Lawmakers’ joint committee to deal with pot issues

The question of whether marijuana will be legal or not is now over. Now, Oregon lawmakers have to ask how to implement it safely by July 1st of this year.

“It was not a perfect ballot measure and they rarely are,” state Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, said this week.

While Measure 91, approved by voters last November, clarifies many issues, some have been left out. A joint committee from the House and Senate is working with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission o rectify that.

“When you start unwrapping the onion there’s a lot of really complex issues,” said Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend.

A big one is what to do about people driving under the influence of marijuana.

“Unfortunately, there’s not a rapid test, like there is for alcohol,” Buehler said.

Police are concerned that dealing with high drivers will take away vital resources.

Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, said a police officer must wait with those drivers at the jail until they come down or send them to the hospital. Either way, he says those are resources that could be used better elsewhere.

Then there’s the issue of taxing pot. Measure 91 lays out specific prices, but Rep. Whisnant says if those prices are not competitive, one of the measure’s core purpose will be defeated.

“You’re still going to have the black market,” Whisnant said. “You’re going to have people undercutting the government price.”

House Bill 2147 directs the Department of Revenue to perform a tax study to find out best practices. That’s just the beginning of issues lawmakers must tackle.

“Is it OK to grow marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school?” Knopp asked.

Senate bills 124 and 162 and House bills 2040 and 2041 would say it’s not OK. Lawmakers are using Washington and Colorado as examples, both good and bad, for keeping pot away from kids.

“It’s all over Denver, they’re not just smoking it in their homes, it’s all over the place,” Whisnant said.

“We don’t want to hear stories about 2-year-olds going to the ER because they ate marijuana brownies and didn’t know what it was,” Knopp said.

At least 15 marijuana-related bills will go to the House and Senate floor for debate. It will likely be a multi-session fix, but because of the joint committee, once a bill is approved, it will quickly move to the governor’s desk.