Wednesday, August 23, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
US pot states try
to curb smuggling
By Andrew Selsky
Associated Press
PORTLAND (AP) —
Well before Oregon legalized
marijuana, its verdant, wet
forests made it an ideal place
for growing the drug, which
often ended up being fun-
neled out of the state for big
money.
Now, officials suspect
pot grown legally in Oregon
and other states is also being
smuggled out, and the traf-
ficking is putting America’s
multibillion-dollar marijuana
industry at risk.
In response, pot-legal
states are trying to clamp
down on “diversion” even as
U.S. Attorney General Jeff
Sessions presses for enforce-
ment of federal laws against
marijuana.
Tracking legal weed from
the fields and greenhouses
where it’s grown to the shops
where it’s sold under names
like Blueberry Kush and
Chernobyl is their so far main
protective measure.
In Oregon, Gov. Kate
Brown recently signed into
law a requirement that state
regulators track from seed to
store all marijuana grown for
sale in Oregon’s legal market.
So far, only recreational mar-
ijuana has been comprehen-
sively tracked. Tina Kotek,
speaker of the Oregon House,
said lawmakers wanted to
ensure “we’re protecting the
new industry that we’re sup-
porting here.”
“There was a real recog-
nition that things could be
changing in D.C.,” she said.
The Washington State
Liquor and Cannabis Board
says it’s replacing its current
tracking Nov. 1 with a “highly
secure, reliable, scalable and
flexible system.”
California voters approved
using a tracking system run
by Lakeland, Florida-based
Franwell for its recreational
pot market. Sales become
legal Jan. 1.
Franwell also tracks mari-
juana, using bar-code and
radio frequency identifica-
tion labels on packaging and
plants, in Colorado, Oregon,
Maryland, Alaska and
Michigan.
“The tracking system is
the most important tool a state
has,” said Michael Crabtree,
who runs Denver-based
Nationwide Compliance
Specialists Inc., which helps
tax collectors track elusive,
cash-heavy industries like the
marijuana business.
But the systems aren’t
fool-proof. They rely on the
users’ honesty, he said.
“We have seen numer-
ous examples of people
ECLIPSE: Whoops
went up across a
very quiet Sisters
‘forgetting’ to tag plants,”
Crabtree said. Colorado’s
tracking also doesn’t apply to
home-grown plants and many
noncommercial marijuana
caregivers.
In California, implement-
ing a “fully operational, legal
market” could take years, said
state Sen. Mike McGuire,
who represents the “Emerald
Triangle” region that’s esti-
mated to produce 60 percent
of America’s marijuana. But
he’s confident tracking will
help.
“In the first 24 months,
we’re going to have a good
idea who is in the regulated
market and who is in black
market,” McGuire said.
Oregon was the first state
to decriminalize personal pos-
session, in 1973. It legalized
medical marijuana in 1998,
and recreational use in 2014.
Before that, Anthony
Taylor hid his large cannabis
crop from aerial surveillance
under a forest canopy east of
Portland, and tended it when
there was barely enough light
to see.
“In those days, marijuana
was REALLY illegal,” said
Taylor, now a licensed mari-
juana processor and lobbyist.
“If you got caught growing
the amounts we were grow-
ing, you were going to go to
prison for a number of years.”
Continued from page 1
he placed a spotting scope
on a table and pointed it at
the sun. It projected onto a
canvas frame, provided by
Kim Osgood, a visiting art-
ist who lives in Portland, and
displayed the sun as a slowly
fading six-inch circle as the
moon slowly overtook it in
morning hours.
Watching through eclipse
glasses and welding goggles
the friends watched as the
sun began to fade over the
treetops. Whoops and hol-
lers could be heard around
the neighborhood at the
point of totality, and a few
cheered in excitement dur-
ing the thirty-four seconds of
darkness.
For the nine guests,
Monday’s eclipse was their
first experience in totality.
And choosing Sisters as their
viewpoint was easy.
“I came through Sisters
back in May of this year,
and instantly loved this little
town,” said Tom Hickey,
a resident of Longview,
Washington.
Other members of the
group shared their first
impressions of the little
mountain town and the
thought of experiencing it in
Madras or Prineville didn’t
appeal to them. The calm and
quiet of Sisters made for their
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Visitors to Sisters took in the solar eclipse on Monday morning.
perfect getaway.
The smoke from the Milli
Fire was a concern to them,
too.
“This morning we were
worried about the smoke and
considered heading east, but
we decided to stay and hope
for the best,” said Jeff. “I’m
glad we stayed.”
Other small groups gath-
ered along the nearly deserted
streets of Sisters. As the
moon slowly occluded the
sun, whoops broke out across
town.
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