Oregon’s Cannabis pesticide laws are bringing the entire Oregon Cannabis industry to its knees.
This is not just an Oregon issue. There is nowhere to hide. Nobody is safe.
Anti-Cannabis forces in other states are watching this new tactic to subvert the will of the people, and they can hardly wait to implement it themselves.
We must work together to stop this new anti-Cannabis tactic in its tracks, before it spreads and destroys what we have all worked so hard to achieve.
We can do just that, because if there has ever been a clear case of a State violating citizens’ rights that are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, this is it.
The “Equal Protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution has, for over a hundred years, been the foundation for compelling fair and equal treatment of citizens by powerful anti-social elements in government at all levels.
The “Equal Protection” clause reads:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
That simple clause gives us all the legal tools we need to defeat the anti-Cannabis conspirators in Oregon, and prevent them from from spreading their poison nationwide.
I want to be clear that I don’t believe that the Oregon State Legislature is anti-Cannabis; these regulations may even be well-meaning on the part of many Oregon legislators and regulators. However, given how the anti-Cannabis forces operate across the country I strongly suspect a “back door” effort here. In either case, the threat is real, and must be addressed.
Here’s why the Oregon Cannabis community needs “Equal Protection”.
Oregon is violating the “Equal Protection” clause by imposing pesticide testing regulations on the Cannabis industry that are not imposed on an absolutely equivalent industry – Big Tobacco. Big Tobacco is free to sell its contaminated products without any testing or regulation, but now the Cannabis industry is being forced to comply with regulations designed to make it impossible to stay in business.
Make no mistake – these pesticide testing laws have nothing to do with protecting peoples’ health, and everything to do with destroying the Cannabis industry in Oregon first, and then in every other state where Cannabis has defeated the forces of darkness.
Of course, nobody can doubt that ethical Cannabis growers want to do everything they can to ensure the health, safety and well-being of people who use their beautiful flowers for medical reasons or for pure pleasure. There is also no doubt that Cannabis growers can be self-regulating with regard to quality, just like the wine industry that is the model for so many businesses in this new field.
But the regulations currently being forced on Cannabis growers by the State of Oregon go far beyond what is necessary to promote health and safety, and the fact that they are imposed on Cannabis growers who are for the greatest part ethical, caring people, but not on an industry that is notorious for literally killing millions of people worldwide with its contaminated, poisonous products, cannot be tolerated or ignored.
By imposing pesticide testing on Cannabis growers but not on “Big Tobacco”, Oregon clearly violates the “Equal Protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. These discriminatory, anti-Cannabis laws hurt everyone in the community – Cannabis producers, Medical Cannabis patients, Recreational Cannabis smokers, physicians and clinics, dispensaries and retailers.
The State of Oregon must be forced to grant “Equal Protection” to the Cannabis Industry immediately before further irreversible harm and damage is done.
I believe strongly that the State of Oregon will never be willing (or able) to impose pesticide testing requirements on the Tobacco industry comparable to what they have imposed on the Cannabis industry, and so because of the legal pressure that can be brought to compel the State to apply the “Equal Protection” clause, they will back off of the Cannabis industry and agree that self-regulation is more fair than broad, compulsory testing, and is an equally effective model for Oregon. If we can accomplish this in Oregon, other states will follow.
We can only do this once we have demonstrated that Tobacco products are contaminated with far more dangerous pesticide and agri-chemical residues than the relatively minor issues found so far with some Cannabis growers. At that point the State will have a clear choice, and Cannabis industry self-regulation will become the clear choice for Oregon legislators.
We Can Do This By Working Together!
We can compel Oregon to comply with the “Equal Protection” clause through legal action, and to accept that there are other, better, voluntary ways for the Oregon Cannabis industry to act together to ensure the health and well-being of the entire Oregon Cannabis community. I am hearing from readers that a solution that they would prefer is for the Oregon Legislature to put in place a properly funded provision that would enable Cannabis growers to voluntarily submit samples for testing and at the same time certify that they have not used any pesticides in growing their crop. This would earn them a provisional OK to go ahead with selling the crop, which could then be certified when testing was completed. Better yet, some suggest, would be for the Legislature to put a surcharge on the entire industry, from grower to consumer, which would be used to pay for all testing rather than imposing the costs just on growers.
panaceachronicles 