I started
smoking marijuana rather than drinking when I was 18, having started when I was
drunk. It saved me from depression and alcoholism.
Ever since, I
have heard, “If you don’t like the law, change it!” After several attempts, we changed it in
Oregon, first to allow medical use, and finally to allow all adults to grow and
use it. Measure 91 was so restrictive
that I actually campaigned and voted against it, seeing the mischief that could
be done by cops that hate pot users with the low possession limits for
households to store a year’s worth of homegrown. Hold onto too much, enough for a household of
several smokers, and you could lose your house.
It failed by only 2 votes in Josephine County. If I had voted for it, it would have been a
tie.
But the
people of Oregon passed it overwhelmingly, and I was glad. Our newly elected state representative, Carl
Wilson, who had campaigned against it offensively, got himself appointed to the
committee to amend Measure 91 and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and called
me and proponents into his office to learn about marijuana and discuss what
needed to be changed in Measure 91. The
legislature changed the commercial tax from a grower tax to a sales tax and
allowed local governments to make money for their general funds with their own
3% sales tax in House Bill 3400. They even
allowed for reasonable local
regulation of licensed marijuana businesses.
They didn’t
change anything regarding the homegrown possession limits in Measure 91. But without a cause to search, police
couldn’t look for excess pot to cause any mischief. Knowing that OMMP possession limits had been
raised from 3 ounces to 24 ounces over several years, I figure that homegrown
limits will eventually be raised, and relaxed.
But just
before Measure 91 went into effect, the Grants Pass City Council started the
process to pass a new nuisance code, allowing only indoor growing of marijuana
within the city, and defining a greenhouse as not “indoors.” Indeed, their definition of “indoors” doesn’t
even cover normal houses. On July 1, the
very day I legally planted my crop in my backyard, they passed it on the first
reading, but didn’t have the votes for a second reading and finally passed
unanimously it on July 15th.
The people of Oregon passed a law to
end the war on pot users and the Grants Pass City Council and their attorney
figure that they can continue it with a city code.
Carl Wilson warned them in writing before their first vote that they
were violating SB 863 (2013) and the city could be sued, but they did it
anyways. Their ordinance is so
unreasonable that it violates Measure 91 and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act,
as amended by House Bill 3400, which was signed before the ordinance passed,
but they passed it anyways, breaking four state laws with one city code. I told them on July 23rd that they
had even banned possession out of “indoors” in the city, and they simply amended
it to remove possession on September 16th.
Their attorney seems to think that they can nullify
state laws with this clause:
5.72.060 Conflict of laws
In the event of any conflict between this ordinance and the
provisions of any applicable state or local law, the more restrictive provision
shall control.
As though a
city can overcome state laws with a local code!
This must have been copied from a state law; the state can get away with
saying it. The entire Chapter 5.72,
Homegrown and Medical Marijuana, was copied from Central Point’s code of the
same name.
SB 863 (2013) forbids local
governments and voters from enacting or enforcing any law that inhibits or
prevents the production, sale, or advertising of any product of agriculture, which marijuana has been since OMMA
passed. Where the state allows
reasonable regulation, as they do in Measure 91 for licensed recreational
production, processing and sales, and in HB 3400 for medical, they can pass and
enforce reasonable regulations. Chapter 5.72 definitely inhibits or prevents
home production of marijuana, which the state has not allowed local governments
to regulate at all, so SB 863 applies to void it regarding homegrown, which the
state has not given cities permission to regulate.
The City Council has put a general 2%
retail sales tax on the ballot to pay for public safety, but they spurn the 3%
sales tax that the state has allowed them for retail marijuana sales, as well as their share of the
17% sales tax that the state will be charging retail “recreational” pot buyers,
by banning both medical processing and dispensaries and all licensed “recreational”
marijuana businesses.
This will not help them pass the
first general sales tax in Oregon, not least because they have shown us with Chapter 5.72 that
they intend to continue making war on pot growers and users. There are enough in this city to be a large minority,
maybe even a majority, of the voters who vote against both city and county
levies, because most people don’t vote more money for law enforcement when they
might go to jail. Measure 91 might have
changed that, but for this ordinance showing how unreasonably the city would
enforce it.
Chapter 5.72’s “indications” of
cultivation, which are vague, ordinary annoyances not necessarily tied to pot
cultivation, give police plenty of opportunity to search our homes, not only to see if we are violating
the ordinance, but to see if we possess too much marijuana or its products to
be within the homegrown exception to the licensing rules. This would then allow them to seize our home
for violating the license we don’t have.
Fines are just the tip of the iceberg of penalties that we can be hit
with.
We voted to
change the law; the Council voted to continue their war on us. They can’t legally do it. That’s why I’m suing the City.
September
28, 2015 protest leaflet. Published on GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com. Sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/grants-pass-city-manager-aaron-cubic-leave-pot-growers-alone-target-litter-and-weeds
Read Chapter 5.72 at http://gardengrantspass.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-572-homegrown-and-medical.html
Support the lawsuit at www.GoFundMe.com/HomegrownDefense
Rycke
Brown, Natural Gardener 541-955-9040 rycke@gardener.com
Thanks, Rycke, for your on going efforts on all of our behalf's.
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