BY RACHEL CHEESEMAN

BEND- Jim Klahr made his way to Bend, Oregon on Friday to happily announce that Initiative 28, which would establish medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, would be on the 2010 ballot.

Klahr, the co-chief petitioner of Initiative 28, said the regulated medical marijuana supply system would allow patients instant access to their medicine from a qualified and reliable source.

The Coalition for Patients’ Rights 2010 collected 130,000 signatures to ensure that the requirement of 82,769 valid signatures would be met to put the initiative on the ballot.

Dispensaries would be able to grow marijuana or purchase it from licensed producers and other dispensaries as long as they fell within Oregon’s state lines.

Klahr said that the permit process would allow tighter regulations and better monitoring of the quality of the product.

“Currently people had to be their own grower or find someone to grow for them,” Klahr said.

Klahr said this was an obstacle for many patients because they might not be able to grow themselves, and finding a grower for many patients was both difficult and time-intensive.

“It’s very hard sometimes to find someone who’s ready and willing to take you on,” Klahr said. “Some people were waiting 17 months.”

The regulations that would apply to the dispensaries would be drafted by the Department of Human Services after the proposal’s passage.

James Hickam, director of Salem’s sub-chapter of NORML, said he is concerned that access to medicine might continue to be a problem if regulations don’t prevent overpricing.

Dispensaries in California, he said, charge up to $400 an ounce.

“That’s way out of line for patients,” Hickam said.

The initiative is predicted to generate large amounts of revenue for the state through annual licensing fees for both dispensaries and producers. Dispensaries also would pay quarterly fees to be determined by their gross revenue.

With the initiative on the ballot, Klahr’s attention has switched from signature gathering to fundraising in order to mobilize voters and to draw attention to the cause.

“We have a plan,” he said. “We’ll be doing fundraisers all over the state.”

BY SARAH ROSS

NEWBERG- A lawsuit filed against the City of Newberg over an initiative petition ended at the Yamhill County Circuit Court on Tuesday, requiring the City to approve the petition which they have rejected numerous times.

Hank Grum joined forces with Common Sense for Oregon, a conservative advocacy group, to file suit against the city after five similar initiative petitions were rejected by Dawn Wilson, the Elections Officer for Newberg.

Grum’s last petition, called the “Tax and Fee Responsibility Amendment,” would have put on the ballot an initiative requiring the City to put all proposed increases on taxes, fees, or other charges to be brought up for approval by Newberg voters.

Wilson turned down the petitions, saying they did not meet the Oregon Constitution’s one subject rule, which mandates that all petition initiatives revolve around a single subject.

As ruled by the Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Easterday, Grum’s petition did discuss a single topic, “the mechanism for increases in taxes, fees, or any other charges adopted by the council.”

“They are all actions by the city to generate revenue,” wrote Easterday in Tuesday’s opinion letter.

The final issue with Grum’s petition was whether or not the proposed initiative was legislative or administrative in nature, affecting whether it was the type of proposal that should be brought to the voters.

Easterday decided that because the petition was intended to change the legal framework of whether the City Council could impose taxes and fees, rather than how the fees and taxes are carried out, it is indeed legislative.

She went on to add, “The fact that the conduct of the City government may be seriously hampered if the petition went forward by changing the process in which taxes, fees or any other charges could be increased is not an issue that the court may consider in its analysis as to whether or not the petition is legislative or administrative.”

Ross Day, Executive Director of Common Sense for Oregon and the attorney that represented Grum, said he was not surprised by the ruling, saying, “The law is pretty clearly on our side.”

Day added he wasn’t sure why the City took the position that it did, but he thinks “this will end up being an expensive lesson for the citizens of Newberg.”

“This case is important because it guarantees that the city charter is the people’s city charter,” said Day. “Otherwise, had the City prevailed, citizens of Oregon would have been severely restricted on their ability to amend their own city, and probably even county, charters.”

Newberg’s City Attorney Terrence Mahr was not able to be reached for comment.

However, Tom Sponsler, the attorney representing the City of Newberg, said he was disappointed with the ruling because he thought the “eloquence would carry the day but apparently didn’t.”

BY SARAH ROSS

EUGENE- An announcement Wednesday by Oregon’s Secretary of State Kate Brown applauded a federal court ruling to uphold regulations on paid petitioners brought about in 2007’s Legislative Session.

Judge Michael R. Hogan found that the restrictions were justified: “State interest in maintaining the integrity of the petition process are significant and outweigh the burden these statutory requirements to keep and submit detailed accounts place on chief petitioners.”

The restrictions, which were drafted in part by then-Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, included banning those convicted of fraud, forgery or identity theft from being paid to gather signatures.

Additionally, it requires paid signature gatherers to register with the State and to complete an instruction course on election law. Chief petitioners are also required to provide payroll records proving that signature gatherers aren’t paid per signature, a practice banned in 2002 by a voter-approved Constitutional amendment.

Attorney Ross Day represents Russ Walker and Glenn Pelikan, who began challenging the law back in 2007. Day said he was surprised at the federal court’s ruling but thinks he still has a good case. He plans to appeal to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. When asked how far he is willing to take the case, he said he could see appealing it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“What [this law] does is drive up the cost of putting a measure on the ballot to the point where the average Oregonian isn’t going to be able to do it. Only the wealthy and unions and so forth are going to be able to access the initiative process, which is absolutely not what we want to see happen.”