Oregon breaks trail again with Cannabis Café

Medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, Calif. Photo: Laurie Avocado /Wikimedia Commons

The opening of the Cannabis Café in Portland is the latest test for state and national laws at odds over the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

In 1988, just a year after Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide for terminal patients with its Death with Dignity Act, the state broke trail again when voters passed the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. However, federal laws make it very difficult to legally obtain marijuana for medical use.

Although the law made it legal for patients to request and physicians to prescribe a medical permit to use marijuana to ease symptoms of arthritis, glaucoma, cancer, AIDS/HIV, multiple sclerosis, and many other conditions, patients were only allowed to grow their own, and they needed to obtain a special permit for that, too. Where to obtain the seeds and where they could smoke the herb have remained up in the air, at best. U.S. federal law still considers smoking, possessing, growing and distributing marijuana illegal and makes no distinction between medical and recreational use.

But now there’s a new sheriff in town and Oregon NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) is wasting no time in testing how sincere he is in relaxing federal marijuana laws.

Oregon NORML took the Obama administration’s directive to ease federal interference in states’ medical marijuana laws to heart. It opened the Cannabis Café on November 13 in Portland.

"The response has been overwhelming," said Madeline Martinez, executive director of Oregon NORML, in a press release. "We are excited to be able to provide a safe place for patients to medicate that is out of public view within the guidelines of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.”

People hoping to toke at the café must be registrants of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) and members of Oregon NORML to gain entrance. Members are charged $25 for the first month of membership, as well as $35 for an annual Oregon NORML membership, payable at the door.

The café doesn’t sell marijuana to certified medical marijuana users.  Instead, "budtenders" give it out for free over the counter.

According to the state health department’s latest quarterly report, as of Oct. 1, over 3,000 Oregon physicians have signed off on almost 24,000 medical marijuana permits, with 6,200 permit applications awaiting approval.

Oregon NORML says it is leading the fight nationally for commonsense cannabis regulation. Its next big push is for legalization and regulation of marijuana sales for personal use through licensed producers and dispensaries. If passed, it, too, would be a first in the nation.

Organizers from Oregon NORMAL and Voter Power, the group that helped pass the nation’s first medical marijuana law, are gathering signatures to get Initiative 28, a dispensary initiative, on the 2010 ballot.

Just a handful of U.S. states, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, currently allow the use of medical marijuana.