Chronicle AM: Oregon Pot Sales Could Start in October; MT & NM Forfeiture Reforms in Effect, More (7/3/15)

Oregon is working to expedite the beginning of legal pot sales, Rand Paul rakes in the campaign cash at a pot industry confab in Denver, asset forfeiture reforms go into effect in Montana and New Mexico, law enforcement naloxone access goes into effect in Virginia, Colombia's coca crop jumps, and more.

Coca cultivation and potential cocaine production jumped last year in Colombia. (deamuseum.org)

Oregon Legislature Okays Retail Marijuana Sales Beginning October 1. With a 40-19 vote in the House Thursday, the legislature has sent a bill temporarily allowing tax-free marijuana sales through existing medical marijuana dispensaries to begin October 1. Gov. Kate Brown (D) has not indicated whether she will sign it. If she doesn't, sales wouldn't begin until sometime next year.

Rand Paul Raises At Least $120,000 at Marijuana Industry Fundraiser in Denver. The Republican presidential contender pulled in the campaign cash at a private fundraising event at the National Cannabis Industry Association's Cannabis Business Summit. At least 40 people paid a minimum of $2,700 each to take part, and the Marijuana Policy Project also kicked in another $15,000. This is the first time a major presidential candidate has taken big money from the pot industry.

Asset Forfeiture

Montana, New Mexico Asset Forfeiture Reforms Now in Effect. Both states passed reform bills earlier this year, and they went into effect July 1. The Montana law requires a criminal conviction before civil asset forfeiture can proceed. The New Mexico law is even tougher. It abolished civil asset forfeiture outright. The New Mexico law also requires that all seizures go into the general fund, preventing them from being used as a law enforcement slush fund.

Harm Reduction

Virginia Law Allowing Cops to Carry Opiate Overdose Reversal Drug Now in Effect. A series of bills approved by the General Assembly this year dealing with heroin and prescription opiate use went into effect July 1, including a provision that allows police officers to carry the opiate overdose reversal drug, naloxone. More than 3,000 Virginians have died of heroin overdoses in the past five years.

International

Big Increase in Colombian Coca Crop Last Year. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has reported that Colombian coca cultivation jumped 44% last year, to about 430,000 acres. Potential cocaine production jumped from 290 tons in 2013 to 442 tons last year, an increase of 52%. Colombian officials said the increase showed the ineffectiveness of aerial eradication, which Colombia halted earlier this year after a UN agency linked the herbicide used in the spraying to cancer in humans.

Thai Anti-Drug Officials Prepare to Drug Test Entire Village. All 500 residents of the community of Suan Son Soi 9 are set to be drug tested next Friday after the Narcotics Suppression Bureau said recent inspections had found a seven-year-old child already using drugs and a mother who fed her infant child the mild stimulant drug kratom mixed with water.

(This article was prepared by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also pays the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)