Examples -

LTL Example #1 - From: Laird To: sen.floydprozanski@state.or.us ; sen.jeffkruse@state.or.us ; sen.lauriemonnesanderson@state.or.us ; sen.christelfer@state.or.us ; sen.joanneverger@state.or.us Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:19 AM Subject: SB 388 Dear Human Services and Rural Health Policy Committee Member, Please find attached my analysis of the problems with various sections of SB 388. This bill must be heavily amended if it is not to have significant negative consequences for all OMMP registrants. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to any comments or questions you may have. Thank you. Laird Funk Attachment: 388-comments1.doc

LTL Example #2 - Open Letter to Stormy Ray & Jerry Wade - Shame on you for alleging that you represent the Medical Cannabis Community. Shame on you for holding your "summit" without inviting any of the other activist groups to attend and participate. Shame on you for your alliance with LEO. Shame on you for SB 388!!! I just read the text of it and am totally blown away with what you want to change in our OMMA. My gods, warrantless searches of a grow site? Outrageous!! Foolish for even being suggested! My grower has said she will quit growing for me if this bill is passed. Through contacts with other patients, I'm learning that their growers are saying the same thing - warrantless searches = no growing. What are you trying to do, make us do without or go to the black market? I cannot grow where I live. If I have no one growing for me then I am forced to use opiates to control my chronic pain, since I cannot afford $1200 a month for the 4 ounces a month I need to get by. I despise you for wanting to put me into such a position. I must actively work against this bill. There are too many LEO-type provisions, on a subject that they are unqualified to opine upon. I am currently working on breaking down SB388 and pointing out the unreasonable and unrealistic provisions, since this is the first time anyone has seen your proposal, Stormy. I'm going to do my best to shred your proposal and have it not passed in committee. To that end I intend to lobby Salem to the greatest degree possible. I hope I am joined by hundreds of other OMMP patients. Too many of your provisions will require an increase in fees to register with the Program. Inspections, mediation, writing manuals that will never be published (AG would not allow)...the folks at OMMP office are not qualified to do any of those acts. That would mean new hires at, what, 50K a year including benefits? Who's going to pay for the new positions? The patients. It is not enough that other people want to raise our fees already to generate a surplus that can be used elsewhere, now you want to throw another rock on the shoulders of the patients. You should be hanging your head in shame. Cannabem liberemus!! Steven C.

LTL Example #3 - From: Laird To: Bishoff Don ; sen.billmorrisette@state.or.us Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 8:38 AM Subject: Re: Stormy's legislative proposals HI- Well now that SB 388 exists I have a few questions and many shared concerns about it. Bill do you actually support the provisions of this bill and think it is needed or are you doing SR a favor by having it drafted? I understand that in this legislature, nothing related to mmj will pass unless agreed to by law enforcement, which obviously 388 is, but is the converse also true, that support by LE means that 388 should pass? I recall Don, during the 2003 session you specifically asked me why the mmj folks were not working together as the cat fight which marked that session unfolded. The answer was and still is, Stormy did not and will not participate in any work with any other group or person. Bill and others made good attempts with the intersession LAC going into 2005 and the ACMM after SB 1085 to provide forums where the ideas of the many mmj advocates and patients could be discussed and the result be a single voice for mmj advocates. However such a concept can work only if all mmj folks participate and work together. Stormy, as I said earlier, has refused to work with any other person or group not her own and has gone off a loner and produced tha flawed language of 388. Had she discussed the proposals with her peers, it may have been able to change the weak paerts and thus gain some degree of needed support from the thousands of OMMP folks which are affected by this bill. But, she did not and thus 388 does not have any support from those affected. That Stormy is a minority voice among the thousands of OMMP folks can be seen by the fact that she has either opposed or abstained from voting on at least 95% of the ideas and concepts brought before the ACMM, being always the only one to so oppose or abstain. She openly holds her colleagues in contempt and has been known to publically denigrate them to her Law Enforcement allies and any others who will listen to her. Her comments during ACMM meetings are generally condescending to her fellow members and consist almost entirely of arguing that they are wrong, with her sidekick Jerry chiming in during public comment periods that the ACMM is "lying" about the OMMA and what it does. Don if you think 2003 was an inappropriate and embarrasing cat fight, that will be nothing compared to what will happen if 388 is moved from committee. It should have hearing so that the majority voices may have an opportunity to share with the legislature the realites of how 388 will very negatively affect them. You should know that already I have been told by three growers that they will no longer grow for anyone but themselves or famiuly if the inspection by OMMP provisions become law. They are appalled that a visiting bureaucrat would have the right to deny them the ability to grow based upon very unclear criteria and no described process, especially since now it takes an actual conviction by a court of law to work such denial. In closing I would suggest that with the economic problems Oregon faces, the legislature would be well advised to forego workon ANY mmj bill in order to prevent the session from being sidetracked by the cat fight which will happen should this bill go forth. Don Harmon has significantly negative things in store for OMMP and I believe that any work on OMMP issues will give a possibility for his proposals to pass. After three sessions on the mmj subject, it is probably time to give the issue a rest and work on solving the real problems Oregon faces instead of trying to tweak OMMA this way or that in order to please everyone-and end up pleasing no one. But whatever happens, SB 388 is not supportable by me or as far as I can tell by anyone of the thousands of OMMP folks not in Stormy's "summit" group. Sincerely, Laird

LTL Example #4 - From: mthrsdva@aim.com To: sen.billmorrisette@state.or.us; sen.jeffkruse@state.or.us; sen.lauriemonnesanderson@state.or.us; sen.christelfer@state.or.us; sen.joanneverger@state.or.us Sent: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 Subject: Post Hearing Response to Testimony on SB 388 Dear Senators, Having just watched the hearings via the internet, I now understand why the bill got dropped. It brought all of us out to speak. May I address they way the legitimate cannabis patient community fits caregivers into the equation? I am a patient, a prmgs for 4 (including myself) and caregiver for 4 patients in addition to being caregiver for two of the patients i am prmgs for. I have a caregiver who helps me in the garden. One of the patients needs his spouse to be his caregiver because she prepares his edibles from the medicine i grow for him. The 4 patient garden provides for all 8 of us and a little more we donate to access to excess events for patients who need the extra help. Not all patients have a gardensite, even though they have to claim one to get their card. caregivers serve multiple practical roles in the community they help in the gardens, they prepare edibles they may transport the medicine from the grower to the patient they know other patients who might have excess to help their patients when necessary they are also patients who grow extra to help provide for patients who do not have gardens or who have failures. they need the caregiver card to protect them with the excess medicine. Many caregivers take on other care taking duties like getting patients to meetings, appointments or unclogging the drain. Each relationship is different. Organizations which have staff who are patients themselves and caregivers to a seemingly large amount of patients need the protection for the cannabis which is available at the access to excess events that the orgs host. I cannot speak to individual organizations or their practices. I understand that it is a way for orgs to have the medicine onsite legally to give away to needy cardholders. There is no provision in the law to allow for this. The community is doing the best we can to work within the limits of an imperfect law. Regarding the percentage of out of compliance gardens that Mr. Dingman discussed in his power point presentation. Could we ask for more info? Out of compliance how? Too may 14 inch plants? Too much leaf trimmings in the compost pile? Too many branches over 12 inches that the prosecutor somehow got the jury to determine are plants, not branches? Ask Ms. Suver what I am talking about. She is the prosecutor who did that. If there is real abuse, of course we want it stopped. As Mr. Berger pointed out, we put a big old dent in the black market economy. Licensed regulated dispensaries and producers to dispensaries could help take a bigger bite out and put it into State coffers. I submit it would also make law enforcements job easier. Much of the regulation they are looking for in terms of legitimate gardens are in the proposed initiative. It would help sort the legitimate growers from the crooks and let the police focus on the cartels who are poisoning our forests with their chemical debris and slave labor and it would put money into state programs. If it is real abuse, let us hear more details. Maybe we can help figure out a solution. It is time for law enforcement to realize that it is their job to enforce the law as written, not use it to make patients life harder. We should be partners, not adversaries. Thank you for listening to me, Kristen Gustafson

LTL Example #5 - Dear Senators, Please kill 388. I have enclosed my letter to Stormy about my concerns with the bill and the implications for the medical cannabis community. Please note that she pushed forward without responding. My concern, Dear Senators, specifically Senator Morrisette, is that you would drop this bill, knowing that it is not going to be supported by the cannabis patient community in general. There will be this giant two day horse and pony show in Salem and this bill focus's on the needs of LE, not patients . The ACMM does not support it. Didn't you ask for that committee specifically to advise legislators? They think this bill stinks to high heaven. Why are they so marginalized in this process? Can we please get law enforcement out of medicine? Can we please take Obamas lead and regulate the distribution of medical cannabis instead of entertaining law changing that makes life harder for the patients and caters to law enforcement? Obama has called off the raids in Cali. Doesn't this tell us something? The black market is in control of cannabis sales and the revenue generated. Cannabis is our biggest cash crop whether we want to admit it or not. Seems like we could pull that revenue into the light of day and into State coffers. Please read my letter to Stormy. I have attached LC3427, formerly known as I-28. It will be dropped by The Judiciary Committee today. This is a better use of our time and resources in my opinion. I hope you will support it. Thank you for taking the time to read this, the attachment and letter to Stormy Ray. Please kill 388 and let's look at ways to help the patients instead of making life harder for them. Thank you for your service and your good work. respectfully, Kristen Gustafson Portland, Oregon -----Original Message----- From: mthrsdva@aim.com To: sray@stormyray.org Sent: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 Subject: RE: DPFOR: Legislative Provisions to Improve OMMA Good Morning Stormy and everyone, Respectfully, Most of these changes will make life harder for most of us. If you had come to the community first, we would have told you so and maybe helped to come up with something which will work. 18 inches doesn't really help. The plants need to be bigger than that before they get put into flower. If patients have legally legitimate complaints about growers, they can already go to law enforcement. The OMMP is not interested in being anything but a registry, they already tell patients to talk to LEO if they think there is a legal problem. Who is going to pay for the extra work for the OMMP that this proposal proposes? Raise the fees? We have worked so hard to keep them down. We already have a handbook, which we spent multiple meetings over multiple years working on. The result is disappointing and there is much more important business which got put to the side while we did it. Who is going to write it? The hash thing is just absurd. It is already covered in statute. If leo would think for a nano second, they would realize that the amount of cannabis it would take to make 24 oz of hash would put one so far out of compliance there would be no salvation in a legal situation. 24 ounces in the car? Does a grower need to make 4 trips to deliver to 4 patients, 24 oz at a time? If the plants produce more than the 24 oz that the patient is limited to, what happens to the rest? The patient only gets 24 oz of it Right now, we can give it away to other patients who have not found a grower. My patients are generous and they understand how important the medicine is. We are happy to share it with others. HAPPY TO SHARE and there are so many patients who need someone to share with them. More patients will be without growers if this passes. Is that a good thing? It is hard for me to see how any of this really helps patients and it seems to me the people it will be hardest on are the people who are trying to help as many people as possible within the limits an imperfect law. It is lost on me how these proposals will make life easier for any of us. Please help us understand what you are thinking. I know in your heart you want to help patients. Maybe you just don't see how many of them are so needy. I agree there are unscrupulous growers. They are not the majority and you are creating rules for the few and the rules hurt the many. How is that good for us? Maybe dispensaries are not such a bad idea after all. Have you read I 28? I will attach a copy for you. It does have inspections for growers who grow to provide for dispensaries. When it passes, the people who want to grow for more than 4 patients (still subject to the current plant limit of 6/18 plants) would register with the dept and be subject to inspections/audits and record keeping. Have a look, it might be better than you think. Would you please put your energy towards solidarity in the movement and changing federal rules so that this all becomes a moot point? Going behind the backs of the patient community, making deals with law enforcement which will effect all of us, without our input is just wrong, Stormy. Plain wrong. I hope that you will really think about this and make the right choice. There is a discussion going on on ogf http://www.oregongreenfree.net/forums/showthread.php?t=31768 about this. Please go there and help us understand what you are up to. It does not look good from here, maybe we misunderstand. Maybe we can re craft something together which will be more workable for the mmj community, that is my hope. Have you been paying attention to what Dan Harmon and AOI are up to? That is what we ALL need to be focusing on or it will all be a moot point. Please stand with us and not against us, Stormy. I do appreciate all of your effort, I wish I felt it was helpful rather than hurtful. If you want to talk about this, I am open to a meeting. Thank you for listening to me, blessed be the safety of the mmj community and our ability to take care of ourselves and our community, all of us, Kristen

Got one?   !PLEASE!   Post It!

For links and help with contacting state reps and To check up on bills and such, visit our Legislative ToolShed for Tips, Tricks and More.

back to [ Top of Page ]