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A live chat at 11 a.m. Monday will highlight the issue of local control over medical marijuana dispensaries.

(Associated Press)

The Oregon Senate is expected to vote this week on a bill that would allow local governments to regulate but not ban medical marijuana outlets.

The bill, and the implications for local governments, will be the subject of a live chat at 11 a.m. Monday in the comments of this story.

The vote comes as an

, already a thriving industry in Oregon.

Senate Bill 1531, if approved by lawmakers, raises questions about the legal status of dispensary bans already passed in a handful of Oregon communities. It sets the stage for a court battle between medical marijuana retailers and the growing number of local governments that don’t want them.

A new state law, passed last year, creates a registry of medical marijuana facilities in Oregon. The establishments will be subject to security and testing requirements, as well as other rules that were crafted by a committee of policy makers, lawyers, state officials and medical marijuana advocates.

The Association of Oregon Counties and the League of Oregon Cities pushed for a bill in the current legislative session that would allow local governments to ban medical marijuana retailers, but the ban was stripped from the bill that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Two people who served on a committee that drafted rules for medical marijuana establishments -– Rob Bovett and Geoff Sugerman – will join Monday's live chat about local control of medical marijuana dispensaries.

Bovett is a former Lincoln County District Attorney and is now legal counsel for the Association of Oregon Counties. Bovett has been sharply critical of the medical marijuana dispensary law and supports the rights of local communities to ban the establishments.

Sugerman is a longtime political and a medical marijuana advocate who helped draft the state’s dispensary law. Sugerman, now a medical marijuana business consultant, thinks regulations for medical marijuana establishments are strong and that communities should not be allowed to ban retailers.

Feel free to take part in the conversation now by posting questions, comments and concerns about local control over medical marijuana facilities. Bovett and Sugerman will join the chat starting at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

-- Noelle Crombie