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By all appearances, Stephen Vinzant is growing marijuana legally at his Phoenix home: He's got a state-issued medical marijuana card. His garden is no larger than the size Oregon allows under the program.
The fly in this particular ointment is his next-door neighbor, who runs a counseling service and whose patients recovering from drug abuse have noticed the crop across the fence. The woman who runs the service will ask the Phoenix City Council this week to make Vinzant get rid of the garden, arguing that her service is a school and that drugs like marijuana aren't allowed near a school.
Can you say "can of worms"?
The first problem here is that Vinzant doesn't appear to be breaking a law. Providing his card is valid, Oregon allows him to raise six mature plants and 18 seedlings per patient. He's got twice that but grows for his own use and for his mother, who also has a marijuana card, he says.
Counseling service owner Keziah Hinchen plans to appeal to the council on the basis of an Oregon law that prohibits drug dealing within 1,000 feet of a school. But even if the center is a school — and it seems far from clear that it is — that law doesn't apply to people growing medical marijuana. It's illegal for growers to sell marijuana regardless of where they live.
Vinzant has not been accused of selling anything. He hasn't done so much as wave a marijuana leaf in anybody's face. The problem is that Hinchen doesn't want her patients to have to see or smell the crop.
But forbidding a medical marijuana patch near a recovery center would be like prohibiting a liquor store next to a meeting place for Alcoholics Anonymous or a doughnut shop next to a weight-loss center. No law can save people from temptation.
That said, we also see this as yet another example of why Oregon should clean up the disarray of the medical marijuana law.
Today, marijuana is illegal but Oregonians can get access to a card for just about any ailment, not just those helped by smoking the drug. If your doctor diagnoses "severe pain," you're eligible.
The system adds to the shadiness of the deal by requiring valid patients to skirt the edges of legality to get the drug. They can grow marijuana and they can smoke it, but they can't go out and buy it. If they can't grow their own, they have to find someone to grow it for them, but no money can change hands. Police are suspicious of growers and often have had reason to be.
These kinds of clouds hanging over medical marijuana lead to issues like the one in Phoenix. It's time the state Legislature takes on this ambiguous mess and tries to clean it up.
In the meantime, the best move for the Phoenix council is to stay out of what amounts to a disagreement between neighbors.
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