Editor:
Ballot Measure 91 gives you, the city’s residents, the vote/the say over whether to have a dry city or county.
Senate Bill 542, proposed by the League of Oregon Cities, takes away your vote (no public vote – i.e. voter suppression) and gives all power regarding cannabis – marijuana – to City Council members. They will have the say whether to ban or to tax it to death.
Personally, I’d like to cast my vote on this issue. Can we vote before Senate Bill 542 is possibly passed?
If Sweet Home bans cannabis, does that mean, on moral principle, that Sweet Home will also reject cannabis tax monies?
Banning cannabis or implementing additional taxes will surely keep the black market gang happy!
I wish we would have held off a year or two, long enough to see how Colorado and Washington fared, and learned from their mistakes.
Is it too late to make changes to Measure 91? How about we run cannabis like the Distilled Spirits Program?
A system of state-run cannabis stores sounds better to me than a for-profit free-market free-for-all that you know Big Money is going to eventually hover up and monopolize. Though, on the other hand, I sure wouldn’t mind getting in on those profits. So I’m conflicted.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as medical marijuana till a few months ago, so this is all new to me. Maybe we, as a city, could pool all our money and do an Indian Reservation Casino-type thing with cannabis. A city garden. Research/testing facility. Edibles factory.
With global warming our weather, if not now, ideal will be pretty soon.
The wave is breaking and DEA agents are jumping the mother ship, becoming either private consultants advising the budding entrepreneurs or joining the private equity firms riding the wave in.
“They all have a plan for marijuana,” said Gerry Sullivan, who manages the Barrier Fund (VICEX) –formerly named Vice Fund, a collection of stocks tied to guns, booze, and tobacco companies.
“They” being, Distilled Spirits Council, the Beer Institute, the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America and, of course, Tobacco (who’s been keeping an eye on pot since forever).
Milbank Memorial Fund research concluded last year: Policymakers and public health advocates must be aware that the tobacco industry or comparable multinational organizations (e.g., food and beverage industries) are prepared to enter the marijuana market with the intention of increasing its already widespread use.
In order to prevent domination of the market by companies seeking to maximize market size and profits, policymakers should learn from their successes and failures in regulating tobacco.
NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ) is schmoozing with the DSCl, the BI, and the WSWA. It hopes to create a lobby, built on the shared interests of alcohol, tobacco and pot.
All three industries want low taxes, the right to advertise freely, and the ability to make convenient sales. The taxes on alcohol and tobacco today aren’t enough to cover the damage they do, public health/safety-wise.
Will cannabis be as bad? I don’t think so as long as you stay off the roads, maybe don’t inhale.
If I could, I’d wish all need for drugs away.
Diane Daiute
Sweet Home