Portland Rep. Earl Blumenauer -- who faces an easy re-election race in his heavily Democratic district -- launched a television advertisement Friday focused on one of his signature issues: marijuana legalization.

The veteran Democratic congressman is running an ad on Portland TV stations paid for by his campaign money that tells the federal government to butt out when it comes to marijuana laws.

"Our marijuana laws don't work and cost the government billions," Blumenauer says in the ad, which comes in both 15- and 30-second versions. "Let states set their own laws -- tax it, use the money to fund education and let the police focus on real drug abuse."

Currently, the production, sale and possession of marijuana is prohibited under federal law, but the

against states that don't allow use by minors, don't feed the black market and work to curb drugged driving and "other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use."

It's unclear how much time Blumenauer has bought on Portland TV stations. So far just one -- Fox 12 -- has posted information on the buy, which

. KPTV generally attracts the least amount of political advertising in the Portland television market, so it wouldn't be surprising if the overall buy tops $70,000.

Blumenauer told KATU that he

to get out his message nationally. The congressman has sponsored a flurry of bills that would give the states

and allow the banking industry to offer services to businesses involved with marijuana.

UPDATE

:

Blumenauer said in an interview that he expected to spend in the "low six figures" on campaign advertising before the primary and in the early summer and that some of it would also focus on other issues he is interested in.



He portrayed his advertising as aimed both at letting his constituents know what he is doing in Congress and also at influencing the issue discussion in Congress.



The congressman said he appreciated the Obama administration's willingness to allow the states to move forward with marijuana legalization but said it was the "absolute least the federal government can do."



He said there is a "whole range of areas [involving marijuana] where the federal government is interfering and creating serious problems." These range, he said, from forcing marijuana-related businesses to operate on a cash-only basis and without the benefit of business tax deductions to the inability of medical researchers to fully explore beneficial uses of the drug.

Other news from the Oregon congressional delegation that I didn't get to this week:

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., calls Cover Oregon "the

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., will give University of Oregon School of Law commencement speech next month.

-- Jeff Mapes