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Atlas of Oregon I
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Marijuana supporters adopt higher goal,
back legalization over decriminalization
By LORRAINE NELSON
Of the Emerald
Eventual legalization of marijuana was adopted as a
new goal by the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws at their seventh annual conference last
weekend in Washington, D C.
Prior to the conference NOR ML supported de
criminalization of marijuana, but according to Ron Fried
land, Oregon NORML state coordinator, NORML now ad
vocates legalization as “more preferable” than de
criminalization.
Friedland, a Eugene resident and a graduate student
in biology and bacteriology at the University, was
Oregon’s first official representative to a NORML confer
ence. Oregon NORML was formed after the Oregon Con
trolled Substances Act passed in 1977.
To explain the new push for legalization, Friedland
quoted former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a
member of the NORML advisory board, as saying that
legalization will promote respect for the law.
Because the use of marijuana will not stop and be
cause frequent marijuana users consistently violate the
law and thereby show disrespect for it, legalization will
promote respect for the law, Friedland said.
The three-day conference was a training and informa
tion convention covering lobbying skills and the legal and
medical aspects of marijuana.
An assessment by NORML of recent elections
nationwide shows that the political climate is less favora
ble for NORML than it has been in the past, Friedland said.
“It is difficult, but we are making progress,” he said.
Eleven states have now decriminalized marijuana,
Oregon being the first in 1973. The laws provide that
marijuana users not suffer a criminal record for minor mari
juana violations and that they be punished by a fine without
a jail sentence and a traffic-like citation will be issued in
lieu of an arrest.
Friedland said he will be lobbying in Oregon this year
for changes in the cultivation and possession laws. He is
confident that Oregon will be the first state to record in its
legislature the decriminalization of cultivation of marijuana.
State Rep. Cecil Johnson, R-Grants Pass, will intro
duce in the next legislature a Controlled Substances
Therapeutic Research Act, similar to the experimental
program approved in New Mexico. Friedland said. That
program, scheduled to begin any day, allows for mari
juana to be used in treating glaucoma and cancer
chemotherapy patients.
The use of marijuana in treating cancer chemotherapy
patients is currently up for review before the Federal Drug
Administration and Friedland estimated that many states
may be requesting the legal use of marijuana in therapeu
tic programs by the end of the first six months in 1979.
Because there will not be sufficient marijuana to sup
port every states' program, Friedland said, individual
states will have to supply their own marijuana either by
using confiscated marijuana or by growing their own.
The only marijuana being legally cultivated in the U. S.
is being grown by the National Institute for Drug Abuse on
a five-acre plot in Mississippi, Friedland said. The Drug
Enforcement Agency has allowed the cultivation for ex
perimental purposes.
OREGON II
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