News Oregon Liquor Control Commission? Try the Oregon Cannabis Commission. Cannabis activist Paul Stanford has filed a new initiative aimed at the 2012 state ballot that would establish a seven-person Oregon Cannabis Commission to regulate the cultivation and sale of cannabis for sale. For all adults. "This wouldn't just make marijuana for medical use," said Stanford. "It would also be [legalized] ...   More

News We already knew Oregon has some of the best weed in the nation. Now CNN wants a hit. WW has word that a crew from Anderson Cooper 360 will be in Portland this weekend reporting for a series on marijuana legalization. Titled "America's High," the series airing next week is already advertised on Cooper's website. A camera crew will attend Oregon NORML's medical-marijuana cardholders' meeting ...   More

News For those who remember our interview last year with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, today's news should come as no surprise. The Justice Department issued a memo to federal prosecutors telling them them not to target medical-marijuana patients and their sanctioned suppliers. While most of Oregon's Democratic leaders remain mealy-mouthed about the marijuana issue, it appears the ...   More

News While most Portlanders are all too familiar with cafés of the coffee-serving variety, there's a new café coming to town worth noting. It's Oregon's first cannabis café (a concept common elsewhere around the globe) and it will be run by Oregon NORML It's scheduled to open Friday, Nov. 13, naturally at 4:20pm. Sadly, only members both of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program ...   More

News More than two years after his fellow flyer committed suicide, a Canadian pilot who landed in Eastern Oregon with nearly 1,000 pounds of weed on board was sentenced today to four years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ordered Harvey Gabel to turn himself in to the Bureau of Prisons on Jan. 28, 2010, to serve his term. Gabel, 60, is a resident of Langley, B.C. According to a news ...   More

News Behind a heavy locked door, Oregon's newest cannabis café, run by Oregon NORML, prepared to begin its first day of service for medical marijuana patients. Perhaps unsurprisingly on the first day, things started slowly, with a press conference that started 30 minutes late. NORML executive director Madeline Martinez called marijuana "the safest medicine known to mankind" and said she expected ...   More

News Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Policy, is in Oregon this week visiting drug treatment centers as part of President Obama's upcoming National Drug Control Strategy. Speaking this morning at Oregon Partnership, a nonprofit with services that include drug prevention programs and a crisis line for suicide intervention, Kerlikowske praised his host's outreach to veterans with substance abuse ...   More

News The news that Oregon's state budget has sprung another $500 million-plus leak leads to two insta-thoughts — and my request for help from readers for your third quickie takeaway from the bleeding budget. Here are my two thoughts: 1) The lousy budget makes today's overview in the New York Times about some of the dramatic changes (cutting the number of counties?) that other budget-strapped ...   More

News Potential reform of Oregon's marijuana laws will go forward today when petitioners present their signatures to put Initiative 28 on the state's November ballot. Hundreds of Initiative 28 supporters spent more than a year collecting more than 110,000 signatures, which will be presented today to the Secretary of State's office. Oregon law requires 82,769 of these signatures to be valid in order ...   More

News Friday, July 2, is the deadline for supporters of initiatives in Oregon to turn in their last batches of signatures in hopes of making the November ballot. And proponents of reforming Oregon's medical marijuana laws with Initiative 28 said today they are confident they will turn in enough valid signatures by tomorrow's 5 pm deadline to qualify for the ballot. The Coalition for Patients' Rights, ...   More