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June 12, 2011 in Region
Oregon to draw on pot revenue
Plan raises medical marijuana fees to pay for other health programs
GRANTS PASS, Ore. – Oregon lawmakers have decided to tap the popular medical marijuana program for an estimated $7 million to fund other health programs and reject a pile of bills that would have made it much tougher for people to get a medical marijuana card.
It’s a legislative attitude adjustment that had marijuana advocates crying foul at the idea of doubling the annual fees charged of marijuana patients to $200. But they think they it may move Oregon closer to their goal of bringing medical marijuana into the mainstream economy where it can be readily available to anyone and taxed.
“It’s not good for the patients,” said Christine McGarvin, a member of the state Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee. “I do appreciate the politics of it.”
With federal and local law enforcement agencies decrying medical marijuana as out of control, the Legislature saw more than a dozen bills aimed at reining in one aspect or another of the program that went into effect in 1999. Eventually, a team of three former state troopers came up with a bill that would have made it virtually impossible for doctors to prescribe the drug. The bill died quietly in committee.
Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, a former state police lieutenant, said their bill was dead for the year, but he plans to work on the issue through the summer and fall and bring back a bill next year.
This past week a Ways and Means subcommittee approved doubling the $100 annual fee for medical marijuana patients and imposing a new $200 fee on growers who are not already patients. The $20 discount for poor people receiving food stamps and state medical coverage would be eliminated and only made available to people on Social Security. The $7 million raised would go to other programs within the cash-strapped Oregon Health Authority, including clean water, emergency medical care and school health centers.
If the measure gains full approval as part of the budget, the fee increases would go into effect July 1.
Rep. Tim Freeman, R-Roseburg, said he wouldn’t call the medical marijuana program a cash cow, but he acknowledged that the additional revenue would be used to subsidize unrelated services.
Freeman said Gov. John Kitzhaber’s recommended budget left a large hole in public health funding. The Oregon Health Authority had already planned to increase fees in the medical marijuana program but decided to hike them even higher to help fill the budget gap.
The fee increases came out of the governor’s direction that some health programs that received general fund revenue in the past would have to find fee revenue instead, said Barry Kast, interim director of the Office of Community Health, which includes the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.
As of April, nearly 40,000 Oregonians held patient cards at $100 apiece, raising about $4 million a year. Separate legislation would charge patients $10 to replace a lost card.
Medical marijuana advocates decry the idea of a fee increase as an unfair tax on some of Oregon’s poorest citizens.
“We managed to escape, I thought, without any changes to the program,” said Bob Wolfe, of the Oregon Marijuana Policy Initiative. “All of a sudden, out of nowhere, we get this stealth tax on the poorest people in Oregon.”
But Paul Stanford, who owns a chain of medical marijuana clinics and is gathering signatures for a marijuana legalization initiative for the 2012 ballot, said the budget measure bodes well for eventual legalization of marijuana. He estimated that taxing it could raise $150 million a year.
Morgan Fox, communications manager for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said Oregon was following in the footsteps of states like Colorado and Vermont, which have been gradually making medical marijuana more accessible and putting it under more state control.
“If we are willing to realize it is legitimate to tax patients to fund social programs, we should be willing to see it is legitimate enough to open it up as an industry.”
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Antsy toddler kicked off plane at Sea-Tac 
SMARTGUY on June 12 at 12:24 p.m.
They could make even more money of cocaine, meth, and ecstasy.
Kivaari on June 12 at 1:10 p.m.
It’s a good thing. MM has turned into a “legal” source for all pot users. $200 a year is squat. Many prescribing doctors are just in it for the money and most “patients” are in it just for recreation. As soon as pot is legalized like alcohol, the taxes will go way up. Government cannot function without taxing the public. Oregon in patricular is a peoples republic, so they should be used to taxation.
citizenX on January 17 at 4:45 p.m.
Idaho legislature should be listening in on Oregon’s MM program. It’s unfortunate the mormons are still in control of Idaho, dictating their personal morals to all citizens, regardless of religious affiliation, and minds terminally closed. So, what would Jesus do? He’d show some compassion for the sick and dying, of course.
brentandrews on January 18 at 5:47 p.m.
A new study shows a 9 percent decline in traffic fatalities in states with legal marijuana as young people choose pot over alcohol. The study out of UC-Denver shows a direct correlation between the availability of legal marijuana and the consumption of alcohol (drinking goes down where marijuana is more available) and it shows a dramatic decrease in traffic deaths resulting. This is the first study. I wrote the first memoir of an alcoholic who substituted marijuana for alcohol and changed his life. We still need more studies, and more anecdotal social evidence in the form of personal stories. But this study rings true to me because it mirrors what happened in my life. Maybe I never killed anybody, because I stopped drinking using the pot plan. A 9 percent decline in traffic deaths is nothing to sneeze at - in fact is exactly what resulted from raising drinking ages to 21 from 18; and better than the result (8 percent) of mandatory seat-belt laws.
Please read this study especially you, Betsy. Nobody ever said this about cocaine, meth, or ecstacy. Cannabis is something else, entirely. Here is an absolutely unintended - but extremely positive - result of increased availability of marijuana. Think about the work, the thought, the debate that went into raising the drinking age, and the work it took to create mandatory seat-belt laws. Both of those efforts were targeted directly at traffic deaths. And now here is marijuana, providing a benefit equal to that, that none of us even thought of as we were passing these laws. There will be other benefits as well: a healthier economy with plenty of new room for enterprising farmers, for one: a growth industry, in a time of stagnation.
More on my blog here -
http://chronicdiscontent.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/stroup-watch-for-national-movement-toward-harm-redux-as-public-sees-marijuanas-benefits/
And here - The Pot Plan Comes To Life - http://chronicdiscontent.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/the-pot-plan-comes-to-life/
And read the study, Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities,
and Alcohol Consumption, here - http://ftp.iza.org/dp6112.pdf