Measure 91: Marijuana legalization, Price too high to combat vice
Another Oregon newspaper agrees that regulating, legalizing and taxing marijuana is superior to allowing the current criminal system to continue and the waste of police resources to 
go on. The East Oregonian has endorsed a Yes vote on Measure 91, joining The Register-Guard in Eugene and The Oregonian.
The East Oregonian’s endorsement acknowledges the ruins left behind by using law enforcement to try to regulate the marijuana market. Oregon spends more than $50,000,000 a year enforcing marijuana laws, more than 13,000 people were arrested last year alone and people of color are unjustly burdened by enforcement of prohibition- more than twice as likely as white to be arrested or cited in Oregon.
From the paper’s editorial endorsement:
“We spent millions — then billions — to combat it. We toppled governments in our own hemisphere to stop its cultivation. We imprisoned millions of our (mostly black) citizens as punishment for using it. We forbid our scientists from researching its effectiveness for medical uses.
All of that, to very little avail. Marijuana continues to abound in Oregon, from high school hallways to back alleys to suburban basements.
Finally, drug policy across the nation has been changing…. The opportunity to incorporate a policy that is similar — but better — than those in Colorado and Washington will be in front of voters in November… we support the passage of Measure 91. “
You can read the entire editorial here, however it is behind a pay wall and requires a fee.