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Topic: Legal

Going green: States would get free hand under pot bill

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden proposed legislation Friday that would give states a free hand to allow legal cannabis markets without the threat of federal criminal intervention, the latest push in Congress to bolster the nation’s burgeoning pot industry. The proposal, identical to a bill in the House, aims to ease the longstanding conflict between states where cannabis is legal in some form and the U.S. government, which categorizes marijuana as a dangerous illegal drug, similar to LSD or heroin. “The federal prohibition of marijuana is wrong, plain and simple,” Wyden, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Too many lives have

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February 8, 2019

The ‘Big Pause’ continues

New cannabis businesses looking to open in Oregon have at least another 12 to 18 months to wait, according to Danica Hibpshman, statewide director of licensing at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. The OLCC, facing a long list of business applications and renewal applications from existing businesses, hit the pause button in June 2018, telling prospective cannabis business owners they wouldn’t be processing any new business applications until the understaffed agency could get caught up. “Renewals are bogging down our system,” Hibpshman said. “Processing renewals can be as time-intensive as new licenses.” Hibpshman and a handful of her colleagues from

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January 28, 2019

Out in the open

The cannabis industry may be legal and flourishing here in Oregon, but when it comes to allowing people to consume in social and commercial settings similar to wine-tasting rooms, beer gardens and microbreweries, the state has more to accomplish. A new campaign is underway to spur momentum for legalizing cannabis consumption spaces in the 2019 legislative session. The campaign kicked off officially at an event in late August, hosted by the newly formed New Revenue Coalition, a political action committee composed of cannabis industry businesses and allies with the mission of legalizing common consumption spaces for cannabis in Oregon, and

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January 11, 2019

Plenitude of Oregon bud: Too much of a good thing?

When Oregon lawmakers created the state’s legal marijuana program, one of their goals was to convince illicit pot growers to leave the black market. That meant low barriers for entering the industry that also targeted long-standing medical marijuana growers, whose product is not taxed. As a result, weed production boomed — with a bitter consequence. Now, marijuana prices here are in freefall, and the craft cannabis farmers who put Oregon on the map decades before broad legalization say they are in peril of losing their now-legal businesses as the market adjusts. Oregon regulators announced they would stop processing new applications

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August 11, 2018

Cannabis testing: Labs critical for cannabis R&D

Cannabis labs have been busier than ever as new marijuana-related products go through significant research, development and testing before they hit the market. “It’s a similar system to pharmaceutical labs,” said Anthony Smith, chief science officer for Evio Labs, based in Central Point. “For all intents and purposes, this is a biotechnology business in the Rogue Valley.” Smith is a pioneer in the local cannabis industry, opening the first-of-its-kind lab in Jackson County, Kenevir Research Lab, before it was bought out by Evio, which has expanded the operations and operates nationwide and in Canada. Testing of cannabis products is a

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August 11, 2018

Cannabis DUII: How do police spot stoned drivers?

Everyone agrees that driving while stoned is a bad thing. After that, however, it’s hard to get a consensus. What constitutes driving while high? What are the legal standards for a marijuana DUII? And how big of a problem is it? Chelsea Jones, Jackson County deputy district attorney, says she couldn’t provide that specific data about the number of marijuana DUIIs because “marijuana is lumped in with other controlled-substance driving violations.” Medford police Sgt. Trevor Arnold, a drug recognition expert, says, “I’ve not personally seen an increase.” Studies in Colorado and Washington seem to track with Arnold’s experience here. A

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July 26, 2018

High Hopes

On a frosty night in December 2016, James Bowman was alone and overcome with exhaustion. The cannabis grower had worked hard all day processing plants at his BlueSky Gardens near Wimer, lacking the money to keep his crew on hand to provide security through the night. Arguably Southern Oregon’s best-known grower, the 57-year-old struggled financially to make it through the harvest. His ambitious High Hopes Farm in the Applegate, once toured by legislators as a model of medical marijuana grows, had been raided by federal agents in 2012. He’d spent two years in court to avoid a conviction, which took

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July 17, 2017

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