March 16, 2010 – SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — Medical marijuana user Paul McClain said he is right.

“If, according to the law, that it works,” he said, “then I’m going to be exonerated.”

Springfield police Sgt. Tom Borchers said he is right.

“Well it’s our belief that he’ll be convicted based on the definition of the law,” Borchers said.

McClain goes to trial next month on a ticket for illegal marijuana possession. Officers found a sack of weed and pipes in his backpack during a search last month at the Springfield Justice Center, the city’s police station.

At the root of the dispute: Can Oregon’s 26,000 registered medical marijuana users carry the drug with them wherever they go?

One part of Oregon’s medical marijuana law seems to support McClain’s argument:

ORS 475.309 says “a person engaged in or assisting in the medical use of marijuana is excepted from the criminal laws of the state for possession, delivery or production of marijuana …”

However, ORS 475.316 qualifies that the exception from criminal laws does not extend to someone who “engages in the medical use of marijuana in a public place” defined in ORS 161.015 as “hallways, lobbies and other parts of apartment houses and hotels not constituting rooms or apartments designed for actual residence, and highways, streets, schools, places of amusement, parks, playgrounds and premises used in connection with public passenger transportation.”

Source: Oregon Revised Statutes

Web links

* PDF of Oregon Medical Marijuana Act
* Oregon Medical Marijuana Program

McClain said his state-issued medical marijuana card gives him the right to carry the drug outside his home.

“I feel I was complying with state regulations because I read the regulations about medical marijuana and that I was in compliance,” he said.

Springfield police don’t think the law allows people with a medical marijuana card to carry the drug in public.

“Our position is that he unlawfully possessed marijuana in a public place,” Borchers said.

So whether it’s just outside the courtroom here in the hallway of the springfield justice center or on the street outside the center, police maintain it’s illegal to bring in medical marijuana into a public space.

“The law defines medical marijuana use as possession,” Borchers said.

McClain disagrees.

“If the rules that I’ve read are incorrect, then I’ve been misinformed,” McClain said.

On April 22, McClain will find out if his legal argument will stand or go up in smoke.

“If these rules are right, then I am right,” he said. “It’s about these rules.” Source.

Ashland, OR — The man who opened the nation’s first “pot club” for medical marijuana users will come to town Tuesday to speak in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Dennis Peron, known as the “father of medical marijuana,” supports across-the-board legalization of marijuana. In a telephone interview, he said enforcing existing laws costs the criminal justice system a fortune.

Peron is scheduled to speak from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday in the Meese Auditorium in the Visual Arts Building at Southern Oregon University, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland. The free presentation is sponsored by Ashland Alternative Health, a clinic that helps people obtain medical marijuana cards.

Peron championed California’s 1996 medical marijuana ballot measure — the first in the nation.

His position is at one extreme in the range of opinions on marijuana’s role in society. Law enforcement officials say the present arrangement, in which some people with a medical condition can legally possess marijuana, makes enforcement of drug laws difficult.

In Southern Oregon, police have arrested a number of medical marijuana card holders for exceeding the number of plants they were allowed to grow and seized hundreds of pounds of illegal pot in several widely publicized arrests.

Peron said the passage of medical marijuana laws changed the image of pot from something used by “long-hair, hippie-crazy” people to a drug of middle-class people.

“It helped make (marijuana use) more benevolent. We changed the tide,” said Peron.

He said the thrust of his work now is ballot measures to normalize distribution, so “you can get it at Walgreens,” at affordable prices.

Peron, who also is a gay-rights advocate, said he joined the effort to legalize pot when his lover was dying of AIDS and found that marijuana helped him when chemotherapy didn’t.

“When he died, I decided to dedicate my life to alleviate the suffering” of users, he said. “I opened the (Cannabis Buyers Club) to serve the dying. It was in the belly of the beast. The cops and the mayor supported me.”

Alex Rogers, director of the clinic that’s bringing Peron to Southern Oregon, predicted backers of Oregon’s proposed ballot measure for a state-licensed, nonprofit marijuana supply system would get enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

Rogers said he opposes state control of marijuana culture because “they don’t have the ability to provide a multitude of strains” of the plant, which he said are beneficial to specific ailments. After the dispensary initiative, he said, advocates will work to end to all civil and criminal penalties for cannabis possession and use. Source.