[Otishertz]

OCTA 2012 is the same OCTA as last time but with even more centralized control, less of a chance for small growers, and less choice for consumers. It prevents growers from taking their crop to market without the State determining who can sell what, the quantity they can sell, and the price they can ask.


Some ideas in it are worthwhile like potency controls, agricultural standards, and standards of impairment for operating machinery. A law that focused on safety and quality while preserving the small growers that make Oregon Cannabis known World wide would be supportable. OCTA takes what small growers have made and offers only total control in place. It is not supportable.


Seven people get tremendous power over the public, farmers, and patients. OCTA sets up control by a discretionary commission that is ripe for lobbyist influence and regulatory capture. OCTA does little to nothing to protect the interests of small growers and unilaterally tilts the playing field in favor of giant corporate interests.


Oregon cannabis is the sum of tens of thousands of small growers. OCTA proposes a commission called OCC in order to take that reputation all to itself and market Oregon Cannabis to other states and the World on its own behalf and for its own account  - while controlling how much everyone can sell, buy and grow and at what prices.


I only gain a Master with OCTA. If everyone is forced to sell to and through the government you don't have commerce, just bullshit lines to queue with your offerings and groveling. Oregon Cannabis needs a democratic structure, not an autocratic one. The problem with OCTA is the total takeover of any and all aspects of the entire future cannabis industry.


Seven political people decide the fate of every patient, consumer, and grower while controlling a government monopoly that imposes crop size limits, price controls, potency controls, retail purchase limits, bodily cannabis limits for presumption of impairment, and limits due process with presumption of negligence.


The OCTA commission being the only buyer of cannabis and the only seller of cannabis allows your consumption to be monitored by the government. A disturbing amount of private property inspections and surveillance will be required by OCTA to enforce quotas and monitor consumption. Section 474.105 below says that your purchases will be limited if you are labeled an abuser. Most prefer their safety "TSA free" without all the disingenuous surveillance.


Legalization does not look like a government ration center. Limiting price and quantity creates a ration center. Limitation is not legalization.

The highlighted sections show the extent of OCTA commission control.  My comments are in parentheses. OCTA supporters should know what they are buying.

http://www.cannabistaxact.org/octa2012-text


Section 2. A new state commission is hereby created and shall be named the Oregon Cannabis Commission, or the OCC. The OCC shall regulate the sale of cannabis and cultivation of cannabis for sale and shall assure the high quality of cannabis grown and processed under this Act. The OCC shall consist of seven commissioners. Initially, seven commissioners shall be appointed by the Governor before December 31, 2012 for a term of one year and they shall promulgate administrative rules, create systems and begin licensing applicants by February 28, 2013. Thereafter, five commissioners shall be elected at large by growers and processors licensed under ORS 474.035 for a term of one year, and two commissioners shall be appointed by the Governor for a term of two years. The OCC shall work to promote Oregon cannabis products in all legal national and international markets.

[snip]


474.035 Powers and duties of the commission, licenses for cultivation and processing. Hemp fiber, protein, oil not regulated.

(1) The commission shall have the powers necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter. It shall make such rules and regulations as will discourage and minimize the diversion of cannabis to illicit sale or use within the state, the illicit importation and sale of cannabis cultivated or processed outside the state, and the illicit export or removal of cannabis from the state. The commission's jurisdiction shall extend to any person licensed under this chapter to cultivate or process cannabis, but shall not extend to any person who manufactures products from hemp. Hemp production for fiber, protein and oil shall be allowed without regulation, license nor fee. No federal license shall be required to cultivate hemp in Oregon.

(2) The commission shall issue to any qualified applicant a license to cultivate cannabis for sale to the commission. The license shall specify the areas, plots, and extent of lands to be cultivated. The commission shall equitably apportion the purchase of cannabis among all licensees. (splits the market among winning bidders) The commission shall purchase and sell cannabis products of the quality and grade set by market demand.

(3) The commission shall issue licenses to process cannabis to qualified applicants who submit successful bids. Licensed processors shall, as specified by the commission, contract, cure, extract, refine, mix, and package the entire cannabis crop and deliver it to the commission's physical possession as soon as possible, but not later than four months after harvest.

474.045 Commission to sell cannabis at cost for medical purposes. The Commission shall sell cannabis at cost, including OCC expenses:

(a) To Oregon and other states' pharmacies and OCC stores for use under a physician's order for glaucoma, nausea related to chemotherapy, AIDS, or any other condition for which a physician finds cannabis to be an effective treatment; and,

(b) To recognized Oregon medical research facilities for use in research directed toward expanding medical and sociological knowledge of the composition, effects, uses, and abuse of cannabis, to include studies of cannabis purchasers voluntarily participating through OCC stores under ORS 474.055.

474.055 Commission to set price and sell through OCC stores. (Price controls) The commission shall sell cannabis through OCC stores and shall set the retail price of cannabis to generate profits for revenue to be applied to the purposes noted in ORS chapter 474 and to minimize incentives to purchase cannabis elsewhere or to purchase cannabis for resale or for removal to other states.

474.075 Disposition of license fees and profits from sale of cannabis by state.

2) All money from the sale of cannabis shall be remitted to the State Treasurer for credit to a cannabis account, from which sufficient money shall be continually appropriated:

(c) To reimburse OCC contractors for their expenses and labor with 15 percent of gross sales. (where is the definition of these contractors? This is a lot of money.)

474.085 Commission to establish psychoactive concentrations of cannabinoids. (potency controls) The commission, based on findings made in consultation with the Board of Pharmacy and cannabis and hemp farmers to cannabinoid concentrations which produce psychoactivity, the economics of residual cannabis extraction, and strains of hemp that produce better quality and quantity of fiber, protein and oil, shall establish reasonable concentrations of cannabinoids deemed psychoactive under this chapter.

474.095 Commission to set standards, test purity, grade potency of cannabis, label contents.

(1) The commission, in consultation with the State Board of Pharmacy, shall set standards which the commission shall apply:

(a) To test and reject cannabis containing adulterants in concentrations known to harm people; and,
(b) To grade cannabis potency by measuring the concentrations of psychoactive cannabinoids it contains.

(2) The commission shall affix to cannabis packages a label which shall bear the state seal, a certification of purity, a grade of potency, the date of harvest, a warning as to the potential for abuse, and notice of laws prohibiting resale, removal from the state, public consumption, and provision and sale to minors.

474.105 Commission may limit purchases. (Retail purchase limits)The commission may limit the quantity of cannabis purchased by a person at one time or over any length of time and may refuse to sell cannabis to any person who violates this chapter's provisions or abuses cannabis within the meaning of ORS 474.005(1).

474.115 Unlicensed cultivation for sale, removal from the state, penalties. Cultivation for sale, removal from the state for sale, and sale of cannabis, without commission authority, shall be Class C felonies, and removal from the state of cannabis for other than sale shall be a Class A misdemeanor. (This doesn't sound lik legalization.)

474.205 Commission to study methods of use, potential for abuse, establish cannabis levels for presumption of impairment. (all patients who ingest cannabis will likely be labelled impaired no matter how lucid and functional) The commission, in consultation with the Board of Pharmacy and by grants to accredited research facilities, shall:

474.215 Presumption of negligence. In civil cases, a rebuttable presumption of negligence (loss of due process) shall arise upon clear and convincing evidence that a person is found to be impaired by cannabis at the time of an accident and if the person's actions materially contributed to the cause of injury.

[StonedRanger]

This is more crap from the legalization at any cost crowd. Sounds more like they got Stormy Ray and her cop friends to help write this legislation. Im still against legalization if we have to get our friends in the government to help us do it by giving them control. A no vote in this family.

yer pal brian

[Otishertz]

Why would anyone want people who demonstrably don't understand markets or Economics 101 in charge of setting up a new industry?  Take the following example.

474.035  2) The commission shall purchase and sell cannabis products of the quality and grade set by market demand.


Markets are the interaction of supply and demand expressed in a freely floating price. OCTA authors want the opposite of prices "set by market demand" that they claim. They want a market of only OCTA demand. What they want is not a market because their proposal has only one buyer and seller, Them!

The demand side of the market is 100% totally dominated with promised purchase limits for every one person and whoever the OCC define as abusers. Says personal quotas limiting retail purchases right here:

474.105 Commission may limit purchases. (Retail purchase limits) The commission may limit the quantity of cannabis purchased by a person at one time or over any length of time and may refuse to sell cannabis to any person who violates this chapter's provisions or abuses cannabis within the meaning of ORS 474.005(1).

Retail prices totally dominated too, says so right here:

474.055 Commission to set price and sell through OCC stores. (Price controls) The commission shall sell cannabis through OCC stores and shall set the retail price.[color]

The supply side of the market is 100% totally dominated and serves at the whim of seven OCC control commission members. Under OCTA control, cultivation for sale, removal from the state for sale, and sale of cannabis, without commission authority are Class C felonies. All processing comes from applicants who submit successful bids. The OCC wants to "equitably apportion the purchase of cannabis among all licenses."

If licenses are equitably, or equally, apportioned there would eventually be smaller sales per wholesale license because at some point the number of recreational pot users level off. This is, of course, only true if there is an open democratic bidding process and no limits on the number of licenses. The reality of these types of insular bidding processes always falls short of any vague promises of equity. Bidding processes are filled with requirements and restrictions. The OCC will narrow the pool of bidding candidates to those most palatable to the OCTA. At some point they will limit the number of licenses.

Bidding processes in general favor the least cost producer and incentivize inferior, cut rate, work. Not a good model for drugs. The problem with least cost producers is as cost is removed, value and quality are inevitably also removed. This can be seen in mass market products that have gotten more cheaply made over time. Mass market suppliers generally blame the major retailers bidding processes for their declining quality.

A market of the lowest cost suppliers will not lead to the development of high grade small grower cannabis. A centralized market of low cost bidders is going to favor huge corporate levels of production that lead to perpetually lower quality due to the nature of corporate self interest.


Let's review the score:

Demand side dominated, check.
Prices controlled at wholesale and retail level, check.
Supply side dominated, check.  
=
Total Market Takeover.

OCTAs authors do not understand economics. Their solution to all economic questions is complete submission to an unknown future Commission that has a total monopoly complete with surveillance state add-ons. These things that are being proposed by OCTA are preconditions for lots of bad ideas that have already failed in practice to produce any social good.

OCTA backers want the government to dominate the market from seed to smoke. These so called activists can only come up with a total hand over of the future market to the government. They can't think beyond the corporate rape model. Shame on them.



Choosing OCTA is like choosing a playground built by mutant children from Marlboro.

[Smokeyhot]

Key=
Success=
knowledge.

[/b]

[DrRabbit]

I think the idea behind the commission is to provide some sort of oversight, in response to the hysterical approach to Cannabis practiced by "our" current overlords.  I don't know how a legalization initiative will pass without some sort of government oversight.  What might an "acceptable" form of oversight look like? 

Let me say that I have no idea, but unless we come up with one, we'll only get versions that we don't want.  What alternative(s) can we float out there as opposed to their crappy solution for oversight, or is OCTA too flawed if this were fixed?

Not trying to pick a fight.  Just trying to see if we might be to steer them in a better direction.  They certain seem determined to push forward.

[Otishertz]

Obviously there must be oversight for safety.

I think a reasonable alternative is to remove all the surveillance, the licenses by bid, the one buyer and seller monopoly and the ridiculous admiralty law justification by throwing OCTA in the trash and pursue a model analogous to Oregon Brew Pubs.

Call them Grow Pubs. I think every Oregonian can get behind that.

[David J]

I don't know how a legalization initiative will pass without some sort of government oversight.

I think it is also a question how much regulation does it need to pass?

That is a hard one to answer. How much are we will to exchange for state/corporate run marijuana stores ?

There is only one liquor retailer in Oregon, the OLCC.

The brew pub model is a best case scenario. Reasonable government regulation and room for small business. However selling the idea that marijuana is akin to beer to the voters and legislators ain't gonna be easy. Even if it is less harmful and impairing.

[Otishertz]

If you are talking recreational legalization then the model of Oregon Brew Pubs is a natural because of similarities between brewing craft beer and growing craft marijuana. I am surprised that "grow pub" discussion is absent among OCTA proponents who talk about the OLCC as a model.

An initiative that enables serious Oregon farmers to build grow pubs is something that I could get behind. A grow pub model fixes the issue with exclusion of current growers in the other "total takeover" type plans.

I say pub because of the similarities in what I envision and brew pubs in Portland, not because I am suggesting to mix alcohol and pot. That will mess you up. The similarities are that a grow pub might have a big garden behind a glass wall like you see with brew equipment now in brewpubs. Such places would perhaps serve food or have a social function.

A grow restaurant could conceivably grow its own food and serve its own pot. There is a place downtown where they grow the food right there in an attached greenhouse. Can't remember the name.

Grow restaurant is a better name than GrowPub. Removing alcohol from grow restaurants would probably improve the experience.

[Smokeyhot]

GETTING KRUNK!!!!!!!!!

[Smokeyhot]

Bring it to the table, then it will awaken!

[Dognose]

Why would anyone, high or otherwise, think that another government agency is good? Centralized government is bad bad bad! Always. A large federal government has brought us to where we are now. In a Fascist/Socialist economic structure with a huge central government whose members are appointed by a committee rather than elected by popular vote. And Autocratic psuedo-Republic with Theocratic tendencies, whose voting process is overwhelmingly corrupt and influenced by well-funded special interests whose goal is to further centralize control and keep a large number of humans in conditions that render them slaves in some sense or other. Either through dire poverty, religion, addiction to western medicine, chronic consumerism, or regular handouts of cash and food to encourage the breeding of more "Delta" class people who consider a horrible job making someone else rich "The American Dream" and cancerous urban growth "progress".

  The very name of this country "United States of America", and the founding pricipals (Escape a huge central government run by the wealthy and the Church), indicate the underlying intent of the Founding Fathers. That we are a group of mostly autonomous commonwealths and "states" who allow a small central government to oversee things like internationalrelations, a national transportation system, national defense, A common national currency, and the national infrastructure. It was intended to be, and should continue to be, up to individual states to deifine laws regarding individuals.

  There has never been an instance of a larger, more centralized government being better than small autonomous states working for the common good while retaining the authority to regulate internal affairs and govern it's citizens. 100% of the time, all civilizations fall for the same reason. They got too big and put too much power into the hands of too few people.

Need examples? - Federal Laws on Abortion, Drugs, Guns, "Terror" & Immigration, "Free Trade", Education, Healthcare. Taxes, Welfare, Corporate Welfare, Social(ist) Security. The Oil, Pharmaceutical, Insurance, Health"care", Construction, Timber Industries. For-Profit Prisons, and Global Media. This also applies to states making centralized government decisions that should be left to counties and cities. I'm talking to you OLCC!

We need to get away from central government and get back to individual freedoms and responsibility and stop creating more generations of cowardly, selfish, uneducated, easily influenced drones who will sit still in a cubicle all day doing busywork that adds nothing to the Gross Domestic Product and only shuffles fiat money so some wealthy corporation can create an illusion of increasing "value" to attract more investment from people who's only contribution is to shuffle more fiat money and artificially inflate the value of their holdings while actually adding nothing.

:koolaid:Don't drink the Kool-Aid :koolaid:

[Otishertz]

Why would anyone, high or otherwise, think that another government agency is good? Centralized government is bad bad bad! Always.

I don't get why people don't get this.

I watch the mainstream activists promote the government's wet dream for centralized corporate state monopoly. There is no equal access for small growers in their plans. There is only corporate advantage and government takeover.

Reject any agenda that excludes us or sets up undue barriers to our participation in the future marketplace. We own the strains. We care for them. These plants are our creatures and our children. They belong to us as does their future value in the marketplace.

All it takes to defeat centralized state monopoly is awareness of the corporate state agenda. Natural denial will follow. Encourage your friends to spend five minutes reading the short OCTA plan. Words have meaning. The words that are written in OCTA speak for themselves.

We need a new economy open to all, not a walled off lobbyist playpen. We need to reject OCTA.

[FrogGoddess]

I don't get why people don't get this.

We need to reject OCTA.

Well put .....I have been saying this since i first read this crock they (Paul Stanford) calls OCTA 2012!!!!!!!!
READ it people and VOTE NO!!!!!!!!!!!! It is not going to help us to have OCTA at all!!!!! For the love of Marijuana PLEASE JUST SAY NO TO OCTA 2012!!!!!

[Smokeyhot]

Oh yeah?

[sativa]

A new state commission is hereby created and shall be named the Oregon Cannabis Commission   ?  Do we have any idea who the governor is going to elect as the panel?  This is scary.  Reminds me of when I heard but was not surprised about the fact that fifty or so big pharma companies have the legal right in the U.S.  to experiment and create a pill or spray out of our natural medicine.  Imo if one succeeds our rights as small growers will be taken away.  Why would they allow us to heal naturally when they can charge us for a pill that will do what they consider the same thing.  The fact that Oregon is balancing its budgets off the sickest and poorest of its people ..some whose last resort is marijuana makes me fear that octa is not going to be a good thing.  Im glad this is being discussed before i signed anything.  sativa

[David J]

They got one on the ballot in WA, it's 502, I think. The 'state liguor monopoly model' + un-proven thc testing for d.u.i.i.

It is a total take over OCTA style and will encourage continued black market sales. The more regulation, the more violation.

[Otishertz]

The Washington bid separates production and retail, making it illegal for one entity to do both. That part alone will prevent small farmers from selling their product on their own. Preventing farmers from also being retailers is a limitation of their right to work. 

I started a grower's bill of rights to demand be included in all legalization propositions to prevent barriers to our entering the future recreational marketplace.


Grower's Bill of Rights

In the interest of maximum self-employment of Oregonians there shall be:

1.  No grower forced to work without pay or profit.
2.  No monetary barriers to entry for growers entering any aspect of the cannabis industry beyond administrative fees for licensing and safety inspections.
3.  No centralized state stores, farms or processors.
4.  No price controls. No limits on sales.
5.  No educational barriers to entry for growers except where directly tied to sanitation, crop purity, or safety.
6.  No limitations on the number of cannabis licenses.
7.  No limitation, exclusion, or segregation that prevents an individual from entering a cannabis related business.
8.  No exclusions on previously arrested growers.
9. No regulatory capture. No more than 10% of regulators can be from the largest 10% of cannabis companies and so on for all other deciles. Regulators chosen in bi-annual online vote. Regulators can be recalled any time by online petition and vote.
10. No secrecy. No corporate contractors approved by private bidding. All government contractors are responsible and accountable in all aspects the same as the government itself.
11. No unaccountable rule by committee. Instead, all licensed industry participants, including regulatory authorities deliberate and vote on the fate of any new initiative openly using internet forums and user groups.
12. No genetically modified cannabis. Cannabis is unique in the plant kingdom. Artificially altering or splicing cannabis DNA shall be a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. Releasing genetically altered pollen into the air shall be a felony offense with a minimum 50 years in prison and no parole. In cases where the perpetrator is a corporation, each director will be held equally liable.


Any provision that conflicts with this bill of rights will be null and void without nullifying the whole law.

[Otishertz]

This is from the Oregon OCTA the first time around. Notice the scale is wrong. It starts out with two segments to get to 25,000, then one to get to 50,000. The top segment is 50,000 wide. As you can see they did not do too well.