We need business owners and volunteers from every county to help us collect signatures on the OCTA 2012 campaign.

If you are an activist willing to help, please contact us to get involved in the movement to end cannabis prohibition and restore industrial hemp as an option for Oregon farmers!

This section of the site was created to speak to those people interested in learning more about the Cannabis movement. If you are a journalist, be inspired to share in your publication about OCTA.

If you are a voter, take the time to educate yourself about the past, present, and potential future of this amazing plant.

Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union and featuring noted travel writer and television host Rick Steves, “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation” begins a long-overdue public discussion about marijuana and marijuana prohibition.

We need business owners and volunteers from every county to help us collect signatures on the OCTA 2012 campaign.

If you are an activist willing to help, please contact us to get involved in the movement to end cannabis prohibition and restore industrial hemp as an option for Oregon farmers!

Infrastructure makes up the smallest overall percentage of funds received from the General Fund, but it is here that OCTA can make a major difference.

Often times, projects on roads and bridges are put on hold due to a lack of funding. Public transportation seems to constantly cut back on services and routes, while at the same time increasing the cost to access it. In addition, this legislation will secure Oregon's position at the forefront of innovative travel and lifestyle by investing in our highways and commuter trains. OCTA will provide the funding needed for programs and services like these to be successful.

Most importantly, infrastructure means jobs. Building roads, updating bridges and investing in transportation will create local jobs. The promotion of Industrial Hemp could likely make the plant Oregon's cash crop. There are endless possibilities for sustainable jobs and industry with within agriculture, manufacturing and retail.

OCTA is the reasonable legislation Oregon needs to power boost funding that will ensure Oregon continues in the vein of ethical development and sustainable industry. Investing in infrastructure is investing in our own communities.

It's time we had sensible laws that reflect the commonsense Oregonians consistently follow.

2009-2011 Oregon General Fund

Source: http://oregon.gov

Human Resources is the second largest recipient of resources from the Oregon General Fund, with 24 percent. However, according to The Families USA report titled, “Left Behind: Oregon's Uninsured Children” more than 107,000 children were uninsured. That is more than one out of nine. In the three years since the report that number has surely grown. Considering 82 percent of Oregon's tax revenue comes from income taxes; high unemployment rates translates to budget cuts for programs like schools, healthcare and public safety.

No less than 87.8 percent of uninsured children come from homes where at least one person works Despite this over half remain in poverty. Many of these families may qualify for programs funded by the state General Fund. The funding is simply not there.

OCTA will generate millions for healthcare through the state general fund. Early estimates predict sensible legislation like OCTA could create $140 million or more for such programs. Just for comparison sake; Oregon's lucrative micro-brew industry contributes $2.2 billion to the state annually. In addition, by regulating the sale of cannabis Oregon is taking it off the streets where young people can easily acquire it.

This is to say little of the hundreds of health benefits associated with hemp seed/oil. Hemp has long been known to hold beneficial qualities of a nutrient rich life. Loaded with Omega 3s, protein and fiber, the possibilities for hemp as a food, fuel or building materials are endless.

2009-2011 Oregon General Fund

Source: http://oregon.gov

In a speech delivered to the Lottery Commission in August of 2009, Susan Castillo, State of Oregon Superintendent, said “...the budget for 2009-2011 is below the level our schools need to maintain current programs.”

No one can argue that Oregon's schools are suffering. In conservative estimates, OCTA will generate tens of millions of dollars for the for the state's General Fund. Looking at the pie chart below; education is clearly the largest recipient of resources. Education makes up 54 percent of the allocations from the fund. Quite frankly; schools stand to receive the most in 2011 if sensible law like OCTA were enacted.

2009-2011 Oregon General Fund

Source: http://oregon.gov

Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union and featuring noted travel writer and television host Rick Steves, “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation” begins a long-overdue public discussion about marijuana and marijuana prohibition.

Source: http://www.marijuanaconversation.org/interviews/

We need passionate individuals from each of the following schools to form hemp advocacy groups, bring awareness to our cause and help us collect signatures on the OCTA 2012 campaign. Please contact us to get involved in the movement. Together we can finally end adult cannabis prohibition in Oregon!

In order to be successful, the mission will require key assistance from Volunteers all over Oregon.

Make A Secure Credit-Card Donation To CRRH to support the OCTA initiative

Every political campaign needs money to be successful. Donate now and help us change the world!

Please use the "donate now" button on this page to transfer to a secure web site to make a donation. We need your money to help put the Cannabis Tax Act on the ballot in Oregon. When we regulate marijuana here in the Northwest USA, and the OCTA will do that, then the whole international War on some Drugs will grind to a halt and start to crumble.

Your credit card donation will appear on your monthly statement discreetly, simply as CRRH. Once you have completed your transaction, you will receive an email confirmation and "thank you" note.

We can accept money from anyone, anywhere in the world. There are no legal limits on contributions to initiative petitions. Oregon taxpayers get a 100 percent refund for donations of up to $50, or $100 for married couples filing jointly, of a donation to help CRRH put OCTA on the ballot with the Oregon state income tax credit. Your contribution will allow the CTA's political action committee, the Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH), to organize effectively and to finish the drive for Oregon's ballot in November 2012. We hope to take the CTA to other states too.

Right here, right now, the CTA needs money for its petition drive to pay signature gatherers, for our phone bill, postage and printing. We pledge to use your donation wisely to legally regulate the sale of marijuana to adults and for medicine, and to legalize industrial hemp.

If you have questions or prefer to make your donation by phone, call us at 503-235-4606.

Thanks for helping CRRH's OCTA petitions! With your help we will change the world.

Easily, Public Safety is the third largest beneficiary of the Oregon General Fund with 15 percent of the over all budget. Throughout the state of Oregon, state patrol and police budgets are being cut. Neighbors have to rely more and more on volunteer efforts to make sure their communities remain safe and protected. Many fail to recognize services like 911 and poison control are paid for by public funding. Sensible legislation like OCTA will help ensure our state has the resources it needs to serve it's population, while at the same time funding precautionary programs so Oregon is ready should disaster strike.

Furthermore, OCTA will remove cannabis from the streets and put it where only adults can purchase it. By taking it out of the hands of drug dealers we are protecting our kids. With a percentage of the profits being directed at drug treatment and education programs Oregonians can rest assured folks are getting the treatment they need and our youth are being educated properly about drug use and abuse.

This legislation will greatly reduce the number of cannabis related arrest, freeing up time and resources for police to focus on violent crimes. R. Gil Kerlikowske, the White House Director of Drug Control Policy states, “treatment is simply cheaper for society than a crime and punishment.”

2009-2011 Oregon General Fund

Source: http://oregon.gov

Revenue generated by the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) is three fold. The initial cash flow will be generated by the adult commercial sale of cannabis in retail stores in Oregon. This alone will create millions in revenue for the Oregon General Fund because 90 percent of the profits go directly to the General Fund. The chart below displays how the fund works. The remainder of the profits are set aside for drug treatment and education as well as setting up a state level committee for the promotion of industrial hemp. Hemp is the second tier of income from OCTA.

Hemp seed oil can be used as fuel to drive cars and heat homes because Hemp produces biomass, which can be converted into charcoal for electricity, ethanol, methanol and other sources of fuel. One acre of hemp can produce 10 tons of biomass every four months of growing season. Hemp fuel is the most cost effective and environmentally friendly reusable energy source on the planet, and could potentially make the U.S. less dependent on foreign petroleum.

Hemp seed oil is biodiesel and is three times more productive than any other seed oil crop, and hemp seed oil will run any diesel engine today with no modification.

We believe that the main reason hemp is illegal today is because of biodiesel's potential. The first diesel engines (by Rudolph Diesel in 1894) were invented to run on hempseed oil; petroleum wasn't synthesized to mimic hempseed oil for over a decade. Therefore hempseed oil was the primary fuel for automobiles for over 30 years after the invention of the first internal combustion engine.

Entry into the biodiesel market has very low capital entry requirements and is, therefore, not centralized. Among the benefits of using biodiesel:

* Start an economic boom!
* Use vegetable seed oil (biodiesel).
* Run any diesel engine with no engine conversion at all.
* Make biodiesel from hemp, soybean, rapeseed/canola and safflower seed oil.
* Save family farms.
* Return economic control to the people!
* Naturally decentralize wealth.
* Stop global warming.
* Stop A lot of toxic pollution.
* Create a useful byproduct: food.

Hemp is not only in direct competition with timber and petroleum, but also with many other industries throughout the world. Hemp offers wholesome and nutritious foodstuffs such as edible oil from the seeds, which are also used for making chocolate bars and other foods; renewable fiber for clothing and building. The original Levi jeans were made from hemp but lasted too long to be commercially viable; high grade papers, such as those used for bank notes, tissues, hand towels, and tea bags, where strength when wet is critical, and so much more.

The cotton-growing states also played a lead role in the prohibition of hemp, since cotton is far less durable than hemp fiber. Cotton is also the most pesticide-intensive crop and grows less than 2 feet tall in a season, while hemp grows 15 to 20 feet. Since cotton cannot compete with other weeds and insects when cultivated as a monoculture crop, 28% of all pesticides we produce on our planet are applied to the cotton crop. Hemp, on the other hand, produces more than a dozen times as much textile fiber as cotton and is virtually pesticide-free since it kills weeds.

Hemp cloth was worn by most of mankind until the 19th century; however, today we rely on cotton, the most pollution-intensive crop on earth. We are stripping the last remnants of our planet's protective mantel of old-growth forests, causing environmental destruction, desertification and serious changes to the world's climate. We are neglecting hempseed protein, the most productive and healthiest food crop on earth.