MEASURE RAISES POT CARD FEES

The Increase From $100 to $200 Could Take Effect July 1

Oregon lawmakers are considering whether to tap the medical marijuana
program to fund other health programs.

This past week the joint Ways and Means Committee approved doubling
the $100 annual fee for medical marijuana cardholders, and imposing a
new $200 fee on growers who are not already patients. The estimated $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.

The issue, found in a budget bill for the OHA, now heads to the full
House. If the measure gains approval as part of the budget, the fee
increases go into effect July 1.

Meanwhile, several bills aimed at making it much tougher for people to
get a medical marijuana card have apparently died.

With 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. 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 was
relegated to a quiet death in committee.

Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, a former state police lieutenant, said
their bill was dead, but he plans to bring back a bill next year.

Rep. Tim Freeman, R-Roseburg, said he wouldn't call the medical
marijuana program a cash cow, but acknowledged that the additional
revenue is being 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 gradually been 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."