Oregon Cannabis Tax Act

The United Nations General Assembly declared 2009 to be the International Year of Natural Fibers. Events were organized around the world to enhance awareness of the benefits to workers, consumers and the environment of using natural fibers and to bring natural fiber organizations together to promote common interests. Accordingly, natural fiber organizations will continue working together beyond 2009 under the auspices of the 'Discover Natural Fiber Initiative.'

Natural fibers are being used increasingly in industrial applications, especially as reinforcement for plastics. A new book, 'Industrial Application of Natural Fibers,' will be available in April 2010. This essential resource brings detailed information about natural fibers, including information about agricultural production, fiber separation, fiber processing and manufacturing of final products. The book focuses on important materials such as emerging applications in polymer composites, non-woven or felted products and textiles.

The book has 20 chapters spread over 576 pages and covers structure, properties and technical applications of most natural fibers, including coir, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, silk, sisal and wool.

International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC)


Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=...

More than 10 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations since 1965, ruining countless lives and breaking up families as a result. For what good purpose?

The National Rifle Association (NRA), Right To Life, Christian Coalition, and gay rights movements, especially in their infancies, were considered wild and crazy fringe groups with no chance of gaining significant political support.

What made these groups so much more effective politically is that they were funded with the mother's milk of politics; not just by membership fees, but by large contributions from private sources, plus countless small donations that gave their efforts additional strength.

Invariably, the private sources who funded such groups used their influence to place the most effective people in strategic places where they gave their causes a respectable face. Such increased funding also naturally tended to relegate the wild and crazy element to the background, where they were less able to distort the decision making process.

A Benefit of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act featuring music from Pass Margo, Jim Matthiessen of Seattle Hempfest's house band Herbivores, BCDP - Belville, Cornett, Davis and Pate, Sidestreet Reny and the Wy'east Drummers.

Please tell ten friends!

$10 suggested donation at the door.

Village Ballroom
700 Northeast Dekum Street
Portland, OR 97211

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For Immediate Release:

The Office of the Secretary of State received a certified ballot title from the Attorney General on February 2, 2010, for initiative #73, proposing a statutory amendment, for the General Election of November 2, 2010.

In addition, Secretary of State Kate Brown determined that the proposed initiative petition was in compliance with the procedural requirements established in the Oregon Constitution for initiative petitions.

The certified ballot title is as follows:

Permits personal marijuana, hemp cultivation/use without license; commission to regulate commercial marijuana cultivation/sale

Result of "Yes" Vote: "Yes" vote permits state-licensed marijuana (cannabis) cultivation/sale to adults through state stores; permits unlicensed adult personal cultivation/use; prohibits restrictions on hemp (defined).

Result of a "No" Vote: "No" vote retains existing civil and criminal laws prohibiting cultivation, possession and delivery of marijuana; retains current statues that permit regulated use of medical marijuana.

By Anna Song, KATU News and KATU.com Staff

If you just listen to just one side of the debate to legalize marijuana, you'd think it was a wonder plant.

A common argument is that marijuana is safer than the legal drug alcohol. But do facts back up that assertion?

“Marijuana is safer than alcohol,” Madeleine Martinez of Oregon’s pro-legalization organization NORML said, “no one's ever died of a lethal dose of marijuana.”

Mark Herer, owner of the The Third Eye Shoppe, a classic “head shop” located on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, said he’s “met a lot of screwed up people in my day, I've met a lot of potheads in my day… most of the potheads I know are not screwed up people.”

Washington state lawmaker Mary Lou Dickerson, 63, is pushing for legalization and equates current marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s.

“We're treating marijuana like we treated alcohol during prohibition, and it doesn't make sense,” she said.

By Anna Song KATU News and KATU.com Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. - While state budgets in Oregon and Washington face gaping holes, advocates of legalizing marijuana say taxing pot can help fill those holes.

Madeline Martinez, Oregon’s executive director for NORML, the national organization that’s pushing to reform marijuana laws, says she sees a golden opportunity to convince people that legalizing marijuana could be a good thing after all.

“Why don’t we capture the revenue that’s just being lost to the criminal market in many regards and bring it to the people. We’re the ones who deserve it,” she says.

Her group estimates the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, if passed by voters, would generate $140 million a year in revenue, 90 percent of which would go to the state’s general fund. The rest would go primarily to drug abuse treatment programs, Martinez says.

She calls it “Cannicare” because “we would be using cannabis money to pay for health care,” she says.

Green is their signature color. Medicinal marijuana gardeners throughout the state of Oregon enjoyed a plentiful harvest last fall, and look to 2010 as a year of growth, and change.

By Bonnie King, Salem-News

(SALEM, Ore.) - “After living through arrests in the past for growing marijuana, to be able to do it legally, it’s almost entirely stress-free compared to when it was illegal. So to be able to help the people that need this - it warms our hearts,” said Paul Stanford, Executive Director of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation. The fear of breaking the law has stopped most people for seven decades from considering marijuana, or cannabis, to treat their ailments. That is no longer the rule of the day, as this medical marijuana garden clearly proves.

"It took courageous people to stand up and question the prohibition against alcohol." Rick Steves, Marijuana Conversation

By D. Paul Stanford & Michael Bachara, Hemp News Staff

Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH) and Oregon NORML have finished gathering the 1000 sponsorship signatures needed for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2010 (OCTA) & Oregon Cannabis Tolerance Act 2010 (OCTA Light) petitions. These were turned in to the Oregon Secretary of State's office on September 21, 2009. We are currently waiting for official ballot titles from the state and should have them in the next few weeks. After polling, we will begin circulating one of the petitions across Oregon. We will need 100,000 valid signatures by July, 2, 2010 to qualify for the November 2010 election.

Activists had previously filed OCTA in 2008, but withdrew it when polling showed antipathy about the previous version placing cannabis sales in existing state liquor stores. Activists went back to the drawing board and came up with two versions.