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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1978)
opinion ars Stall should end on marijuana-law reform For those who still harbor the illusion that Oregon stands on the forefront of enlightened treatment of marijuana use, some recent developments pro vide a much-needed perspective. The Lane County Public Defender’s Office has challenged a new state law that, among other things, provides a more severe penalty for growing mari juana than the manufacture of am phetamines or barbituates. A circuit court case here involving an alleged pot-growing, processing and packing operation near Veneta pro vided the occasion for the public defender’s legal motion. The constitutional challenge re volves around inclusion of marijuana, for purposes of determining penalties, in the same category as opiates such as heroin and hallucinogens such as LSD. Based on a new federal law with a “schedule” of drugs based on their (presumed) relative danger, the Oregon law thus labels pot as a durg with a “very high hazard potential.” Now that’s a step backwards. It’s time we got started in the right direction again. In 1973, Oregon set one of those national precedents for which it once was somewhat infamous: It instituted non-criminal fines for the possession of less than an ounce of the notorious weed. Criminal penalties remained in tact for growing, selling, transporting, giving away or doing almost anything with marijuana besides smoking it alone in private. At the time, dopesters and non smoking citizens, who objected to the law agencies’ senseless preoccupation of suppressing a minor indiscretion, hailed the reform as the first step on the path toward outright legalization of marijuana. The patent contradiction of maintain ing criminal penalties for growing and selling this drug, the consumption of which had become non-criminally permissible, was seen as a temporary incongruity. They believed the law’s in consistency would disappear as soon as Oregonians realized “decriminaliza tion” would not bring on a horrid out break of social ills. As it turned out, they were wrong. The social ills did not appear, but state Legislatures since 1973 have re jected proposals to permit cultivation or nonprofit transfer of marijuana. Since July of this year, when the state adopted the federal schedule, Oregon has actually reverted to the “kil ler weed” mentality fostered since the 1920s by marijuana’s more alarmist cri tics. Meanwhile, other jurisdictions have passed us in liberalizing legal attitudes toward marijuana. Many modeled their laws after Oregon, creating thereby more of the ambiguous “de criminalized Wonderlands” in which marijuana became minimally illegal but never entirely legal. Only Alaska, has granted complete legitimacy for personal cultivation and use of marijuana. That state’s supreme court accomplished this reform through a broad interpretation of a “right to pri vacy” guaranteed by the Alaskan con stitution. For Oregon, the 1973 law, rather than being the beginning of something big, can be seen as the end of some thing rather small, even petty. Instead of becoming the initial phase of reasonable statutory treatment of marijuana, the 1973 “breakthrough” represents—in retrospect—a shallow political gambit designed to defuse a popular social movement. Reports issued in 1972 and 1973 by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse said no evidence ex isted that marijuana causes physical or mental problems. A similar Canadian commission re ported that the drug—even if used routinely for years—doesn’t cause criminal or violent behavior, is non addictive and presents no risk of death from overdose. These reports, the long standstill in humanizing Oregon’s marijuana laws and the Lane County court case indi cate the need for a renewed campaign for legalization. A mere tinkering with the penalties for marijuana cultivation and sales begs the question of marijuana’s relative harmlessness and its hypocritical treatment by the gov ernment. Most states reap large revenues from their regulation—and implicit endorsement—of liquor sales. Yet al cohol remains causally linked to thousands of deaths in traffic accidents and physical illnesses every year. The federal government not only in cludes tobacco products in its interna tional Food For Peace Program but subsidizes tobacco cultivation in this country. Yet, cigarette smoking annually causes thousands of deaths from heart disease and various cancers. Marijuana presents a negligible health or social hazard, but its produc ers and consumers are heavily cen sured while their politically powerful counterparts in the liquor and tobacco industries are actually encouraged. These absurd inequities have gone on long enough. The Oregon Legislature begins its 1979 session in a matter of weeks. Lane County's representatives should be told that the freeze on marijuana law reform must end. Who says so? Those of us who still remember the 1978 guber natorial campaign in Oregon probably recall an un certainty about what election of Sen. Victor Atiyeh would bring. In a classic scramble for the political main stream, Atiyeh and quite a few other candidates wa tered down history of conservative predilections. One’s choice of friends, however, often provides an important due to intentions, we believe. And some of Atiyeh’s friends seem to be coming out of the woodwork, now that he’s in line to take over the governor’s job. One of these friends turns out to be Vincent de Poix, the president of Teledyne Wah Chang, the pro fitable heavy-metals’ plant that helped turn Albany into the cesspool of Oregon. De Poix clearly understands that whoever has access to the governor also has a pipeline to whomever Atiyeh appoints as head of the state De partment of Environmental Quality. Teledyne Wah Chang and other of Albany’s notorious polluters have been in a running battle with the DEQ for years. Now that a new man is in the top spot, they obviously think an armistice may be at hand. De Poix joins a cadre of wood-products indus trialists who backed Atiyeh because they didn’t like Gov. Bob Straub’s positions on wilderness areas and herbicide use in forests. Our venerable conclusion: With friends like them, who needs enemies? vours Un-Greek unclear Although the article in th< Emerald entitled “The Un-Greek (Nov. ODE) was generally well written, and the reporter stud closely to his facts, I must point ou that I was quoted slightly out c context. The quote beqinninq “It’s sort of a secret club mentality..was made in response to a question on our feelings on secret initiation ; ceremonies with hazing. Such in itiation ceremonies are con demned by all houses on this : campus, and are not allowed to be | a part of the Greek system at ' Oregon by Interfratemity Council rules. Alpha Delta Upsilon Oregon ag rees with, supports, and follows these rules. I would like at this point to apologize to those persons who have taken offense at the quote, placed as it was in connection with a discussion of secrecy as a whole. A.D.U. Oregon feels that secrecy per se does not connote immaturity in people who accept it as their way, just when that sec recy is combined with humiliation or mental and physical distress for prospective members of a secret organization. We feel, of course, that non secrecy is better for us and for numerous other people on this campus, but this does not imply a condemnation of secrecy as a concept. Once again, I wish to thank the Emerald for its fair and honest re porting on our organization, and on the other subjects your fine newspaper covers. Stewart King AOU Oregon sophomore, history-theater
