PPP was founded based on the ideas expressed in this letter...
An open letter to Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz...
Ms Fritz. At the 1/9/2014 Council meeting regarding the permit for the annual Hempstalk festival, you repeatedly stated that you are 'whole heartedly in favor' of medical cannabis. I hope you were serious, because I am writing today to challenge that assertion. As an OMMP pa
tient living in Portland, I feel like a second class citizen. Many patients' conditions require us to medicate several times throughout the day. The fact that we are not allowed to medicate 'in public view' means we cannot enjoy things that other citizens take for granted. I have never attended a Trailblazers game, nor seen the Rose Festival Parades. Even if we decide to attend anyway, we are forced to choose between hiding in the shadows and breaking the law, or suffering without our medication. As a medical professional, I'm sure you know that no other medication legally requires its users to hide from public view. If we take a pill, or even a whole bottle of pills, no one will accuse us of violating the law. We can bring our oxygen generators and inhalers to the mall, but if we try to load a cannabis vaporizer, we are criminals. The restriction on public use is based on an assumption that legal medical cannabis use is still somehow inappropriate. Even alcoholics can medicate their addictions in public bars and restaurants. It's time to stop forcing the citizens of Portland to live under arbitrary restrictions that are based on antiquated fears. Please, trust the citizens who elected you to come quietly out of the closet and prove that most of us are respectful, and responsible. I challenge you, and the Portland City Council, to stand up for what you claim to believe in, by resolving that legal OMMP patients may use their medicine in public. If you find that your support for medical cannabis isn't quite as 'whole hearted' as you thought it was, at least take the spirit of the Americans With Disabilities Act into account, and require (or at very least, allow) large events in Portland to accommodate legal OMMP patients by providing a space that is out of view of non cardholders. Thank you for your support of medical cannabis, and your service to our city.
