Election Day was good for medical cannabis patients on the national level. All of our champions in Congress were reelected, paving the way for more progress in Washington, DC, in 2015 and 2016 – despite the Republican gains in both Houses. Guam became the first US Territory to legalize medical cannabis, and 58% of voters in Florida supported the state’s medical cannabis amendment (it needed 60% to be adopted). Successful legalization votes in Washington, DC, Oregon, and Alaska are likely to reinforce the increasingly mainstream nature of medical cannabis nationwide. 

Things did not go so well here in California. Voters decided on a total of nineteen local ballot measures last week, and the outcomes may be challenging for patients moving forward. Voters seem keen on imposing new taxes on medical cannabis, but reluctant to repeal bans on cultivation and distribution or to reform onerous local regulations. That tendency may cast a shadow over the debate about regulating commercial medical cannabis activity in the California legislature next year. State lawmakers may be less inclined to be accommodating towards the emerging medical cannabis industry absent a mandate from voters in local races like these.

Click here to see the final vote counts on all nineteen local ballot measures.

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It seems that area law enforcement has not yet learned the value of working WITH the local community.

Thursday's raid on The Greener Side, a medical marijuana resource center, can hardly be considered a top priority. With law enforcement services severely cut across the state, surely there are more dangerous individuals threatening community safety than a group of medical marijuana patients.

Besides the raid in Eugene, it has been reported that after a two year investigation, up to 70 law enforcement officers were used in concurrent raids in southern Oregon.

In August of last year a woman in Josephine County called 911 as a man who had previously assaulted her was breaking into her home. The dispatcher had to tell the woman there was no one to send. The county had laid off 23 deputies because of budget cuts.



In Oregon in 2010 (according to OSP statistics) there were 1,246 reported forcible rapes - yet only 243 arrests were made. How long will Oregon voters stand for our po

lice and sheriffs kowtowing to the federal drug war bureaucracy?

How long before Oregon legislators and voters figure out the simple economics of cannabis regulation over cannabis persecution?

How long before Oregon's leaders disavows this  federal lunacy and acts to PROTECT patients instead of throwing them under the Prohibition bus?

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This was also published in the Registered  Guard