Cops: Smoke pot in private

The definition of “public place” has been interpreted various ways in court decisions, he said, so it does not lend a lot of clarity to the situation.

“Does a public place mean in public view? For this law, that’s debatable,” he said.

“So can you sit on your front porch and smoke dope? Depends on the shrubbery or not. You might be in public view. So you might want to smoke dope on your back porch or in your house,” he said.

And because pot is legal now, people will think they can smoke it in public, Waterbury said.

He told of a Washington man who, two days after pot became legal in Washington, was smoking pot outside a bar in The Dalles.

“He said, ‘Hey, it’s legal.’ And we said, ‘It may be legal in Washington but it’s not legal in Oregon. Here’s your dope ticket.’” The new law won’t reduce much paperwork for police officers: in the last two and a half years, city police only wrote 18 tickets to people over 21 for possessing marijuana.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t caught with it, it’s just that usually pot is typically found along with other drugs like methamphetamine, and officers only arrest the person for possession of meth and don’t bother with a ticket for pot possession as well, said The Dalles Police Capt. Steve Baska.

“What does that tell you though?” Waterbury said. “It’s the gateway drug. What’s that doing to our children?”

It is still illegal for anyone under 21 to possess any amount of marijuana. If someone 21 and over is caught with more than an ounce of marijuana, it is a B violation, or the equivalent of getting a speeding ticket for driving 10-20 m.p.h. over the speed limit.

But if you have two to four ounces of pot, that’s a crime, a B misdemeanor. Possessing four to eight ounces in public is an A misdemeanor.

The Dalles Police Det. Steve Rue expects not only more calls about people smoking pot in public places, but he expects more cases of marijuana DUIs. The Dalles Det. Sgt. Doug Kramer said there are signs that officers can look for to determine if someone is high, including eyes that are not tracking together, a greenish tinge to the tongue, and slow reactions.

Even though pot is now legal to smoke, as of right now, there is no legal way for recreational users to get marijuana.

Recreational marijuana is legal in Washington, and there’s pot shops just across the river in Murdock and White Salmon, but there’s a hitch: “Going into Washington and buying it is a federal crime for bringing it across the state line,” Waterbury said.

But the Oregon Legislature has agreed to allow limited purchases — a quarter of an ounce a day -— at existing marijuana dispensaries starting Oct. 1. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which is formulating rules for the sale of pot, does not expect to have pot stores open until the second half of 2016.

Waterbury personally thinks legalizing marijuana is wrong, “but that’s not what the people of Oregon have said. So we’re going to do what the law says.” He notes that whenever kids at the middle school or even grade school are caught with pot, they have invariably stolen it from their parents.

He expects that to increase. “Now that you can possess eight ounces of marijuana in your home, it’s going to be much easier for kids to get it,” Waterbury said.

Adults can make their own decision about smoking marijuana, he said, “but children don’t need to be smoking dope.”

He cited studies that are showing kids and teens who smoke pot have lower IQs.

Even worse are edibles, he said. “When you smoke dope you get almost immediate effect,” Waterbury said. “When you eat edibles, it takes time for the drug to create a high. People are going to eat these edibles and they won’t get an effect. What are they going to do? They’re going to eat more.”