paused for a second.

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As the Heroin Epidemic Grows Worse, People Are Finally Talking About It

"HERE THEY COME!"

The call goes up before the bicycles roll to a complete stop on a recent Friday, sending a ripple of energy up and down the Central Eastside block.

Soon, grateful drug users are coming from every direction to speak with four volunteers bearing stuffed backpacks and two bountiful bike trailers.

"Needles?" asks one woman. "Who brought needles?" She's handed a pack of 50 new syringes, and offered her choice of an array of injection materials-three sizes of cotton wads, two kinds of rubber tourniquets (in case anyone's allergic to latex), tiny cups for cooking heroin, kits for treating wounds caused by injections, and more.

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Will Making Weed a Schedule II Drug Be Bad for Oregon?

I read that weed might be removed from Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Is that bad for the Oregon scene?

NOT IN MY OPINION, but people disagree. The argument is that if weed were moved to Schedule II or III, big pharma would roll in and crush the little guys (that is, everyone who sells weed in the legit or gray market). But I think the little guys would be fine, just like today.

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SALEM (AP) - Sales and tax figures collected by state agencies may finally solve one of Oregon's long-running farm crop questions: whether marijuana is indeed the state's most valuable crop, as cannabis advocates have maintained.

Tight controls and reporting requirements by the Oregon Department of Revenue and Oregon Liquor Control Commission should result in accurate information about pot, said Bruce Pokarney, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture. The department compiles an annual list of the state's most valuable crops.

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Threats to put anti-pot measures on the ballot were juxtaposed against complaints about overregulation during a packed meeting Thursday evening about the future of the burgeoning marijuana industry in Josephine County.

Many in attendance at the Anne Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass complained about the industry, bringing up concerns about traffic, illegal water use, travel trailers moving in, water pollution and even threats of violence.

Others talked up the benefits of marijuana as medicine and an economic boon.

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In a rare ruling, an arbitrator has found that Lane County government erred in firing an employee for his off-duty use of medical marijuana late last year.

Michael Hirsch, a 60-year-old prostate cancer survivor, will be reinstated to his job as a senior programmer and systems analyst next week and given $21,550 in back pay for the six months since he was terminated.

Arbitrator Jeffrey Jacobs based his ruling on the fact that the county provided no evidence Hirsch had used marijuana at work or that his off-duty use hurt his job performance. Hirsch, hired by the county in early 2015, had received "a number of very positive messages and reviews" from supervisors, Jacobs wrote.

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If a Customer Does Something Stupid, Are Business Owners to Blame?

I own a marijuana dispensary. Will I get in trouble if a customer does something stupid after visiting my shop?

I DON'T THINK SO, but anything is possible.

You may have been alarmed by the recent Colorado lawsuit where a man named Richard Kirk shot and killed his wife after consuming a cannabis edible. This happened in 2014, but the Kirks' kids and other family members recently sued two Denver-based marijuana companies: the processor that made the product, and the dispensary that sold it. As for Kirk, he was charged with first-degree murder and pled guilty, but switched his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. Kirk claims that cannabis rendered him insane at the time of the slaying.

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Not Everyone in the Cannabis World Is Chill

"That's the thing about people who smoke weed," said a friend to me recently. "They are some of the most laid-back, easygoing people I've ever met."

We were talking about how people who have just consumed cannabis behave compared to those who have consumed alcohol. And within the context of that particular comparison, I absolutely agreed.

But recently, I've found the exact opposite to be true. And after conversations with others in the cannabis industry, I'm beginning to rethink my position. Because there is some truly fucked-up behavior going on, and it's not helping anyone.

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Law Requiring Fences Around Pot Grows Creates Some Eyesores

MURPHY - They say good fences make good neighbors. Then there are the fences that enclose the growing number of Josephine County's marijuana grow sites.

There are a lot of them. And they are often ugly, especially when topped by a couple feet of plastic.

Among those unhappy with the proliferation of Visqueen view blockers is Chris Locke, a Murphy landscape nursery owner who endures the sight of a neighbor's fenced marijuana grow.

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As recreational marijuana cultivation emerges from decades in the shadows in Oregon, residents face a vexing challenge: Where will new licensed farms, processing plants and retailers be allowed to locate?

Banned outright in big chunks of the state, recreational marijuana facilities face a complicated patchwork of quickly drafted local land-use laws in areas, such as Lane County, that are allowing them.

Those local rules are, at times, viewed as too permissive by longtime residents suddenly confronted with the reality of a new marijuana farm or processing facility nearby. Commercial-scale marijuana producers, meanwhile, want to be able to proceed with their new business ventures without unreasonable hassles from neighbors or bureaucratic barriers from local officials.

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I read where our county and city officials are concerned about the influx of casinos. I would think they would be more concerned about the influx of marijuana and the problems that go with it.

You can't get a DUII from going to a casino. No such thing as driving under the influence of casino. You don't have the odor from a casino drifting over your fence from a casino-playing neighbor. Put your heads back on your shoulders and stop and think. Employers will be taxing people, not earning money under the table.

In applying for a job, how many employers ask if you have a player card?

R. W. Golphenee

Medford

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Let's Twist Up a Fattie... of News!

Halfway There!-What's round at both ends and high in the middle? Snoop Dogg standing between two medicine balls. Also, Ohio! Governor John "Welp, I Tried" Kasich signed a bill this month to legalize medical cannabis, making the Buckeye State the 25th state. It won't go into effect for 90 days, and when it does, it will have some restrictions:

Although residents with a doctor's recommendation will be allowed to use cannabis, there will not be any (legal) licensed growers or dispensaries in the state until 2017 or 2018.

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