Voters will decide this November whether any new marijuana growing or processing facilities can be approved in rural Deschutes County.
Measure 9-134 asks whether residents want to keep Deschutes County’s moratorium of marijuana growing the commission adopted in August 2019. If approved, existing marijuana growing or processing facilities would get to stay, but no new ones would get permitted.
This measure does not affect cities, so new marijuana grow operations could still be approved in cities like Bend. Medical marijuana would also not be affected.
There would be a financial impact. Though the county has not budgeted to receive any money from marijuana tax revenue for this fiscal year, if the county ends the moratorium, the county would see an estimated $400,000 in tax revenue, said Greg Munn, the county’s financial officer.
Voting no means you do not want any more marijuana growing or processing facilities in the rural part of Deschutes County. Voting yes means you don’t want to restrict new growing or processing facilities.
The Deschutes County Commission decided to send the issue to the ballot after receiving significant pushback about rules that were adopted to regulate the industry. Dozens of rural residents came to a public hearing last year to ask the county to opt out of future marijuana growth instead of trying to retool regulations that were being appealed to the state Land Use Board of Appeals from the Deschutes County Farm Bureau and representatives of the marijuana industry.
The measure highlights a philosophical divide in the county, with many rural residents raising concerns about how marijuana is negatively affecting a way of life, and others arguing that Deschutes County is treating a legal crop unfairly because of an old stigma.
The Bulletin spoke with Liz Dickson, a lawyer who has represented multiple rural Deschutes County residents who have appealed marijuana facilities, about why the marijuana moratorium should continue, and Lindsey Pate, the president of the Cascade Cannabis Association, to understand why the marijuana industry should be allowed to keep growing.
Dickson herself grew up in rural Deschutes County, around Alfalfa. So when she got the call from clients about how a nearby marijuana operation was negatively affecting their way of life, Dickson was sympathetic.
“To call it a traditional crop is oversimplifying what we’ve learned about what it really is,” Dickson said.
Dickson said thinking of marijuana as any other crop like alfalfa or hay is misleading because of all the industrial elements that go along with growing marijuana. Because marijuana can’t be grown out in the open like other crops, it is grown in industrial or greenhouse style buildings, she said.
That means the plants often require grow lights, and the lights are an issue for many rural residents, Dickson said. Though there are regulations that require lights be turned off at night, that doesn’t always happen, Dickson said, which ruins the dark night sky neighbors are accustomed to.
Odor is also an issue. Dickson said she had a client who lived next to a marijuana growing facility who said the odor was so strong it would trigger an allergic reaction. The client ended up having to leave her home and move to Bend, Dickson said.
Others reported that the smell would permeate their drapes and carpets when they would leave their windows open to cool the house down at night.
Because it is a drug, these facilities also usually have security systems and gates for protection, which Dickson argues makes them better suited for an industrial setting in a city than out in the country.
“It’s just the idea of growing out on the farmland that doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot of better ways to grow this product,” she said.
Dickson said about 49 operations have been approved in Deschutes County already, and that there is not a need to approve more in the future.
“I don’t think we need to continue to approve marijuana facilities when they are causing significant problems with compatibility for neighbors,” she said.
But Pate, with the Cascade Cannabis Association, said the livability concerns that have been outlined by rural residents are overblown. Prohibiting future marijuana growing because of odor is unfair, Pate said, when hemp — which is essentially the same plant with a different genetic expression — makes the same odor and can be grown outside, anywhere in the county without discretion.
There is also an understanding that people who buy property next to land zoned for farming should expect different realities than living in a neighborhood, Pate said.
“If someone wants to put cows next to someone’s pristine piece of acreage, you live in the county. You know you live around farmland,” she said. “You know it’s going to be loud; you know it may smell.”
Continuing to opt out of marijuana is also redundant, Pate said, since there is a moratorium on new producer licenses through the Oregon Liquor Control Commission that came in after June 15, 2018, due to a perception that the state had an oversupply of marijuana.
If the county votes to continue its own moratorium, all it would do is prevent people who already have existing businesses in the county from expanding to meet demand, she said. This is especially short sighted to do to an industry that could provide jobs in a time with high unemployment, she said.
“We don’t do this to any other kind of business in Deschutes County,” Pate said. “From a holistic perspective, it does not feel fair. We are a legitimate business. We are a legal industry, but we are still being treated as though we are not.”
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