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Thursday, April 2, 2009

News Who Smokes the Most Pot in Oregon?

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 5:25 PM

I'm just curious. While reporting a story this week about the slew of medical marijuana bills lighting up Salem on the 10th anniversary of the drug's legalization in Oregon, I was surprised to find out that Oregon has just under 32,000 legal medical marijuana cardholders. At a legislative hearing on a bill Representative Ron Maurer (R-Grants Pass) is sponsoring to establish state-run fields and a $98 per ounce pot tax, Rep Maurer estimated that Oregon's 20, 974 patients smoke 10,000 pounds of legal pot a month. "That is a whole lot of marijuana being used in the state of Oregon," he noted. However, Maurer qualified, "I have no clue how much medical marijuana is being used in the state of Oregon every month. I don't think anyone does."

Conveniently, the DHS website breaks down the number of medical marijuana cardholders by county. If no one has a clue how much pot Oregonians are smoking, the DHS records at least show WHERE we're smoking it.

I just assumed that Multnomah County would have the highest percentage of growers. This is obviously because I don't know anything, since it turns out the number of card carrying medical marijuana growers in Southern Oregon counties trumps Portland by far.

Here's the stats:
Percent of Multnomah County residents who are medical marijuana patients or caretakers: 5.3% .53%
Clackamas County - 4.3%.43%
Lane County (Eugene) - 6.9 .69%
Douglas County (Canyonville, Roseburg) - 11.7% 1.17%

And the winner? OF COURSE! Rep. Maurer's home district of Josephine County with 16.3% 1.63 percent of the population registered as medical marijuana cardholders. The county has 4.2 percent of all the state's cardholders which means (if we go with the 10,000 pounds/month totally low-ball estimate) Maurer's constituents alone are smoking 420 pounds of pot a month. This clearly means Josephine County is being ravaged by an insane glaucoma epidemic. STEER CLEAR.

 

Comments (25) RSS

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1
Jesus Christ smirk, you've got to be trolling right now.

Lets take a little stroll down Math Ave.

Population of Multnomah County: 660,486
Population of Josephone County: 75,726

Percentage of medical marijuana users in Multnomah: 5.3%
Percentage of medical marijuana users in Josephone: 16.3%

Population of Multnomah county that use medical marijuana: 35,005
Population of Josephine county that use medical marijuana: 12,343

Do you know how math works? Please stop being willfully ignorant and disingenuous towards your readers.
Posted by Graham on April 2, 2009 at 5:38 PM · Report
2
Serious question for any Merc writers: Do you guys have editors that edit things? Like, people that you run your work by, and that sometimes say "this is a crap story/post, if you'd like it run it needs to be improved in [x] and [y] ways"? I'm really starting to wonder.

Sarah, please take a vacation or something. Having Patrick Alan Coleman be the best writer at the merc makes my soul hurt.
Posted by A CAT, probably on April 2, 2009 at 6:16 PM · Report
3
[no offense intended, Patrick. you've actually gotten quite good at your thing. you saw that coming?]
Posted by A CAT, probably on April 2, 2009 at 6:19 PM · Report
4
[that should have been "who saw that coming?". i need to go eat something, my brain is broked.]
Posted by A CAT, probably on April 2, 2009 at 6:20 PM · Report
5
Speaking of math, if 20,974 people smoked 10,000lbs /mo, that would be an ounce a day. Even snoop doesn't smoke that much.
Posted by truthypup on April 2, 2009 at 7:17 PM · Report
6
Ok maybe I suck at math too. Quarter ounce a day? ((10k*16)/20974)/30=.25ish
Posted by truthypup on April 2, 2009 at 7:19 PM · Report
7
> Rep Maurer estimated that Oregon's 20, 974 patients smoke 10,000 pounds of legal pot a month.

I'm sorry -- a half pound a month??? Eight ounces a month??? That's two ounces a week - yeah, roughly a quarter a day. NOT POSSIBLE even for a Snoop-level smoker. Even if you were high every minute of every day, you'd have trouble going through more than three ounces a month.

I'm surprised none of you newspaper types figured this out.
Posted by mr. voluptuous on April 2, 2009 at 8:05 PM · Report
8
massively improbable, but certainly not impossible. We've all known someone that was vaguely functional at an eighth a day; just double that. Snoop in his prime was easily doing this on a regular basis.
Posted by A CAT, probably on April 2, 2009 at 8:16 PM · Report
9
I'm surprised that none of you newspaper types figured out that smirks numbers are all bullshit.

I have no idea where she got her numbers. In my first post I assumed that her percentages were correct. In fact she apparently made them all up.

Number of marijuana card holders in Multnomah county: 3,736
Population of Multnomah county: 660,486
Percentage of Multnomah county residents who have marijuana cards: 0.57%
Total percentage of all card holders who reside in Multnomah county: 17.8%

All of Sarah's numbers are bullshit. Pretty much this is the stupidest thing ever posted on Blogtown.
Posted by Graham on April 2, 2009 at 8:30 PM · Report
10
huh. Wonder what happens to all that weedizzle that the medicashizzle folks aren't able to smoke each month... ?
Posted by gabriel amadeus on April 2, 2009 at 8:31 PM · Report
11
In smirks defense, she just had a laser sight pointed at her bosom yesterday. Perhaps after she read all the posts about that, she is still nervous about it.
Posted by ujfoyt on April 2, 2009 at 8:48 PM · Report
12
Does smokin the most pot mean anything.. look at the olympic swimmer - he held it down.. can we just legalize it and start all being happier
Posted by dutchiejla on April 2, 2009 at 10:17 PM · Report
13
lame lame lame.. lets talk about bigger issues like privatized growers and dispensaries..
Posted by dutchiejla on April 2, 2009 at 10:18 PM · Report
14
Dude...

...wait, what?
Posted by tk. on April 2, 2009 at 10:33 PM · Report
15
Josephine Co. has long had a reputation for growing quality dope, pre-Medical MJ Act even. No startling revelation there.
As for what happens to all the medical stuff grown, it shouldn't come as a surprise that an individual cardholder is not the sole consumer of their product.
Posted by Uncle Joe on April 2, 2009 at 11:36 PM · Report
16
420 pounds? How convenient.
Posted by edvard on April 3, 2009 at 8:56 AM · Report
17
Rep. Maurer needs to do a serious check as to what is going to keep his part of Oregon afloat in the next few years. southern Oregon makes greet weed. A lot of that weed is grown by the nice, taxpaying, underemployed citizens of Southern Oregon whom, if were not growing a bit of pot on the side, would be a drain on social services. If the state takes over growing this pot, a lot of loggers, mill workers, log truck drivers, and stage hands from the Shakespeare festival will be going to the food bank to make ends meet. And the Sheriffs in these southern Oregon county's know it.

I do not in any way condone the use of pot. I hate the stuff and feel it should not become legal for general use.

I do have friends who have the Card and I do support that. They keep a few plants around the house for looks but let’s get real, a lot of the card holders can’t grow hair let alone enough plants to meet their need. Most of the card holders get their stash from the black market. What I thank Rep. Maouer is trying to do here is shut down the black market supply network and replace it with a state controlled system. Unfortunately what he really is doing is hurting his own constituents by having the state take over their grow operations. It is true ‘criminals’ are making money off of the current distribution situation but I think we can find a better way to get rid of the bath water without losing the baby.
A Republican wants another government program?
Posted by Vert on April 3, 2009 at 8:57 AM · Report
18
And I think you're off by a factor of ten. 1300 users in Josephine out of 75000 is about 1.63%, not 16.3%.
Posted by edvard on April 3, 2009 at 8:58 AM · Report
19
I think Sarah made up the laser sight story to cover for the REAL reason her eyes were red, which may explain the math in this story too.

PWND
Posted by Demondog on April 3, 2009 at 9:15 AM · Report
20
$98 per ounce pot tax ???????????
Whoa there nelly!!
That is one hell of a tax bro!
Who Smokes the Most Pot in Oregon?
SMIRK with "Ace" a close second.
Posted by Abusive on April 3, 2009 at 9:30 AM · Report
21
I don't think they "smoke" it. I think they make brownies or cupcakes? That's how they use so much of it. Smoking is carcenogenic, and not medically recommended.
Posted by snakespeare on April 3, 2009 at 10:04 AM · Report
22
Graham, thanks for fixing that math. This post sort of blew my mind... until I came to the trusty comments.
Posted by ROM on April 3, 2009 at 11:31 AM · Report
23
gaaah I screwed up the percents by a decimal point. They should be correct now.

This is what happens when I do math on the crappy computer calculator the day our fantastic fact checker Courtney is on vacation.
Posted by s.mirk on April 3, 2009 at 1:00 PM · Report
24
Its not the fault of the "crappy computer calculator."
Posted by CH on April 3, 2009 at 2:31 PM · Report
25
Calculators don't take the place of numeracy. Hopefully folks' internal "holy shit, that can't be true, Batman!" detectors went off when the idea of 1 of every 6 folks in JoCo being medical stoners was reported.
Posted by edvard on April 3, 2009 at 3:49 PM · Report

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